Quote:
Originally Posted by dubrichie  alrighty,
could the widely held "belief" that tape (and indeed analog anything in general, but primarily tape) sounds "better" than digital be understood as tape hiss (or similar analog HF noise) acting upon us like some sort of "bias" signal?
it occurred to me a while ago when tracking an acoustic tune with a band all live in the room together. i left the mics on the lead guitar amp open and recorded them as extra room mics as it was not being used on this number.
when i forwarded these channels i found it very nice to have the amp hiss in the mix. i kept it low, but it's there and it's nice. you don't notice it, but it seems to add "air" to the mix, to "lift" it somehow. i won't say that it added "dimension", more that it seemed to enhance it.
so, what about that tape hiss then?
could it be "biasing" our auditory system in some way? |
It's one piece of the equation. There's also compression, softening of the highs, saturation not to mention the additional iron in the transformer based units like the Ampex's.