Did they call it analog before there was digital?

[dannygold]

Did they call it analog before there was digital?

[tINY]

I suppose not. But "analog" goes back to the 50's. They called op-amp circuits "analog computers" in some cases. It was easier to make up a circuit that had the "analog" of another probelm they were working on. They'd set it up and measure the voltages and currents rather than take days to crunch numbers...




-tINY

[kafka]

They called it electronic recording, to distinguish it from mechanical.

[dbbubba]

The way people talked about recoding equipment prior to digital is exactly like how they talk about the same equipment today except it wasn't being compared to digital.

People talked about discreet electronics, 5534 based electronics, TLO72 based electronics and tube based electronics.
There were the same arguments, but the subjects at hand were different.

Digital just added another log to an existing fire.

[Tibbon]

Then again, they probably didn't rave about every piece of equipment giving "t00b warmness" or everything being "phat". At times getting a great S/N ratio and dealing with multiple bounces was likely an issue.

[AllAboutTone]

I called it good ole 2 in, tape.

[vernier]

Analog circuits have been around since 1800's, and still being developed today, even in top military.
'

[PRobb]

"Analog recording" is an example of a retronym.

retronym

noun
a word introduced because an existing term has become inadequate; "Nobody ever heard of analog clocks until digital clocks became common, so 'analog clock' is a retronym"

There used to be just "guitars". Then someone built one with steel strings, so what used to be a guitar was now a "nylon (or gut) string guitar". Then someone invented pickups and plugged it in, so we needed the term "accoustic guitar". Before the electric guitar existed there was no need for the term accoustic guitar. All guitars were accoustic.

"Black and white TV" and "silent movie" are other examples.


How do you refer to your "2D Television"?

[Mr.HOLMES]

This reminds me to a question what I had several weeks on my mind.
Who of you can explain the working-principle of an analogue desk?

[tINY]

I can.



-tINY

[vernier]

Analog modulation is mentioned with Hedy Lamarr's spread-spectrum invention in 1941.


'

[moracspace]

Same here.Il work up a PDF

[Mr.HOLMES]

As someone who learned the shit only with plastic Plug Ins and a DAW I would be very interested in the basics how a mixing desk is working. What it does with the signals etc.

If you work out a basic explanation I think it would bring up forward many younger people here for which the term analogue is more far away.

Andreas

[allencollins]

analog and digital have been around for longer than humans. We just discovered it a few hundred years ago and started designing things based on the analog or digitial 'paradigm' if you will........ if you please........ BLAH

A frikkin light bulb is analog. Bell's first phone was analog. Who knows if cave men performed some discrete binary math and used 'digits' to represent values ?

I mean digital circuitry similar to what is used today has been around since the 40's I used to work at a place called MIT Research and they still had old engineering drawings of a computer they built in the 50's It took up a chassis the size of a small home but it was 100% digital atleast in its processing. IT was analog components/circuits performing 'digital' calculations I guess you could say. Sure 100% silicon digital circuitry is only as old as an ion implanter but the calculations were performed 100% in the digital domain back in the 40's/50's.

Analog circuits as we know today have been around for almost 100 years. I mean tube radios and valve amplifiers are coming up on 100 years old. The first sliderule computer/calculator that used 'digital' was a
invented/discovered 100 years ago if not more.

I mean even the computer your sitting in front of right now is part analog. The Keyboard? The Mouse? If you have a CRT it's analog. Your pc speakers are analog as is your fan, power supply and the switch to turn on your computer probably. All the cables in and out unless there are lightlinks they are analog. Your Hardisk is mostly analog and mechanical of course. The i/o of your A/D D/A is analog.

[PRobb]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

As someone who learned the shit only with plastic Plug Ins and a DAW I would be very interested in the basics how a mixing desk is working. What it does with the signals etc.

If you work out a basic explanation I think it would bring up forward many younger people here for which the term analogue is more far away.

Andreas

Working on an analog desk requires you to learn gain structure and signal flow. They both exist in DAWs, they are just not as obvious. But understanding them absolutely helps you get the best results from a DAW.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Originally Posted by PRobb

Working on an analog desk requires you to learn gain structure and signal flow. They both exist in DAWs, they are just not as obvious. But understanding them absolutely helps you get the best results from a DAW.

May this is the reason why I am asking.
Have been working for years with a DAW but never asked for waht is behind the curtains.

Any books on consoles and explaining waht is going on in them???

[jamsmith]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

This reminds me to a question what I had several weeks on my mind.
Who of you can explain the working-principle of an analogue desk?

Me, too

[jamsmith]

No, but digital has been around since before the transistor so its nothing new.

[adathead 53]

We didn't call it analog. Nor did we call the records vinyl-it was either an album or a single (A.K.A. 45's). The first records I listened to weren't called mono, because stereo recordings hadn't caught on yet. God, do I feel old. The only constant (and all that really matters in the end) is that it's still music. And I, for one, can't imagine how meaningless life would be without it, regardless of the methods and equipment used to reproduce it.

[kafka]

Originally Posted by PRobb

"Analog recording" is an example of a retronym.

Hey, I learned a new word today - and a particularly cool one at that.

[T_R_S]

it was called a Tape Recorder because it was recorded on tape before than there were wire recorders (Steel magnetized wire) Then before that there was acoustic recorders disc electric disc recorders and mic's did not happen until the late 1920's.

[under the fridge]

Wow were you guys also there when the Pope was still just a Christian?

[PRobb]

Originally Posted by kafka

Hey, I learned a new word today - and a particularly cool one at that.

Glad to be of service.

There will be a quiz on Friday.

[vernier]

The term "analog" might have first showed up in the 90's in Mix magazine.
'

[Empire Prod]

Why do old people smell weird?

[travisbrown]

"Digital" (or forms thereof) has been used with more or less the same meaning in English for 500 years. Digital just means something is represented by segmented or discrete units: i.e. samples or. As soon as sound was represented or theorized as discrete units, it was called digital de facto. It wasn't a nouveau term though.

You could say that celluloid filmstrip isn't analogue; it's digital. The frames are samples over time. The individual frames of that film, though, are analogue representations of whatever has been exposed to them in that they are continuous tone rather than graduations. One may even say that any plucked or hammered instruments are more digital in nature (decay aside) and bowed or aspirated instruments are more truly analogue.

Analogue simply means that something is represented by continuous quantity or position like the continuous but variable voltage in an analogue gear or . A clock could have hands but still be called digital if the hands snapped through the increments rather than crept through them at a constant rate.

So to attempt to answer your question, physicists and engineers may have specified sound or devices that processed/transmitted it as analogue simply because it accurately described the nature of the signal conversion from mechanical to electrical.

Laymen and audio "engineers", for lack of differentiation, probably wouldn't have. There wasn't any need to.

So if you write, "Did they call it analog before there was digital?", it really depends on who and what you are talking about.

I'm in my mid-thirties and sort of got into this game at when digital was still a vertical market (though admittedly at the tail end). Digital was not thrown around like it is today; and though analogue was rarely used to refer to a mode of recording, it was sometimes used and understood for reasons other than simply differentiating from digital. It was more frequently used by synth programmers, though. Again, not to differentiate from digital but rather because analogue synthesis was precisely that - analogue.

[vernier]

But for sure, in studios back in the 60's 70's and 80's, we never said the word "analog".
'

[dbbubba]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

This reminds me to a question what I had several weeks on my mind.
Who of you can explain the working-principle of an analogue desk?

I can, but I am not going to go into a full explanation of such a deep subject here.

I can't fathom that people don't know stuff like this.

It is the difference in being and engineer and an operator.

[dbbubba]

Originally Posted by Empire Prod

Why do old people smell weird?

You know... I wonder why YOUNG PEOPLE smell weird!

I was in the parking lot of a shopping center today getting into my car and another car with three young (20-ish) kids pulled into a space two cars over from me.
I first noticed that they all three (two girls and one guy) had very stylized hair, trendy clothes and "trendy" sunglasses on.
The next sensation was that I could smell them within seconds.

Not only was it necessary to have angular hair cuts that were dyed and streaked... it was also necessary to wear LOT'S of cologne and perfume.

[Blast9]

LOL, you do remember the 80's don't you dbbubba? Seems nothing has changed

-

Anyway, I have no idea what all this "analog" stuff is, but I've definitely heard of "analogue" - I've been told all the great recordings were analogue once upon a time