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Originally Posted by lucey
Have you ever used a great tape deck? and a great digital machine in the same day?
Sure thing but I have not used a Radar or a Apogee 16X next to analog and I have not used a peice of gear digital gear that will come out in 3 years either, that does not say the gear released 3 years from now is not going to be as good or better then analog.
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What "tape snobs" ? More like gluttons for punishment! Name one tape lover who has been a snob?
Come on man, do a search here on Gearslutz. There are people who talk like a good sounding record can't be made on anything but a Studer or 3m and they talk about digital like it is some bastard step child. I say snob (and stand by it) is when a preson can not get past the fact that good music and good sounding products can be made on both mediums. They are just tools, an end to a means no more no less but some people can't get past that. Not you maybe not Drumsound but there are plently of people here on this board and in the industry.
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Albini is almost a snob but not really, just thinks digital is a dangerous place to store the work.
And look, when you say " tape" .... it's not one sound ... there are a bunch of machines and a bunch of sounds, some suck ...
Obviously, I have been at this a pretty long time and have used plenty of good and not so good analog.
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but I agree with Drumsound, you WONT copy the best sounding analog with any digital.
You know when my dad was a kid back in the 20's he told me that he and his friends used to laugh at the idea of going to the moon. First hand account here, he and his friends laughed because not only could it never be done just the
idea was so far fetched that no reasonable person would think it was anything but a joke.....
Hummm.....
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The main difference is the lack of 1 and 0s! Once you have turned what Neve called a "perfectly good sine wave" into an integer, you have a different quallity of sound and no digital multitrack will ever sound like my MM1200 at 15 ips tweaked to my taste.
Okay I am not picking a fight but this is a classic example of the snobbery that I spoke of above.
In the end we are really just talking about a wave form that is reproduced by a flexible membrane better known as a speaker. That is what I hear, you too, the speaker creates the sound.
Everything behind that is getting the positive and negative voltage swings to the membrane and everything that happens before that membrane goes into making up the voltage fluctuations that produce what we hear.
In the end what matters is what comes out of the speaker not how it got there. If I can copy the voltage swings that sound like a MM1200 with a digital or analog device then what do I care.
We might not be at that point now but, unless you have a time machine that I don't know about, no one knows if we will in the future including you.
It is short sighted and elitist to just assume nothing can
ever touch the holy lamb of analog tape.
If we do end up with a tape emulation system of some sort some time down the road that can pass a quality double blind test it is snobbish and close minded to not admit that digital caught up with tape.
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There is an eq curve that's often up 1db at 110hz and up 1/2 db sloping from 3k to 13k with a 8 to 10k peak and 20 k rolll off.
You point would be... we can't ever make an EQ curve to match this including the phase anomalies?? I would love to take a ride in that time machine if you would let me.
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There are bias distortions and tape comressions unique to the tape brand and the set up and the VARYING level that cannot be reproduced with formulae.
This is what I have been saying is wrong with your argument. To be accurate your quote should read, "There are bias distortions and tape comressions unique to the tape brand and the set up and the VARYING level that cannot be reproduced with EXESTING formulae." There is a huge difference between this statement and yours.
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There is Class A Ampex and Otari and Studer in between. Stephens with it's massive levels and unique head design. All different audio paths.
Again your point would be???
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There are non-linearities TRACK TO TRACK no matter how hard you try that make for diversity of tone and a wider image ... track 3 tracks of analog and 3 diigtal, pan L,C, R and you'll hear it.
And there is that pervasive LACK of 2 conversions, out of and back to reality.
I use a $17,000 Pacific Mastering AD DA everyday, and I have an ATR 102 1/2" and a tweaked Ampex 2" and there is NO WAY that digital will ever sound like analog tape technology from 1983 with any processing going on.
Speculation and opnion NOT FACT. Sorry again you do not have a time machine.
If I am not burned out by this inane conversation I will post more latter.... This is now a ridiculous thread that started off talking about what aprears to be a great tool for some of us.