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Author Topic: analog trade-offs  (Read 65726 times)

OOF!

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #75 on: January 17, 2011, 02:27:10 PM »

Bill,
What you're saying is fascinating to me, particularly the results of the BBC study.  So if this is true, then It's *not* that tape is capturing more information than digital, and therefore giving us a bigger picture, but rather that tape is capturing the source imperfectly and instead of sounding worse it sounds *better* or at least louder and brighter a the same volume.
I have to look into that more, because it runs counter to my own experience and feeling in the studio.  Admittedly, I have limited science here.  
Really interesting stuff,
David
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faganking

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #76 on: January 17, 2011, 02:29:31 PM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Sun, 16 January 2011 11:48

A "wow" reaction is often short for "wow, it sounds so real!"

I fear that people who have never experienced "real" aren't likely to be very impressed.



compasspnt wrote on Sun, 04 July 2010 10:44

Yesterday I was with a couple of teenagers when they got their photos back from the 4 Hour Photo shop.

They had bought one of those cardboard Kodak cameras with the real film inside.

The first thing one of them said was "Yuk, I hate film, it just doesn't look real."

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faganking wrote on Sun, 04 July 2010 10:48


"I hear that!

It used to be that I could sit down a young band and play them vinly through my 2 McIntosh monoblocks and watch their 'wowed' reaction. No longer the case. They are simply not used to it and therefore it 'doesn't' sound better to them."



Back in July when this thread started I wrote the above...which to me agrees with what Bob wrote a few days ago.
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Tidewater

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #77 on: January 17, 2011, 02:50:06 PM »

OOF! wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 14:27



then It's *not* that tape is capturing more information than digital, and therefore giving us a bigger picture, but rather that tape is capturing the source imperfectly and instead of sounding worse it sounds *better* or at least louder and brighter a the same volume.

Really interesting stuff,
David



Digital is actually giving us the bigger picture. I can't look at all that!

I would liken it to soft focus on a camera, but mixing metaphors is dangerous when you are dancing about architecture. Wink
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Jay Kadis

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #78 on: January 17, 2011, 02:54:46 PM »

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 11:07


We know that second harmonic distortion can be very pleasing to the human ear as it adds "loudness" to a signal without adding volume. The BBC studied the effect of noise on high frequency perception and concluded that noise makes the listener believe a signal is "brighter" and has more highs than it actually has, without the noise. Again, an enhancement. Who woulda thunk!
I seem to recall the same conclusion about Dolby B "dulling" the sound, possible from Dolby Labs.

Bill Mueller

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #79 on: January 17, 2011, 03:47:22 PM »

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 14:07

Tidewater wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 13:11

It's very hard to talk about this.

Digital has better ears than me. Analog has similar ears, and tastes. Analog allows for a spirit world.

There is no afterlife in digital.

Do to the nature of the formats, analog plays back what it heard you say, and digital plays back what you said, no matter how stark..

This is what I am talking about. Digital is a format, analog is your partner in production. I am all alone here.

Miles,

You're not alone at all here. I agree with your statement and would like to further add that analog tape (the thing we are talking about when we say "analog", has a "transfer characteristic". That means that the signal that comes from the playback head is different than the one that went into the record head. This is a simple, measurable quantity of wow, flutter, harmonic distortion intermodulation distortion and broadband noise. These characteristics are a problem for some and pleasing to others.

We know that second harmonic distortion can be very pleasing to the human ear as it adds "loudness" to a signal without adding volume. The BBC studied the effect of noise on high frequency perception and concluded that noise makes the listener believe a signal is "brighter" and has more highs than it actually has, without the noise. Again, an enhancement. Who woulda thunk!

For those of us who have never really relied on tape to add those things, and want the recorder to simply play back what was put into it, we don't miss analog tape all that much. For those who love those characteristics for themselves, we now have a multi million dollar market replacing the sounds of obsolete recorders. VERY odd if you ask me.

In the end. To Each His Own.

Best regards,

Bill

I left a key factor out of this post. That is the rise time associated with transients in analog tape. Analog tape rounds off sharp transients and to some this is a fault and to others, a feature.

Bill
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MagnetoSound

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #80 on: January 17, 2011, 04:12:23 PM »

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 20:47

I left a key factor out of this post. That is the rise time associated with transients in analog tape. Analog tape rounds off sharp transients and to some this is a fault and to others, a feature.




Yes, I think this is key to why analog sounds more 'friendly'.



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DarinK

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #81 on: January 17, 2011, 05:47:15 PM »

MagnetoSound wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 13:12

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 20:47

I left a key factor out of this post. That is the rise time associated with transients in analog tape. Analog tape rounds off sharp transients and to some this is a fault and to others, a feature.



Yes, I think this is key to why analog sounds more 'friendly'.




But why do those sharp transients not bother me in the real world, or when tracking & listening to the source in the control room, but only during playback from a digital recording?  I think it's more than just the softening of transients with analog, it's something with (non-DSD) digital that makes those transients sound overly harsh or unnatural.
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Bill Mueller

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #82 on: January 17, 2011, 09:40:46 PM »

DarinK wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 17:47

MagnetoSound wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 13:12

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 20:47

I left a key factor out of this post. That is the rise time associated with transients in analog tape. Analog tape rounds off sharp transients and to some this is a fault and to others, a feature.



Yes, I think this is key to why analog sounds more 'friendly'.




But why do those sharp transients not bother me in the real world, or when tracking & listening to the source in the control room, but only during playback from a digital recording?  I think it's more than just the softening of transients with analog, it's something with (non-DSD) digital that makes those transients sound overly harsh or unnatural.


Darin,

The best we can do is to develop as many objective parameters for a qualitative experience valuation as possible. That way when something perceptual changes, we can isolate the cause experimentally and have a hope of correcting it. In the last forty years of digital audio, objective evaluation techniques have become extremely accurate, down to the minutest measurements of jitter.

However, there are no objective parameters to describe why phase and amplitude accurate peak signals sound "bad" to you from digital and smeared, laggy peaks from analog tape sounds "good".

Bill
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"Don't take it personally. But this shit is a science." J.J.Blair

“The Internet is only a means of communication,” he wrote. “It is not an amorphous extraterrestrial body with an entitlement to norms that run counter to the fundamental principles of human rights. There is nothing in the criminal or civil law which legalizes that which is otherwise illegal simply because the transaction takes place over the Internet.” Irish judge, Peter Charleton

rankus

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #83 on: January 17, 2011, 09:57:07 PM »

faganking wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 11:29




compasspnt wrote on Sun, 04 July 2010 10:44

Yesterday I was with a couple of teenagers when they got their photos back from the 4 Hour Photo shop.

They had bought one of those cardboard Kodak cameras with the real film inside.

The first thing one of them said was "Yuk, I hate film, it just doesn't look real."




In conversation with my 25 year old daughter (aspiring to become an engineer), the subject of "warmer" analog recordings came up.  Her response was: "god your guys older recordings are so "spiky" they hurt my ears. I really like how our modern stuff is so smooth".

"Better" is all in the perception IMO

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mgod

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #84 on: January 17, 2011, 10:09:40 PM »

rankus wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 18:57

In conversation with my 25 year old daughter (aspiring to become an engineer), the subject of "warmer" analog recordings came up.  Her response was: "god your guys older recordings are so "spiky" they hurt my ears. I really like how our modern stuff is so smooth".

"Better" is all in the perception IMO.

There may be an important age and gender factor here. Younger ears, female ears.

I have a lot to say about contemporary digital recording, but won't. My pal Bill and I would wrangle about it pointlessly. If, however, I could figure out a way for him to hear a Memory Player, then we might have a real conversation in which I'd learn and not just tilt at  windmills.
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Bill Mueller

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #85 on: January 17, 2011, 10:24:28 PM »

mgod wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 22:09

rankus wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 18:57

In conversation with my 25 year old daughter (aspiring to become an engineer), the subject of "warmer" analog recordings came up.  Her response was: "god your guys older recordings are so "spiky" they hurt my ears. I really like how our modern stuff is so smooth".

"Better" is all in the perception IMO.

There may be an important age and gender factor here. Younger ears, female ears.

I have a lot to say about contemporary digital recording, but won't. My pal Bill and I would wrangle about it pointlessly. If, however, I could figure out a way for him to hear a Memory Player, then we might have a real conversation in which I'd learn and not just tilt at  windmills.

Hey Dan,

Next time I'm in your neighborhood. I promise. BTW, Ruby Friedman played in town last night. You MUST check out this band live!

So here is an odd thing. I don't mix in Pro Tools. I use a Yamaha digital console and MX2424. Tonight I did a back up of some songs through my console and into PT (no conversions, just straight through digi). For some reason, the back up tracks, that should be identical in every way to the MX tracks, back through two inputs on the console sound BAD! Everything is synced perfectly, no extra processing, identical procedures for every track, etc, etc. But when I play them back, IN THE BOX, it's like they lost all their beauty. Really odd.

There may be sumthing (pun) to this ITB thing.

Bill
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“The Internet is only a means of communication,” he wrote. “It is not an amorphous extraterrestrial body with an entitlement to norms that run counter to the fundamental principles of human rights. There is nothing in the criminal or civil law which legalizes that which is otherwise illegal simply because the transaction takes place over the Internet.” Irish judge, Peter Charleton

Tidewater

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #86 on: January 17, 2011, 11:31:09 PM »

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 15:47


I left a key factor out of this post. That is the rise time associated with transients in analog tape. Analog tape rounds off sharp transients and to some this is a fault and to others, a feature.

Bill



You don't lose points. It was a stipulation from my previous response about the hyperreality brashness.

Yeah, I got your back. Post with confidence. lol
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Tidewater

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #87 on: January 17, 2011, 11:53:34 PM »

DarinK wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 17:47


But why do those sharp transients not bother me in the real world, or when tracking & listening to the source in the control room, but only during playback from a digital recording?  I think it's more than just the softening of transients with analog, it's something with (non-DSD) digital that makes those transients sound overly harsh or unnatural.




You compensate, that's why it isn't driving you crazy. You record a good sound that you hear, and there it is.

In the real world, your ears are tape, just like tape.
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Silvertone

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #88 on: January 18, 2011, 07:09:57 AM »

Bill Mueller wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 21:24

mgod wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 22:09

rankus wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 18:57

In conversation with my 25 year old daughter (aspiring to become an engineer), the subject of "warmer" analog recordings came up.  Her response was: "god your guys older recordings are so "spiky" they hurt my ears. I really like how our modern stuff is so smooth".

"Better" is all in the perception IMO.

There may be an important age and gender factor here. Younger ears, female ears.

I have a lot to say about contemporary digital recording, but won't. My pal Bill and I would wrangle about it pointlessly. If, however, I could figure out a way for him to hear a Memory Player, then we might have a real conversation in which I'd learn and not just tilt at  windmills.

Hey Dan,

Next time I'm in your neighborhood. I promise. BTW, Ruby Friedman played in town last night. You MUST check out this band live!

So here is an odd thing. I don't mix in Pro Tools. I use a Yamaha digital console and MX2424. Tonight I did a back up of some songs through my console and into PT (no conversions, just straight through digi). For some reason, the back up tracks, that should be identical in every way to the MX tracks, back through two inputs on the console sound BAD! Everything is synced perfectly, no extra processing, identical procedures for every track, etc, etc. But when I play them back, IN THE BOX, it's like they lost all their beauty. Really odd.

There may be sumthing (pun) to this ITB thing.

Bill



Now Bill, route those tracks from PT's back to the MX2424 and see if they don't sound "good" or the same again.

I get this when working with different software... in the end everything nulls fine. If you import the tracks into the the platforms that sound different from one another, then on playback they do sound different... route the material back to the original source and they sound the same.

Fist discovery of how much PT's changed the sound (on playback only mind you... all the bits are the same)  was when I got a Sonic System about 12 years back.  Talk about a sound difference.  Then later while working in Neuendo everything sounded different as well.  I can play back all 3 systems through the same converters and even a lay person can hear the difference.

I've done enough tests over the years to know that once it hits the physical medium (CD, DVD, iPod) everything sounds the same (and will null the same).  The consumer playback D/A converters will vary more than the software (platform) does so in my mind (as long as all the bits are there) it's a moot point in digital land.

I can only guess that the "coding" must be different in these programs and that is what cause them to sound slightly different... I speak from ignorance here as I haven't done any programming since my college days.
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Larry DeVivo
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Silvertone

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Re: analog trade-offs
« Reply #89 on: January 18, 2011, 07:15:10 AM »

Tidewater wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 22:53

DarinK wrote on Mon, 17 January 2011 17:47


But why do those sharp transients not bother me in the real world, or when tracking & listening to the source in the control room, but only during playback from a digital recording?  I think it's more than just the softening of transients with analog, it's something with (non-DSD) digital that makes those transients sound overly harsh or unnatural.




You compensate, that's why it isn't driving you crazy. You record a good sound that you hear, and there it is.

In the real world, your ears are tape, just like tape.



This is what I was talking about  when I said the brain compensates for it. It's in your minds "ear" as well.

Read the book "This is Your Brain on Music"... our minds filter out so much junk in a day we are not even aware of it... and it would drive us insane if we were aware of it Very Happy
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Larry DeVivo
Silvertone Mastering, Inc.
PO Box 4582
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
www.silvertonemastering.com
To see some of our work please click on any of the visual trailer montages located at... http://robertetoll.com/  (all music and sound effects were mastered by Silvertone Mastering).
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