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If shooshie was so correct about all the analog tape recordings being indiscernible from digital, there would be a lot of people felt like idiots and a lot of ears felt wrong. The qualities of tape is a long long established fact. It sounds different!
There is definitely a difference between analog and digital and the argument that there isn't is false.
There could be a subjective argument that digital is just as nice or pleasing etc, but to say there is no audible difference between tape and digital is just inaccurate.

Shooshie is always a very positive guy who leans towards a true appreciation of today's technology. He is always a wonderful advocate for appreciation of how good we have thing in today's recording world.
I admire that positive-ness. But to say that tape and digital sound the same? too far!!

Personally, I do not use tape, I am all digital with tube pre s etc. But I do know how great perfectly calibrated tape sounds from my past use. It is fatter, thicker, more REAL sounding I suppose you could say. They call this ANALOG...lol. It is not imagination.

This does not mean that digital won;t re create that sound more and more over the years. But when it DOES re create that tape/analog sound, it will be changing the sound of pure digital converters, as pure digital converters sound different than analog tape.
Perhaps the future is best indicated by pro tools which has optional converter or pre amp settings, one straight Digital, the other analog-like.
So here's to the future where we have control of such things. It is fast approaching if not here already.

Maybe I'm not old-school enough. I always despised working with tape machines. Aligning heads, replacing heads, cleaning, splicing, 3 lousy songs
on a $200 roll of tape, tape oxidizing, disintegrating, demagnetizing...all
of that. Good riddance.

As I said earlier, tape always alters the sound - and it does. Whether it's agreeable or disagreeable is a matter of taste. But there is no question, what you record onto tape simply never sounds the same coming back. That's the "character" we're all talking about.

The early days digital converters were crappy, yes. Particularly those first
generation ADAT converters. But digital converters have matured. Even mathematically speaking, you have more headroom and dynamic range and fidelity with digital which is impossible with tape recording.

"Tape without the hiss" - that's an oxymoron.. You can add Dolby SR into the equation, but its' still "removing" the hiss which is always inherent with tape. Fact is you can't record to tape without the problems Shooshie
and others pointed out. You just can't. Dolby SR was invented to try and
make tape sound "better". So was the Aphex Exciter, so was the BBE process.
What recording engineers wanted in those days is what we have with digital
today. Talk about laughing, this is maybe what cracks me up the most. Those
Motown engineers would have freaked out to have digital/computer recording.

Is digital superior to tape? No question - it is. In every way. Except that
of course, you don't get the "tape sound" anymore. Unless you get something like this:

http://www.uaudio.com/store/special-pro ... order.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2Dam is a nice guy who always has interesting opinions, and is pretty sure of himself. But he suffers a reading disability. It makes me wonder sometimes whether it is worth putting my opinions into words in print, since 2Dam is going to come along and read the first 6 words, then think he knows what I just said, and skip the rest. It's a long established pattern, and I know it happens a lot. Then I get put in that situation of having to decide whether to defend myself against the old "when did you stop beating your wife" game.

So, 2Dam, let me make it simple. You said that I said that the two are indistinguishable. The actual point that I made was that digital allows for such creative recording that it makes the small difference between the two "irrelevant." That was the actual word I used. Irrelevant.

Irrelevant doesn't mean "indistinguishable." It means "unimportant in the overall scheme of things." You have a choice: go with analog and give up the creative mixing and broad S/N ratio, or go with digital and give up that analog sweetness you go on and on about. You have to decide which one matters the most. I say hands down that the amazing tools of digital editing and mixing matter a heckuva lot more than that analog sound. You can work with the digital sound and make it resemble the analog sound. It may not be a perfect match, but you can get it very close.

The choice is yours. I choose digital. I'm a classical musician with classical ears. I've made my living with DP mostly in the pop and rock vein, but I've always applied my classical training and study of acoustics to what I was doing, and it has always paid off. There is one thing I learned as a concert performer that has stuck with me through all of this: know what you can improve on, and leave the rest alone. When you get something to that last 10% or so, you can spend ten times the amount of time trying to "fix" those last few things, not realizing that your brain is playing tricks on you at that point. Your brain will always hear about 10% of something as needing "fixing." Always. As you listen to the world's best mix, you'll hear something you want to fix. Fix it, and you'll hear something else. Wisdom is learning to identify when you've reached that point, close it up, and walk away. That difference between analog and digital lies in that domain. Don't worry about it. 99% of all people will never be able to tell the difference, and if they CAN tell the difference, half won't choose the one you think they will, which means it's pretty much random preference, and not that one is "better" than the other.

I hope you understand what I mean. And maybe my way just doesn't work for everyone, but it works for me. If others want to get back into analog tape, go right ahead. You won't be making me envious, I promise.

Shooshie

[ edit: Ok, I just reread my own post from earlier today. Turns out 2Dam probably isn't as handicapped in the reading department as I thought. While I never said that analog and digital were indiscernible, I did at one point say "virtually indistinguishable." Of course, I was splitting some hairs, and I was talking about a particular aspect of the two: whether or not the diaphragms of speaker cones actually return to zero between each sample. I didn't make my point very clear, so it sounded like I was saying digital and analog are virtually indistinguishable. So, I can see why you thought I said that. My fault. My apologies. It's Shooshie's writing that is handicapped. Of course, if you read it that way, it contradicted what I said in the rest of the post.

And to Paul at Spitfire, what happens when you digitize what you've got on tape? Does it record the altered sound with the true fidelity of the original? How does it compare to something like the UA plugin mentioned by David Polich? My point is that you can alter digital audio and give it just about any characteristic you want. Once you've done that, THEN the differences are very, very small. /edit ]

David Polich wrote:Is digital superior to tape? No question - it is. In every way. Except that
of course, you don't get the "tape sound" anymore. Unless you get something like this:

http://www.uaudio.com/store/special-pro ... order.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See? That's what I'm talking about. This is the sort of thing that makes the difference between tape and digital "irrelevant." In digital you can have the best of both worlds. Ok, maybe it's only 99% there in digital, but my old worn-out brain tells me not to worry about that 1%. It says that's the domain of hipsters, tricksters and studio mythology. Close it up and move on.

Shooshie

There's a patina to tape that I find quite pleasing. When I switched from tape to digital, the biggest challenge was making dimensional front-to-back mixes. It was much harder for me with digital.

It's been awhile since I've worked with tape, so maybe I'm being sentimental. But, with tape, every track seemed to be background, and it was easy to move something to the foreground and have it stand out. With digital, everything seems to be foreground and it's much harder to move them to the background and have them blend or blur in. It's not just a levels thing, that's easy, but (to use photography terms) it's focus and lighting, depth-of-field.

In a musical sense, tape seemed like all the members of an orchestra were in the background waiting to be called forward, and they were very willing to cooperate. When I switched to digital, it seemed like all the members of the orchestra were crammed into the front row playing at the same level. Quite an unruly bunch. It's hard to describe, but that's how it sounded and felt to me. I had a very difficult time. As David mentioned, the technology wasn't there then. There were a lot of shortcomings. I love working in digital now, though.

I do know this, the guys I admire(d) who mixed great in analog, well, they mix great in digital too. Go figure.

I would never go back to tape unless someone else took care of all the maintenance. But I have no problems with libraries that are created with it. If that's what you're into and it's pleasing to your ears and it's easier and more satisfying for you to work with it, cool. I'd use it too if the price was right.

c-ya,

Dan Worley

Use tape in my studio - no thanks, never. Use high quality analog input and output, yes please. The value of tape in my opinion is negligible or perhaps even negative. The benefits passing audio through quality transformers - now that's an entirely different matter. I know a mastering engineer here in Sydney who has built a "magic box"...everyone who hears the change it makes when he chooses to flip the switch from bypass is amazed. What's inside? Nothing except transformers.

I would never state that I don;t want digital and to go back to tape. My whole argument was about an opinion on this thread seeming to indicate that it was some sort of highbrow, show off, invalid technique to have run this string library through tape.

Then came the whole tape vrs digital debate. The opinions shown herein are a testament to the passion with which we all do our music.

I would like to get back to my basic point, that being that there is a character to tape that many find pleasing and that this library recording to tape might just be a cool technique and not just a high brow, waste of time. I think there is some sort of copyright issue with this company that many believe is a bit over bearing and "highbrow", or whatever the term it was, this got into the discussion and then shoosh mentioned tape being over kill or useless, or someone mentioned that. Before you know it, tape and digital became the passion of the argument.

Of course digital is wonderful and convenient, of course editing 3 songs on tape sucks..These are all no brainers.

But this company recording their strings to tape before converting to digital is not about convenience. It is about pure sound quality. So, if one thinks the sound of tape ruins strings, then that is a valid argument. But If one think it was dumb to record the strings to tape because tape is a hassle or there is no sonic difference, now you got my attention and I will take issue with you. I can totally accept a person NOT liking the sound of tape over digital...OK, fine, that's your taste, as long as you realize it is a different sound.

I did read your WHOLE post shoosh, but, if I missed any larger point, well, I have to admit, I do rush in here at times any read and type pretty fast. I believe this morning I was busy with contractors remodeling my house so. anything glibbed over, my apologies. Imagine reading a typical Shooshie, detailed post at a Lowes while picking tiles with a contractor and you'll get the picture...lol..

It is interesting that the subject of tape verses digital can produce some heated debates...hmm..wonder why that is?.....

PS,
wow, I see there were many other heated debates after my analog digital points were made. Interesting how this thread got a bit edgy. I want to state that I have only kept up with the digi verse tape comments and lost track of this thread after that. So, if my digi vrs tape got caught up in all the other heat around this thread, I didn;t mean to add to those other forest fires of arguement...lol...

And one more thing Shoosh, I do think your opinions about the quality of the samples performances not being helped by tape are valid. If the samples suck or are great, tape won;t do much to change that.

Matcher wrote:Looks like there won't be a motunation group buy deal then..

Now that WAS indeeeed funny...bravo!

2Dam, this is one of those arguments where less is more. I attempt to explain WHY I think a certain way, and in the explaining, is say things that I assume will be taken in context. Taken out of context, they sound like I said even the opposite of what I meant. So let me approach this from a completely different way:'

Point #1.
You and I hear the same things in tape and digital. It's the same sound that reaches my ears as the one that reaches your ears. We hear them the same way, too. I like the sound of tape.

Point #2:
Digital can be made to sound like tape. You can record the tape, or you can use a plugin, but one way or another, you can make it sound pretty much identical if you try.

Point #3:
Older technologies leave us with nostalgia for what they can do. Believe it or not, I was blown away the first time a friend played some of his old Victrola disks. It was wind-up technology, and it was amazing. Caruso made some deep impressions in those grooves. But at some point we adjust to the new technology, including copying the finer points of the old technology into it.

Point #4:
Taken as a whole, the format is not superior. It alters the sound in a pleasant way, and we can copy that in digital. It's very inconvenient in this day and age to use tape, because the infrastructure that supported it is fading away. There are hold-outs, but when their adherents pass, so will the niche they maintained. And it's much, much harder to work with even at its best. It limits the amount of experimentation you can do. Mixing is more utilitarian, less artistically expressive.

Conclusion:
There's not a lot of reason to keep harping on the superiority of tape. At some point it becomes just like harping on the superiority of the old Victrola format. Those who choose to work in tape can produce beautiful recordings, but no more so than those who work in digital. It's about the person doing it, not the format.

That's it in a nutshell. But please notice that I have not said that tape is useless, bad, or that the sound it makes is no different. My point is about "why are we still talking about this? Why do some tape enthusiasts use this discussion to try to sound like they are in possession of the secrets to the crown jewels, but that digital adherents are mere philistines who do not understand their secrets? You know? I get tape. I freaking grew up with it. I used it every day. I cut it with blades. I mixed it. I aligned tape heads. I understood the difference in biases, in ferrous and chromium, in Dolby B, Dolby C, and many other noise reduction schemes, Dolby or otherwise. There is no deep secret about tape!

Further, if we mix the same song, you on tape and I on digital, people might like yours or my mix better, but I fervently believe it will not be because of the format. It will be because one of us simply outmixes the other. (and the winner would probably be you!)

Nobody is saying that tape sucks. Flawed? Yes. But it's tape. It has a certain sound to it. And I can emulate that sound in digital if I choose. People do it all the time. But even the earliest digital recordings (DDD, that is) made it evident that something very good was happening here. I was blown away by Donald Fagen's Nightfly, one of the first CD's ever released. Chances are pretty high that I'd have also been blown away had he made it analog (AAA). But it was digital and it proved in 1982 that we don't need to be having this discussion 29 years later.

Shooshie

Shooshie wrote: Point #2:
Digital can be made to sound like tape. You can record the tape, or you can use a plugin, but one way or another, you can make it sound pretty much identical if you try.

This is incorrect. I have also used tape for many years, and then used Protools for many years and I also own most of the tape emulation plugs.

I can say that once you have sat in a control room listening to an orchestra playing live while you a/b them you will hear a difference that sounds nothing like the low bump and slight smearing that a tape plugin gives you.

As toodamnhip says, its more about the fullness of sound, and the front to back dimension of the soundstage. This is something that happens when you record to tape, so you can't recreate that depth once its not there.

Once that 'tape' sound is captured, it doesn't go away on transfer to digital.

Its actually made me think that I want to record all my scores this way.

Shooshie wrote:2Dam, this is one of those arguments where less is more. I attempt to explain WHY I think a certain way, and in the explaining, is say things that I assume will be taken in context. Taken out of context, they sound like I said even the opposite of what I meant. So let me approach this from a completely different way:'

Point #1.
You and I hear the same things in tape and digital. It's the same sound that reaches my ears as the one that reaches your ears. We hear them the same way, too. I like the sound of tape.

Point #2:
Digital can be made to sound like tape. You can record the tape, or you can use a plugin, but one way or another, you can make it sound pretty much identical if you try.

Point #3:
Older technologies leave us with nostalgia for what they can do. Believe it or not, I was blown away the first time a friend played some of his old Victrola disks. It was wind-up technology, and it was amazing. Caruso made some deep impressions in those grooves. But at some point we adjust to the new technology, including copying the finer points of the old technology into it.

Point #4:
Taken as a whole, the format is not superior. It alters the sound in a pleasant way, and we can copy that in digital. It's very inconvenient in this day and age to use tape, because the infrastructure that supported it is fading away. There are hold-outs, but when their adherents pass, so will the niche they maintained. And it's much, much harder to work with even at its best. It limits the amount of experimentation you can do. Mixing is more utilitarian, less artistically expressive.

Conclusion:
There's not a lot of reason to keep harping on the superiority of tape. At some point it becomes just like harping on the superiority of the old Victrola format. Those who choose to work in tape can produce beautiful recordings, but no more so than those who work in digital. It's about the person doing it, not the format.

That's it in a nutshell. But please notice that I have not said that tape is useless, bad, or that the sound it makes is no different. My point is about "why are we still talking about this? Why do some tape enthusiasts use this discussion to try to sound like they are in possession of the secrets to the crown jewels, but that digital adherents are mere philistines who do not understand their secrets? You know? I get tape. I freaking grew up with it. I used it every day. I cut it with blades. I mixed it. I aligned tape heads. I understood the difference in biases, in ferrous and chromium, in Dolby B, Dolby C, and many other noise reduction schemes, Dolby or otherwise. There is no deep secret about tape!

Further, if we mix the same song, you on tape and I on digital, people might like yours or my mix better, but I fervently believe it will not be because of the format. It will be because one of us simply outmixes the other. (and the winner would probably be you!)

Nobody is saying that tape sucks. Flawed? Yes. But it's tape. It has a certain sound to it. And I can emulate that sound in digital if I choose. People do it all the time. But even the earliest digital recordings (DDD, that is) made it evident that something very good was happening here. I was blown away by Donald Fagen's Nightfly, one of the first CD's ever released. Chances are pretty high that I'd have also been blown away had he made it analog (AAA). But it was digital and it proved in 1982 that we don't need to be having this discussion 29 years later.

Shooshie

In all of this back and forth, my only true argument was that it was NOT invalid for the company to have boasted about tape, as tape does change sound and can do so in a pleasant way. I thought you indicated that it was somewhat silly of them to have recorded their library to tape as if there is no difference. What I think happened is that you were a bit over reaching in that, you were making the point that tape wouldn't fix bad sampling, but it came off like you thought it was ridiculous to have recorded to tape as if tape could not improve the general sound. Like I said, I agree with you that tape won't fix bad samples.

I hope we're done here.

This seems like a good time to jump in here. I, being an official old fart, have been engineering in commercial studios since 2" 16 track was the big draw. I've done live sessions to mono 1/4" and done one memorable session with two linked Stephens 40 track 2" machines. I've happily gone through the transition to digital and watched it improve steadily in sound and power. And while I would never happily go back to the old days, there is a salient point to be made here. Analog sounds different. Tape has odd non-linear characteristics that add something to the sound. And digital has not come up with a way to fully emulate this yet. The tools get better and better with each generation of attempts. The UAD Studer and the Waves MPX are wonderful in lending some of that character to digital. Dave Hill did yeoman work with Phoenix and the new Heat in PT. But some of the attributes still prove elusive. Do a mix ITB and then to tape. 1/4" or 1/2", speed irrelevant. There will be a cohesiveness that will be lacking on the ITB box version. It may well NOT be what you're seeking for your mix, but it's there. And tape has no "undo", other than to re-record it.
The first people to enthusiastically adopt digital recording were classical and Broadway crowd. An odd choice on the surface, given the edgy nature of early digital recordings. But the lack of tape hiss and the absence of wow and flutter made it a godsend for long sustained classical pieces, where the drag of a tape flange could make a long ending decrescendo an adventure. The device the early adopters went towards was the Soundstream recorder, a brilliant piece of work from Utah. The recordings hold up to this day, IMHO. But most of these recordings were of a live acoustic ensemble, a situation that creates most of it's own blend. In the multitrack world most of us inhabit, WE become responsible for the creation of that blend and the inherent nonlinearities of tape help create a sound that we understand pretty quickly. And the emulations just aren't quite there yet. Really good and getting better but not done yet.
The best emulator I've encountered is a hardware piece, the Anamod ATS-1. Quite remarkable and worth the dough if this is a job you need to do. And the CLASP system allows you to integrate tape into your recording process in a way never before seen. Ungodly clever.
The upshot of all this is that digital tape emulation remains an elusive target and if the effects of that analog recording process is important to you, there isn't a way around long strips of rust stuck to mylar quite yet. But if the FLAVOR of that process is all you need, the tools available are good and getting better. But don't conflate the two yet.

Just a thought from the balcony in the Muppet Theater with the other old farts...

burp182 wrote:This seems like a good time to jump in here. I, being an official old fart, have been engineering in commercial studios since 2" 16 track was the big draw. I've done live sessions to mono 1/4" and done one memorable session with two linked Stephens 40 track 2" machines. I've happily gone through the transition to digital and watched it improve steadily in sound and power. And while I would never happily go back to the old days, there is a salient point to be made here. Analog sounds different. Tape has odd non-linear characteristics that add something to the sound. And digital has not come up with a way to fully emulate this yet. The tools get better and better with each generation of attempts. The UAD Studer and the Waves MPX are wonderful in lending some of that character to digital. Dave Hill did yeoman work with Phoenix and the new Heat in PT. But some of the attributes still prove elusive. Do a mix ITB and then to tape. 1/4" or 1/2", speed irrelevant. There will be a cohesiveness that will be lacking on the ITB box version. It may well NOT be what you're seeking for your mix, but it's there. And tape has no "undo", other than to re-record it.
The first people to enthusiastically adopt digital recording were classical and Broadway crowd. An odd choice on the surface, given the edgy nature of early digital recordings. But the lack of tape hiss and the absence of wow and flutter made it a godsend for long sustained classical pieces, where the drag of a tape flange could make a long ending decrescendo an adventure. The device the early adopters went towards was the Soundstream recorder, a brilliant piece of work from Utah. The recordings hold up to this day, IMHO. But most of these recordings were of a live acoustic ensemble, a situation that creates most of it's own blend. In the multitrack world most of us inhabit, WE become responsible for the creation of that blend and the inherent nonlinearities of tape help create a sound that we understand pretty quickly. And the emulations just aren't quite there yet. Really good and getting better but not done yet.
The best emulator I've encountered is a hardware piece, the Anamod ATS-1. Quite remarkable and worth the dough if this is a job you need to do. And the CLASP system allows you to integrate tape into your recording process in a way never before seen. Ungodly clever.
The upshot of all this is that digital tape emulation remains an elusive target and if the effects of that analog recording process is important to you, there isn't a way around long strips of rust stuck to mylar quite yet. But if the FLAVOR of that process is all you need, the tools available are good and getting better. But don't conflate the two yet.

Just a thought from the balcony in the Muppet Theater with the other old farts...

Well Burped!...errrrr.said

Ok, well you've got me thinking, anyway. There must be a way to make that happen on input, but if you guys say there's not, I'll have to trust you. Looks like there might be a market for some piece of hardware that can create the bump/smear. I might go for such a thing, if it could be reliably created.

Recording to tape before digitizing the parts would give you the best of both worlds, for sure. But that's the sort of luxury that I doubt that I'll be able to afford in my lifetime. Meanwhile, I've been able to accomplish a decent separation of instruments through EQ, panning, and panning effects. Not saying it's better; it's just the only choice I've got. Tape is not an option for me. But if you guys have worked out a way to use it, that's great.

It's been educational.

Shoosh

burp182 wrote:The upshot of all this is that digital tape emulation remains an elusive target and if the effects of that analog recording process is important to you, there isn't a way around long strips of rust stuck to mylar quite yet. But if the FLAVOR of that process is all you need, the tools available are good and getting better. But don't conflate the two yet.

Just a thought from the balcony in the Muppet Theater with the other old farts...

While we're waiting for the technology to get us there -- assuming that it can and will -- do you think the difference is enough to be so concerned about? I hear mixes every day, done in digital, in Classical, C&W, World, Pop, movie soundtracks, and on and on. I agree that classical orchestras create their own mix, but I create small ensemble stuff in digital with a combination of real and VI's, and yes -- getting that separation and distinction between the instruments is the hardest challenge I face, but I think I usually accomplish it. I hear digital mixes that have that "you are there" quality where you can hear the placement of each instrument.

So what I'm asking is whether just because there IS a difference, must we feel that we haven't done our jobs until we've used tape and transferred it to digital? There's a difference, but does that make people like or dislike it? I just don't think it's necessary.

To do this properly, we'd have to do a shootout. Recording from the same analog inputs, we'd have to record it together, but then separate and mix on our own until we were satisfied with the results. Then compare. Do you think such a shootout would produce a majority of votes for the A/D version? I think I know what Paul and 2Dam would say. What would you say?

Shooshie