On 10/9/2017 9:11 PM, Tom Evans wrote:
What's the difference between 'true' and 'virtual' multi-track recording?
"True ... recording" must be a term that was invented because someone
coined the term "virtual ... recording." With virtual recording, you
record a MIDI track which is in essence a program that says what note,
when, for how long, and how loud, on what instrument gets played to the
listener, or for a multitrack production, for the person mixing the tracks.
Conversely, a "true ... recording" is one where an instrument is played
by a real person, it makes a sound, and that sound is captured by a
microphone and recorded.
Each has its place. It's the application and the user that determines
which one is more appropriate to use.
Even though I don't know what 'true' multi-track recording is, I don't
think there's any meaningful difference, because with virtual
multi-track recording I can make songs that incorporate multiple
instruments' sounds, which is what I want to do.
The difference is in the "human element" more than the sound. When
virtual instruments first came on the scene some of the sounds were
pretty cheezy due to marginal performance of analog-to-digital and
digital-to-analog converters, and lower resolution recording due to the
high cost of memory and storage space. Today there are some pretty good
sample libraries that are only distinguishable from live instruments by
the skill of the person creating the MIDI tracks, who, more often than
not, isn't a player of the instrument that he's virtualizing.
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