Steve Albini Discusses Digital vs Analog

SouperComputer

A friend and I were talking about this place and it transpired that I drive right by it on Saturday!

Anyway, while browsing the site, I came across an interesting thread with a fair but of input from (proportedly) Mr. Albini himself.

http://electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=25588&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=707b8eb77ad54530ac99733f7caa021c

cornbb

Argh! Another music techie forum! Begone!

I'll give that a good read when I have a chance to sit down, I'd love to see what the great Albini has to say on the whole subject. I'll be back here later to rant about the analog vs. digital thing, mark my words...

On a very related topic, some of you might also be interested in reading the opinions of Mr Richard D. James himself (a.k.a. Aphex Twin) on the same subject: http://forums.planet-mu.com/communicate//read.php?f=1&i=166092&t=165057

(search for "author: analord")

SouperComputer

its just the forum for his studios in Chicago.

$650 a day to work with him, not too bad. All I need is talent LOL.

Doctor J

TBH I can't think of one Albini album I like the sound of. I don't get what the fuss about this guy is and the legions of fanboys disturbs me.

Computers crash all the time. Tape machines fail rarely. Greg can fix our tape machines in-house. Nobody can fix a computer.

That's just a ****ing stupid thing to say. For every specialist who can fix a computer there's a specialist who knows how to properly clean, demagnetise and correctly realign a 2" 24 track tape machine. It kind of evens itself out.

He's arguing about a purely mechanical device being superior and more future proof than something chip based. Maybe the earth will return to being flat in 50 years too :rolleyes:

empirix

Are you sure thats him "analord", could be anyone really thats into their electronics and music tbh

cornbb

I'd have to agree with the doc (except for the bit about Albini's work not sounding good...)

The whole concept of digital music/production/media in general does sounds like cheap sneaky trickery but in practice it works a treat... our ears aren't good enough to tell the final difference. Analog gear does have a great sound to it, but at the end of the day practically all music ends up on digital media anyway. Plus the likes of Native Instruments and other software manufacturers have managed to emulate analogue instruments with a very high level of fidelity.

For the Analord EPs (the ones Aphex Twin is talking about in the forums above) he used entirely analogue equipment, from his synths, samplers, sequencers and tape machines, right up until the EPs were pressed onto limited edition vinyl. Very rare these days. There is a great warm fuzzy sound from those records, but then again the Analord MP3s doing the rounds sound savage too. I guess digital reproduction/conversion and digital synthesis/manipulation are entirely different kettles of fish. Any Minimoog/valve amp/analogue stompbox afficionados will claim that anyway... right I'll stop going on about electronic music because it completely OT... so's my whole rant infact, oh well

cornbb

empirix wrote:

Are you sure thats him "analord", could be anyone really thats into their electronics and music tbh

Guess I can't be certain, but alot of regular posters on that forum seem to know him.

Man, I wish RDJ would drunkenly stumble into this little forum some day...

squibs

My take is that the analogue sound is coloured with the oft-mentioned warmth that rabid vinyl freaks crave. Tape saturation, etc. are artefacts from the analogue process, and sound quite nice, but they change the sound subtly. A good digital system should give you a wyhiwyg ( figure it out ) experience. If you crave the warmth, then master with tape saturation plugins, or pick up a cheap tape unit on ebay and run the mix through that.

I kind of like the crisp non-sound of digital. A lot of the US hip-hop/R&B stuff (which I don't really like) has that sound. When they back off with the reverb and you close your eyes, it's like the vocalist and posse are in the room with you. Of course they also compress and limit the nuts off of it, which I don't like so much.

I think adjusting from the analog sound to the digital sound is a lot like making the transition from Hi-Fi speakers to monitors - the former is less accurate but more flattering and in time your ears get to prefer the truth of the latter.

cornbb

squibs wrote:

I kind of like the crisp non-sound of digital.

I think this is a key thing. Analogue "warmth" has always been the primary argument in favour of its retention. Yet more and more people are embracing the clean sterility of digital.

Look at 2 electronic music artists, Boards of Canada and Autechre. BoC go for that fuzzy "rich" analogue sort of sound, I'm sure they feed quite a lot of their stuff through tube preamps etc. It does sound great. But it seems kind of dishonest to digitally synthesise/record a sound, digitally edit it, do a little bit of post production/mastering it in the analogue domain, then convert the whole thing back to digital for distribution.

Autechre on the other hand have dived headfirst into the whole digital thing, and it sounds amazing. Their instrumentation is groundbreaking due to the fact that v. little of it is modeled on "real" instruments - everything is synthesised in a few lines of code in Max/MSP and cleverly algorithmically manipulated and sequenced. Digital music is wonderful is you are a control freak sort of musician/programmer/DJ But as Aphex Twin said in that article, every analogue instrument (including synths) has its own little unique nuances (eg no two 808 kicks will sound exactly the same) and thats kind of cool too...

Doctor J

Question: How many punters do you think will be listening to music from analogue equipment or music that has not been digitally processed at some point in ten years?

cornbb

Practically none... even the purest form of acoustic folk or orchestral music will have passed through its fair share of converters by the time it reaches peoples ears. The 100% analogue Analord EPs are a very rare case. The only common way to hear analogue music these days is to go to a gig, even then you're not guaranteed its not been through a digital mixer or effects box or whatever.

Doctor J

But here's the thing... how much of the warmth of analogue recording is lost during a digitial conversion? Does enough survive to justify using analogue in the first place? Is a digital recording coverted to analogue played back on analogue equipment warmer or colder than an analogue recording converted to digital? Is warmth purely the remit of analogue recording of the original signal or does introducing analogue into the process at some point introduce warmth too?

The real question: Will anyone but sound engineers notice the difference?

SouperComputer

empirix wrote:

Are you sure thats him "analord", could be anyone really thats into their electronics and music tbh

Thats the thread starter. Steve is, well, Steve,

I think his main point about analog in his opinion is not one of quality, but longevity. I come from a from a computer\tech background and ironically I can see his point. A tapes machine is a "comparitvely" simple mecatronic device. A computer is more complicated, you could be talking VLSI's for a start. If you think back 50 years before now in computing terms, very little of the equipment exists.

squibs

I suppose its more about the storage media than the computers themselves. At the end of the day, until we move to quantum computing or organic computing, it's 1s and 0s. There is always a method from porting from the old medium to the new medium as technology emerges.

Audio data is stored in pretty raw format so it should always be possible to find a codec to get the data to playback. If you print the clean track and the effected track and make notes on channel settings, inserts, buses and fx settings then you are nearly there.

Sounds like a lot of work, but I'll wager it's quicker than pulling a set of reels from the archive, mounting them, reading the track sheet and wondering how you are going to approximate the compressor that the engineer from the original session built from a valve radio and a Model-T Ford.

Doctor J

True. The wav is, thankfully, one of the few standard formats in computing. Besides, the EMPs from any nuclear attack will destroy magnetic tape and hard disc alike, so what's his beef?

Neurojazz

I've owned most overpriced rubbish over the years and also witnessed the digital revolution in music when the Roland D5 turned up into the music shop i was working in... all very weird equipment and fun seeing the gadgets turn up in their millions while this analogue V Digital argument goes on - and basically the analogue dudes just need to look at something like the Virus TI to see what they are missing (and how the digital instruments are capable of 'fooling the ears' into hearing something so finite in quality that Digital now equals and rises above analogue.

There are so many pros and cons for all this equipment that these gurus spend most their time sat on their ass debating and not enough time jumping up and down in glee with some funky tune they've just written....

In the immortal words of Frank Zappa - 'Shut up and play your guitar'

cornbb

The whole argument about a tape machine's simplicity vs. the complexity of a computer is a bit of a misnomer. The digital recording process is pretty simple and analogous to analogue recording when you think about it. True, a modern PC/HD recording system is complex in terms of numbers of transistors etc. But digital recording simply involves the creation of a stream of numbers which have been converted from an analogue signal, and then the writing of these numbers to a digital medium. The basic process and end results are identical whether you are using a cheap Zoom CF recorder or the latest quad core Mac Pro and Digi rack. And as squibs said, WAV, AIFF or whatever are very basic and generic as digital data formats go (which is another good thing). Computer hardware is usually pretty reliable too, and the inconvenience of an occasional software crash is surely offset by the many benefits of digital storage.

ogy

a few lines of code in Max/MSP

i think analogue can do things that digital can't do, i think digital can do things analogue can't do. who says they have to be mutually exclusive. i do get worried about losing all info over 20khz as im not entirely convinced it doesn't have an effect. these things are hard to judge as there generally not things you can listen "at". i know its a different argument but like even say mp3 vs CD quality. if you play both side by side its hard to hear a difference. but if spend a month using an mp3 player, then switch to a portable CD player and listen to the same music youll probably notice a difference straight away.
i don't think any digital technology can produce the sound of a classic recording like say The Band, or maybe it even could but would take a lot more work then just using analogue gear. but now that gear costs loads. its a tough one. the best thing to do is not land on any side of the fence and try all the options that are available to you. someone who runs a studio (with a tape machine) told me that they've spent hours comparing digital vs analogue and came to the conclusion that some stuff sounds better on one system and some stuff sounds better on the other.
theres definitely valid arguments for and against, but its not politics, there shouldn't be camps, everyone just has to try and make the best music they can with whats available to them

but think about the majority of the world buying paying 99c for poxy mp3s that they listen to through ****ty headphones on crowded noisy buses, is it worth your while at all:)?

cornbb

Yeah there's a debate going on over in the Music forum about mp3 quality. Its surprisingly alright how an inferior encoding format has taken over. In terms of digital music being worthwhile given all this lossy compression I would still say yes, although there probably has been a sacrifice of quality to allow for more music to be stored, copied and transported.

Autechre though, wow, those guys rule. Their music doesn't sound like they tried to make it analogue, if you know what I mean, they've taken pure digital audio and made it a signature sound, which I think is just brilliant.

Paligulus

i think analogue can do things that digital can't do, i think digital can do things analogue can't do. who says they have to be mutually exclusive. ....

I've read a lot of similar threads/discussions like this across the web. I rarely post though cos I'd still consider myself a "bambi" at the whole Mixing /Mastering thing e.g. straining to here the difference as I add compression (well not quite that bad!!), let alone hear the difference between analogue and digital. But I hope to get there cos I'm pretty obsessive about other aspects of music!!!

Anyway I've never (well rarely!!) seen anybody even dare to suggest that you find a happy compromise between two methodologies!!!!! As somebody with only (very limited) experiance in the Digital side of things I'd say if you were an analogue-aphile there are some digital technologies that could really improve your process. E.G. something like Melodyne - although on saying that I'd say an analogue head would projectile vomit at even suggesting vocal editing so that was a bad example!!!

Anyway, I've added nothing to this discussion!!! But I still genuinely admire this level of interest and dedication on both sides of the argument.

Paligulus

cornbb wrote:

Yeah there's a debate going on over in the Music forum about mp3 quality. Its surprisingly alright how an inferior encoding format has taken over. In terms of digital music being worthwhile given all this lossy compression I would still say yes, although there probably has been a sacrifice of quality to allow for more music to be stored, copied and transported.

It's amazing with the current technological environment that it is easier (on paper) for people to make more sophisticated recordiings, however it is this same environment that is making it harder for listeners to actually hear these improvements!!!

ogy

Anyway I've never (well rarely!!) seen anybody even dare to suggest that you find a happy compromise between two methodologies!!!!!

its not that uncommon really. for example a typical set up in a studio might be running a an analogue mixing desk into a digidesign interface and then into protools. When all the tracks are finished instead of summing them in protools (a digital mixdown) some people would bring each track out its own output (obviously you have to have a pretty decent interface with lots of outs) and route each output to a channel on the mixing desk. The tracks could then be mixed and summed at the desk, and the master left right of the desk could be routed back into protools to produce an analoguely summed stereo track. Or like someone mentioned earlier it could run through a tape machine first and then back to protolls. This would 't really be that uncommon.

I say expirment with what you have available to you and make decisions based on the results and on the particular piece of music your producing not on some daft manifesto:)

eoin5

In digital theres no rewinding, great when youre working with a drunk perfectionist. Take 157.....

But seriously when you take practicality into account digital is great, things like online collaberations, sending off tracks to be mastered, portability of recording devices, editing audio, the price of duplication etc are all easier with digital.

From a musicians point of view digital is good to record ideas and make pre-demos and to write and record at the same time. I know you can do all that with a tascam 4track but when you have hundreds of little snippits it would get very messy with tapes I'd imagine.

Storage is an issue though. I made a track about a year ago on Audition and Fruity Loops and I burned all the related files to CD. I left the CD on my window sill and of course the sunlight destroyed it. CDs and DVDs arent perfect, and neither are HDDs, you have to be careful with what your storing. Regular backups and hardware replacements every few years are whats needed.

As for the final sound, I certainly prefer analog recordings especially when you mix in some good valve equipment. It may not suit in A Perfect Tool's latest ditty or some super modern double mashed emo but definately will add a nice atmosphere in any good sincere soulful album. At any rate I think professional studios should give the option for using either or indeed a bit of both.

And for the distribution medium its much the same story, the difference in quality between records and mp3s is huge but you cant listen to your vinyl while your out having a run . Oh yea, and audio cassettes are crap

My take on things in short:
Digital: Better for practicality and productivity.
Analog: Better for the final sound.

squibs

Storage is an issue though. I made a track about a year ago on Audition and Fruity Loops and I burned all the related files to CD. I left the CD on my window sill and of course the sunlight destroyed it. CDs and DVDs arent perfect, and neither are HDDs, you have to be careful with what your storing. Regular backups and hardware replacements every few years are whats needed.

Who was it that said "digital data does not exist until there are at least two copies of it"?