Members eightyeightkeys Posted October 31, 2006 Members Share Posted October 31, 2006 I stumbled across an excellent thread over on Dan Lavry's forum : http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/13835/0/0/2149/ The most interesting point, for me, was Dan Lavry's thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of digital and analog processing :(a bit long but well worth it I think) If your question is strictly about summing, then it is difficult for me to see any validity to arguments against doing it in the digital domain. Once the data is in the digital domain, summing in digital eliminates the need for additional DA, analog mix and AD processing, which can only cause more deviation from the original waveform......But if the question goes beyond summing, and some of the processing is done in analog (beyond just summing), then we are getting into comparing analog processing to digital processing. As a rule, linear processing (such as summing, EQ, re-verb...) is well suited for digital work. At the same time, any processing that calls for non linearity (such as compression, limiting, tube emulation...) may be better in analog, because a non linear processing in digital generates alias energy, which is very non musical. I am not condemning all non linear digital processing, but I am suggesting that it needs to be "carefully evaluated". While compression in digital may or may not be OK (implementation dependent), hard limiting in digital is probably bad news no matter what you do to try and fix it...You can do all sorts of processing in analog, and there will be no aliasing. Non linear process will generate high frequency, which when converting to analog can be dealt with as stated above by:1. Pre filtering2. Faster rate of conversion (oversampled modulator).But when you are in the digital domain, as soon as you did a non linear operation, the aliasing is already there, and whatever falls on the audible range can not be removed, it is too late, because the non linear process and the aliasing happen simultaneously. You can help it some by doing the process at high oversampling rate, but whatever does alias to the audio, stays there. You can not filter it before the fact, you can not do it after the fact.So you can do non linear processing in analog. If you want it in digital, make sure that the level of aliasing is acceptable. Rather a long quote, I know. But, it really leads me to the question of whether purchasing a product such as Duende or Liquid, etc...could be all that great ? Good-Great-Mediocre. Subjective ? Yes, of course. But, man, you can drop a lot of coin on gear...gear that, by it's nature-being digital-is not well suited for non-linear work such as compression. EQ? Yes. But, half of it is compression.Maybe a really critical evaluation/review is in order ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 31, 2006 Members Share Posted October 31, 2006 Originally posted by eightyeightkeys I stumbled across an excellent thread over on Dan Lavry's forum :Rather a long quote, I know. But, it really leads me to the question of whether purchasing a product such as Duende or Liquid, etc...could be all that great ? Good-Great-Mediocre. Subjective ? It'd be interesting to hear whether they sound good by on own merits, and whether they sound anything like the originals. And if the latter, that would be utterly flabbergasting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 That reminds me... I need to call SSL tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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