So True

 

IMO, analog sound/gear sounds more alive, then again, most people listen to music over shit Spotify compression & Apple shitty headphones, at clubs with a 4 million % volume, etc.
Very VERY few people actually listen to any music in HiFi equipment. I can tell when something is badly mixed/mastered and when it was done over analog instead of digital, but that is because I have trained my ears, and even I sometimes can't tell.
Then again, I rather listen to a vinyl record than mp3 any day of the week, even flac leave some stuff out. But I grew up in the analog age, have my own predilection when it comes to sound being analog.

 

if that were really true, you should inform the dev's.

 

As far as warmth of sound, I was not talking about algorithms.

 

Algorithms approximate their analogue algorithmic analogues. Say it 5x fast.

 

my dyslexia won't help :D

 

You know what's better than talking about analog vs.digital? To actually make music! ;)

 

It's all analog when it reaches your ears.

 

What changed my opinion on this whole debate is Acustica Nebula.

I have limited hardware. Some of you out there probably have limited hardware or are lucky to even have a lot.. But there is a difference between digital and analog. It's different in sound and definitely different in use. When I went from software to hardware, I was wondering why hardware compressors only need a tad bit of compression going on (Kissing the needle) to sound good... software compressors never could reproduce that for me..

But Acustica changed my mind because in a well-treated room I could almost not tell the difference between digital and analog probably most of the time. We know most plugin devs use component-modeling and other calculations to emulate how hardware responds to sound.

Acustica came along and said let us instead just take a picture of how sound is changed, instead of modeling it.. and then imposing that picture on to a sound source... That for me has really made the difference, and I am willing to bet that digital is the future. If Acustica can get things to sound this good, how much longer before they or the next generation of developers come in and creates an even better idea? perhaps make better, more accurate measurement tools, or be able to calculate the algorithm from the snapshots of hardware themselves rather than modeling?

But the thing is nebula is so cpu intensive, and some of the libraries are not that good, and Intel is in no rush to push the cpu power any time soon. If Acustica can solve some teething issues, I predict, they can cause a small, but welcome sea change in the current plugin market.

With Acustica's hiccups, in the present time, sure analog may win a lot of times as far as to what I would ideally would like to work with, but over time as better technologies and paradigms are invented.. analog will start to win less and less..

Digital really seems to have more R&D going on.. and that I think really is why digital will beat analog out eventually for most practical purposes..



and one last thing..

personally, I do feel that the debate of analog vs digital is a good one to have, and we shouldn't shut this out by saying things like "just make good music and don't worry about it.." Any true artist knows finding the best tools to create art is part of the process of making great art... it's perfectly ok not to obsess about it, but it certainly is ok to obsess about the tools which we use. Had humans been perfectly happy with the telescope, we would not be able to see out past the sky and into the stars today..

 

I just posted this article in Bandzoogle where I went through the basic mathematics of what it would take to create a digital signal that exactly mimics the sound from vinyl, in case you're interested - https://bandzoogle.com/blog/could-digital-audio-ever-outperform-analog

 

6 years ago

 

anti-alias is the new analog

 

Humans are analog beings, so analog equipment can touch us on a deeper level.

 

Excellent article! I agree with your conclusions.

 

FabienTDR:
"Analogue" is not synonymous with "continuous",
"digital" is not synonymous with "discrete".

It's easy to run into the trap of simplifying digital as being discrete, and analogue as being continuous.

Both approaches are able to do either, depending how they are being used.

A digital system can be either discrete, or continuous (digital capture according to the sampling theorem, is in fact the most continuous form of capture and reconstruction to date).

Similarly, an analogue system can be used to record/reconstruct some event in discrete or continuous manner. Tape, the only practical way of capturing and reproducing continuous signals in analogue is somewhat jagged (that's directly due to its discrete, irregularly sized and positioned, often overlaying magnetic domains hitting magnetic hysteresis), so much it requires a bias tone for "lubrication" and tons of filters.

It makes no sense to mutually mix up these terms, they really have separate meanings.

 

How to make digital sound like vinyl?

Simple, lessen stereo separation, make bass mono, add pops and clicks, add wow and flutter, reduce frequency response, add tonearm rumble, reduce dynamic range, add noise and hiss... and so on.

And this is coming from a vinyl fan.

 

forget the listeners, what matter is, do any one of us here can tell, and do we really care ?

For me personally, I can't tell from the song, but when I get the multitracks of it (80s and 90s records). especially those 6 tracks only stems.. it is demotivating sometimes.

 

and if in doubt use 50% analog and 50% digital

 

what if they can tell but don't know why?