Digital Mastering vs Analog Mastering and Recording

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The Bay Area

The Bay Area

Sicc OG
#1
Mar 18, 2008
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Everybody is into digital mastering it seems, but to me it sounds thin. I been trying to figure out the difference between major industry recordings vs home recordings. Proffesional level recordings have depth and warmth against the sub recordings that seem to flatten all the sounds together. I know some may say it depends on the choice of sounds, the way a project is mixed and the way sounds are panned and seperated. Some will point out it is the gear that is being used. You ever go to a club and you listen to the songs and there is a certain level and continuation of quatlity then BAM some local shit comes on and it sound like garbage compared to the rest. Listening to songs from the South and East they have a bigger sound. I hear Bay Area music and it sounds like it lacks quality.

The Bay use to be strong on music quality and New York was strugglin' to catch up. LA was the standard and the Bay was right behind them. At that time people was recording on quarter inch, half inch, and 1 inch reels. You could take the same song and record it on either format and you could hear the difference because of the space on the tape. Digital recording came out and it was easier to edit and work with. But something got lost and that was the warm feel of a song that makes it easy to the ear to listen to. I got limited knowledge on this but they got options in programs that simulate the "analog feel" but it is not the same. Digital mastering costs like $50 a song where anolog costs on or around $250 and up. I been trying to find someone that does analog mastering so I can hear the difference. Everybody I come across says that they only do digital. What would you rather listen to, a movie or a tv.

Let me know if you got any answers for me cause I am not an engineer, producer or musician so some of the stuff I said prob aint on point but I know what I'm hearin' and it aint right.
 
radiostationrep

radiostationrep

Sicc OG
#2
Dec 2, 2006
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it's called having a budget. it costs to produce quality music. most local acts record, mix, and sometimes master there own music or have some young kid from expressions work it. this is what you end up with. to save some money, imo, spend some money on a quality vocal set-up, mic, pre-amp, cpu, record your own vocals and take sessions to get mixed by a PROFFESSIONAL. YOU CANT SOUND LIKE A MAJOR UNLESS YOUR WILLING TO SPEND. it is what is lacking in bay area music.

*Edit* you cant blame them though. i doubt many are making a substantial profit anyway.
 
marty50

marty50

Sicc OG
#3
Jul 6, 2008
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not to get off topic but it sound slike people who say whoopty whoop diffrence between the sound of lp vinyl and cd.

they say lp vinyl has that warmth to it, that electronic air that you cant get on cd.

analog and digital will vary by the ear. and whehter or not the listener cares enough that it is in analog or digital.

it sounds alot like how you can choose to listen to an mp3 at the best 320 mps or low quality 160 mps.

like i said depends on how bad you want to lsiten to the quality of tracks. or what you want your fans to hear.

personally, id try and give them near to the best i can, as long as its affordable for the artist.

ive tried home recordings, but there is only so much you can do to reduce the surrounding noise without compromising the sound of the recording itself. you do want the recording itself to be in a vacuum like state without giving in to losing that recordings sound.

id say do your best tracks on analog, like your best 2-3 songs analog. and then the rest jsut do them digital.
 
niguardian

niguardian

Sicc OG
#4
Aug 6, 2008
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usually if u can fuck wit all that good ol analog shit u got money, specially tape and tape machines n etc... it does got a unique sound tho like that original shit we all grew up on, thats why all that classic oldschool westcoast shit sounds good kuz they was sellin and actually had money lol

but honestly if u got talent and not to mention some knowledge about the whole recordin situatioin u can make anything sound good or sound how u want it to, but it aint the same and for the most part the fans dont know the difference anyway
 
DJ_JG

DJ_JG

Sicc OG
#5
Apr 5, 2008
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lol mastering in mainstream songs aint always the best either.. the reason for lower quality local songs could be the DJ only being able to get a lower quality of the song (like if the track never came out officially, was only online) but your right, the majority of local artists dont spend enough money getting it mixed and mastered. In my opinion its mostly mix problems, sometimes beat/sound problems. Mastering these days in hiphop is just crushing the whole track to make it loud.
 
niguardian

niguardian

Sicc OG
#6
Aug 6, 2008
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#6
thats also a reason why music sounds shitty these days cause anybody can go record at they homeboys house on some cheap ass bootsy ass pro rools setup

back in the day u really had 2 try to get in a studio so that meant u had 2 have bread for it which meant u had 2 be serious about it and not tryna be all half ass cause time was money and not anybody could just go earn the blessing 2 record music whenever they wanted

so when they got the chance it was all or nothin
 
niguardian

niguardian

Sicc OG
#7
Aug 6, 2008
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#7
DJ_JG said:
lol mastering in mainstream songs aint always the best either..
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thats real shit, it depends on the mastering engineer himself and who mixed it down in the first place too, they actually gotta care about it or just be talented which most people dont/arent now days
 
C

City Situation

Sicc OG
#8
Oct 21, 2006
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#8
marty50 said:
not to get off topic but it sound slike people who say whoopty whoop diffrence between the sound of lp vinyl and cd.

they say lp vinyl has that warmth to it, that electronic air that you cant get on cd.
Click to expand...
yeah i agree there is a difference between vinyl and cd, but im saying you dont need to analog master to match the quality of professional mainstream songs.. you should still pay a professional to do it
 
niguardian

niguardian

Sicc OG
#9
Aug 6, 2008
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#9
yep the bottom line is if u wanna do music go really try 2 learn somethin about it dont try 2 put out no half ass industry wannabe fake buhhshit

i done heard so many cheap ass fruity loop beats wit loud ass peakin ass shitty ass vocals over em that wasnt mixed worth a damn let alone mastered over the last few years it aint even funny
 
A

Artistic

Sicc OG
#12
Dec 29, 2008
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#12
this is actually a very interesting topic

never really heard noone even mention analog since the digital revolution

i used to record on analog and im gonna listen to those old recordings versus some newer recordings to see if i can hear a difference

i remember having to come to the studio with reels
 
GHP

GHP

Sicc OG
#13
Jul 21, 2002
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#13
if you have the right gear and a person who knows what hes doing you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an analog or digitally mastered song. ALot of big budget projects are all digital too nowadays. Most studios run a combination of both digital and analog gear. Ultimatly its always going to be on digital media, anyways 90% of everything is mastered to an Alesis Masterlink in a professional studio. It may have been tracked through a neve, api or and SSL to 2 inch tape through all kinds of expensive processors etc but when it comes to being put to disc it almost always goes to one of those.
 
The Bay Area

The Bay Area

Sicc OG
#14
Mar 18, 2008
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#14
The use of the A-dat tape was the inbetween revolution that I realy didn't get a gage on before it went out the door. I never compared A-dat against reel to reel recordings and I forgot if A-dats tapes had variations as far as quarter inch, half inch, or 1 inch tapes. Using A-dats was less expensive than reel to reel but as soon as digital came everybody threw the A-dats out the window. I remeber seein' the classified section and people was sellin' they Dats like crazy.
 
encho20

encho20

Sicc OG
#15
Mar 13, 2007
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#15
SteadyMobbin said:
Dont go to some half assed prick who's gonna compress the shit out of your song. lol
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That's true shit right there.Compression can make or break your song;done right it can bring out the subtleties of the sounds in a song and done wrong it will sound like someone is turning the volume up and down in the song(that might be a preference if that's the kind of effect you're going for. Alot of times,Good Eq'ing will make your songs sound high quality and warm without resorting to compression.
 
encho20

encho20

Sicc OG
#16
Mar 13, 2007
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#16
And I think the reason analog mastering sounds warmer is because most of the quality of the song is retained while in digital mastering there is quality loss. I remember reading somewhere that when you rip a cd to mp3s,it loses 70% of its quality.If you ever have the same song thats been ripped from a real pressed cd in mp3 and in WAV,the wav version will sound better because it retained more information of the original source,which is the cd. The original pressed cd will always sound better than mp3s or WAV files
 
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