Digital vs Analog mixing: BEST SOUND ?

[Sinboy]

Hi. I'm glad I purchased a Digi001. With my mac G4 and Logic Audio, that gives me 64 stereo tracks of audio, fully automatable mixing with plug-ins and all...

The other day I was in a professional studio recording a session (I'm a guitar player). And I had a little talk with the engineer. I started a discussion about what could be better about a "BIG" studio, compared with my system? I eally feel like I have it all, except, the quality mikes and the acoustic, and the talented producer and the pro engineer and the master engineer.... but as far as the recording/mixing gera goes....

And he says that digital mix sounds funny to him, it will never sound as good as an analog mix. He says it's ok to record on a computer with good converters as long as you go out in multitrack and mix in analog.....

Does anyone have experience hearing the difference between a digital and an analog mix?

[Chris Coleman]

yeah...more noise. : )

[editor]

Sin,

Good mics, good A to D's, good pre amps, right room, accurate monitors, great signal path in and digital is great. The analog die hards will come around sooner or later. I love analog, however, if you go in to a digital recorder, carefully, properly and with a fore-knowledge of the hazards of digital recording and it's possible harshness (prepared to compensate for it)..........digital comes out great. Like Chris said...........analog = more noise.

Your engineer pal, sounds afraid, like I once was.......that anyone can make/record great music at home; which means his job or studio is in danger, because of digital home studios..........I know a billion of these guys with a huge dollar investment in analog gear, that are mad as heck about these digital systems. They all sing the same song to try and preserve their strangle hold on the recording dollar and the music industry......when they secretly now the truth, DIGITAL IS HERE and it ain't leaving and McDonalds is looking for help.......ouch.



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[Sinboy]

Thanks but....
OK I know the differences between digital and analog. I'm already tired of the age old fight between those formats. My question is only about mixing.

As some technician told me once, at infinite sampling frequency and infinite bit rate, digital IS analog! [in theory].
My buddy isn't afraid of nothing, he scaled down from working in the BIGs studios to seting up a small ADAT-based studio. He also has a Mac running Cubase. So he tested the 2 systems, and just told me the results he actually heard!

Now I know that in theory, you only add samples for mixing digital signals. In analog, you add tensions of the analog signal..sounds the same to me!?

But I just would like to hear about someone who ACTUALLY tested the difference. Anyone?

[DigiTechSupt]

Sinboy,

I've sat (slept) thru quite a few comparative listening sessions with different people, products, companies, and it's always the same subject. Which sounds better or what has more debth, or what colors the signal more.

I also have recently been working with quite a few producers out here in LA who have grown up die hard analog people and who manage budgets that will still allow them to work totally analog but their using pro tools. when I asked them why they all basically say -
It's quicker, cheaper, allows you to really get creative, and if you use the right gear up front it sounds amazing.
One guy told me the public does not know (or even care) if he's using a pultec, summit tube gear, or a digi eq - they just know that the record is happening or it's not. But more importantly, he says the record company does not know that he's saving thousands of dollars recording the way he does.

But you specifically want to know what is the difference in mixing in pro tools vs. analog (let's say a Neve or SSL because the word analog could also imply a mackie 8 bus).

1. Headroom
2. Summing
3. components
4. COST
5. COST
6. Budget

There are very few totally analog recordings happening anymore just as there are very few totally digital recordings happening. Everything is becoming a hybrid of the other - alittle this, alittle that. So in my humble opinion (and that is all this is) it makes the question a moot point.


B Carter
Digidesign

[Cannon Sound]

I regularly track in Pro Tools(I dont own Digi yet but will be aquiring it within the next few weeks). I have tried things like mixing through our Sony board and using some Pklug ins but mostly thing like the studio I work in's vast array of tube compressors and the suck as well as using the VCA automatuion for any channel I have a compressor on since the compressor would then fight with the automation in pro tools sicne it is pre hitting the board. So latly I have used VCA automation with an Apogee 8 Channel converter and 2 888's. It works nicly and sound sbetter then anything you could mix solely inside Pro Tools I reckon. I usually mix to half inch as well. Within the next few weeks umping 24 track out of Pro Tools and putting them onto 2 inch 24 track then mixing. I also intend on throwing it onto 2 inch then back into Pro Tools to see what I like best mixing wise.

[Cannon Sound]

I forgot the whole purpose of that post though was I personally for the type of music I do most of the time love the color I get from Tube compressors and I think a PCM 80 stiull sounds better then any reverb I have seen on Pro Tools yet. As well at the end of the Pro Tools chain I couldnt imagine not having the massenberg EQ or a SPL tube Vitaliser at the end of the chain to give it some c haracter. Though for more clean music such as new age or some types of jazz or maybe more experimental electronica stuff using a Multi band compresser at the end of the chain is pretty sick. So many possibilities of what to do to your mix. Then again save it for the mastering engineer if your going to that step.

[ThomCat]

Sinboy's friend's theory (at infinite sampling rate, frequency; digital = analog) is a great viewpoint. What I didn't understand about digital at first, and I suspect many don't at first, is that digital is not perfect and won't end up sounding good if you don't take measures to (A.) capture at high bit rates through quality A to D, and (B.) preserve the integrity of the digital file.

If you don't use high quality converters you can't expect high quality results, and if you manipulate the file numerous times (or just once) digitally you will create concatenation (rounding) errors that destroy the stereo placement and openness to the sound that actually is possible with digital. The more manipulation you do the worse it sounds, until it ends up sounding brittle and dry...what the uninformed say sounds "digital".

Digital generations, especially at lower bit rates, audibly reduce the quality, although not as severely as multiple trips from analog to digital. if you add digital processing such as adding efx or eq, then that equals more rounding errors, so be sure the internal processing bit rates of the efx box or digital mixer are also high. Digital generations into any format that needs sophisticated error correction and concealment, including DAT tape and CDR, will create even more digital errors.

For me it makes no sense to record digitally and then convert to analog to mix. That likely means a later conversion back to digital, at least to get the product onto a CD or DVD or DAT. Even through pristine converters that means death to the integrity of the original signal.

I think misunderstanding of these concepts is what leads people to assume that digital sounds inferior to analog. Analog is easy to do, but there is a finite limit to what can be done before noise and artifacts compromise it. Digital is not hard to do if you understand it, but the concepts are not so easily understood as those of analog. If it's done right, digital can be much superior to analog simply because it isn't prone to the limitations of analog, but that means you must respect digital's unique limitations.

At the risk of repeating myself I suggest a trip to www.johnvestman.com for some real world explanations of these issues.

[Tim Walters]

A couple of things. First of all, the idea that analog has "infinite" resolution is a myth. Oxide particles are not infinitely small. Threshold voltages of analog components are not infinitely low. If analog really did have infinite resolution, it wouldn't have any noise--and the fact that it's noisier than digital means it has *less* resolution, not more. (Which doesn't necessarily mean digital is "better"--but if it's not, resolution is not the reason.)

And I think John Vestman's article sheds more heat than light. He doesn't seem to understand the difference between digital copies that are potentially harmful (because of jitter accumulation) and those that are harmless (because clock information is not involved). For example, his claim that copying a file from one hard drive to another changes the sound is silly, in my opinion--unless your system is hopelessly corrupt, the data will be exactly the same, and since clock information is not stored with the file (instead your DAW clocks the data during playback), there's simply no way for the two to be different.

[Sinboy]

It's scary how people can come up with theory and stick to them rock hard, without ever check to make sure they are true.
Let me make a statement here:I'm pretty versed in theory. I know probably more than most producer or mastering engineers in Digital AND analog signal processing. I've been studying it at school for years, and have been conducting researches on mixing, venturing in areas no one's ever been before.

That doesn't make me a good mixer or a good producer, and I'm aware of it. Also, when you present your research before a Jury, they have little interest in yur theories if they're not backed up by some listening tests that have been validated by some hundreds of persons.

I'm surprise how many of you answer me without having done the test. My friend did. Once again, here, no fear of Digital, no speculation, just...actual tests! He just took two bass tracks and try to make them one in the digital domain, and then in the analog domain. It sounded better in analog. But I'm oh-so-conscious that it could be oh-so-many different factors influencing the judgement, that I was hoping some of you would have made the test, too. To mix one day in digital, and the other day in analog is not really a test, although in B Carter's story, it makes sens for someone who works everyday as a producer, I guess....

Anyway, Tim, you make a good point about analog not being linear, but you're wrong. I mean, you're right, analog is not linear. If you go far enough, nothing is, not even your arm's movement when you grab something, it's just the sum of a (big) number of positions!
But the resolution is way bigger than digital, noise has got nothing to do with it. Noise is very different in Analog and is digital. Which is why some people don't like the digital noise, even though it's level is lower. The truth is, at equal level, digital noise is nastier than analog. That's theory AND practice. Analog is more like white noise. Digital is more like a very high frequecy burst of small events.[listen to 8bits digital, you get an idea.]

In analog, the sampling frequency rate is, on the tape level, the number of magnetic particles present on the tape. More expensive tape have more. In digital, you can't record a 23khz signal [at least at 44.1K]. In analog, you can, but it's lost in noise. In both worlds, you can't hear it even if it's recorded anyway. In analog, the bit rate is the hysteresis curve of the magnetics particles on the tape. If watched through a magnifier, those curve are not linear anymore, but have a scalic form, much like a bit scale! But there again, much more detailed than a 24 bit scale...
The important is what our ears tell us, not teh bunch of theoric **** I just wrote.

I go back to look for some cool chords for my chorus. I know if they sound good, no one will really matter the sound/noise.

I wish you all a lot of creativity and talent, and a few minor glitches or bugs [to make time for coffee].
Peace.
David/