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Rayne

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Hi everyone... I'm doing a research paper for collage: and My thesis is <Is Digital or Analog better for modern day recording?> I have some books.. I was wondering ou guys knew of any magainze articals or virtually anythign that coudl help me with this! (Even your own personal knowlage... I won't be able to site it, but it woudl probaly help me) If you knwo of a magazine that has a website with articals posted. that would be awsome! If not than the names of them.. and I can try to find back issues someplace.... Anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
 
:confused:

very hard question - try to decide by yourself which is the right one.
 
The answer is:
(romdomdomdomdomdomdomdom...)

Somewhere inbetween !!


=> I think you have to take the advantages of the digital recording possibilities, but nevertheless some sound gear like the vintage analog synths are very hard to replace (they usually sound better and fatter than the digital ones)
 
Well I had planned on writing this paper from a stand point of difital is better... Because basically it is ALOT easier to find books and citeable sources dealign with digital. (because it's much more new) That was why I asked the question mostley..... I find soem sourses to use in ym paper.. Not nesacarilly which is better. I knwo they have thier strengths and weaknesses, it' dpends on the situation and task at hand... (I plan on explaining that bit in the paper too) .. but I was wondering oif anyone knew of any authors, titles, etc... of books, or atricals in magazines I coudl use for reasreachng. Thanks again
 
You're going to find a fairly divided, imbalanced I'd think, standpoint on that.

And just to clarify, I'm under the impression that your question was in regards to the actual recording method and medium, not the gear producing the sounds, right?

My personal opinion is that Digital is the preferable way to go.

But first the problems with Digital... there is a technical loss of definition in the sound when recording digital. Sound is made up of curves, and curves are theoretically made up of an infinite amount of individual points along a path. We can't get our digital gear to truely reproduce those curves with full definition, so we lose a bit in the of the full sound and the differences in volume.

Another issue is on the headroom for recording. With Analogue recording you can raise the recording level into distortion, if done properly, to get a desired affect with minimal distortion or as stated, a desired distortion (Tape saturation). With digital recording, this headroom doesn't exist. You've got from -infinity db to 0db to record. When the levels reach more than 0, they clip, and I've never heard of anyone with a desire to hear digital clipping in a track.


Ok, I just sat here for a few minutes looking for another problem... can't find one so here's the pro's for digital/cons for analogue:

To truely record analogue, we're speaking on a magnetic tape. This medium has inherant problems of rumble and his. This are created by the very mechanisms that facilitate the recordings, and are difficult to overcome at the recording state.

Loss on rerecording is a horrible thing to deal with. When you take an analogue recording and rerecord it onto another tape, there's a bit of signal loss. This is impossible to defeat, though can be made less evident through the use of effect processors. But eventually, if enough transfers are made, the signal will become worthless.

The fact that the media used to record is based on magnetic tape (sometimes for digital as well though not always) is also of risk. If your studio happens to be attacked by large Electromagnetic Pulse weaponry, say goodbye to all your recordings. ;)

With Digital recordings you have to deal with loss a bit less. Don't let anyone tell you it's lossless, all the digital tranfer media have error correction in place which points to the fact that errors happen. But the loss is much smaller than withh Analogue.

Once a transfer has been made to a digital multitracking system it becomes possible to visually edit the tracks, and process things multiple times. The true capabilities of digital recording and mastering are fairly open ended.

If one were to stay completely analogue, you'd be looking at a nightmare of patchbays and connections (all of which could open up the signal loop to noise and loss) to achieve some of the effect chains that are done simply with a digital multitracking system.

And now, of course from a perspective of possible costs involved in getting a work marketable, you'd have to eventually convert your recording to digital to have it pressed to CD.
 
Thanks alot man.... There was some stuff in there that I dind't really think about putting the way you said it. Unfourtunatly I can't cite this website in my paper...but I cna use it for my own personal knowlage when I'm writing. I can find pretty much anythgin said here in a book I woudl imagine... I have, "Audio explained" BY michael talbot Smith__"and introduction to digital audio" by John Watkinson ___"the digital interface handbook" By watkinson and Francis Rumsey___ and "Modern audio technology for technicians and engineers" By Martin clifford...... If any of you have had ANY formal education in anything liek this, let me know how these books helped you..(If you reconize any of it) or any other suggestions for further reading for this paper... Thanks!!!!!
:victory:
 
FreakBoy's made some good points - but I'm not sure I agree with all of them. I would say that the main source of noise in most recordings (digital or analogue) is at the point of recording i.e. the noise from the mic. On a good analogue system it's possible to get very low noise recordings. I've heard 48+ analogue tracks (on slaved 2" tape) that really didn't have the noise problems you describe.

As for the question of patchbays and noise, it's true that if you just want to use plugins then you won't have to use a patchbay (which might introduce noise - again in a decent setup the noise they introduce can be minimal). Given that analogue outboard is still very popular (for good reason, these are pieces of kit which people know sound good) you will introduce those potential problems.

OK now, how about the quality of the sound recorded. FreakBoy mentioned the limitations of digital recording which have lead to the increases in sampling rate an bit depth. I think everyone agrees that greater bit depth is a 'good' thing (it gives improved headroom and greater dynamics), as for the move to 96kHz sampling rate - that argument is still raging and I'm not going to get into it (do a search on the sound on sound forum - tonnes of threads will come up). Then of course you have to consider the quality of your A/D D/A converters. These will introduce distortion, but the better quality they are the less this will be (I think that sampling rate has something to do with this ... I'm not sure quite how though:confused: !) Analogue recordings are alleged to be 'warmer', how true this is I really don't know, but just check the amount of valve-emulation plugins (and their like)!

As FreakBoy said one of the great benefits of digital recording is how easy it is to edit. This means that compensating for the performance of musicians is entirely possible;) The way I have seen digital technology used (in some 'name' studios) is to use the best of both worlds, like THM said. Recording to analog and then using digital to edit (and using digital plugins which give effects that aren't possible with analog gear - like autotune). Now it's entirely possible that this is because engineers in studios are all a bit 'old school' and don't trust this new fangled technology. Or it could be that digital really doesn't sound as good. I don't know, but engineers do get very worked up about all of this.

As for sources check out www.studiocovers.com - plenty of links to articles about all this stuff and to forums (fora?) of pro-recording engineers. Good luck,

KasioRoks
 
Thanks aaLOT!.. I had that site bookmarked before.. an I never even whent to check it. I haven' found anyhtign I cna cite,. but I'll need the info presented!..... AS for A/D.. D/A converters... I'm guessing that menas, analog to digital, and vise-versa?.... But how do they work> anyone know?.... Is it a piece of Hardware, or softwear?.. or a combination of the both?.... I haev the final draft of ym propsal for this due on MOnday... SO I want to try an dget a good handle of what I'm talking baout before than :)
 
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