I go to San Francisco State and am about to work on a paper comparing analog recording to the newer digital recording options. I was wondering for those of you who have recorded with both which do you prefer? Pros & cons? Personal opinions on digital vs. analog? If you want to comment and you have only worked with digital recording that is cool too. Any input would be helpful.
Digital Audio Opinion
- Thread starter SPOOK2517
- Start date
Personally, I like using both. I prefer to record the material in the digital realm (through nice sounding converters.) Once recorded I prefer to M.I.B (mix in the box), but if the lab I'm working out of has some nice outboard gear (like a distressor) I may buss the drum mix to that and back into the system. Once the mix is complete its off to 2 track tape. The size of the tape and ip's depend on the music, but I've only done 30 ips a handful of times. After the material has been dumped its flown back in the digital realm for more processing or saved as a 24 bit file for mastering. The reason others and myself use analog tape is for the harmonic distortion, the bump in the low end frequencies and the rolloff that may be gained. Also the "SPLAT" that comes with it is considered a good thing. In addition, digital audio can achieve the same (or similar) sound to analog. You can probably get close or good sounding results with plugins (the MCDSP plugins are good), but if you can lower the noise floor and increase the transient response (in the analog stage), increase the dynamic range of the converters (in both stages if need be), and use a low-jitter, high masterclock rate you should have similar if not better sounding results than tape.
The pros and cons come down to price and ease of use. It is easier to edit the material in the digital environment as opposed to actually cutting the tape and making edits. With digital your fidelity is not decreased by constantly playing it back (as opposed to analog tape), but you can have a decrease in fidelity by using too many plugins or putting a lot of hot tracks through the summing buss. Also, when recording to tape, you have to pay HEAD RENTAL FEE'S. Some spots charge $60-200 per session, but I've seen some spots charge by the hour (when it comes to head rental fee's.) Also, tape is becoming more and more rare by the minute. If I am not mistaken the main (or only) tape manufacturer in the U.S. has closed down shop, and tape already runs at $100-200 per reel (these numbers are based on tape size, and track count.) The pros of using tape are you are not limited to the 0db range of digital audio. You can record at 3 to 6 db and still sound good. You can even hit 9db. Also you have no quantizing noise with tape and aliasing is not present (because it isn't a sampled source.)
You should be able to pull from this and do a bit more research. If you have any specific questions just ask.
The pros and cons come down to price and ease of use. It is easier to edit the material in the digital environment as opposed to actually cutting the tape and making edits. With digital your fidelity is not decreased by constantly playing it back (as opposed to analog tape), but you can have a decrease in fidelity by using too many plugins or putting a lot of hot tracks through the summing buss. Also, when recording to tape, you have to pay HEAD RENTAL FEE'S. Some spots charge $60-200 per session, but I've seen some spots charge by the hour (when it comes to head rental fee's.) Also, tape is becoming more and more rare by the minute. If I am not mistaken the main (or only) tape manufacturer in the U.S. has closed down shop, and tape already runs at $100-200 per reel (these numbers are based on tape size, and track count.) The pros of using tape are you are not limited to the 0db range of digital audio. You can record at 3 to 6 db and still sound good. You can even hit 9db. Also you have no quantizing noise with tape and aliasing is not present (because it isn't a sampled source.)
You should be able to pull from this and do a bit more research. If you have any specific questions just ask.