Is Analog vs. Digital Really about Playback?

[Anderton]

The thread on the compact disc disclaimer got me thinking.

 

People listen to superb recordings cut on vinyl, and talk about how much better it sounds than listening to CDs and other digital media. I'm not talking about hearing a recording on vinyl and then the SAME recording on CD; yeah, you'll hear a difference. But I think with a top of the line digital system (e.g., really good DSD) capturing that analog sound, it's going to be virtualy indistinguisable.

 

What I'm talking about has more to do with why people like the sound of those older records. I'm not sure it has to do with the vinyl playback medium; I think a lot of the Good Stuff we're hearing on the older records may be due to the difference with how things were recorded back then.

 

A lot of the studios I went into, even in the 70s, were still basically passive mixers with a gain stage stage to make up for loss. Pultec EQs are another example of a basically passive device. When I did my "Forward Motion" CD back in 1989, it was through a homemade mixer whose design was faithful to the "passive with just enough gain to bring things up to line level" philosophy. The signal went through virtually NOTHING before it was recorded. The mastering engineer who mastered the CD (Randy Kling, in Nashville) was curious about why it sounded so good, and asked where I had recorded it. I said, well, where do you think I recorded it? He said it sounded like it was cut in a quarter-million dollar studio somewhere in LA. When I told him it was a homemade mixer in a studio that cost about $10K, he was shocked.

 

Today, signals still go through preamps, but they then have to go through the conversion process. No matter how good the converter is, it remains another "process" that has analog circuitry wrapped around it. It's very hard to do the "straight wire with gain" thing in today's studios.

[John Sayers]

I agree Craig regarding vinyl not being factor. Vinyl properly executed was great, remember all those direct to disc albums in the mid 70s where a band played a whole side live, pausing between tracks directly to a disc cutter. Amazing fidelity. With vinyl if you stayed around 20mins a side you could get a resonable copy of your mastertape, but of course everyone wanted more tracks on the album so compromises usually occured such as rolling off the low end to fit the tracks on the limited space.

 

There was a such a disparity in consoles in those days - I remember a console in Festival Studios in Sydney that was one of those simple consoles you refer to, minimum eq, couple of sends, busses, yet sounded great, much better than my JH424 which was a sequence of op amps all strung together but boasting 3 band mid sweepable eq , 4 sends, 24 busses and plasma meters and a phase meter the main difference was that one was transistor, the other opamp.

 

Much more a factor than vinyl IMHO.

 

I'm about to find out about the second version you mentioned. We are a couple of weeks away from completing a new studio I designed just up the road with an ICON and Avalon and Focusrite preamps and HD Protools in a 5:1 control.

 

cheers

john

[the stranger]

A side note:

 

I was pondering the idea that digital has changed the way we listen to music. Not in terms of playback devices or formats, but an actual shift in our perception and processing of music.

 

I'm inclined to think that the random access nature of digital mediums changes the way we process the information.

 

You know how sometimes when you are trying to think of a specific part of a song and you pick a point in the song (in your head) and work up to the point you are trying to recall?

 

Well, I must have been using the seek button too much, because now I can fast forward in my head and it's sounds just like what you hear when you scan through a track on CD.

 

So, is there more to the difference between analog and digital than meets the eye?

 

Is it possible that the brain would be able to tell the difference between an analog and digital source? Something that we don't percieve on a conscious level?

[MikeRivers]

If you had both a well mastered vinyl disk and a CD of a well recorded piece of music that you like, you could make a reasonable comparison, but it's rare that we really get that opportunity. Play them each on a $39 system and most people would say that the CD sounds better all around. Play them each on a $20,000 system and the choice would be a little harder. And after 50 or so playings, at most would agree that the vinly disk has more noise (though not all would agree that this is a problem). After 1,000 plays, most would agree that the high end is better on the CD. So, it all depends.

 

Nostalgia is never as good as we remember. Today when you get a CD reissue of a favorite, well worn vinyl record, you really get something very different than when you first bought the record. But your playback system and environment, your taste, and your ears have changed in the 20 years between the original and the CD version.

 

There are a lot of technical reasons why a CD should sound better than a vinyl disk of the same source material, but there are a lot of things that can happen between the studio and the listener (many of which are directly related to marketing) that prevent us from drawing a conclusion as to which is better. It's really like comparing apples and bananas.

[Hanshananigan]

A consumer's opinion from a child of the 80s:

 

I typically like the sound quality of 70s rock over 90s/00s rock. And I'm talking across the board: on my crappy FM car stereo, on my pricey home system and $120 headphones.

 

Rumours and Dark Side of the Moon come to mind- something about the circuits or the mixing or something just makes it sound amazing and I haven't heard anything recent sound that good.

 

That being said, I don't know if Orbital or Chemical Bros would sound any better with analog processing somewhere along the way.

[Lee Flier]

I definitely agree that the original recording and mixing medium makes a much bigger difference than distribution and playback medium. Take a recording that's great in the first place and it will sound great in its own way, even over AM radio or an iPod. I can be pretty happy with relatively crappy playback environments but I can never be happy with a crappy recording.

[Jeff da Weasel]

I agree with what Lee said.

 

Ultimately, my favorite thing would to have fresh vinyl to play an analog-recorded track for each listen. Since that's not feasible, even listening to an MP3 on iTunes, I can tell a big difference between a well-recorded analog track from the '70s and a newly-recorded digital track of the '00s. And trust me, I like the sound of the '70s track better damn near every time.

 

My favorite example is hearing the sound quality of Aerosmith's Rocks on an MP3, and then listening to one of the more recent records by that band. Maybe the material itself was stronger then, but I can't deny that the overall recording makes a huge difference even when the playback medium is digital, data compressed or otherwise.

 

- Jeff

[Hanshananigan]

Oh yeah, another example...

cf. R.E.M. Life's Rich Pageant to Out of Time. Sure, LRP isn't the best sound, but in my opinion OOT was weirdly sparce and tinny clean. For all I know, they were both analog all the way, but I think OOT was digital somewhere along the lines. Anyone know and care to share?

[dewdman42]

I've always felt since the day CD's first came out, that they did not sound as good as the vinyl versions of the same albums I was used to listening to. They just sound "thinner" to me. I think over the years since, people have changed the way they produce music to take advantage of digital. More transients mainly. Punchier sounds. I feel that vinyl has an analog warmth to it that is absolutely missing in CD's, and I didn't need an expensive system to hear it. I heard it immediately, the minute CD's came out. I was about 18 years old at the time and I remember saying to my friend that it didn't sound as good but the convenience factor would make it succeed. Most of my favorte vinyl records got pretty worn out too after a lot of use. Another advantage of digital media.

 

I'm sure the recording process does make an impact, but there is very little doubt in my mind that 16bit CD's sound thinner (for lack of a better word) and less fluid then the same album on vinyl.

[panthalassa]

 

Originally posted by Hanshananigan Oh yeah, another example... cf. R.E.M. Life's Rich Pageant to Out of Time. Sure, LRP isn't the best sound, but in my opinion OOT was weirdly sparce and tinny clean. For all I know, they were both analog all the way, but I think OOT was digital somewhere along the lines. Anyone know and care to share?

 

 

I have both on vinyl; "Life's Rich . . ." I bought used, and "Out of Time" I bought new on LP right when it came out. I have to say that at the time (early 90's?) the second disk was physically thinner than, say, Can's "Tago Mago" or a bunch of Motown stuff my friend's dad gave me, yet I remember it having almost as warm a sound as the "Life's Rich Pageant" disc. On the other hand, the first two CDs I ever bought, Depeche Mode's "Music for the Masses" and Jimi Hendrix's "Live at Winterland" (which is how I first heard his sound by the way; no wonder I'm a guitar player) both stick in my mind as incredibly warm, yet clear. Digital vs. analog? Maybe, as many on this forum have said, it's the best of both worlds.

[Beck]

 

Originally posted by Anderton What I'm talking about has more to do with why people like the sound of those older records. I'm not sure it has to do with the vinyl playback medium; I think a lot of the Good Stuff we're hearing on the older records may be due to the difference with how things were recorded back then.

 

 

Seems like we

[blue2blue]

 

Originally posted by Beck ...   I mean, how much digital conversion and processing can an audio signal take before it

[Beck]

Uh oh, you know what happens we you assume

[Lee Flier]

Yeah, I agree. I go back and listen to stuff that was done on those 1/2" TASCAM 8 tracks and they STILL sound way better than most of what comes out of most people's DAW's.

 

[Han]

@Beck: get yourself a fast PC (I guess you already got one) and a prog like Adobe Audition. Write your mixes in 24/96, edit if needed, make nice fade in and outs, crossfades, repair short overs (repair transient), apply nice plugs in order to make it sound even better and burn it to CD.

 

This is so much more convenient than standalone CD burners that always got broken after a few years of use at my place.

 

And AA costs some $375 and works like a charm.

 

I mean, in the very end we all have to go digital don't we? And 24/96 really sounds much better, you'll have plenty of bits left after EQing and limiting etc.

 

Your CD's will sound better.

[dewdman42]

Well, I did some pretty cool sounding stuff on 1/2 inch 8 track back in the day, but you know...it was not Cd quality. It was fine for producing a cassette only album. The new digital technology does allow someone at home to produce a "quiet" recording without tape hiss, good s/n and dynamics, etc.. and absolutely no investment in dolby or dbx technology or having to have any understanding about mechanical tape machines that need to be cleaned and calibrated.

 

But I tell ya..some of the juicy sounds I got with my 4 track portastudio sometimes seem nicer than what I can get out of a daw with a lot of effort. Yes the portastudio had a lot of tape hiss. Yes, the DAW has a million tracks to produce with, low noise (you can still easily ruin that equation a million other ways besides tape hiss), and mixing automation, etc.. And yea...I can now make a supremely LOUD recording that I couldn't do back then. Back then I just had to turn up the stereo when I listened to it. ha ha.

 

These days with most modern recordings I hear, I find myself turning DOWN the stereo because its just too damn loud. I realize that the topic of digital production techniques is a whole nother discussion, guess it plays into it somewhat. but me personally, even before they started juicing up everything too loud with multiband everything...I felt CD's sounded thinner and more sterile to me than the same album on record or even on a nice cassette machine to be honest.

[Beck]

 

Originally posted by Han @Beck: get yourself a fast PC (I guess you already got one) and a prog like Adobe Audition. Write your mixes in 24/96, edit if needed, make nice fade in and outs, crossfades, repair short overs (repair transient), apply nice plugs in order to make it sound even better and burn it to CD. This is so much more convenient than standalone CD burners that always got broken after a few years of use at my place. And AA costs some $375 and works like a charm. I mean, in the very end we all have to go digital don't we? And 24/96 really sounds much better, you'll have plenty of bits left after EQing and limiting etc. Your CD's will sound better.

 

 

Well thanks, Han. I genuinely appreciate your input

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Lee Flier Yeah, I agree. I go back and listen to stuff that was done on those 1/2" TASCAM 8 tracks and they STILL sound way better than most of what comes out of most people's DAW's.

 

Ugh... my 1/2" TASCAM 8 track was a freakin' nightmare... the dbx NR cards were always failing, one after another, seemed like. And if you didn't use NR (evil, evil NR, slurring, skewing, awful NR) the hiss was a palpable presence. And the thing was a stone bitch to align.

 

I kissed the ground Alesis walked on after I replaced it with my first ADAT.

 

(OK... maybe not kissed the ground, but I was delighted by the switch. And still far happier to leave tape behind completely with the switch to hard drive 4 years later in '96.)

 

Now... was that "vintage" TASCAM deck a best case scenario? Hardly. But it cost me a couple grand, nonetheless, and was in the shop more than it was out... Maybe if I could have afforded a new Otari.

 

And for me it's not just about convenience. I prefer the sound I get now by far over what I was getting wtih my TASCAM gear. By far.

 

Everyone's different, I guess.

 

 

[Now... mind you, I know I'm off topic here. But the mere mention of 1/2" TASCAM 8 tracks sets me off.]

[d. gauss]

my restored edison wax cylinder recorder kicks all yer asses!

 

-d. gauss

[Beck]

Originally posted by blue2blue Ugh... my 1/2" TASCAM 8 track was a freakin' nightmare... the dbx NR cards were always failing, one after another, seemed like. And if you didn't use NR (evil, evil NR, slurring, skewing, awful NR) the hiss was a palpable presence. And the thing was a stone bitch to align. I kissed the ground Alesis walked on after I replaced it with my first ADAT. (OK... maybe not kissed the ground, but I was delighted by the switch. And still far happier to leave tape behind completely with the switch to hard drive 4 years later in '96.) Now... was that "vintage" TASCAM deck a best case scenario? Hardly. But it cost me a couple grand, nonetheless, and was in the shop more than it was out... Maybe if I could have afforded a new Otari. And for me it's not just about convenience. I prefer the sound I get now by far over what I was getting wtih my TASCAM gear. By far. Everyone's different, I guess. [Now... mind you, I know I'm off topic here. But the mere mention of 1/2" TASCAM 8 tracks sets me off.]

 

Hmmm

[chugheshc]

just a supposition -

 

then - you had to have your stuff together pretty seriously to get a label to fund a studio session - so the level of musicianship/songwriting/production was pretty high - everyone involved was a *serious* professional at their job.

 

now - every tom dick & harry (myself included) that can click

a couple of things with a mouse, or remember two different chords is making & recording music.....

 

I bet if vinyl/tape had gotten as easy/cheap as digital is now,

you'd still think things were better back when.

my two cents.

 

cheers

 

C.

[Lee Flier]

 

Originally posted by dewdman42 Well, I did some pretty cool sounding stuff on 1/2 inch 8 track back in the day, but you know...it was not Cd quality. It was fine for producing a cassette only album.

 

 

Here is a track by a friend of mine which was done on a TASCAM 8 track and released on CD in the mid 90's. You can decide for yourself if it's "CD quality."

 

http://kennyhowes.com/mp3/full/RightIdea/Thought%20You%27d%20Never%20Go.mp3

[blue2blue]

 

Originally posted by Beck   Hmmm

[Beck]

Originally posted by blue2blue Well my experience with TASCAM the company was mostly quite negative. I had 5 TASCAM decks (you have to remember, there weren't many credible alternatives) and I had a lot of trouble getting parts. The guys at the parts counter at Teac helped me until they closed it to non-authorized dealers. My last 4 track, a 40-4 never gave me any trouble but the 8 track, a 70-8, was a nightmare. The shop I bought it from, which had been an authorized repair shop at one point got froze out for parts -- they simply wouldn't sell him parts. They wouldn't talk to me. Going into the 80s, I thought Teac/TASCAM was cool. By the time I bought my first ADAT in '92, I hated them. (Agreed that ADATs were not maintenane free. One key difference was that I could get my ADATs in and out of Alesis within a day or two as a rule.) But aside from that, I pretty much agree with a lot of what you say about tools in general. I don't mean to cast aspersion on anyone for the tools they use. Everyone works differently and there's no one toolset that fits everybody. With regard to being able to cut a CD-ready album on an 8 track, I feel certain I could... I did get a few things I liked onto my old 8 track... even though it kept screwing up on me. (The fi was not too hi but I could live with it.) But in the year and a half I was running it, it REALLY was in the shop more than half the time. I didn't even fill a reel. I filled my first ADAT tape in about a week and a half...

 

Ah, ok... the 70-8... TASCAM's formative years. That makes sense.