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Kiwiburger · 4th April 2006

"Digital has the potential to be the cleanest means of record and playback we have ever had." followed by "The idea that digital is "accurate" or "perfect" or "precise" is a joke... If you think it is, you have been reading to many digidesign papers..."

What happened there?

Actually - I do very much agree that Digital should be perfected as digital. Any attempts at making digital sound more analog should be kept seperate as an optional effect. But if they sound good, why shouldn't we use them?

I'm an ITB guy (for now anyway). And I often see the OTB guys stating that as soon as they run their mix through an analog summing box, the results are instant and obvious and so much better. I'm just trying to get my head around why the hell this should be.

Forget tape - these guys are using Protools or whatever. They just seem to like analog summing. WHy? We know there is more noise? Noise - meh! We know there is more distortion - ok, distortion I can dig.

But these guys say its "greater depth" and "greater stereo seperation"? What causes that? Or do you think I could sell these guys the Eiffel Tower and some snake oil to keep it from squeaking?

I had just never though much about the "spacious" effect of having dissimilar left/right signals - because analog stuff is never perfect - there are tolerances. My crappy Mackie mixer makes a mono sample sound slightly stereo - it's not just my ears, it's because of this analog characteristic.

The exact argument that analog has vasty more shades of decibels than digital is exactly my point here. A temperature change in the room will affect analog - not digital.

When your switch or pan your analog signal to Centre - there is no way it will be exactly the same either side - because of this ininitely variable analogness. (Regardless of whether you pan or switch - an analog path is a stream of electrons with brownian movement and all sorts of random fuzziness). If you have 12 tracks panned centre, none of them will be panned exactly the same, toi the nearest electron. Not possible.

With digital - the software simply copies exactly the same audio stream to both sides - there is mathematically zero difference between each side. And if you have 12 tracks panned centre, they will get the same treatment. Exactly the same.

Our ears and brains can pick up on subtle differences. I don't think that sort of difference is particularly subtle.

It's just an idea - forget it.

4th April 2006	#17
Kiwiburger Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2006 Posts: 4,075 Thread Starter	"Digital has the potential to be the cleanest means of record and playback we have ever had." followed by "The idea that digital is "accurate" or "perfect" or "precise" is a joke... If you think it is, you have been reading to many digidesign papers..." What happened there? Actually - I do very much agree that Digital should be perfected as digital. Any attempts at making digital sound more analog should be kept seperate as an optional effect. But if they sound good, why shouldn't we use them? I'm an ITB guy (for now anyway). And I often see the OTB guys stating that as soon as they run their mix through an analog summing box, the results are instant and obvious and so much better. I'm just trying to get my head around why the hell this should be. Forget tape - these guys are using Protools or whatever. They just seem to like analog summing. WHy? We know there is more noise? Noise - meh! We know there is more distortion - ok, distortion I can dig. But these guys say its "greater depth" and "greater stereo seperation"? What causes that? Or do you think I could sell these guys the Eiffel Tower and some snake oil to keep it from squeaking? I had just never though much about the "spacious" effect of having dissimilar left/right signals - because analog stuff is never perfect - there are tolerances. My crappy Mackie mixer makes a mono sample sound slightly stereo - it's not just my ears, it's because of this analog characteristic. The exact argument that analog has vasty more shades of decibels than digital is exactly my point here. A temperature change in the room will affect analog - not digital. When your switch or pan your analog signal to Centre - there is no way it will be exactly the same either side - because of this ininitely variable analogness. (Regardless of whether you pan or switch - an analog path is a stream of electrons with brownian movement and all sorts of random fuzziness). If you have 12 tracks panned centre, none of them will be panned exactly the same, toi the nearest electron. Not possible. With digital - the software simply copies exactly the same audio stream to both sides - there is mathematically zero difference between each side. And if you have 12 tracks panned centre, they will get the same treatment. Exactly the same. Our ears and brains can pick up on subtle differences. I don't think that sort of difference is particularly subtle. It's just an idea - forget it.