Analog Vs. Digital Recording

[Steve Haynie]

 

[hamerhead]

Just watched that yesterday! He makes some good points and those old tape machines are fun, but tape degradation and hiss are absolute killers, IMO.

I get what he's saying about the 'process'. But infinite digital tracks, backed up on your media of choice, still wins.

[LucSulla]

I watched that yesterday and agreed with all of it. 

Fully acknowledging there are a few people here who have done a lot more in music than I ever managed to, but I did do quite a bit of recording in Nashville from 2001-2003. Most of it was to DASH, but a good bit was also analog. One reason we did more DASH was it was MUCH cheaper, and we couldn't tell enough of a difference between tracking to digital tape through an SSL and tracking to 2" analog through a Neve. The work flow was a little different thought, and you were a little sharper when tracking to analog because you couldn't just punch forever. But even with DASH it was still destructive editing even though it was digital. You could punch a billion times, but there was no saving 15 takes and picking the best. I don't think we were quite as "on" working with DASH because the lag wasn't as bad in timing a punch, this making punches a little safer than on analog, but it still wasn't drag and drop.

We finally did our second album at a ProTools studio, and that was definitely different. Most of us were pretty well rehearsed because at this point we were paying out of pocket, but it was very different. Our bass player at the time really wasn't all that well prepared, and at least one song was just a total Frankenstein of a performance. I don't think it affected to overall vibe of the music too much, but even 20 years ago, you could see the danger in it. 

But I think it's interesting to think back on that after watching the video posted. I got to work in a scenario where I was doing both analog and digital, but both were still tape. The approach stayed much the same as a result, and the whole vibe was mostly the same. I've was recording to digital tape and hard drive around the same time, pretty much the same again, but the copy-and-paste nature of PT just made for a totally different thing that had nothing to do with it being digital.  

[BoogieMKIIA]

I hope everyone has seen “The Making of Sgt Pepper”. Sir George Martin was the special guest at an Idea Festival in Lexington, KY some years ago and he took us through it with his comments, fascinating. The planning to use the state of the art 4 track was impressive.
 

With any new technology, there is the opportunity to be efficient or be creative. The possibilities of digital have barely been touched, we haven’t imagined them all. It’s a great point about getting lost in the process and losing sight of the art, same as the jump from 4 track tape to 16 track tape. One can adapt your process if you stop and think about it.

One of the most impressive things is early radio recordings where a small orchestra, vocalists and host were captured live with a couple of well placed mics. The mixes were super clean and balanced. I guess the performers performed for a live audience and the engineer stayed out of the way, so to speak.

[specialk]

 

[Jakeboy]

I use a hybrid approach…. I record to a digital medium through analog preamps, a comp, and an eq. I also use digital plugins.

Digital has allowed people like me to fulfills lifelong dream of recording music I’ve written and learning the recording and engineering process. I do not like having infinite tracks at all. Nor do I like piecing things together other than maybe two halves of a solo. I like to record analog style …rehearse, get the performance down, and press the red button and record the performance. None of my music needs more than 16 tracks either. Get it right at the mic. That is what I prefer. If I had my druthers, I’d record an entire band live in the room cause there is no substitute for that vibe. But since it is just 2-3 of us in different locales, that doesn’t always work out. But whenever I can I like to record multiple instruments together. BGVs too. When I do lay guitar or bass over a pre-recorded drum groove, I pretend I am in a pro room and that drum groove is a real drummer. I want the vibe of a live performance in the studio as much as possible. I will bounce all guitar parts down to a guitar buss. 

If I had unlimited access to free analog tape and a fully stocked analog studio, I’d record that way. Digital can make you lazy if you let it. At least it can make ME lazy if I let it.  So I use digital, but really focus on making it sound as analog as possible.

 

[HSB0531]

19 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

 

I just watched this last night (didn't know it was posted here).

[HSB0531]

18 hours ago, hamerhead said:

Just watched that yesterday! He makes some good points and those old tape machines are fun, but tape degradation and hiss are absolute killers, IMO.

I get what he's saying about the 'process'. But infinite digital tracks, backed up on your media of choice, still wins.

I used to sell the Tascam MS-16 (16-track) and the 42B, and 52B 2-tracks and they were super rugged and great sounding machines, but of course it was tape.  Maintenance was just something you had to do.  Today, I think using an analog preamp,  an analog  compressor, and analog Multi-Effects into your USB converter with S.S.D. on the computer is the way to go.  It gives you the ability to go straight in, or color the sound with analog warmth. You can still use your favorite DAW for the basic record/edit/playback functions.  You can playback into a Neve style stereo preamp, or straight to monitors/cans. Yes, I know, it's far cheaper to buy plug-ins only, but for things like Lexicon PCM-70, 80, 81, or PCM-90 sounds, the plug-ins aren't anywhere near as good. Same with a great sounding analog preamp like a Warm Audio WA73-EQ. and a WA76 comp/limiter ( Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocal) or WA-2A leveler/compressor (Bass, Vocals) even if you just buy 1 of these would add a lot of character. And one great Mic or a few good ones too.

[LucSulla]

7 hours ago, Jakeboy said:

 

If I had unlimited access to free analog tape and a fully stocked analog studio, I’d record that way. Digital can make you lazy if you let it. At least it can make ME lazy if I let it.  So I use digital, but really focus on making it sound as analog as possible.

 

I wish we could run this experiment. I'd be curious which you would prefer if price was not an issue. Analog is such a massive pain in the ass, starting with how much you can get on a tape. You have around 14 minutes a reel at 30 ips or 28 minutes at 15 ips. There is a bit of an art to getting the timing of a punch down due to the difference in time between the playback head and the record had. You have all the head alignment BS, test tones, splicing, and on and on. Then there is storing all of it somewhere if you want to keep the multitrack, sometimes having to bake it, and the joys of print through. 

Me? I love the romance around analog, but no thanks on dealing with that again. 

What I miss is going somewhere dedicated to a thing and having a limited amount of time to do it. Going to the studio was an adventure, and there is absolutely no comparing a purpose-built studio to bedroom recording. Walking into a place with acoustically tuned rooms, speakers that cost more than some houses (along with the NS-10s they were really mixing on), the huge consoles, outboard gear, and on and on - that was where it was at. And you know that you have however much time you have - 8 hours, 40 hours, whatever - to do it. This forces you to come in ready, and it also forces you to make choices. You want to spend an extra day on vocals? Well maybe that is one less day to mix. 

Scarcity - I think that is what the OP's video is really about - building in a sense of scarcity or the finite. Digital recording removed so many areas of scarcity in the recording process, from the financial resources to just data storage space, that it just made everything seem possible all of the sudden. To borrow from Kierkegaard, we moved the danger being "lost in the finite" to "lost to the infinite."  You can make any sound you made with analog equipment on digital. That topic has been beaten to death on this forum and others, but the research is out there, along with the explanation around urban legends like the infamous "stair-step sampling" *ahem* analogy. However, people tend to not think holistically about the entire process involved with affixing sound to a medium, and I think therein lies some of the reason for the perceived difference.

There's was a somewhat popular media philosopher I'm sure some of you have heard of named Marshall McLuhan who posited that "the medium is the message," basically saying the constraints and affordances of any communication medium have as much affect on what is ultimately communicated as the intended message itself. For instance, we are on a forum here and can only speak to one another in text and pictures for the most part. Text and pictures allow thoughts to be conveyed in very specific manners, and anyone posting here is restricted by what those media allow and how facile they are with them. 

With pre-DAW recording, we have the limitations and affordances of tape, the financial barriers to accessing the means of production, the level of ability of the musicians and engineers to use the recording technology, how various mental states made an impact on performances, and how much time there was to do things beyond the space available on the medium. I'm sure there are more, but that seems a good general list.  Most all of that was driven by the essence of what tape was and what was required to get the very best out of it. All of that shaped what was being communicated in the final project. 

So I'd argue that thinking you have to have tape to recreate that is possibly losing the forest for the trees. What you really need to recreate is that sense of scarcity recording to tape in a dedicated studio created and the way negotiating that scarcity and the emotional states involved with it helped to fashion the end result. 

I'm pretty sure you don't have to have a 2" Studer machine sitting there any more than you need to be living like a vampire four days into a week long coke binge. Figure out ways to make the takes mean something and to make having as close as possible to an entire performance as a real prize. Spend more time in pre-production getting sounds, and set a goal of not fixing everything in post. Set goals on how little or how much EQ you want to use. Don't line-in and re-amp and commit some effects "to tape" where they are just there now unless you redo it. Go after fire performances rather than perfect parts, and get a second set of ears to tell you whether you are about to nuke a take over a mistake only you can hear. 

Yeah, it's going to be way less flexible and introduce a level of difficulty, but that's the experience if you want it.

To sum up what became a bit of an essay, I'm not a proponent of making stuff hard again just to do so either.  Like I said at the beginning, even given unlimited resources, I'd still record to hard drive to analog tape every time. You can do things to make recording to a computer as stressful as to tape, but why? Most of that sucked a lot, and there is a big difference between comping together, beat-by-beat, a perfect drum performance in the box vs. finally having a tool that makes a few more punch places available for a drum take, or, even better, not worrying that blowing a punch on a drum take because you clipped a cymbal's decay now means the overall good take is gone forever and you have to start over. Adding entire days to your recording budget because your singer is burned out and can't quite hit a note at the end of a session vs. tuning it a few cents to me is a lot different than tuning an entire performance for a singer who genuinely can't sing. 

For me, I look at it as taking pride in your work and being a musician, and using the tools available in a way that represents may skill accurately. Don't use technology to tell a lie. If you can't do that part live, don't record it unless you are working in a genre where a totally live performance isn't exactly the point. From there, the biggest trick is realizing where to stop polishing and leaving some humanity in there. 
 

Edited January 4 by LucSulla

[Jakeboy]

Perfectly put, @LucSulla! I agree 100%. I especially like your statements about time limitations, the finite, making choices and committing to a take or a part. I need those things or I”ll never stop. I have a friend who took 7 years to complete a 7 song album because the guy recording couldn’t commit and be done due to the infinite nature of recording digitally.  My Buddy and recorded  an album together working one day a week in 6 months. Mixing and mastering took another few months but we had the songs learned and pre-production helped.  I like the way analog gear and tape sound. So my signal hits analog gear on the way to the DAW and my mastering compressor is outboard and helps glue the mix together. But I have plugins that really help to capture the warmth and glue that tape provides. I loathe sterile sounding mixes that sound clinical and too perfect. I want the FIRE, just like @LucSullasaid.

[hamerhead]

20 hours ago, LucSulla said:

....the biggest trick is realizing where to stop polishing and leaving some humanity in there. 

'zactly. Learnt that from the drummer's kid who sucked the soul from every track by trying to make it all perfect with software. No thanks.

[LucSulla]

On 1/4/2025 at 10:06 PM, Jakeboy said:

So my signal hits analog gear on the way to the DAW and my mastering compressor is outboard and helps glue the mix together.

I think that's the way to do it. Save the money (and hassle) you'd put into tape and put it into some cool pres, mics, and outboard gear. After I went into a recording industry program, I would still occasionally run into the engineer who did my band's first album. I'm sure I was annoying as hell, as you are the first time you learn about all of the toys. I remember him saying, "I always figured if Bruce Springsteen could make Nebraska with a couple of SM57s and a Portastudio that I could make a good sounding album with just about anything. It's all about just getting the most our of what you got."

Point taken. 

Edited January 6 by LucSulla

[mathman]

I've been in to recording since I've been  in to music. But I did not have training or money so everything was self learned on the cheap.

I started with cassette decks.  First one then two.  Bouncing tracks from one deck to the other while adding a new instrument/track.  

Dolbly cannot overcome that much hiss.  😃

But it was all I had.   Next was better cassette decks, then a Fostex 4 track recorder and of course mixing live into cassette from a 12 channel mixer.

Next was mod-tracker tracks on my Amiga computer that I combined with live guitar/ vocals onto either cassette tape or Fostex 4 track depending on who had it that month.

Then some glorious time with a Fostex 8 track reel to reel. which felt like heaven.  This was early 90's iirc.

Then a lull as life and wife and work took over.

the Cool or sad thing depending on how you look at it...  I have recordings of all this stuff.   I wonder who else has really early recordings?   

got to go so I will continue with the progression later.

to be continued.

[Dutchman]

I was all about the digital format. Then I went down the tube preamp and microphones  to warm the sound up rabbit hole. I sold all the recording studio stuff and now live a much more sane and less broke life. 

[jwhitcomb3]

I started recording on a Teac 4 track reel-to-reel in 1979 (it is in the corner of the room I'm typing from). All my recordings were analog up to 1996 or so. I've cleaned and demagnetized tape heads more times than I can remember, used several noise reduction technologies, experimented with different tape formulations, recorded time code to a tape track to synchronize with MIDI devices, and had racks of signal processing devices with miles of inter-connecting cables. Then I moved to digital: first ADAT, then direct to hard disc, now direct to SSD. I DON'T MISS ANALOG AT ALL. I spend my time capturing a good performance and not wiring/rewiring/calibrating/maintaining gear, or recording over a pretty-good take in hopes of getting a better take. Given that 99% of listening is done on a phone or car speakers, the whole "analog sounds warmer" argument seems academic. 

[Disturber]

In the 90s when I was in charge of Warner/Chappell's demo studio we used ADAT machines for some years.  Just as @LucSulla describes it with DASH it was a great mid way of using digital technology mixed with the analog process. We had a 16 channel Tascam mixing desk and racks with effects etc, but everything was recorded to the two DAT machines. The problem with the DAT machines was that they where basically VHS tape recorders, perhaps with some more sturdy parts and better motors, (I would not bet a lot of money on that). But this studio ran almost every day of the week and the machines got worn out quickly. We had to send them away for service constantly. That was a real pain as they could break down during sessions.

Still, the ADATs where tape machines, so you got a little pause when you had to rewind for another take etc.