New Drum Samples Here

Andy Sneap

Andy Sneap

Metal Guru
Apr 17, 2002
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andysneap.com
OK I lied, but I knew that would get your attention.

I've got to share this with you all.

As you can appreciate, I get a huge amount of emails about recording and general chit chat, but this email is a classic, and as open as I want this forum to be, I wanted to share it with you.
Feel free to express an opinion.
Here we go...
By the way, his name is Michael Arrington <marringto@yahoo.com>

You know and I know: Heavy Metal sounds best when
recorded AND mixed in pure analog. Compare the analog
metal recordings from the 80s with the ones from the
90s and the new millienium. 80s metal sounds better in
every single way.

Why is there no analog equipment in your studio?

Why do you digitally compress the living piss out of
everything you touch?

I listened to the two Exodus albums that you ruined.
Disgusting. Digitally manipulated to the max. And they
have been mastered so god damn loud I can hardly stand
listening to them for more than a few minutes. Sampled
and triggered mechanical plastic drum sounds are your
trade marks.

Maybe you should learn from Tiny Telephone Studios:

http://www.tinytelephone.com

A pure analog recording studio. They use a 24-track
Studer for recording and a 2-track Ampex ATR for
mixing. Their console is an analog Neve. Lots of bands
have recorded AND mixed their albums in pure analog at
Tiny Telephone in the past few years.

The amount of magnetic particles that pass the
playback heads in an analog tape machine corresponds
to 24-bit information. Just ask Tim de Paravicini, he
knows. A customized 2-track Studer can reveal
information up to 122 Khz. Even a high-resolution
format like Super Audio CD does not reach that high.

With todays modern digital technology, recording music
has become a mechanical, computerized and artifial
process. Anyone can lie on his back in his bathtub at
home and record a rock album these days.

ProTools = Tools for amateurs

Nothing sounds like tape!
 
i'm quite sure this guy is spouting analogue dogma that was spoon-fed to him by some bitter old shit that has a huge investment in analogue, and likely bought his Studer used for a premium price a week before the bottom dropped out of that market. Mr. Arrington himself likely knows fuck all about recording.
 
i'm also more than sure he reads this forum, so:

hey jerky,

your tactic of verbal abuse to Andy may seem manly to you, but how about you post some all analogue recordings that you and/or your buddy Tim have done here on this forum and try to win people over... maybe even Andy (waaaaaah ha hah, sorry.. couldn't hold that in).... instead of just slinging shit. you are tactless, rude, and it's quite clear by reading your letter that you are an unbearable ass in person.
 
Sounds like the typical _______ snob (fill in the blank with pretty much anything of your choosing). Exodus wanted their records to sound as they did, otherwise they wouldn't have recruited Andy. Andy's not this digital recording preacher drawing in bands to the supposed dark side of recording. The two Exodus records sound as they should, in your face, raw, and aggressive - the album title is Shovel Headed Kill Machine, not Pillow Padded Love Massage.

"You know and I know: Heavy Metal sounds best when recorded AND mixed in pure analog. Compare the analog metal recordings from the 80s with the ones from the 90s and the new millienium. 80s metal sounds better in every single way."

I strongly disagree with that and my bet is that this guy is one of those ever infamous "wah wah wah metal after the 80's sucks!"

If I received that e-mail I'd probably reply with "Wow, you're right. I am going to trade in all my gear and pick up an analog setup right now, thanks for the heads up man!"
 
James Murphy said:
how about you post some all analogue recordings that you and/or your buddy Tim have done here on this forum and try to win people over...
Click to expand...

I don't know James, did you check out their site and see all the metal bands that are recording at that studio? I'm already convinced myself! :Spin:
 
Arrrrgh Andy!!!!!:loco: That thread topic GOT ME!!!!!:D

One word, Huh? I can't believe he actually left his real name. I can't get to that tiny phone site, am I missing much?:Spin:
 
"A pure analog recording studio."
"ProTools = Tools for amateurs"

He does'nt mention they have a pro tools HD system.
Man, this guy really hates you.
 
Death Is Certain said:
the album title is Shovel Headed Kill Machine, not Pillow Padded Love Massage.
Click to expand...

i think they should name their next album that. I have always wondered why andy doesn't use analog tape, but his mixes sound good so its not that important. also, this studio doesn't appear to have ever done any metal, so i don't see how its relevant to compare.
 
Hello, all! This is my first post, and this topic means a lot to me because my own digital studio was born in the midst of a local environment of analog snobbery and haters and those who would have others believe voodoo exists in iron oxide. For these people, it's not enough to acknowledge the difference between the methods of data storage. There is the "my team is better than yours" ethic, and instead of furthering the search for knowledge, they divert it: using intimidation and maintaining that everything used to be better than it is now (these are the people for whom each day is more depressing than the last as each pulls them farther away from a golden age).

I only discovered this forum in the past month, and I can barely believe the wealth of knowledge at my fingertips, as well as a community who seems much more interested in DISCOVERING and SHARING rather than IMPOSING their beliefs and experience. Cheers to those of us who have begun the lonely march toward our own destinies in audio without trying to squash the next soul who takes that first step forward. Thanks for the opportunity here, everyone:)
 
Haha, interesting.

It seems to be a more common occurence that bands are hearing these myths about analogue just being 'better' and wanting to track to tape, even though they seem to have no idea what that entails.

A local studio here that I did some work at shut down recently because the guy is selling off all of his digital gear... all 3 HD interfaces, the whole control 24 desk, the plug-ins, half the rack gear.. the works... simply because he can't get enough work. Half the bands that half called him in recent times have asked 'do you have tape?'.

So what he's doing is going all analogue again in the hopes of getting some business.

I don't think these people understand what a throwback to those days actually is. You know, if you suck, you're gonna suck when you're recorded. Alsihad ain't gonna turn you into Hendrix anymore :)

No amount of tape saturation or warmth is going to save you from countless takes. I'm sure the engineer will have fun getting out the blades and alchy again.

I respect when people voice their opinions, but not when they're tactless and just plain rude, like the guy quoted by Andy. But on that note, I would now LOVE to hear some recordings that come out of tinytelephone.
 
Personally, I like the sound of tape better in many respects but everyone has their own tastes.

It's more about the guy working the gear than the recording medium. If the Engineer makes great sounding albums and prefers analogue or digital, so be it.

TinyTelephone has some MP3's on their website, I didn't think it was anything that special.
 
I'm trying to understand the mission statement/goal/logic/reasoning of Michael Arrington and why the guy even wrote that email to you, Andy.

You must bow down and respect him... after all, he told you this:

"The amount of magnetic particles that pass the playback heads in an analog tape machine corresponds to 24-bit information."

That info is taken directly from the latest Gay Hustler Magazine - the magazine of which Michael Arrington is "Head" Editor and Chief "In-Depth" Bung Plunger.

Seriously though, I'm upset by the misleading topic because I was hoping for some more "sampled mechanical plastic drum sounds".

Michael Arrington sucks cocks in hell.
 
This guy is a bit of a retard Andy, shame on you to make fun of him!

I learned some of the trade on analog machines, I'll put some BS right:

"The amount of magnetic particles that pass the
playback heads in an analog tape machine corresponds
to 24-bit information. Just ask Tim de Paravicini, he
knows."

Poor Tim seeing his name on this forum..

24bit can reach -in theory- 6 times 24 = 144db dynamics, but ofcourse that's never reached and for good reason. Before the music drowns in the noisefloor you still have some 5 bits that represents the audio, so no digital distortion around the noisethreshold in 24bit recordings.

Maybe -just maybe- Tim remembers this firm called "Dolby laboratories inc". They made their fame designing and producing noise reduction for tapemachines. Their first one -the Dolby A- was designed to reduce the total amount of tapehiss of an 8-track Studer to equal a stereorecorder. Thanks to Dolby A you could have a whopping 72db of dynamic range on your (8-track) master!

That tasted for more ofcourse. DBX came along and compressed/expanded the shit out your recordings, giving you 15 db more range and totally fuckedup transients. Dolby was a bit smarter than DBX, their noisereduction kicked in below a threshold, DBX compressed/expanded all the way.

During the digital revolution Dolby tried to defend what was left of their ground by introducing Dolby SR, a multiband compression/expansion system that could rival a 16 bit recording.

But not a 24 bit. :wave:

Besides that you get some stuff for free while working with tapemachines: a nice amount of distorion, some heavy equalisation (phaseshifting) and some nice compression when going over zero db. Not to forget the serious lack of channelseparation, a butterfly reprohead on a Studer mastermachine gives you about 25dB of channelseperation! Whohoo!

A customized 2-track Studer can reveal
information up to 122 Khz.

Yeah right, only when you drop it on a bat's head.

Ever wondered while tapemachines run at 15 i/s? And why you get reduced HFreproduction when running them at slower speed?
I'm not going into the physics over this, but a recordhead on a tapemachine erases the electrical info almost as fast as he magnetizes the tape. That's why you have to pull the tape rather fast past the heads, otherwise you will lose info, starting at the higher frequencies (that's why VCR's have rotating heads, but try punching in with those..).

But if you pull the tape faster past the recordhead, you will get a thing called 'headbump', the Low frequency reproduction will start to suffer, giving dips and peaks up to 100Hz. So that's why 15 i/s is the standard, it allows you to record some nice HF while not totally fucking up the LF.

"Even a high-resolution
format like Super Audio CD does not reach that high."

Oh yes it does. That will be the next revolution, when we will have solid state disks DSD will become mainstream, although it needs an enourmous amount of DSPpower to mix & EQ just a few tracks. DSD doesn't have any of the digital disadvantages (brickwallfiltering & stuff), it just comes out as it came in.

Well anyway, nice oppertunity for me to recap some historic recordingknowledge, please feel free to use it to make fun of these analog idiots.
 
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