Why are digital musicians obsessed with analog?

Slam_Cut

(Warning: Overly simplified generalizations)

People love analog synths for the warm bass sounds and pads. They are often used like Cellos to provide a big warm sound. Digital is great for pads, leads, and misc sounds, and although they are getting better at the bass ranges, they don’t do that as well as analog does. This opinion is also genre-specific and doesn’t apply across the board. The best of both worlds is to have analog sounds from actual analog gear when possible, or digital samples and emulations when hardware isn’t available, in bass ranges and digital synths in upper registers to cut through the analog warmth. Some digital musicians are obsessed with orchestrial sounds for the similar reason of wanting what the digital tools can’t do perfectly.

wingwizard

At its heart digital is cold blooded. But some people like that. It lacks some depth and nuance.

It’s a square Vs a circle. Except now it’s more an octagon Vs a circle.

Analogue unravels silence. Digital constructs sound. Precision sacrifices motion.

The creatures you can catch aren’t as big as the ones that can catch you

knewspeak

Analog can have VCO instability, often equated with warmth, it also lacks the constraints of nyquist reflections in the upper harmonic ranges that can effect digital recreations.

Gavinski

Thing is, though, az mentioned before, this instability can be modeled by digital synths

knewspeak

@Gavinski said:
Thing is, though, az mentioned before, this instability can be modeled by digital synths

Absolutely true, even with regard to analog DCO’s this instability is sometimes added to more fully emulate VCO’s but the most difficult unless you use increasing amounts of CPU power are high resonance frequencies of analog filters, often producing artefacts above the nyquist. But with increasingly more powerful CPU’s this has become less of an issue.

mrufino1

@ecou said:

@mrufino1 said:

@ecou said:

@mrufino1 said:

@ecou said:

@mistercharlie said:

@attakk said:

ill probably pull a few good quote out of this thread, so let me know if you prefer that I don’t.

“Digital” musicians are obsessed with analog, but crucially their (non-musician) audience who listens to & buys their music really couldn’t care less about it.

Ha, yes. Nobody but the musician can even hear the difference on the record.

Correction : and the musician fool themself in thinking they hear a difference.

I watch this YouTube channel called Specter sound studio. A recording channel for heavy metal recording. He as tested at length all the components that can influence a metal guitar sound. The player, the guitar wood, the strings, the pickup, the cable, the amplifier and the speaker. He as proven without a shadow of a doubt that the speaker is the biggest contributor to metal guitar tone.

But some people in his comments section still bring the same old tired trope. It's all in the hands, tone wood affects makes the tone, the pickup makes the sound.

Take his videos with a grain of salt. When you have high gain, heavily distorted guitar tones like he usually records, there are less differences in parts of the signal chain, but that’s not always the case.

Also, move a mic around a speaker while wearing good isolating in ears or headphones and you’ll hear a whole plethora of sounds as you move that mic to different places.

I personally stopped watching his videos because all of the screaming, etc got to be tiring, but there were some things that appreciated about his information. Just understand his viewpoint is one viewpoint and stylistically he sticks to one area. Nothing wrong with that, but statements of “fact” are really just one opinion.

I completely agree with his findings. I have been a metal guitar for 35 years. I sent lots of time and money experimenting with guitars, picks, strings, cables, pickups, pedals, amps, cabinets. I have come to the same conclusions on my own.

60 to 70% of the metal guitar tone comes from the speaker for live sound and the mic and placement obviously when recording.

I understand what you’re saying and agree that in some metal, those findings are true. However, Glenn does not express that his findings are true only in metal, he states them as fact across the board in the way he presents.

You are actually very wrong here. He constantly says that he is a metal channel and his testing applies to metal guitars only.

So have I, I keep on saying metal to make it clear what I am talking about.

In other styles of guitar, other parts of the chain (including the player) can make a far bigger difference. Try playing or recording jazz with a Jackson through a laney, Randall, Marshall jcm amp, etc and see if the speaker is the only thing that makes that not work. Rockabilly, traditional country, folk, funk, etc, same deal. I’m not saying this styles are better than metal or anything like that, just that running through quite a few heavily distorted gain stages does negate other factors.

Multiple gain stage does minimize those factors to the point were they are almost negligible. Did you see the video where he as that guitar that can switch pickup from the back on the fly. The pickup change can be heard but I would say make 5% change to the sound.

I myself tried a bunch of pickup. And it was a huge waste of money. Again in a metal context, I don't play jazz or country.

He’s done it in other videos, where he makes claims that converters don’t matter, or that certain outboard sounds just like other things. I’m not saying he’s wrong or right, just that he’s limiting his testing to one genre. Maybe the video you are referencing is newer because that comment had been made to him by more than one person.

I just got tired of his screaming all the time. I don’t think he needs a “schtick” to educate people because he has some good points at times.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Many many ways to get great sounds.

On the analog vs digital debate, I had to pitch shift an analog synth bass up a quarter step on one song on an album I’m mixing right now. The sound was great, the part is really funky, but the synth’s intonation was flat. I think it was a Dave Smith Mopho that was used but I didn’t track the album so I am not 100% sure.

dendy

@knewspeak said:
Long live the uncertainty principle, it manifests diversity.

👍👍👍
Big fact, not sure that many people here can appreciate deeper truth behind this claim

dendy

had opportunity to compare Behringer K2 with Korg iMS20 and Behringer ModelD with Moog ModelD App - in both cases as soon as i started go with more intense modulations (especially with higher resonance and faster lfo) - the SW counterparts started to sound like complete crap, where HW was still great. Especially in MS20 case the difference was huge, but also model d app sounded like shit on high resonance and with fast lfo > filter modulation when compared to HW

it had just tiny time to check it so didn’t record it, but when there will be opportunity will record some examples. The difference was really big.

On other side, Korg iOddysei app sounds att 99.9999% same like HW (had one too) - it’s one of best, most precise emulations of HW analog. Really great app.

sigma79

Dosent mean you would make better music.

I can think of a profesional artist who made mainly music on SW ( but probably using desktop synths ) Although I swear when I played an audiokit patch. I thought they had used the patch somewhere.

To then doing modular albums. Maybe modular isnt a fair comparison, not being as straight forward as a synth but as you can guess.

It would have sounded more lofi. Which dosent really determine potential resonance and quality.

sigma79

Could sw ever be better than hw?

If we were to scrap all sw and make it so all sw is 99% as good. Can it ever be 100% as good or use an additional processor or AI for it to always be better than hw. Without hw using the processor. Maybe it might be a realtime adjustable filter based on what you have set. If its 99% with modulation. Then it might be better if it can remodel filter etc at other times

but obviously its a pseudo guess.

Ailerom

Well, this one is obsessed because that is what I used to record on. I don't have the space or money for that gear now but it is still what I like.

richardyot

@dendy said:

@knewspeak said:
Long live the uncertainty principle, it manifests diversity.

👍👍👍
Big fact, not sure that many people here can appreciate deeper truth behind this claim

A pet topic of mine, as it happens. I've never met anyone, either on the internet or IRL who seems to find it interesting. Which is bizarre really, because there is obviously a fundamental mystery right at the heart of reality, and everyone just shrugs their shoulders.

dendy

@richardyot said:

@dendy said:

@knewspeak said:
Long live the uncertainty principle, it manifests diversity.

👍👍👍
Big fact, not sure that many people here can appreciate deeper truth behind this claim

A pet topic of mine, as it happens. I've never met anyone, either on the internet or IRL who seems to find it interesting. Which is bizarre really, because there is obviously a fundamental mystery right at the heart of reality, and everyone just shrugs their shoulders.

this!

richardyot

@dendy said:

@richardyot said:

@dendy said:

@knewspeak said:
Long live the uncertainty principle, it manifests diversity.

👍👍👍
Big fact, not sure that many people here can appreciate deeper truth behind this claim

A pet topic of mine, as it happens. I've never met anyone, either on the internet or IRL who seems to find it interesting. Which is bizarre really, because there is obviously a fundamental mystery right at the heart of reality, and everyone just shrugs their shoulders.

this!

(Maybe this would be better in a PM, but what the hell)

So do you subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation, the Everettian Many Worlds interpretation, Pilot Waves, or superdeterminism?

Many Worlds is what's currently fashionable, but it seems too far-fetched to me. I prefer Copenhagen, even though it's obviously so incomplete as to not even address the question.

(For those that don't know, some pointers):

dendy

i am not strictly for any of those interpretations, every one has some weak places and feels to me somehow incomplete. But if i would be force to choose then probably Many Worlds fits best to my brain :-)
At some extend it is consistent with Superstring theory (which also strictly from math point of view describes almost infinite amount of universes)

What i like on QM is that even through we do not know what’s really going on (in terms of understanding what math and observations really means), it’s experientally most proven theory in physics. Kinda a nice paradox :-)

richardyot

@dendy said:
What i like on QM is that even through we do not know what’s really going on (in terms of understanding what math and observations really means), it’s experientally most proven theory in physics. Kinda a nice paradox :-)

Yes, “shut up and calculate” has worked well for the last 100 years. The theory has many practical applications, but it points to something deeply strange at the heart of reality. Either the world doesn’t exist until we observe it (or measure it, whatever that means), or a near-infinite number of universes are being created every second, or everything has already been determined from the moment of the Big Bang.

The only non-weird theory is Pilot Waves, but that doesn’t explain the results of the double-slit experiment. To be honest I don’t think Many Worlds does either (why does the result change if we know which slit the particles went through?), nor does superdetermenisim. That leaves Copenhagen which gets out of it by not explaining anything at all. Shut up and calculate 🙃

(And to the rest of the forum, sorry for the tangent).

ecou

@mrufino1 said:

@ecou said:

@mrufino1 said:

@ecou said:

@mrufino1 said:

@ecou said:

@mistercharlie said:

@attakk said:

ill probably pull a few good quote out of this thread, so let me know if you prefer that I don’t.

“Digital” musicians are obsessed with analog, but crucially their (non-musician) audience who listens to & buys their music really couldn’t care less about it.

Ha, yes. Nobody but the musician can even hear the difference on the record.

Correction : and the musician fool themself in thinking they hear a difference.

I watch this YouTube channel called Specter sound studio. A recording channel for heavy metal recording. He as tested at length all the components that can influence a metal guitar sound. The player, the guitar wood, the strings, the pickup, the cable, the amplifier and the speaker. He as proven without a shadow of a doubt that the speaker is the biggest contributor to metal guitar tone.

But some people in his comments section still bring the same old tired trope. It's all in the hands, tone wood affects makes the tone, the pickup makes the sound.

Take his videos with a grain of salt. When you have high gain, heavily distorted guitar tones like he usually records, there are less differences in parts of the signal chain, but that’s not always the case.

Also, move a mic around a speaker while wearing good isolating in ears or headphones and you’ll hear a whole plethora of sounds as you move that mic to different places.

I personally stopped watching his videos because all of the screaming, etc got to be tiring, but there were some things that appreciated about his information. Just understand his viewpoint is one viewpoint and stylistically he sticks to one area. Nothing wrong with that, but statements of “fact” are really just one opinion.

I completely agree with his findings. I have been a metal guitar for 35 years. I sent lots of time and money experimenting with guitars, picks, strings, cables, pickups, pedals, amps, cabinets. I have come to the same conclusions on my own.

60 to 70% of the metal guitar tone comes from the speaker for live sound and the mic and placement obviously when recording.

I understand what you’re saying and agree that in some metal, those findings are true. However, Glenn does not express that his findings are true only in metal, he states them as fact across the board in the way he presents.

You are actually very wrong here. He constantly says that he is a metal channel and his testing applies to metal guitars only.

So have I, I keep on saying metal to make it clear what I am talking about.

In other styles of guitar, other parts of the chain (including the player) can make a far bigger difference. Try playing or recording jazz with a Jackson through a laney, Randall, Marshall jcm amp, etc and see if the speaker is the only thing that makes that not work. Rockabilly, traditional country, folk, funk, etc, same deal. I’m not saying this styles are better than metal or anything like that, just that running through quite a few heavily distorted gain stages does negate other factors.

Multiple gain stage does minimize those factors to the point were they are almost negligible. Did you see the video where he as that guitar that can switch pickup from the back on the fly. The pickup change can be heard but I would say make 5% change to the sound.

I myself tried a bunch of pickup. And it was a huge waste of money. Again in a metal context, I don't play jazz or country.

He’s done it in other videos, where he makes claims that converters don’t matter, or that certain outboard sounds just like other things. I’m not saying he’s wrong or right, just that he’s limiting his testing to one genre. Maybe the video you are referencing is newer because that comment had been made to him by more than one person.

He is a metal head and does content for the metal community. If I watched a youtube channel that had country music as its theme and recorded country music. I would probably say to myself, this advice I will take with a grain of salt because it is not really targeted at me.

I just got tired of his screaming all the time. I don’t think he needs a “schtick” to educate people because he has some good points at times.

The guy went on a trip in Europe and had recorded a couple of weeks of video a head of time and he was doing the screaming thing. He stopped doing it when he came back.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Many many ways to get great sounds.

On the analog vs digital debate, I had to pitch shift an analog synth bass up a quarter step on one song on an album I’m mixing right now. The sound was great, the part is really funky, but the synth’s intonation was flat. I think it was a Dave Smith Mopho that was used but I didn’t track the album so I am not 100% sure.

My point was that musician in general like to invent a lot of voodoo and fairy dust into things. In the synth word analog and vintage have a lot of voodoo in it and to me it’s mostly overblown.