Passing something through an analogue device

seannash

Okay so this has probably been asked already but
I'm fairly sure that the concensus is that if you pass some digital audio through something like an analogue console it will impart some sort of analogue wamth(I'm assuming people believe this)

Now I guess the effect is subtle but if you keep passing the signal through again and again will the analogue warmth become more noticeable\


Probably a silly question

fitz

seannash wrote: »

Okay so this has probably been asked already but
I'm fairly sure that the concensus is that if you pass some digital audio through something like an analogue console it will impart some sort of analogue wamth(I'm assuming people believe this)

Now I guess the effect is subtle but if you keep passing the signal through again and again will the analogue warmth become more noticeable\


Probably a silly question

I can't imagine it would have any positive cumulative effect tbh.
If you're going to go out through an analogue device, it's only worth it if the device itself is high quality and will add something to subjectively improve the signal without degrading it. If it's a good enough device to strap across the 2-bus in order to do that kind of processing on the whole mix, running it through once should be enough to get the results you'd be looking for anyway.

Really is too open a question I reckon...what had you got in mind? Any particular hardware?

seannash

fitz wrote: »

I can't imagine it would have any positive cumulative effect tbh.
If you're going to go out through an analogue device, it's only worth it if the device itself is high quality and will add something to subjectively improve the signal without degrading it. If it's a good enough device to strap across the 2-bus in order to do that kind of processing on the whole mix, running it through once should be enough to get the results you'd be looking for anyway.

Really is too open a question I reckon...what had you got in mind? Any particular hardware?

No it really was a hypotethical question.
Its just that when you hear about passing signals through a hardware its always said that its a subtle difference.So I was just wondering if you could get the effect more pronounced by feeding the output back into the hardware again and again.

Obviously it wouldn't be any old piece of kit you would be using but if you had,say a decent preamp that had a certain sound I suppose you could get its "sound" on any signal you put through it

krd

seannash wrote: »

Now I guess the effect is subtle but if you keep passing the signal through again and again will the analogue warmth become more noticeable\

Yes, but it will eventually sound noisy, distorted, and not really warm.

Analogue "warmth" is really a kind of distortion and a little filtering, with some added noise.

seannash

krd wrote: »

Yes, but it will eventually sound noisy, distorted, and not really warm.

Analogue "warmth" is really a kind of distortion and a little filtering, with some added noise.

Well yeah its a given that its going to be to taste.

krd

seannash wrote: »

Well yeah its a given that its going to be to taste.

Different analog devices will give slightly different flavours, that can alter the sound.

You can consider the audio out put of a piece of hardware as analog

That's why the guys from Air use so much hardware. I can't remember which one said it, but by plugging in different pieces of hardware you get extra depth in the sound. Little subtleties. Or sometimes the effects are really noticeable. Analog noise tends to be smooth. Digital noise is horrible and artefacty.

madtheory

krd wrote: »

Analog noise tends to be smooth. Digital noise is horrible and artefacty.

That is so sweeping a generalisation as to be useless. A less sweeping generalisation is to say that digital is not usually noisy, whereas it is a battle for the user in an analogue system to keep the noise floor from swamping the audio.

The Slate VCC is very interesting. They've modelled not only distortion, but also the noise and cross-talk characteristics of various "classic" mixers. Turns out that these "flaws" are often very useful in making mixing easier.

We forget that the real weak links are the microphone, the speakers, and the room the speakers are in. All the processing in the world makes about .001% of a difference to those massive variables.

Radiosurfer

Just to add my 2c, if your looking for analogue "warmth" then I would advise picking the piece of kit carefully. And rather than passing the signal through a number of times I have found more success in overdriving the signal going through the hardware.
The best results in my experience have come from passing stuff through the filters on my Moog Voyager (no surprise there) but I've also gotten great results from overdriving cassette tapes.

Less than decent results have been achieved by anything cheap and new that claims to have "valve" technology or "tube" sound (I'm thinking VOX and Behringer here) . I believe the Behringer "tube" preamp (the one that costs about €60) actually has a bulb that lights up when you turn it on to make you think you can see the tube.

But even running something through a guitar pedal can add the "warmth" your looking for. I suppose just try everything and anything you have handy and prepare to be surprised at what works and what doesn't.

studiorat

Running single items as opposed to the full mix is interesting. I often find with limiters results can be had running something through a very gentle setting a couple of times. But this is for treatment of the dynamics rather then any spectral properties.

madtheory

Radiosurfer wrote: »

But even running something through a guitar pedal can add the "warmth" your looking for.

If you run a line level device into a pedal, the impedance mismatch gives a roll off of the top end, and a touch of distortion as well depending on the pedal. The filter is the larger part of the effect I think- so you could do the same with a LPF at 10kHz or so.

studiorat

not if you have a Radial Re-Amping kit like what I do!
It's a magic box that makes the pedal or amp think you are plugging a guitar into it...

splitrmx

Hey seannash, this is a great question, but a very difficult one to answer as in reality analogue things differ from each other to a very great degree, a lot more so than digital things.

I started off back in the day with a Mackie 1402 VLZ Pro bought back in 2001, but am now using a combination of an SSL X-Desk and X-Panda, which is obviously a major difference.

If I had run something through the Mackie (assuming non existent 100% perfect AD/DA converters) four times it'd have gotten incredibly noisy and rough sounding, the Mackies are okay, but there's a noise level there you can't escape from, it'd get very fuzzy after a few passes.

If I ran something the same amount of times through the SSL there'd be a small amount of noise added, but a lot less than the Mackie. Analogue things can differ a lot. Sometimes they change things for the better, but sometimes they can dull things. Most new analogue stuff on sale nowadays (API, Rupert Neve, AMS Neve, SSL, Manley, etc) is really high end and is pretty much guaranteed to make things sounds a bit sweeter, if that's what you're looking for.

TroutMask

it's a broad question - you don't really want to do multiple passes through any device that might add noise. Some people send their mixes through a pair of audio transformers and they claim that it helps. My DAW mixes sound good after they go through the Neve. Having said that they sound mighty fine not going through it too. Mind you, I'm on an Orpheus, so I'd be upset if they did not sound good. You could pick up a pair of Lundahl, Jensen, Altec-Peerless, or Gardner transformers and fix your mix that way. Many mastering units are balanced with such transformers.

krd

madtheory wrote: »

That is so sweeping a generalisation as to be useless. A less sweeping generalisation is to say that digital is not usually noisy, whereas it is a battle for the user in an analogue system to keep the noise floor from swamping the audio.

Yeah that's the huge drawback with analog systems - that noise floor can be very high. I will say, it's sometimes the high noise floor/buzz on a guitar amp that makes it sound less harsh.

I think, audio electronics designers could never resist the urge to sweeten a circuit - there's probably no analogue circuits that are purely, absolutely, 100% transparent.

Then I would say - if you sat down with a DAW multi-track recording, where everything was digital and sounded brittle and sharp, you could make it sound soft and warm, without resorting to any analog equipment.

madtheory

TroutMask wrote: »

Mind you, I'm on an Orpheus.

I HATE you.