Steely Dan (and frineds) re: analog vs. digital

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Interesting quotes on analog vs. digital from an article on Steely Dan's
latest album, which was recorded live in the studio, to analog tape.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug...s/steelydan.htm


"Yet Becker is at pains to point out that the medium alone can't deliver
great sound. "It was not necessarily a question of how good analogue
sounded. It's a question of how good analogue sounds if you happen to have
Elliot Scheiner and a great bunch of musicians in the room. Analogue has
all sorts of problems associated with it, along with the potential to
sound very good. And not only is Elliot a real pro in dealing with these
problems, he also gets the most out of the creative possibilities that
analogue offers. Just walking into a studio with analogue tape machines
isn't going to buy you anything."

....

Elliot Scheiner (mixer):
"I grew up and learned analogue and I'm an analogue geek. It's not that
I'm kicking digital, but analogue has a much better sound. When you are
able to A/B analogue and digital, which we could do in this case, there's
simply no comparison. The top end is so sweet and beautiful. I've never
heard anyone say about digital, even at 24-bit/96kHz or 192kHz: 'Isn't the
top end as sweet and beautiful as you've ever heard?' You don't because
digital just doesn't sound that way."

Scheiner stresses that he isn't claiming that analogue gives a more
truthful representation of reality. "Analogue changes something in the
sound," he elaborates, "but I think it does something good. By contrast,
digital is pristine and sterile. On the other hand, it has great things
about it. There's nothing better than be able to fly stuff around or tune
it in a digital workstation. That's really outstanding. And I don't think
every project should be recorded on analogue. You have to look at it on a
case-by-case basis. When you consider that the majority of today's music
is rather lo-fi, then it's really not that important what you record it
on. But there are some projects that command that importance."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

They've been out for a while now, but there is always someone to
complain about them also...
-Bill
www.uptownaudio.com
Roanoke VA
(540) 343-1250

<outsor@city-net.com> wrote in message
news:cgbasg012s4@news2.newsguy.com...
> "Scheiner stresses that he isn't claiming that analogue gives a more
> truthful representation of reality. "Analogue changes something in
the
> sound,"
>
> Which is of course what has been observed for a long time now, it
changes
> something past the mic that sounds "good" because of the added
> distortions, not unlike the boom boom car guy with the smile on his
10
> band eq knows his "sound" is "good". Do we want what the artist
puts out
> or what the knob fiddlers do to it afterwards? What is needed is
that
> someone make a black box that adds the analog distortions, just like
the
> kid wants the 10 band eq, to make their cd "sound good".