Analog vs digital masters?
- Thread starter vato22
- Start date
Because hardware sounds better. And a hybrid setup allows you to do things with the audio that you cannot do digitally or that is connected to time loss if you do it digitally. So it's basically better sounding and gives you more options for sound improvements no matter the type of content to master. And this is especially the case with the heavy duty, critical core mastering processes... To some degree it is also because it gives mastering engineers more job, which is a very bad practice, because most mixes should really be sent back to mixing, but that's not happening due to the business factor, so by doing it using hardware you kind of get an expanded role and responsibility - you do some of the stuff the mixing engineer should have done, but could not do due to his/her choice of platform type, lack of time etc. So it is basically the route that gets the job done with the most pleasant results most frequently...
Happy New Year vato22!!
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Adrian-MarQ
New member
Going to have to disagree with the notion that analog sounds better. Completely depends on the sound you intend to have. I'm honestly not sure if most people that aren't engineers can tell if a mix was routed through analog gear or not. They kind of just go with the opinion that analog is better based on what they read from others. I've come across too many artists and producers asking me for that "analog sound" with my nonexistent analog gear that get the sound that they wanted in the end...
Not dismissing the pleasant effect that analog can have, but it's not that difficult to emulate that sound digitally and it isn't necessarily better sounding.
Since you always intend to have a richer sound, hardware wins. But this is no secret or debate in pro mastering, it's a well known fact that hardware beats software hands down, for practical reasons many migrate to hybrids. That does not mean you can't find good uses of specific software, it just means that hardware contributes more to hits being at the top, it improves your business because it improves your music. Is it practical or cheap that it is like that? Nope. But pros stick to what works the best in terms of richness of tone, hence they do not migrate to a software only setup, at least not yet.
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KonKossKang
Ozagas
I think digital is overall slightly cleaner than analogue where the room and the circuits have automatic slight saturation or something to them.
I think digital synths are the true sound while hardware is just more saturated alittle.
I also have a preconceived notion that hardware has overall more natural saturation since there's physical circuits and whatnot.
I think digital synths are the true sound while hardware is just more saturated alittle.
I also have a preconceived notion that hardware has overall more natural saturation since there's physical circuits and whatnot.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRIxvpdZ5Rs
This is just a glimpse into the sound of digital. It's not software that is cleaner, it's hardware that is cleaner.
Remember that there are DAWs like Cubase out there, where you cannot even see the indications of this kind of stuff.
So you basically need the ears of a dog in order to combat all of the digital noise that is morphing into the signal under the hood in various configurations.
But besides this, there is a lot of noise also introduced by the digital algorithms themselves, both directly and indirectly. This is why you need to be incredibly selective about what plugins and what plugin configurations to avoid. In practice you end up using plugins that eat on the signal. And then when you use things like routing and 8 times oversampling to minimize this, then you get added phase instead by the increase in system load. So, the better you want to make it sound, the worse sounding it might get. And I know systems that degrade the sound over time, because of memory leaks in the DAW, the drivers etc. So it's not only that you have various things you can deal with, some of the noise finds its way into the signal due to various types of system related issues in your particular mix of software and hardware. In short, pros must limit this kind of stuff from happening, and the way that is done is by offloading the system as much as possible by using better sounding hardware instead. That improves the resulting sound cumulatively, because it positively impacts on the signal both directly and indirectly.
And related to digital software based music creation, there is some funky stuff going on. For instance it does not make any sense at all that music that does not clip at all when you play it inside of the DAW, might clip by almost 2 dB in a more lossy format. Sometimes I wonder if there is some evil force out there that does all of this on purpose. Now, I compensate for this with my masters, but I know many engineers that don't. With hardware in the signal path you might be able to afford this because you have things like harmonic distortion that the perception is influenced by as well. But with software you might not have that to the same degree. So it's like no matter what angle you approach it, hardware ends up winning.
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PrinceSatyrn
New member
I would bounce to analog if you can. Im getting in the habit of bouncing stems to tape and then bouncing back to digital. To me it feels like it grounds it in reality. It definitely will be more lo-fi but it has the analog warmth that you can emulate with digital but never fully attain.
krushing
Moderator
Btw, if you say "analog master" or "digital master", then that implies that the final product is either analog (tape) or digital (file, nowadays). You could master in the box and only print the output to tape and still have an analog master, or vice versa. So mastering = process, master = product.
Caribean Kush
New member
I think ill go digital