An Old man complaining about "vintage" love

[DanLights]

This is an article from Sound on Sound December 09 I found very interesting and just remembered it and thought it would be cool to share it to see the diverse opinions it might make.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec09/articles/soundingoff_1209.htm

 

[The Unavoidable]

Cool stuff, nice to hear from the "dark side" for once.

 

[~BURNY~]

This man speak the truth but not many people are ready to admit it.
And the fact that he sells acoustic treatment equipement doesn't help.
Makes him sort of suspicious.
But I have been lucky enough to witness how a good big recording room is 200% more important than a 3000$ preamp.

 

[Notuern]

Well.. some times coloring and distortion is a good thing, but yeah, i agree for the most part.. vintage gear is WAY overrated.
But for example we have tape-saturation, the kind of saturation/distortion you get from analog tape gives you that nice crisp treble, smooth mids and warm lows, it simply sounds very pleasant to the ears.

With the same logic he uses, you could say that all modern mic'ing techniques are wrong.. because it doesnt sound like it does in the room.
Dont use compressors, it creates unnatural dynamics.
Throw out your tube amps, transistors have much higher clean headroom and lower SNR then tubes!

But yeah, im still for the modern day recording methods.. but there is still allot of good qualities in vintage gear(Despite the distortion.).
People are too afraid of having a "sound" these days.

An example is this song me and my friend is working on for a "bring teh lulz 80's synth-pop"-record: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/876568/80talsdänga.mp3
Fuckton of vintage reverbs, eq-simulations and tapesaturation.. you cant get that sound without it, i know it sounds distorted and slightly muddy, but its still very fat/big sounding and pleasant to the ears.

 

[SocialNumb]

^That shit is epic. And I agree, you have to use *at least* the vintage emulations to get "that" sound. I found out that the Korg Legacy Collection (digital and analog) kicks ass for that 80's early 90's sound. I'm all about that shit dude!

 

[slashvanyoung]

He's right about a lot of things but some have, as always, different perspectives to them.

For example: He's right about manufacturers trying for decades to get their analogue gear as clean and pristine as possible (pre's, outboard, tape etc.), but it was only after the advent of digital gear that many suddenly realised that these once demonised artefacts actually positively attributed to their work.

 

[GarethSE]

He's right about a lot of things but some have, as always, different perspectives to them.

For example: He's right about manufacturers trying for decades to get their analogue gear as clean and pristine as possible (pre's, outboard, tape etc.), but it was only after the advent of digital gear that many suddenly realised that these once demonised artefacts actually positively attributed to their work.

Exactly, hindsight is a beautiful thing.