Richard Oliver

Jerry, there's a video, on You Tube maybe, of a scoring session of the movie "The Incredibles." In it, the composer or director talks about and to the sound engineer about using Analog rather than Digital technology to record the musicians. Sorry if I've got any of this wrong, I'm a dweeb when it comes to technology.

But, is that what you're talking about? The Analog sound? And is that what they're talking about in the clip? And what's the difference between Analog and Digital to the guys working the machines and to us who listen?

And last question, on our CD's, are we listening to Analog recordings or Digitial? And, I have a BIG soft spot for the old recordings I grew up with, and I own several CD's off RCA's "Living Stereo" line. Since they're from the 50's (also on some CBS "Masterworks" too from the 60's), they're Analog right? Do they stay Analog even when they go on CD?

Oh, found the clip:

rowuk

Richard,
the "analog" sound means different things to different people. To the layman it means an LP or recording on tape. To the technician it means hiss during the soft sections and compression or distortion for the loud parts. To the working musician it means a recorded sound as the NAKED TRUTH. Nothing to polish off the edges. It also means difficult editing possibilities.
The end product could end up identical, only the engineer knows for sure.
If we take your RCA Living Stereo master TAPE and digitize it - without further editing, The sonic experience is very much the same. Once it is digitized, the temptation to make it "better than new" is very strong........ It is the same phenomenon as coloring black and white films or touching up body features in published photographs!

et_mike

To help expand on Rowuk's explination....

analog means the original sound was modulated onto a physical medium, i.e. an LP, there a very few easy means of editing the sound before the transfer, so you end up with a very real copied version of what you just heard, all mistakes and personalities included... think book report on paper with a coffee stain, and all you have is a photocopier.....

digital, however, you store all the physical sound as bits in a computer of some sort... this gives you infinite possibilities for changing or "improving" the sound... now your report is on your hard drive... who cares about coffee... you can edit and print mulitple "changes" of the same document....

And to answer your CD question... it depends on the CD. Most CD's have been digitally remastered... but you can get some analog recordings. I have a set of Louis Armstrong CD's that are untouched.... kind of weird to hear the "hiss" and "sizzle" of an LP coming out of a CD player!!

nplotts1

It is odd, I borrowed a recording of H.L. Clarke from my professor for listning examples, and they are original. It really adds a whole new perspective to the character of the sound.

Vulgano Brother

Think of Legoland. The Statue of Liberty in Lego's--that is digital. If you want it to look more like the Stature of Liberty, you need to use real small Lego's. The smaller the Lego, the more accurate the model, but we need more and more Lego's, more than we can handle.

The higher the sampling rate, the less "Lego-like" our music sounds, but it is still made out of straight line kind of stuff--no curves.

The drawback to tape is the bit of noise caused by the mechanical nature of the medium, each pass over the heads degrades the quality a tiny bit. Steely Dan failed to release some tunes simply because of that (ever notice how stereo stores in the 70's always had Steely Dan records to test play--their recording quality was the reason?).

Magnetic fields are pretty amazing things, and it would be a great project of godchaser to come up with a nano-magnetic bubble sound media device. (Gotta throw nano in there somewhere for him to get excited.)

Digital recordings do have some tremendous advantages--but they are Legos.

Smithi20

Maybe the orchestra's hall would have a lot to do with its character - and have a strong subliminal effect on being able to identify the band (almost like the smell of the band, if you like!) - so maybe, a bit more of the room would help i.d. recordings?

Smithi20

I know it´s a little off topic, but since recordings have been committed to tape here has been the opportunity to edit music to an almost infinite degree, classical editors especially have surgical mastery of their craft. I think this has clouded the digital-analogue discussion.

Digital recording is simply when the sound signal is converted into numbers, at any stage, be it recording, mixing or mastering.

nplotts1

You have a good point, but it is easier to change a few of those numbers to get, or eliminate a certain aspect of sound and it sounds a lot farther away from a "live" performance on a digitally edited format than it does on an edited analog format.

rowuk

The digital vs analog issue has been driving the audiophile industry for years. One thing is for sure, BOTH have irreversible distortions. Digital is much easier for the consumer, no stylus to wear out, easy moving around an album, much less maintenance.
Both are capable of creating a believable acoustic space, neither can RECREATE the original space. Incredible sums of money can get you pretty close though........

Vulgano Brother

When we recorded our ARTA cd, Tonstudio Bauer, as a test, recorded it in surround sound. That did recreate the space. If mono is one dimensional and stereo two dimensional, surround sound is three dimensional and truly does take recorded music, well, to a new dimension.