You can say that again. Imagine how train-wrecked this thread is that instead of my typical silly joke I wrote a serious post!!
Don't remember last time...

 

It's not about the hardware.

No. It takes real musicians playing real instruments in a real room recorded with real microphones. It's also about the songs, arrangements and performance style.

If you want your music to sound like it was recorded in the 50s you need to write, play and record it like they did in the 50s.

The studio equipment itself is essentially irrelevant. Don't use modern techniques, cut the highs, add some saturation and you are more or less good to go. More CPU power and ever more accurate hardware emulations are not what put you over the top.

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2021

I'm no expert but I personally think most of a good sound comes from the musician nailing their part and the sound engineer knowing how to use the tools they have. Aside from that, I do believe that digital will match and surpass analog. Analog has been around for a very long time and digital is still in its relative infancy. I think we'll eventually have a black box modeling program that you hook up any piece of analog gear and turn all the knobs and switches through their combinations and it will emulate that gear perfectly. Like a Kemper profile but instead of a snapshot it will remain true even when you change the settings. The same program could copy tube amps, rack gear, pedals, compressors, eq, etc. Then we go from modeling marshall jcm 800's to modeling zakk wyldes specific jcm 800. We talk about each piece of analog gear being unique and the future of modeling will begin to include specific pieces of gear being modeled for that very reason. Or model the same piece of gear on different days with different weather, temperatures and altitudes, etc like how people say the same amp can sound different with the same settings on different nights on tour. When you can perfectly model anything then we will be truly spoiled for choice and have dozens of models of the same gear type, with the very rare and legendary pieces of gear being what is in demand. At some point, digital will eclipse analog completely. I'm a tube lover myself but it's not hard to see that this tech is still new and has nothing to do but improve as it matures.

 

Since the time Waves started what they do, I wouldn't say 20+ years is new...

 

(Sorry I couldn't resist.. lol
I actually like some of their stuff, like the classic VEQ, H-series stuff, or Aphex exciter..)

 

Waves being 20yo, and still being considered "Modern" is an interesting topic tho..

By the 90's, all the 70's tech stuff was considered Old (I guess),
while the 50's-60's was already Vintage?

I guess in modern times technological advancement has slowed down considerably,
and from the 2000's on we're kinda always on the same page, just better/more efficiently written..?

 

Well yeah, they were a good company.
VEQ I've used for like all my life! haha.
Well, it seems like it but it's what...20 years now?
And H-Delay I love too.

Logic and Cubase being 28 and 30 years old, and mixing desks being 60+ years old, is an interesting...oh, wait...!
lol
You know what I mean, I'm sure?

 

It is still new in comparison to analog. Just imagine if we were where analog equipment was 20 years into its existence...it would be like the stone age. Look how far analog came after its first 20 years. Then apply that amount of innovation to digital. Except digital isn't bound by the limits of analog so there will be more accomplished with it as the tech matures than analog did. It's like comparing a car from the 1930s to a car today. Digital is still in its own "1930's" period with decades of improvements to come.

 

I did that before I responded, actually!
That's the kind of guy I am.
And I knew you might say this! (Even though we are not just 20 years into it)
But Moore's Law kind of doesn't need to equate for this!
Everything is relative, my friend.
Your analogue revolution story doesn't compare to the digital revolution story.
We've known the maths for much longer, and have been able to convolve things since before 20 years ago too.
The transistor changed everything. And was constantly refined too.
Silicon was being researched in the early 50's, and then we had the first silicon transistor.
Now, we have the chips and the understanding, and the digital path regards the consumer is already cut out.
It has been a very different progression. You must be able to see that?

I don't see it like that.
Digital 1930s, or perhaps more electronic 1930s, was 1969, moon landing. Or 1959, the Russians!

I don't think that's relevant considering how much quicker the digital timeline has been.
And they are both two totally different things.

The first computer was in 1946...
75 years ago...

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2021

So are you saying that digital isn't going to improve much because it's timeline has been fast and it is already near its peak? If so, I would disagree. If not, then I'm not sure if you're arguing or agreeing with me

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2021

So you agree with me apart from you think we're only 20 years into it.
And no, I'm not saying it is already near its peak either. But it is possible we already know its limitations and are working with them.
I'm saying it can't be gauged simply against another path of technology which occurred in a different time.
It is a different beast.

No. You said that.

 

Btw I just found out about this Airwindows Console7 thing..

"If you don’t already know what Console is: it’s the Airwindows digital mix buss.
You put the channel plugin on every channel, feeding directly (at unity gain) into the 2-buss where the buss plugin lives.
It applies saturation and anti-saturation functions so that, for individual sounds, there is no change, but when there’s two signals interfering with each other,
it makes the channels saturate easier if the buss’s ‘input impedance’ is fluctuating based on other signals coming in."

(and yes the demo music sounds horrid/off.. lol)

Tryin it out atm, but I donno,
at zero boost I'm not really hearing the effect..

It must be doing something tho because the Buss track CPU usage increases by 2%..
Will be checking it out the following days..

(Oh, and Cascade is the newer high gain version of the channel..)


Btw on the same Summing topic..
Having tried the Waves NLS, I certainly preferred the Mike/EMI model over the SLL or Neve,
although it didn't really convince me for the stuff I'm working on..

Also correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems Softube Console doesn't do any actual Summing,
just Channel Control and Modelling/variation..

 

Last edited: Oct 1, 2021

Good!
You are very late to the game!

Don't let Chris hear you say that! lol

 

@Buhdurkachomp @Smoove Grooves
You are both right. To send another analogy into the race: Digital is celebrating its sweet 16. it is no longer a child, but not yet an adult. It is just learning to drive a car, to perform tasks independently, and to reproduce itself. But as parents, we still hold its hand and make the final decisions. Soon it will give us a lot of headache, because our child will learn to suppress its gag reflex, go out with different partners and make our lives hell.

 

Well.. it's actually good music/notes/ideas,
but played with the Loosest and worse Timing I heard in decades.. lol

 

Andrew Scheps - experienced? - absolutely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Scheps

For those who might benefit from making some adjustments to their inexperienced perspectives
Andrew Scheps on Analogue vs Digital

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M5aEC3-ACQ

Sections of the video...
- Thoughts on getting an audio education
- Thoughts on analog versus digital debate
- Thoughts on mixing on a console versus mixing in the box
- Learning how to make better mix decisions

With so many sane (and mostly obvious) comments from Andrew Scheps, all based on intelligent real experience and real respect for the craft of audio engineering, his gem comment that just states the bleedingly obvious is this one...
"The only thing that matters is what comes out of the speakers and nobody who buys that record is going to know or care what it’s mixed on"

With my biased personal translation - I think his main message overall amounts to this...
"of course audio engineering is fabulous but you are recording music so get a sense of perspective on what really matters"

and all the geeky toys - (which I love) are at the bottom of the list of what really matters.

 

Agreed! lol
I think he looks like an amphet freak, myself...

 

I'm not saying we are 20 years into it, i was using 20 as an example to convey a point, so take the precise number and insert it there if you like. And the first computer being made that far back doesn't mean anything. We didn't really start modeling audio equipment until rather recently. I'm saying that analog is closer to reaching its limits than digital is. Most people say that a Kemper can get very close to a real amp. I'm suggesting that the process can still be improved and used towards other equipment besides amps. Eventually to the point where we can't tell the difference. Most people already have trouble in blind tests with the Kemper

 

back in vintage times nobody put 20 vintage effects on each of the 200 tracks like people try to do today.

back in vintage times people had 3 compressors, 2 reverbs, and a 12-track tape recorder.

this is a setup you can reproduce with a processor somewhere between pentium 4 and coreduo 1 GHz