Neil, can you give any indiciation on how much you see bands recording in analog versus digital? I can definitely see the advantages of going digital, but I tend to enjoy the sound of recordings where the sound has depth, rather than the 2D feel that I get from most modern albums. Seems to me that this has a lot to do with direct feed recordings, versus a more analog setup. So curious.... (as I continue to figure out how to build my own mini studio).
Analog versus Digital...
- Thread starter Cheiron
- Start date
NK
Complete Bastard
Analogue has decreased in popularity over the years for a number of reasons. The cost of digital recording is often a lot less as not many people have analogue multitrack tape machines at home, so in order to work in that medium professional studio costs must be incurred, which can be prohibitive. By contrast, it's easy to have a digital home recording setup. Getting things to sound good will take some practice of course.
I've done quite a few albums where I've recorded the basic tracks to tape, then transferred those to Pro Tools and continued overdubs in there. I certainly don't feel that digital recording has any less depth than analogue though. I think you can find flat (as in one-dimensional) sounding records that were recorded and mixed in a 100% analogue environment.
By the same token, digital can also sound warm. It's really all about the sound you're going for, and it's easy to make something sound soft or hard, clear or muffled, using EQ, compression etc.
I have no real preference in the end, and am equally happy to work in either environment. I've done a lot more albums in the analogue domain than in the digital, probably about 300 analogue compared to say 70 digital. I do enjoy the editing and manipulation capabilities of digital, but as I mentioned, tracking on analogue and then transferring to digital for editing etc is also possible, so one could easily have the best of both worlds if desired.
I've done quite a few albums where I've recorded the basic tracks to tape, then transferred those to Pro Tools and continued overdubs in there. I certainly don't feel that digital recording has any less depth than analogue though. I think you can find flat (as in one-dimensional) sounding records that were recorded and mixed in a 100% analogue environment.
By the same token, digital can also sound warm. It's really all about the sound you're going for, and it's easy to make something sound soft or hard, clear or muffled, using EQ, compression etc.
I have no real preference in the end, and am equally happy to work in either environment. I've done a lot more albums in the analogue domain than in the digital, probably about 300 analogue compared to say 70 digital. I do enjoy the editing and manipulation capabilities of digital, but as I mentioned, tracking on analogue and then transferring to digital for editing etc is also possible, so one could easily have the best of both worlds if desired.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
I dare say that the rendering of depth in digital recordings can be excellent. I think what you may be referring to, with the '2d feel' is the loudness war in action. Excessive limiting and compression over the whole mix can have that effect.
NK
Complete Bastard
Yes, and that "loudness war" can affect analogue recordings in the same way. I think digital gets a bad rap for sounding "thin" or "tinny" , which I would agree that it used to some years ago, but in the interim there have been so many improvements in the technology that I no longer feel that way about it. In fact, I got my Pro Tools HD rig over 5 years ago as soon as I heard how great they sounded.
Similar threads
