Eksvplot wrote:what about just dumping it to analog for storage after doing all the tracking, mixing, etc. in digital?

If you were to do that and end up having to pay tape costs, you've basically written off the only good thing about digital.

If you're gonna buy tape, just learn how to fucking well play your instruments well enough and record straight to it. The resulting record will be better.

does tape cost that much?

i know autechre dump all their records to tape after they're mastered.

how much on a scale of 1 to 10 will I get lynched if I said that I quite like pro tools?

Angus Jung wrote:

(Albini is) known for arranging mikes in a way that gives drums that elusive, compressed sound and brightens the tone of the guitars.

Once again, Steve's the king.

is there a lesser-informed-music-critic's dictionary that has off-kilter definitions for words like compression unbeknownst to the rest of us? elusive, compressed sound? what the fuck... compressed...? what about open? roomy? ambient? natural? these doods need to stop pretending they know what they're talking about! proper.

BadComrade wrote:It's not pro tools that sounds bad, it's the people that don't know anything about proper mic placement, which mics sound right for the application at hand, and lousy over-use of outboard gear / plugins. That can be said for analog recording as well.

When it comes down to it, you're not gonna get a good sound (on analog or digital equipment) using say, an SM57 plugged in to a crappy board then "tailored" with a behringer compressor as you will with say, a nice Royer ribbon mic in to a Neve 1063 class A mic preamp and a Manley compressor or something...

Then again, even some people with nice equipment still don't know how to really use it. Remeinds me of all those soccer moms you see in BMW M3's. Those cars are made to fly through S curves at 60 miles an hour, and most of the people that drive them treat them like a 1980 Cadillac. Or the people who drive "hummers" and slow to 2MPH to cross railroad tracks.

I see your point, but I've read a lot of boasting from people "we dont use pro tools! we're real! yeah!" and sure I'd love to be able to record to tape all the time, then, i'd also like an analogue device that can do granulization and time stretching, and I have no idea if thats even possible.

first of all, the article is half-assed at best. "i have to have something in by 3 P.M. today? shit!"

as far as the preservation of digital audio goes (or any digital information for that matter), i think it's important for people to realize that as long as they support closed formats in the digital domain, this is always going to be a problem. please support open platforms and software and this is a very solvable problem. if open platforms and software are used nobody can ever "hide the goods" or "force change" of a subsystem. it will also mean that as long as there are electronic/computer engineers there will be a way to decode and manipulate digital data elements through real-time dsp algorithms.

for now i work in mixed format, both analogue and digital. although, i work daily on supporting and helping open platforms become a very usable medium for digital audio.

zeroart wrote:as far as the preservation of digital audio goes (or any digital information for that matter), i think it's important for people to realize that as long as they support closed formats in the digital domain, this is always going to be a problem. please support open platforms and software and this is a very solvable problem. if open platforms and software are used nobody can ever "hide the goods" or "force change" of a subsystem. it will also mean that as long as there are electronic/computer engineers there will be a way to decode and manipulate digital data elements through real-time dsp algorithms.

I may be totally wrong here, but... if the main point of using an analog medium is a long lasting storage medium for the audio, wouldn't a world of open formats be a hell in terms of compatibility? I mean, if there are already formats that are impossible to play back, what would happen if anyone could have their own platforms/formats? I tend to think that uniformity is a necessary bad in the digital domain...

CarlitosNo wrote:

zeroart wrote:as far as the preservation of digital audio goes (or any digital information for that matter), i think it's important for people to realize that as long as they support closed formats in the digital domain, this is always going to be a problem. please support open platforms and software and this is a very solvable problem. if open platforms and software are used nobody can ever "hide the goods" or "force change" of a subsystem. it will also mean that as long as there are electronic/computer engineers there will be a way to decode and manipulate digital data elements through real-time dsp algorithms.

I may be totally wrong here, but... if the main point of using an analog medium is a long lasting storage medium for the audio, wouldn't a world of open formats be a hell in terms of compatibility? I mean, if there are already formats that are impossible to play back, what would happen if anyone could have their own platforms/formats? I tend to think that uniformity is a necessary bad in the digital domain...

an open platform would mean that all source and specs are known. if this be the case, then the format would never be dead. it would always be alive. which is why i say that as long as there are electronic/computer engineers, there will be a way to playback anything recorded in the open format. the same can be said for any digital information/data. you can write/design it yourself if need be.

closed design and standards are here to force you to buy the "next upgrade" or lock you into one specific format, which in turn brings up steve's gripe. once you choose to record in a closed standard with source not known for decoding, you are screwed, unless of course you buy the next backwards compatible device which probably is offered by the same company and only comes out when the company needs to make payroll for a few more years. if said company goes under, it will be the responsibility of the owners/technicians of the devices to keep them up to par so decoding/playback can happen in the future because the source code to said decoder or platform is not known to the community. hence, open formats being a good thing. open "standards" being even better.

I was thinking more in terms of "format". If today I save my projects as ".wav" files, it's likely that I will be able to open them, at least in mid term, on any platform that come in the market (ie protools 8.0, sequoia, cubase5, logic23...). But if new open "formats" start to come across, unless they become a standard (like those aiff or wave ones), it will be a total mess. I agree that probably there will be more quality at better price, and the possibility to change the program to make it fit your needs, but I still understand that (unless the new format become standard) new open source formats would be more difficult to play back in the future.
And I think that the point that you say about a format being playable as long as there are engineers capable of making decoders remain valid to the actual standard formats. What is wrong, and in that I agree with you, is the actual programs using those formats, not the formats themselves. And the longevity of the storage medium doesn't get solved with open platforms, does it?

(again, I may be wrong!)

steve wrote:Interesting that the fellow who wrote the article ignored what I said specifically was my biggest objection to digital recording, the inevitability of the music's disappearance.

Perhaps, the author was concerned of quite incorrectly inferring the preservation of Death Cab for Cutie's recordings was a worthwhile pursuit.

Perhaps not.