More reasons why digital sucks, from Tom Scholz basement

[James Price[_5_]]

Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it only took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on why digital sucks:

Boston Analog King Tom Scholz

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz

"Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital. First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume information on the record. Second, the sample rate is ridiculously low. You can’t hope to sample a 15-kHz high-frequency sound at 44k at less than three times the waveform and expect to duplicate it. Even a 10-kHz tone, such as when a singer sings an “s” sound, or when a cymbal is playing, or you have a guitar with a lot of distortion — the high frequency is just destroyed. And it’s not destroyed in a nice way, with distortion overloading or tape saturation or some nice harmonic thing; it’s a completely alien sort of unnatural form of distortion. The sample rate is way too low."

"And the third thing is for whatever reason they haven’t been able to make a waveform that doesn’t have phase-angle distortion. I remember back in the origins of the digital age with 3M making their horribly expensive and horrible sounding multitrack digital recorder that was going to replace their 2-inch M79 tape deck. And one of the criticisms from technical people was, “What about the phase-angle distortion?” And they said, “Well, the human ear doesn’t hear phasing.” How arrogant can you possibly be? The way we locate sounds is the relative phase of the high and low frequencies!"

"This is what destroys the depth of music and good production. To me, digital always sounds like it’s played through a flat plane in front of you. Now, a good analog recording played through a good pair of speakers sounds like you’re listening to things happening in a big hall. You can hear things happening far away, and things happening close up. Digital music is all on a flat plane, and I think that’s because of the phase-angle distortion.."

"Those are the technical issues. Now I’ll add this, from the nontechnical point of view — digital just sounds crappy. [both laugh] I just can’t listen to it for very long."

"The scary thing is if you look at a digital waveform for a CD and you look at one of the quiet segments of a piece of music, and if you blow it up to see what’s being reproduced — it doesn’t even look like music. It’s just these horrific, rectangular representations that used to be a nice waveform. There’s just nothing left."

[Trevor]

"James Price" > wrote in message
...
Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it only
took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on why digital
sucks:

Boston Analog King Tom Scholz

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz

"Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital. First, the
resolution — the measurement they have to make on the waveform — is not
nearly accurate enough for the low volume information on the record. Second,
the sample rate is ridiculously low. You can’t hope to sample a 15-kHz
high-frequency sound at 44k at less than three times the waveform and expect
to duplicate it. Even a 10-kHz tone, such as when a singer sings an “s”
sound, or when a cymbal is playing, or you have a guitar with a lot of
distortion — the high frequency is just destroyed. And it’s not destroyed in
a nice way, with distortion overloading or tape saturation or some nice
harmonic thing; it’s a completely alien sort of unnatural form of
distortion. The sample rate is way too low."

"And the third thing is for whatever reason they haven’t been able to make a
waveform that doesn’t have phase-angle distortion. I remember back in the
origins of the digital age with 3M making their horribly expensive and
horrible sounding multitrack digital recorder that was going to replace
their 2-inch M79 tape deck. And one of the criticisms from technical people
was, “What about the phase-angle distortion?” And they said, “Well, the
human ear doesn’t hear phasing.” How arrogant can you possibly be? The way
we locate sounds is the relative phase of the high and low frequencies!"

"This is what destroys the depth of music and good production. To me,
digital always sounds like it’s played through a flat plane in front of you.
Now, a good analog recording played through a good pair of speakers sounds
like you’re listening to things happening in a big hall. You can hear things
happening far away, and things happening close up. Digital music is all on a
flat plane, and I think that’s because of the phase-angle distortion."

"Those are the technical issues. Now I’ll add this, from the nontechnical
point of view — digital just sounds crappy. [both laugh] I just can’t listen
to it for very long."

"The scary thing is if you look at a digital waveform for a CD and you look
at one of the quiet segments of a piece of music, and if you blow it up to
see what’s being reproduced — it doesn’t even look like music. It’s just
these horrific, rectangular representations that used to be a nice waveform.
There’s just nothing left."

==================================


Ah another bloody psuedo technical rant to attempt to justify a *personal*
preference. And with NO understanding apparently of the analog limitations
being far worse for the vast majority of parameters. When will it ever stop!
:-(
I particularly like the last sentence, totally confusing any straight
digital/analog argument with a more justified comment on the separate issue
of loudness wars. Deliberate obfuscation or just a further example of total
ignorance?
At least he did use the phrase "I think" at one point, when there was no
attempt to prove what he "thinks" is anything other than wild speculation,
or total BS. The rest of the rant is less evasive in it's attempt to make
unproven assertions appear legitamate however.
FFS, just enjoy whatever you want and let others make their own decisions.
The rest of the world moved on a couple of decades ago whether he likes it
or not.

Trevor.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

James Price wrote:
> Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it
> only took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on
> why digital sucks:
>
> Boston Analog King Tom Scholz
>
> http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz
>
> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital.
> First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the
> waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume
> information on the record.

Dear Tom. Shut up. Just.... shut up.

You used to be cool, man. What happened?

<snip>

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/11/2013 12:15 AM, James Price wrote:
> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital.
> First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the
> waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume
> information on the record.

Has Boston made a low volume record? Ever?

Mr. Scholz needs to learn about the law - the sampling law, that is. But
I'm sure that this missive will cause the price of M79s to jump.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Frank Stearns]

"Trevor" > writes:

snips

>>"The scary thing is if you look at a digital waveform for a CD and you look
>>at one of the quiet segments of a piece of music, and if you blow it up to
>>see what’s being reproduced — it doesn’t even look like music. It’s just
>>these horrific, rectangular representations that used to be a nice waveform.
>>There’s just nothing left."

What the f*** is Mr. Scholz looking at -- the RF off the laser, pre DAC and pre
filter?

Or does he have the waveform drawing portion of a DAW, which has *nothing* to do
with sound, set at 3-4 bits of resolution?

Wait! Maybe he's just discovered the absurd "cinder block waveform" mastering
demanded by the loudness wars in his and similar genres.


>>Ah another bloody psuedo technical rant to attempt to justify a *personal*
>>preference. And with NO understanding apparently of the analog limitations
>>being far worse for the vast majority of parameters. When will it ever stop!

+1

>>I particularly like the last sentence, totally confusing any straight
>>digital/analog argument with a more justified comment on the separate issue
>>of loudness wars. Deliberate obfuscation or just a further example of total
>>ignorance?

Bluster to disguise ignorance.

==

I admit to being a blustering skeptic of digital myself until really digging in and
using it. The unfortunate component for many digital systems is the way defaults --
EQ, reverb, dynamics, et al -- are set. Too often those defaults appear to be
arithmetic conveniences for software engineers rather than something that will
enhance music right off the bat when you adjust a parameter.

But if you assume nothing about the default position of any piece of DSP and use
your ears, you can make some mighty fine sounding records. (Took me about a year to
make the transition. A lot of that time involved getting really good-sounding
digital reverbs, as the defaults there seem to make the *most* offensive sounds one
can imagine.)

And the parallel romance with tape -- I just don't get it. Back in the day, we were
all excited about an ATR100 at 30 IPS because it was so damn transparent. That
machine, perhaps the end of the evolutionary line for tape, was nearly perfect at
that speed. Low distortion, low (but still not gone) flutter, extended response,
pretty flat, at least from 40 hz on out, but still with a small LF head bump.

I recently saw a RubeTube video where some guy was demo'ing an ATR100 tape emulator
plug-in for his DAW. He had to dial the thing down to the 3 3/4 IPS emulation to
"really get the effect."

At first I wept. Then he said, "listen to how rich this makes things sound in the
low end..." Then I yelled at my screen, "have your freakin' mastering engineer dial
in a wide-Q +3/4 or +1.0 dB or so in the low end -- then you'll have that gawdamned
head bump!"

Jeez.

Frank
Mobile Audio
--

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Mike Rivers > wrote:
>On 12/11/2013 12:15 AM, James Price wrote:
>> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital.
>> First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the
>> waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume
>> information on the record.
>
>Has Boston made a low volume record? Ever?
>
>Mr. Scholz needs to learn about the law - the sampling law, that is. But
>I'm sure that this missive will cause the price of M79s to jump.

Whenever I hear stuff like this coming from the likes of Scholz or Neil Young
it makes me sad. It's a two-fold problem. First of all, it's clear when they
spout this stuff that they don't have any understanding of the technology,
and many people take it as gospel and now have a misunderstanding themselves.

Secondly, I think garbage like this actually distracts from what they claim
is their actual mission, to deliver the best quality sound to the listener.

But now I'm going to be hearing about this from customers...
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

To make a long story short... Mr Scholz doesn't know what he's talking about,
theoretically or practically.

Broadly speaking, the problem with digital is that it lacks analog's
(particularly LP's) errors -- unnatural warmth and an exaggerated sense of
"space".

Multi-ch SACDs bring me closer to live sound than anything other than my own
live recordings. If you disagree, go out and record live /acoustic/ music with
both analog and digital, decided for yourself.

[[email protected]]

What's so pathetic is that Tom Scholz is an MIT graduate, and he should definitely know better than to spread this nonsense.

--Ethan

[hank alrich]

James Price > wrote:

> Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it only
>took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on why
>digital sucks:
>
> Boston Analog King Tom Scholz
>
> http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz
>
> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital.
>

And the first and biggest one is that Tom Scholz refuses to understand
digital audio technology. Hence, these rants about Humpty Dumpty's
missing pieces. Tom's a good egg, just a little cracked around this
topic.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[hank alrich]

Les Cargill > wrote:

> James Price wrote:
> > Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it
> > only took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on
> > why digital sucks:
> >
> > Boston Analog King Tom Scholz
> >
> > http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz
> >
> > "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital.
> > First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the
> > waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume
> > information on the record.
>
> Dear Tom. Shut up. Just.... shut up.
>
> You used to be cool, man. What happened?
>
> <snip>

The "Rock" Man happened. So sad.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[John Williamson]

On 11/12/2013 17:51, hank alrich wrote:
> I can't listen to any Boston recdordings. They're just not loud enough.
>
> <cough>
>
<Grin> Just use a compressor.....

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/11/2013 9:10 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Whenever I hear stuff like this coming from the likes of Scholz or Neil Young
> it makes me sad. It's a two-fold problem. First of all, it's clear when they
> spout this stuff that they don't have any understanding of the technology,
> and many people take it as gospel and now have a misunderstanding themselves.


I read some drivel like this recently from T-Bone Burnett. He should
stick to producing and not try to tell the engineers why they have to
fight so hard in order to get it to not suck.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[William Sommerwerck]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...

> I read some drivel like this recently from T-Bone Burnett. He should stick
> to producing and not try to tell the engineers why they have to fight so
> hard in order to get it to not suck.

I think I stated the real problem, which has to be addressed, but no one is
paying attention to.

People prefer what they're accustomed to. Though early digital had real
problems, the strongest objection was that it didn't sound like analog. This
wasn't a major problem for classical engineers and listeners, because fidelity
was important to them (some of them, anyhow). For genres in which fidelity
wasn't so important, the removal of pleasing colorations was disturbing.

This problem isn't new. In a 1958 issue of "Tape Recording", a writer told of
his problems in getting engineers to switch from mastering on wax (and other
recording techniques). They liked what they were familiar with, and could not
"hear" the improvements.

Messrs. Burnett, Scholz, Young, etc, will never be convinced of digital's
greater accuracy, because their recordings don't have to be "accurate".
Rather, they need to shown how to get the results they want.

[Frank Stearns]

Mike Rivers > writes:

>On 12/11/2013 9:10 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Whenever I hear stuff like this coming from the likes of Scholz or Neil Young
>> it makes me sad. It's a two-fold problem. First of all, it's clear when they
>> spout this stuff that they don't have any understanding of the technology,
>> and many people take it as gospel and now have a misunderstanding themselves.


>I read some drivel like this recently from T-Bone Burnett. He should
>stick to producing and not try to tell the engineers why they have to
>fight so hard in order to get it to not suck.


Is it just me, or do some of Mr. Burnett's projects sound dull and lifeless, with no
sparkle and openness whatsoever. Too much tape saturation, perhaps?

But I mean, really. Hand someone like Gary Paczosa a Euphonix system to hear just
how amazing digital can sound. I'm thinking specifically of projects where the same
acoustic talent -- Allison Krauss and Union Station -- did stuff with both people.
The Paczosa stuff is stunning; the only reason the Burnett isn't purely forgettable
is the weird sound.

(I know, I know, I'll be struck by lightning for saying all that...)

Frank
Mobile Audio
--

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>I think I stated the real problem, which has to be addressed, but no one is
>paying attention to.
>
>People prefer what they're accustomed to. Though early digital had real
>problems, the strongest objection was that it didn't sound like analog. This
>wasn't a major problem for classical engineers and listeners, because fidelity
>was important to them (some of them, anyhow). For genres in which fidelity
>wasn't so important, the removal of pleasing colorations was disturbing.

This is part of the problem, and it has always been part of the problem
since the move from acoustic recording to electrical.

But, it's not _all_ of the problem. Because a couple of things came long
with the digital world.

First of all, some engineers were used to pretty much doing the same thing
over and over again, using the same procedures every time, rather than very
carefully fine-tuning their setup to meet the needs of the music and the
performance. These engineers got into big trouble very fast because when
digital systems came in, the optimal procedures changed. This was not a
huge game-changer, but it took some getting used to and in the process some
well-known big names turned out to have real trouble adapting.

Secondly, a lot of the early digital stuff really did just sound awful.
There are a lot of things that you could blame for the problems, from
bad reconstruction and anti-aliasing filters (or totally missing ones!)
to systems that leaked correlated noise from the digital section into the
analogue grounds. I'm not going to point any fingers here because I was
responsible for some pretty crappy-sounding stuff myself at the time. The
implementation took a few years to come up to the level of the theory.

Thirdly, a lot of people are listening to perceptually-encoded systems
which are severely compromised and then tarring all digital systems with
that same brush. This is like saying that analogue recording is no good
because cassettes sound awful (which arguments I have heard in this very
newsgroup I might add).

>This problem isn't new. In a 1958 issue of "Tape Recording", a writer told of
>his problems in getting engineers to switch from mastering on wax (and other
>recording techniques). They liked what they were familiar with, and could not
>"hear" the improvements.

That's true, and that's always going to be the case.

>Messrs. Burnett, Scholz, Young, etc, will never be convinced of digital's
>greater accuracy, because their recordings don't have to be "accurate".
>Rather, they need to shown how to get the results they want.

There are two things here. First of all there is production, and indeed
production systems may not need to be accurate, their purposes is to get
the sound that the producer wants or is appropriate (which may be an accurate
one, but may not be). Secondly there is distribution, and the distribution
format needs to be one that will present the sound as heard by the producers
most accurately in the listener's home.

The problem in the digital world of 2013 is that we now have spectacularly
accurate production systems but the distribution is now almost uniformly
being done on lossily-compressed files. Everything is upside-down.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/11/2013 4:03 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
> I think I stated the real problem, which has to be addressed, but no one
> is paying attention to.
>
> People prefer what they're accustomed to. Though early digital had real
> problems, the strongest objection was that it didn't sound like analog.
> This wasn't a major problem for classical engineers and listeners,
> because fidelity was important to them (some of them, anyhow). For
> genres in which fidelity wasn't so important, the removal of pleasing
> colorations was disturbing.

I don't have a problem with people who prefer to use the old tools and
techniques that have served them well in the past. There's no reason to
drag them kicking and screaming into digital recording. But if they want
to continue to make a living, they have to find some way to live with it
and get the sound that they choose. It's not impossible, but it does
take some learning.

On the other hand, you know what they say about "any publicity." If they
get their name out there as someone who cares about the sound (whatever
"cares" means), that's not going to lose then sales even if they claim
that their records now suck because the consumers expect it to arrive in
digital format. They can make analog phonograph records and their fans
are just going to buy a cheap USB turntable and copy the record to an
MP3 file anyway.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[david gourley[_2_]]

(Scott Dorsey) :

> William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>>I think I stated the real problem, which has to be addressed, but no one
is
>>paying attention to.
>>
>>People prefer what they're accustomed to. Though early digital had real
>>problems, the strongest objection was that it didn't sound like analog.
This
>>wasn't a major problem for classical engineers and listeners, because
fidelity
>>was important to them (some of them, anyhow). For genres in which
fidelity
>>wasn't so important, the removal of pleasing colorations was disturbing.
>
> This is part of the problem, and it has always been part of the problem
> since the move from acoustic recording to electrical.
>
> But, it's not _all_ of the problem. Because a couple of things came long
> with the digital world.
>
> First of all, some engineers were used to pretty much doing the same
thing
> over and over again, using the same procedures every time, rather than
very
> carefully fine-tuning their setup to meet the needs of the music and the
> performance. These engineers got into big trouble very fast because when
> digital systems came in, the optimal procedures changed. This was not a
> huge game-changer, but it took some getting used to and in the process
some
> well-known big names turned out to have real trouble adapting.
>
> Secondly, a lot of the early digital stuff really did just sound awful.
> There are a lot of things that you could blame for the problems, from
> bad reconstruction and anti-aliasing filters (or totally missing ones!)
> to systems that leaked correlated noise from the digital section into the
> analogue grounds. I'm not going to point any fingers here because I was
> responsible for some pretty crappy-sounding stuff myself at the time.
The
> implementation took a few years to come up to the level of the theory.
>
> Thirdly, a lot of people are listening to perceptually-encoded systems
> which are severely compromised and then tarring all digital systems with
> that same brush. This is like saying that analogue recording is no good
> because cassettes sound awful (which arguments I have heard in this very
> newsgroup I might add).
>
>>This problem isn't new. In a 1958 issue of "Tape Recording", a writer
told of
>>his problems in getting engineers to switch from mastering on wax (and
other
>>recording techniques). They liked what they were familiar with, and could
not
>>"hear" the improvements.
>
> That's true, and that's always going to be the case.
>
>>Messrs. Burnett, Scholz, Young, etc, will never be convinced of digital's
>>greater accuracy, because their recordings don't have to be "accurate".
>>Rather, they need to shown how to get the results they want.
>
> There are two things here. First of all there is production, and indeed
> production systems may not need to be accurate, their purposes is to get
> the sound that the producer wants or is appropriate (which may be an
accurate
> one, but may not be). Secondly there is distribution, and the
distribution
> format needs to be one that will present the sound as heard by the
producers
> most accurately in the listener's home.
>
> The problem in the digital world of 2013 is that we now have
spectacularly
> accurate production systems but the distribution is now almost uniformly
> being done on lossily-compressed files. Everything is upside-down.
> --scott
>

I understand that's why Neil Young is working on the Pono Player, to
deliver high-resolution, uncompressed music. He finally came around to
digital, not that he doesn't still do analog.

david

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> Mr. Scholz needs to learn about the law - the sampling law, that is. But
> I'm sure that this missive will cause the price of M79s to jump.

You mean there are even bigger idiots than him? :-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

> wrote in message
...
> What's so pathetic is that Tom Scholz is an MIT graduate, and he should
> definitely know better than to spread this nonsense.

A graduate in what discipline though. Musical Arts perhaps? That won't
qualify you to talk about technical issues.
And some older Electrical Engineers never bothered to learn digital concepts
either.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
> And the first and biggest one is that Tom Scholz refuses to understand
> digital audio technology. Hence, these rants about Humpty Dumpty's
> missing pieces. Tom's a good egg, just a little cracked

A "little" cracked, that's an understatement!

Trevor.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 12/10/2013 10:15 PM, James Price wrote:
> Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it only took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on why digital sucks:
>
> Boston Analog King Tom Scholz
>
> http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz
>
> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital. First, the resolution — the measurement they have to make on the waveform — is not nearly accurate enough for the low volume information on the record. Second, the sample rate is ridiculously low. You can’t hope to sample a 15-kHz high-frequency sound at 44k at less than three times the waveform and expect to duplicate it. Even a 10-kHz tone, such as when a singer sings an “s” sound, or when a cymbal is playing, or you have a guitar with a lot of distortion — the high frequency is just destroyed. And it’s not destroyed in a nice way, with distortion overloading or tape saturation or some nice harmonic thing; it’s a completely alien sort of unnatural form of distortion. The sample rate is way too low."
>
> "And the third thing is for whatever reason they haven’t been able to make a waveform that doesn’t have phase-angle distortion. I remember back in the origins of the digital age with 3M making their horribly expensive and horrible sounding multitrack digital recorder that was going to replace their 2-inch M79 tape deck. And one of the criticisms from technical people was, “What about the phase-angle distortion?” And they said, “Well, the human ear doesn’t hear phasing.” How arrogant can you possibly be? The way we locate sounds is the relative phase of the high and low frequencies!"
>
> "This is what destroys the depth of music and good production. To me, digital always sounds like it’s played through a flat plane in front of you. Now, a good analog recording played through a good pair of speakers sounds like you’re listening to things happening in a big hall. You can hear things happening far away, and things happening close up. Digital music is all on a flat plane, and I think that’s because of the phase-angle distortion."
>
> "Those are the technical issues. Now I’ll add this, from the nontechnical point of view — digital just sounds crappy. [both laugh] I just can’t listen to it for very long."
>
> "The scary thing is if you look at a digital waveform for a CD and you look at one of the quiet segments of a piece of music, and if you blow it up to see what’s being reproduced — it doesn’t even look like music. It’s just these horrific, rectangular representations that used to be a nice waveform. There’s just nothing left."
>

Pretty lame statement from an otherwise brilliant musician/engineer.

Is Tom saying that tape hiss is a good thing? Sorry Tom, digital
is here to stay....

[William Sommerwerck]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...

> I don't have a problem with people who prefer to use the old tools and
> techniques that have served them well in the past. There's no reason to drag
> them kicking and screaming into digital recording. But if they want to
> continue to make a living, they have to find some way to live with it and
> get the sound that they choose. It's not impossible, but it does take some
> learning.

What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the CD is
mastered?

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/11/2013 8:57 PM, david gourley wrote:

> I understand that's why Neil Young is working on the Pono Player, to
> deliver high-resolution, uncompressed music. He finally came around to
> digital, not that he doesn't still do analog.

So you buy a Neil Young Pono Box to play Pono files, rather than any of
the many USB D/A converters that will allow you to play anything, or at
least anything you have a codec for? There are already plenty of high
resolution data-lossless formats that anyone with a little knowledge can
play now. How good is the Pono hardware? Better than the run-of-the mill
home-theater-in-a-box receiver? Are there Pono-certified speakers and
headphones?

Sounds like a good deal for Neil and Pono.


--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/12/2013 8:23 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:

> What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
> tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the
> CD is mastered?

Nothing. But today most people making CDs can't justify the cost.
There's also nothing wrong with recording digitally from the get-go, as
long as you use equipment, facilities, and skills that are equivalent to
the high quality analog studio. But that's where the train goes off the
track.

I was just thinking about something that I read on the can this morning.
In an interview, a producer, when talking about the interaction between
home and commercial studios, said that people didn't have as much money
to spend on recordings today as they used to. The truth is that there
are still as many people spending as much money as they used to, but
there are many, many, many times that number of people today making
records who never would have in the pure analog days. We're just
accommodating them so we can have more music, for better or worse.

I liked the concept of having a record label with a real recording
budget filter out the chaff, but today the chaff just does without the
big bucks facilities.



--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[david gourley[_2_]]

Mike Rivers > :

> On 12/11/2013 8:57 PM, david gourley wrote:
>
>> I understand that's why Neil Young is working on the Pono Player, to
>> deliver high-resolution, uncompressed music. He finally came around to
>> digital, not that he doesn't still do analog.
>
> So you buy a Neil Young Pono Box to play Pono files, rather than any of
> the many USB D/A converters that will allow you to play anything, or at
> least anything you have a codec for? There are already plenty of high
> resolution data-lossless formats that anyone with a little knowledge can
> play now. How good is the Pono hardware? Better than the run-of-the mill
> home-theater-in-a-box receiver? Are there Pono-certified speakers and
> headphones?
>
> Sounds like a good deal for Neil and Pono.
>
>

I'm sure more will be revealed. Not a lot beyond an introduction on their
site as yet. I only saw him demonstrate it on Letterman's show awhile
back, and that certainly couldn't tell me much. I don't really question
his sincerity in making it happen, not that it has any major effect on me.

david

[Sean Conolly]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>>Messrs. Burnett, Scholz, Young, etc, will never be convinced of digital's
>>greater accuracy, because their recordings don't have to be "accurate".
>>Rather, they need to shown how to get the results they want.
>
> There are two things here. First of all there is production, and indeed
> production systems may not need to be accurate, their purposes is to get
> the sound that the producer wants or is appropriate (which may be an
> accurate
> one, but may not be). Secondly there is distribution, and the
> distribution
> format needs to be one that will present the sound as heard by the
> producers
> most accurately in the listener's home.

I think the 'bad sound' that Digital Deniers are claiming to hear may be
caused by the difference in production methods - how the engineer works, and
especially so where the enginner has no experience producing quality analog
recordings. IOW - my speculation is that a good analog engineer, using the
same work flow on a digital recorder, may get results that sound closer to
what Young & Scholz et. al. are expecting. At least with modern digital
equipment.


> The problem in the digital world of 2013 is that we now have spectacularly
> accurate production systems but the distribution is now almost uniformly
> being done on lossily-compressed files. Everything is upside-down.
> --scott

I think that's always been true to a degree, looking back on cheap vinyl,
8-track, and cassette distributions. It's a bit sad that CD is still the
best medium in wide distribution, and unlikely to change anytine soon.

Sean

[mcp6453[_2_]]

On 12/11/2013 10:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
>
> A graduate in what discipline though. Musical Arts perhaps? That won't
> qualify you to talk about technical issues.
> And some older Electrical Engineers never bothered to learn digital concepts
> either.

Mechanical Engineering

[William Sommerwerck]

"Sean Conolly" wrote in message ...

> It's a bit sad that CD is still the best medium in wide distribution,
> and unlikely to change anytine soon.

What would you replace it with?

[Scott Dorsey]

Sean Conolly > wrote:
>
>I think the 'bad sound' that Digital Deniers are claiming to hear may be
>caused by the difference in production methods - how the engineer works, and
>especially so where the enginner has no experience producing quality analog
>recordings. IOW - my speculation is that a good analog engineer, using the
>same work flow on a digital recorder, may get results that sound closer to
>what Young & Scholz et. al. are expecting. At least with modern digital
>equipment.

That's certainly true, but I would hope that those guys would be working with
the same engineers they've been working with for years. Maybe not, I don't
know.

>> The problem in the digital world of 2013 is that we now have spectacularly
>> accurate production systems but the distribution is now almost uniformly
>> being done on lossily-compressed files. Everything is upside-down.
>
>I think that's always been true to a degree, looking back on cheap vinyl,
>8-track, and cassette distributions. It's a bit sad that CD is still the
>best medium in wide distribution, and unlikely to change anytine soon.

Sad? Now that we finally have decent D/A converters, it is _possible_ to
get remarkably good sound from the CD format. Most folks don't, mind you,
but we finally got to a point where the release format wasn't the bottleneck.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

david gourley wrote:
> (Scott Dorsey) :
<snip>
>
> I understand that's why Neil Young is working on the Pono Player, to
> deliver high-resolution, uncompressed music. He finally came around to
> digital, not that he doesn't still do analog.
>

Oh great. Yet another bloody format. No, Neil. No. Bad Neil.
Someone should sneak in and make all your toy train gauges something
slightly different

> david
>

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Sean Conolly wrote:
> "Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
> ...
>> William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>>> Messrs. Burnett, Scholz, Young, etc, will never be convinced of digital's
>>> greater accuracy, because their recordings don't have to be "accurate".
>>> Rather, they need to shown how to get the results they want.
>>
>> There are two things here. First of all there is production, and indeed
>> production systems may not need to be accurate, their purposes is to get
>> the sound that the producer wants or is appropriate (which may be an
>> accurate
>> one, but may not be). Secondly there is distribution, and the
>> distribution
>> format needs to be one that will present the sound as heard by the
>> producers
>> most accurately in the listener's home.
>
> I think the 'bad sound' that Digital Deniers are claiming to hear may be
> caused by the difference in production methods - how the engineer works, and
> especially so where the enginner has no experience producing quality analog
> recordings. IOW - my speculation is that a good analog engineer, using the
> same work flow on a digital recorder, may get results that sound closer to
> what Young & Scholz et. al. are expecting. At least with modern digital
> equipment.
>
>

And there's most of the Classic Rock catalog - done on analog, sounds
like ... an unwashed human hindquarters.

There are still people who are above the age to know better who
still think a mic (or two! ) on every drum and MOAR OVERDUBZ PLZ is The
One True Way.

Well yeah - if you're Queen. But trust me, you're not Queen. And no to
the buncha mics regardless - they didn't have *room* for them.

>> The problem in the digital world of 2013 is that we now have spectacularly
>> accurate production systems but the distribution is now almost uniformly
>> being done on lossily-compressed files. Everything is upside-down.
>> --scott
>
> I think that's always been true to a degree, looking back on cheap vinyl,
> 8-track, and cassette distributions. It's a bit sad that CD is still the
> best medium in wide distribution, and unlikely to change anytine soon.
>

CD should be good enough. There are *MARVELOUS* sounding CDs.

> Sean
>
>

--
Les Cargill

[hank alrich]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:

> "Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...
>
> > I don't have a problem with people who prefer to use the old tools and
> > techniques that have served them well in the past. There's no reason to drag
> > them kicking and screaming into digital recording. But if they want to
> > continue to make a living, they have to find some way to live with it and
> > get the sound that they choose. It's not impossible, but it does take some
> > learning.
>
> What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
> tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the CD is
> mastered?

The present cost of analog audio recording tape is the large impediment
there.


--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...
>
>> I don't have a problem with people who prefer to use the old tools and
>> techniques that have served them well in the past. There's no reason to drag
>> them kicking and screaming into digital recording. But if they want to
>> continue to make a living, they have to find some way to live with it and
>> get the sound that they choose. It's not impossible, but it does take some
>> learning.
>
>What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
>tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the CD is
>mastered?

It requires actually being able to get a good performance down in the first
place, because your ability to fiddle with it after the fact is reduced. So
you have to actually get musicians who can play and stuff like that.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Frank Stearns]

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

>Sean Conolly > wrote:

-snips-

>Sad? Now that we finally have decent D/A converters, it is _possible_ to
>get remarkably good sound from the CD format. Most folks don't, mind you,
>but we finally got to a point where the release format wasn't the bottleneck.

Very true. And it only takes *one* really stunning-sounding CD to prove this. And
there are some good ones out there...

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

>> What's wrong with recording in analog

On 12/12/2013 2:44 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> It requires actually being able to get a good performance down in the first
> place, because your ability to fiddle with it after the fact is reduced. So
> you have to actually get musicians who can play and stuff like that.

Yeah, that, too. Plus at times you need someone who knows more about an
analog recorder than how to thread it and which button(s) to press in
order to make it record.


--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Ralph Barone[_2_]]

"Trevor" > wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>> What's so pathetic is that Tom Scholz is an MIT graduate, and he should
>> definitely know better than to spread this nonsense.
>
> A graduate in what discipline though. Musical Arts perhaps? That won't
> qualify you to talk about technical issues.
> And some older Electrical Engineers never bothered to learn digital concepts
> either.
>
> Trevor.

Mechanical engineering, if I recall correctly.

[James Price[_5_]]

The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to analog and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.

[Sean Conolly]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> "Sean Conolly" wrote in message ...
>> It's a bit sad that CD is still the best medium in wide distribution,
>> and unlikely to change anytine soon.
>
> What would you replace it with?

I'd like to see something like SACD gain more ground, something with a
greater bit depth and higher sample rate, more than two channels, etc.

Don't read that as a negative, I'm not complaining about CD quality, but it
can still be improved.

Sean

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> On 12/11/2013 8:57 PM, david gourley wrote:
>> I understand that's why Neil Young is working on the Pono Player, to
>> deliver high-resolution, uncompressed music. He finally came around to
>> digital, not that he doesn't still do analog.
>
> So you buy a Neil Young Pono Box to play Pono files, rather than any of
> the many USB D/A converters that will allow you to play anything, or at
> least anything you have a codec for? There are already plenty of high
> resolution data-lossless formats that anyone with a little knowledge can
> play now. How good is the Pono hardware? Better than the run-of-the mill
> home-theater-in-a-box receiver? Are there Pono-certified speakers and
> headphones?
>
> Sounds like a good deal for Neil and Pono.

I doubt it will sell as well as SACD, and I doubt Neil will see a penny from
it. Not that he needs it anyway.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> On 12/12/2013 8:23 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
>> What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
>> tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the
>> CD is mastered?

Or recording in digital and transferring to analog if that's your bent.


> Nothing. But today most people making CDs can't justify the cost. There's
> also nothing wrong with recording digitally from the get-go, as long as
> you use equipment, facilities, and skills that are equivalent to the high
> quality analog studio. But that's where the train goes off the track.

Not at all, there are both equally competent and incompetent people working
in digital *and* analog!
In fact probably *far* more incompetent loonies working solely analog these
days IMO.



> I was just thinking about something that I read on the can this morning.
> In an interview, a producer, when talking about the interaction between
> home and commercial studios, said that people didn't have as much money to
> spend on recordings today as they used to. The truth is that there are
> still as many people spending as much money as they used to, but there are
> many, many, many times that number of people today making records who
> never would have in the pure analog days. We're just accommodating them so
> we can have more music, for better or worse.

Can't see a problem. I don't have to listen to stuff I don't like, but good
artists who could not otherwise afford to record once upon a time are now
readily available.


> I liked the concept of having a record label with a real recording budget
> filter out the chaff, but today the chaff just does without the big bucks
> facilities.

Frankly I far prefer to make up my own opinions than have some overpaid A&R
guys of old make my decisions for me. A lot of good music never saw the
light of day because of them. And plenty of crap still got released anyway
:-(

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"mcp6453" > wrote in message
...
> On 12/11/2013 10:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
>> A graduate in what discipline though. Musical Arts perhaps? That won't
>> qualify you to talk about technical issues.
>
> Mechanical Engineering

Ah, that might explain his love of mechanical recording/playback, and his
complete lack of knowledge about digital concepts then.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Ralph Barone" > wrote in message
news:1300957085408556691.648032address_is-invalid.invalid@shawnews...
> "Trevor" > wrote:
>> > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> What's so pathetic is that Tom Scholz is an MIT graduate, and he should
>>> definitely know better than to spread this nonsense.
>>
>> A graduate in what discipline though. Musical Arts perhaps? That won't
>> qualify you to talk about technical issues.
>
> Mechanical engineering, if I recall correctly.

I'm certainly not surprised it's not Electronic Engineering then. I doubt
they covered digital recording concepts in his classes. And he's obviously
done no reading of his own on the topic since.

Trevor.

[James Price[_5_]]

On Friday, December 13, 2013 2:10:18 AM UTC-6, Trevor wrote:
>"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
>> I liked the concept of having a record label with a real recording budget
>> filter out the chaff, but today the chaff just does without the big bucks
>> facilities.
>
> Frankly I far prefer to make up my own opinions than have some overpaid A&R
> guys of old make my decisions for me. A lot of good music never saw the
> light of day because of them. And plenty of crap still got released anyway

Okay, but there's a heck of a lot more crap to sift through today due to a lack of quality control.

[Trevor]

"James Price" > wrote in message
...
> On Friday, December 13, 2013 2:10:18 AM UTC-6, Trevor wrote:
>>"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
>>> I liked the concept of having a record label with a real recording
>>> budget
>>> filter out the chaff, but today the chaff just does without the big
>>> bucks
>>> facilities.
>>
>> Frankly I far prefer to make up my own opinions than have some overpaid
>> A&R
>> guys of old make my decisions for me. A lot of good music never saw the
>> light of day because of them. And plenty of crap still got released
>> anyway
>
> Okay, but there's a heck of a lot more crap to sift through today due to a
> lack of quality control.

No argument, and yet it doesn't affect me any more than the crap did in days
of old. Less so in fact because like most people I listen to a lot less
radio than I once did.

Trevor.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Sean Conolly" wrote in message ...
"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> "Sean Conolly" wrote in message ...

>>> It's a bit sad that CD is still the best medium in wide distribution,
>>> and unlikely to change anytine soon.

>> What would you replace it with?

> I'd like to see something like SACD gain more ground, something
> with a greater bit depth and higher sample rate, more than two
> channels, etc. Don't read that as a negative, I'm not complaining
about CD quality, but it> can still be improved.

The problem is that, if SACD gained ground, it would be abused just as CD has
been abused. We are fortunate that SACD and BD-Audio are niche formats.

[James Price[_5_]]

On Friday, December 13, 2013 4:15:21 AM UTC-6, Trevor wrote:
> "James Price" wrote in message
>> On Friday, December 13, 2013 2:10:18 AM UTC-6, Trevor wrote:
>>>"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
>>>> I liked the concept of having a record label with a real recording
>>>> budget filter out the chaff, but today the chaff just does without
>>>> the big bucks facilities.
>>>
>>> Frankly I far prefer to make up my own opinions than have some overpaid
>>> A&R guys of old make my decisions for me. A lot of good music never saw
>>> the light of day because of them. And plenty of crap still got released
>>> anyway
>>
>> Okay, but there's a heck of a lot more crap to sift through today due to a
>> lack of quality control.
>
> No argument, and yet it doesn't affect me any more than the crap did in days
> of old. Less so in fact because like most people I listen to a lot less
> radio than I once did.

I don't listen to the radio at all, actually. My primary mode of discovery and exposure is primarily via streaming services and YouTube. That said, if those services existed in the old days, there'd be a lot less crap to sort through. Yes, there'd still be crap, just a lot less of it.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >,
James Price > wrote:
>The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to analog and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.

Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to blame
and has stopped on the first convenient thing.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/13/2013 9:01 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
> The problem is that, if SACD gained ground, it would be abused just as
> CD has been abused. We are fortunate that SACD and BD-Audio are niche
> formats.

Is Pure Audio Blu-Ray making any headway? From what I can tell, it uses
a Blu-Ray disk and can use 24-bit formats up to 192 kHz sample rate. For
those of us who like to listen to music for enjoyment in our living room
rather than at a computer, you can play and navigate the disk directly
from the Blu-Ray player controls without on-screen menus.

I don't see a lot of titles yet. Anyone here using it?

One thing that we music lovers lost when we switched from a CD to a DVD
player is speed in getting started listening. Put a CD in a CD player
and it starts playing pretty quickly. Put one in a DVD player and it
puff and stems for what seems like a half a minute or so while it
decides what kind of disk it is. I don't have a Blu-Ray player so I
don't know if this is better or worse in this regard.


--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[William Sommerwerck]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...

Is Pure Audio Blu-Ray making any headway? From what I can tell, it uses
a Blu-Ray disk and can use 24-bit formats up to 192 kHz sample rate. For
those of us who like to listen to music for enjoyment in our living room
rather than at a computer, you can play and navigate the disk directly
from the Blu-Ray player controls without on-screen menus.

2L has used it for several projects and, of course, Decca produced a single
BD-Audio disk holding the full Solti "Ring".


One thing that we music lovers lost when we switched from a CD to a DVD
player is speed in getting started listening. Put a CD in a CD player
and it starts playing pretty quickly. Put one in a DVD player and it
puff and stems for what seems like a half a minute or so while it
decides what kind of disk it is. I don't have a Blu-Ray player so I
don't know if this is better or worse in this regard.

SACD players can be a bit slow, though nothing like playing a Blu-ray.

Gordon was disturbed with the long BD loading times -- probably because he was
near death. It's never bothered me that much, which is surprising, considering
how impatient I generally am.

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> James Price > wrote:
>>The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to analog
>>and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a
>>LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.
>
> Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to blame
> and has stopped on the first convenient thing.

But blaming digital in that case would suggest he recorded digital when he
*thought* that was the crap way of doing it, and yet he didn't bother to
record analog as his rant suggests he must. Wouldn't that just make him an
even bigger idiot? (assuming that's even possible)

My take is he personally thinks it sounds great, since obviously his
opinions are different than most normal people.

Trevor.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 12/13/2013 11:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
> "Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
> ...
>> In article >,
>> James Price > wrote:
>>> The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to analog
>>> and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a
>>> LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.
>>
>> Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to blame
>> and has stopped on the first convenient thing.
>
> But blaming digital in that case would suggest he recorded digital when he
> *thought* that was the crap way of doing it, and yet he didn't bother to
> record analog as his rant suggests he must. Wouldn't that just make him an
> even bigger idiot? (assuming that's even possible)
>

Yeah, so did he actually record this new album on analog tape?

I highly doubt it. Maybe at the most, he did what Metallica
did, and transferred to tape during the mix down or Mastering stage,
to get some analog "warmth". But I just can't see him tracking
with tape.

So he's likely a complete hypocrite!


> My take is he personally thinks it sounds great, since obviously his
> opinions are different than most normal people.
>

[Sean Conolly]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>>"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...
>>
>>> I don't have a problem with people who prefer to use the old tools and
>>> techniques that have served them well in the past. There's no reason to
>>> drag
>>> them kicking and screaming into digital recording. But if they want to
>>> continue to make a living, they have to find some way to live with it
>>> and
>>> get the sound that they choose. It's not impossible, but it does take
>>> some
>>> learning.
>>
>>What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
>>tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the CD
>>is
>>mastered?
>
> It requires actually being able to get a good performance down in the
> first
> place, because your ability to fiddle with it after the fact is reduced.
> So
> you have to actually get musicians who can play and stuff like that.

That by itself is a good way of seperating the wheat from the chaff. Having
good musicians is always a good start for producing good music :-)

Sean

[James Price[_5_]]

On Saturday, December 14, 2013 10:19:07 AM UTC-6, Paul wrote:
> On 12/13/2013 11:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
>> "Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
>>> James Price wrote:
>>>> The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to analog
>>>> and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a
>>>> LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.
>>>
>>> Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to blame
>>> and has stopped on the first convenient thing.
>>
>> But blaming digital in that case would suggest he recorded digital when he
>> *thought* that was the crap way of doing it, and yet he didn't bother to
>> record analog as his rant suggests he must. Wouldn't that just make him an
>> even bigger idiot? (assuming that's even possible)
>
> Yeah, so did he actually record this new album on analog tape?

Yes, specifically Quantegy 456. He has stated that if he had to record in
digital, he would stop:

"...at the end of the process I have to do a conversion from analog to digital.
I have to deal with what that does and do maybe some editing. Typically I will
spend three to six months recording a particular song. As I’m going along, I
have versions and incarnations."

"I like to relax a minute at the end of the day and let the tape play. I really
enjoy that. But in that last step in converting to digital, even “good” digital
at 24 bit, after a few hours I don’t want to hear the song anymore. It’s an
agonizing process for me. It’s heartbreaking. What I hear is fantastic. It
sounds spacious and beautiful. Then it gets converted to digital and sounds
like crap. I can’t do anything about it."

"However, I have made a series of mixes that are completely analog. I’m just
in the process of finishing that up and we will be releasing this on vinyl,
which will be completely analog. I’m very much looking forward to that. I’m not
sure if there are any other analog recordings on vinyl these days. It sounds
great. I can’t stand digital. I can't stand listening to it. If I had to record
in digital, I would stop."

[david gourley[_2_]]

James Price > said...news:28ed8832-0303-4f79-96f0-
:

> On Saturday, December 14, 2013 10:19:07 AM UTC-6, Paul wrote:
>> On 12/13/2013 11:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
>>> "Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
>>>> James Price wrote:
>>>>> The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to
anal
> og
>>>>> and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a
>
>>>>> LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.
>>>>
>>>> Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to
blame
>
>>>> and has stopped on the first convenient thing.
>>>
>>> But blaming digital in that case would suggest he recorded digital when
> he
>>> *thought* that was the crap way of doing it, and yet he didn't bother
to
>
>>> record analog as his rant suggests he must. Wouldn't that just make him
> an
>>> even bigger idiot? (assuming that's even possible)
>>
>> Yeah, so did he actually record this new album on analog tape?
>
> Yes, specifically Quantegy 456. He has stated that if he had to record in
> digital, he would stop:
>
> "...at the end of the process I have to do a conversion from analog to
digital.
> I have to deal with what that does and do maybe some editing. Typically I
will
> spend three to six months recording a particular song. As I’m going
along, I
> have versions and incarnations."
>
> "I like to relax a minute at the end of the day and let the tape play. I
really
> enjoy that. But in that last step in converting to digital, even “good”
digital
> at 24 bit, after a few hours I don’t want to hear the song anymore. It’s
an
> agonizing process for me. It’s heartbreaking. What I hear is fantastic.
It
> sounds spacious and beautiful. Then it gets converted to digital and
sounds
> like crap. I can’t do anything about it."
>
> "However, I have made a series of mixes that are completely analog. I’m
just
> in the process of finishing that up and we will be releasing this on
vinyl,
> which will be completely analog. I’m very much looking forward to that.
I’m not
> sure if there are any other analog recordings on vinyl these days. It
sounds
> great. I can’t stand digital. I can't stand listening to it. If I had to
record
> in digital, I would stop."
>

Dude's clearly been in the basement a little too long.

david

[Paul[_13_]]

On 12/14/2013 2:31 PM, david gourley wrote:
> James Price > said...news:28ed8832-0303-4f79-96f0-
> :
>
>> On Saturday, December 14, 2013 10:19:07 AM UTC-6, Paul wrote:
>>> On 12/13/2013 11:13 PM, Trevor wrote:
>>>> "Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
>>>>> James Price wrote:
>>>>>> The irony in Tom Scholz' statements is, for all of his loyalty to
> anal
>> og
>>>>>> and organic recording, the percussion on the new album sounds like a
>>
>>>>>> LinnDrum and the vocal mixes are all over the place.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, possibly he recognizes this and is looking for something to
> blame
>>
>>>>> and has stopped on the first convenient thing.
>>>>
>>>> But blaming digital in that case would suggest he recorded digital when
>> he
>>>> *thought* that was the crap way of doing it, and yet he didn't bother
> to
>>
>>>> record analog as his rant suggests he must. Wouldn't that just make him
>> an
>>>> even bigger idiot? (assuming that's even possible)
>>>
>>> Yeah, so did he actually record this new album on analog tape?
>>
>> Yes, specifically Quantegy 456. He has stated that if he had to record in
>> digital, he would stop:
>>
>> "...at the end of the process I have to do a conversion from analog to
> digital.
>> I have to deal with what that does and do maybe some editing. Typically I
> will
>> spend three to six months recording a particular song. As I’m going
> along, I
>> have versions and incarnations."
>>
>> "I like to relax a minute at the end of the day and let the tape play. I
> really
>> enjoy that. But in that last step in converting to digital, even “good”
> digital
>> at 24 bit, after a few hours I don’t want to hear the song anymore. It’s
> an
>> agonizing process for me. It’s heartbreaking. What I hear is fantastic.
> It
>> sounds spacious and beautiful. Then it gets converted to digital and
> sounds
>> like crap. I can’t do anything about it."
>>
>> "However, I have made a series of mixes that are completely analog. I’m
> just
>> in the process of finishing that up and we will be releasing this on
> vinyl,
>> which will be completely analog. I’m very much looking forward to that.
> I’m not
>> sure if there are any other analog recordings on vinyl these days. It
> sounds
>> great. I can’t stand digital. I can't stand listening to it. If I had to
> record
>> in digital, I would stop."
>>
>
> Dude's clearly been in the basement a little too long.
>

That's for certain. He claims he hasn't listened
to a full album since 1970:


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/a-decade-in-his-basement-gave-tom-scholz-a-brand-new-boston-album/article15803000/

He seems proud to have isolated himself. I do this to some
degree as well, but Jesus, this guy is a serious control
freak! Almost autistic.

Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
they keep making it. At least he's consistent with his anti-digital
ramblings.

Can't say I really like the new Boston music, but that's
kinda besides the point....

[cjt]

On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
<snip>
> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
> they keep making it.<snip>

Isn't a camera shutter digital +/- ?

[Ron C[_2_]]

On 12/15/2013 11:31 AM, cjt wrote:
> On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
> <snip>
>> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
>> they keep making it.<snip>
>
> Isn't a camera shutter digital +/- ?
>
Based on a previous war of words here, no it is not.

==
Later...
Ron Capik
--

[John Williamson]

On 15/12/2013 18:58, Ron C wrote:
> On 12/15/2013 11:31 AM, cjt wrote:
>> On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
>>> they keep making it.<snip>
>>
>> Isn't a camera shutter digital +/- ?
>>
> Based on a previous war of words here, no it is not.
>
I've not read that war, but IMHO, the answer is yes and no.

Yes, it is digital in that it either lets light through or not, and no,
in that the time it lets light through for is both variable in an
analogue manner and both unpredictable and unrepeatable due to
mechanical tolerances.

Of course, if "close enough" is "good enough", then a clockwork shutter
is good enough for most purposes.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Ron C[_2_]]

On 12/15/2013 2:38 PM, John Williamson wrote:
> On 15/12/2013 18:58, Ron C wrote:
>> On 12/15/2013 11:31 AM, cjt wrote:
>>> On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
>>>> they keep making it.<snip>
>>>
>>> Isn't a camera shutter digital ± ?
>>>
>> Based on a previous war of words here, no it is not.
>>
> I've not read that war, but IMHO, the answer is yes and no.
>
> Yes, it is digital in that it either lets light through or not, and no,
> in that the time it lets light through for is both variable in an
> analogue manner and both unpredictable and unrepeatable due to
> mechanical tolerances.
>
> Of course, if "close enough" is "good enough", then a clockwork shutter
> is good enough for most purposes.
>
> --
> Tciao for Now!
>
> John.

I'm waiting to see if anyone else will jump in
and risk another word war.

==
Later...
Ron Capik
--

[hank alrich]

Ron C > wrote:

> I'm waiting to see if anyone else will jump in
> and risk another word war.

Given the remarkably low cost of words today it could happen.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[Scott Dorsey]

Ron C > wrote:
>
>I'm waiting to see if anyone else will jump in
>and risk another word war.

Of course the camera shutter is digital! I use my middle digit to press down
on the lever over where it says PRONTO-COMPUR and it takes the picture!
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Ron C[_2_]]

On 12/15/2013 2:38 PM, John Williamson wrote:
> On 15/12/2013 18:58, Ron C wrote:
>> On 12/15/2013 11:31 AM, cjt wrote:
>>> On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
>>>> they keep making it.<snip>
>>>
>>> Isn't a camera shutter digital +/- ?
>>>
>> Based on a previous war of words here, no it is not.
>>
> I've not read that war, but IMHO, the answer is yes and no.
>
> Yes, it is digital in that it either lets light through or not, and no,
> in that the time it lets light through for is both variable in an
> analogue manner and both unpredictable and unrepeatable due to
> mechanical tolerances.
>
> Of course, if "close enough" is "good enough", then a clockwork shutter
> is good enough for most purposes.
>

I suspect nobody here wants to remember that long and heated
definition of digital thread. As I recall, the bottom line was that
digital is about being symbolic [1] rather than about quantization.
I also suspect many folks here never bought in to the concept.

==
Later...
Ron Capik
--
[1] See: "Properties of digital information" in wiki
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_data >

[Rick Ruskin]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:28:19 -0500, Ron C > wrote:

>On 12/15/2013 2:38 PM, John Williamson wrote:
>> On 15/12/2013 18:58, Ron C wrote:
>>> On 12/15/2013 11:31 AM, cjt wrote:
>>>> On 12/14/2013 10:26 PM, Paul wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>>> Some people will always take photos with film too, as long as
>>>>> they keep making it.<snip>
>>>>
>>>> Isn't a camera shutter digital +/- ?
>>>>
>>> Based on a previous war of words here, no it is not.
>>>
>> I've not read that war, but IMHO, the answer is yes and no.
>>
>> Yes, it is digital in that it either lets light through or not, and no,
>> in that the time it lets light through for is both variable in an
>> analogue manner and both unpredictable and unrepeatable due to
>> mechanical tolerances.
>>
>> Of course, if "close enough" is "good enough", then a clockwork shutter
>> is good enough for most purposes.
>>
>
>I suspect nobody here wants to remember that long and heated
>definition of digital thread. As I recall, the bottom line was that
>digital is about being symbolic [1] rather than about quantization.
>I also suspect many folks here never bought in to the concept.
>
>==
>Later...
>Ron Capik

I for one, have never bought into the concept that tom Scholtz and/or
Neil Young produced much in the way of good music.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Ron C" wrote in message
...

> I suspect nobody here wants to remember that long and heated
> definition of digital thread. As I recall, the bottom line was that
> digital is about being symbolic [1] rather than about quantization.
> I also suspect many folks here never bought in to the concept.

I do want to remember it, because I started it. When you quantize a sample,
you digitize it. "Numbers" have nothing to do with it.

I do not wish to get involved again in a discussion for which the answer is so
plainly obvious.

[Trevor]

"Sean Conolly" > wrote in message
...
>>>What's wrong with recording in analog (other than the high cost of blank
>>>tape), then making the transfer to digital only at the point where the CD
>>>is mastered?
>>
>> It requires actually being able to get a good performance down in the
>> first place, because your ability to fiddle with it after the fact is
>> reduced. So you have to actually get musicians who can play and stuff
>> like that.
>
> That by itself is a good way of seperating the wheat from the chaff.
> Having good musicians is always a good start for producing good music :-)

Right, and there is no correlation whatsoever with how you choose to record
and the quality of the musicians, other than perhaps recording more cheaply
allows you to afford better musicians if you are hiring them.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"James Price" > wrote in message
...
>" What I hear is fantastic. It sounds spacious and beautiful.
> Then it gets converted to digital and sounds like crap.
> I can’t do anything about it."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

At least he admits it's his fault that *he* can't do anything about it, and
doesn't claim others can't at least! :-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Rick Ruskin" > wrote in message
...
> I for one, have never bought into the concept that tom Scholtz and/or
> Neil Young produced much in the way of good music.

Wel I certainly think any good music Neil Young produced was before digital
recording was readily available, but I don't think there is any correlation
at all. :-)

Trevor.

[Luxey]

Acknowledging as truth that the pro analog gear is really useful, and sometimes invaluable, due it's high build quality and ease of use, I'll say the following.

Digital suck for only one thing, a paradox that deprives Hi-Fi weasels from good portion of undeserved cash they used to pile.

Paradox is:
Complex modern technology (and products of it), of extremely high and uniform quality, incorporating amassed knowledge, one you can't build without building a factory first, is cheaper than technology of yesteryear when average Joe could solder something in his shop, put a blue led on the box, claim and receive cash with relative ease.
Also, commercial users of technology can not fish around claiming various mystic properties of their beloved gear. Everything's so transparent and obvious.

Therefore, unable to find a good word for The Old, they attack The New. Unfortunately for them, amassed knowledge incorporated in The New puts their effort down, fast and easy. Nor can they explain what is wrong, nor can their potential customers understand what they're babbling about, nor can they hear it in practice.
Same goes when the try to implement old marketing tactics on The New, trying to sell it based on mystical properties - they can't explain, nobody can understand, nor hear.

[Brian[_11_]]

James Price > wrote:
> Well, it's that time again. Boston has released their sixth album (it
> only took 11 years this time) and Tom Scholz offers up a new rant on why digital sucks:
>
> Boston Analog King Tom Scholz
>
> http://www.soundandvision.com/content/boston-analog-king-tom-scholz
>
> "Technically speaking, there are three things wrong with digital. First,
> the resolution  the measurement they have to make on the waveform  is
> not nearly accurate enough for the low volume information on the record.
> Second, the sample rate is ridiculously low. You cant hope to sample a
> 15-kHz high-frequency sound at 44k at less than three times the waveform
> and expect to duplicate it. Even a 10-kHz tone, such as when a singer
> sings an s sound, or when a cymbal is playing, or you have a guitar
> with a lot of distortion  the high frequency is just destroyed. And its
> not destroyed in a nice way, with distortion overloading or tape
> saturation or some nice harmonic thing; its a completely alien sort of
> unnatural form of distortion. The sample rate is way too low."
>
> "And the third thing is for whatever reason they havent been able to
> make a waveform that doesnt have phase-angle distortion. I remember back
> in the origins of the digital age with 3M making their horribly expensive
> and horrible sounding multitrack digital recorder that was going to
> replace their 2-inch M79 tape deck. And one of the criticisms from
> technical people was, What about the phase-angle distortion? And they
> said, Well, the human ear doesnt hear phasing. How arrogant can you
> possibly be? The way we locate sounds is the relative phase of the high
> and low frequencies!"
>
> "This is what destroys the depth of music and good production. To me,
> digital always sounds like its played through a flat plane in front of
> you. Now, a good analog recording played through a good pair of speakers
> sounds like youre listening to things happening in a big hall. You can
> hear things happening far away, and things happening close up. Digital
> music is all on a flat plane, and I think thats because of the phase-angle distortion."
>
> "Those are the technical issues. Now Ill add this, from the nontechnical
> point of view  digital just sounds crappy. [both laugh] I just cant
> listen to it for very long."
>
> "The scary thing is if you look at a digital waveform for a CD and you
> look at one of the quiet segments of a piece of music, and if you blow it
> up to see whats being reproduced  it doesnt even look like music. Its
> just these horrific, rectangular representations that used to be a nice
> waveform. Theres just nothing left."

If thats the case then why are they digitalising old analog recordings?
One advantage is digital audio is that it can be copied with no loss in
quality.

--
Regards Brian

[Scott Dorsey]

Luxey > wrote:
>Complex modern technology (and products of it), of extremely high and unifo=
>rm quality, incorporating amassed knowledge, one you can't build without bu=
>ilding a factory first, is cheaper than technology of yesteryear when avera=
>ge Joe could solder something in his shop, put a blue led on the box, claim=
> and receive cash with relative ease.=20

But he CAN! That is the cool thing, in the modern era almost all the actual
audio systems are software-based, and this means the cost of entry for
new products is that much lower. Joe can sit down and write a plug-in
using a free compiler and a freely-available framework with no need for a
soldering iron or anything.

That is why I am surprised that there is so little custom software out
there designed for serious studio work. Thirty years ago you'd go out into
a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to that
studio, sometimes even the console. Why don't we have studios with custom
DAWs yet?

I _will_ say that Audacity has some very cool stuff including the framework
to program new plug-in functions very quickly with a very simple programming
language, and that has got a lot of attention although not from the big
studios.

>Also, commercial users of technology can not fish around claiming various m=
>ystic properties of their beloved gear. Everything's so transparent and obv=
>ious.

Sure they can! It's just a little bit different, but there are plenty of
fraudulent claims out there in the pro audio world. There are more and more
every day as an increasing amount of work is being done by people without
real technical backgrounds, too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[S. King]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:39:32 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:

SNIP
> That is why I am surprised that there is so little custom software out
> there designed for serious studio work. Thirty years ago you'd go out
> into a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to
> that studio, sometimes even the console.

That's what made an entry level engineering job in those studios so cool.
Chief Engineer: "I need a +/- 24 volt power supply for my whats-it. I've
got a 2U rack space for it." Me: "When do you need it?" Him: "For my
session tomorrow morning." Cool. And, even cooler, we had all of the
tools and most of the parts in the shop to make it. If we needed
something a quick trip to Newark or Allied for a $2 cab ride got it done.
Monitor switching systems, phono pre-amps, Edit Studio C console, much of
the drive controls for the Neumann lathe, 4-up Langevin mic pre-amp box
with pwr supply, and a dozen more utility boxes of various kinds all in-
house built. Couple that with mixing sessions with great musicians and
producers who, for the most part, really knew what they were doing, and it
was a killer job. Didn't pay much, but you can't have everything;-)

Steve King

[Frank Stearns]

"S. King" > writes:

>On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:39:32 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:

>SNIP
>> That is why I am surprised that there is so little custom software out
>> there designed for serious studio work. Thirty years ago you'd go out
>> into a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to
>> that studio, sometimes even the console.

>That's what made an entry level engineering job in those studios so cool.
>Chief Engineer: "I need a +/- 24 volt power supply for my whats-it. I've
>got a 2U rack space for it." Me: "When do you need it?" Him: "For my
>session tomorrow morning." Cool. And, even cooler, we had all of the
>tools and most of the parts in the shop to make it. If we needed
>something a quick trip to Newark or Allied for a $2 cab ride got it done.
>Monitor switching systems, phono pre-amps, Edit Studio C console, much of
>the drive controls for the Neumann lathe, 4-up Langevin mic pre-amp box
>with pwr supply, and a dozen more utility boxes of various kinds all in-
>house built. Couple that with mixing sessions with great musicians and
>producers who, for the most part, really knew what they were doing, and it
>was a killer job. Didn't pay much, but you can't have everything;-)

Great story...

When/where was this?

Frank
Mobile Audio
--

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 12/19/2013 9:39 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Thirty years ago you'd go out into
> a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to that
> studio, sometimes even the console. Why don't we have studios with custom
> DAWs yet?

We sort of do. Most of the commercial DAWs have tools to customize the
user interface. You can color code tracks, you can tuck features out of
sight that you rarely use and will probably forget about soon, you can
customize keyboard shortcuts. And of course you can add plug-ins ad
nausium.

> I_will_ say that Audacity has some very cool stuff including the framework
> to program new plug-in functions very quickly with a very simple programming
> language, and that has got a lot of attention although not from the big
> studios.

I think the big studios feel that they need to have what their clients
expect, which is a standard product (or collection thereof) rather than
some home brew software. However, I see the potential for special
purpose plug-ins to get a never before heard and never to be heard again
effect for a particular production. But that's the sort of thing that
gets done by individuals in their own studio rather than a major studio
working for a major client.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[S. King]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:09:02 -0600, Frank Stearns wrote:

> "S. King" > writes:
>
>>On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:39:32 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
>>SNIP
>>> That is why I am surprised that there is so little custom software out
>>> there designed for serious studio work. Thirty years ago you'd go out
>>> into a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to
>>> that studio, sometimes even the console.
>
>>That's what made an entry level engineering job in those studios so
>>cool. Chief Engineer: "I need a +/- 24 volt power supply for my
>>whats-it. I've got a 2U rack space for it." Me: "When do you need it?"
>> Him: "For my session tomorrow morning." Cool. And, even cooler, we
>>had all of the tools and most of the parts in the shop to make it. If
>>we needed something a quick trip to Newark or Allied for a $2 cab ride
>>got it done. Monitor switching systems, phono pre-amps, Edit Studio C
>>console, much of the drive controls for the Neumann lathe, 4-up Langevin
>>mic pre-amp box with pwr supply, and a dozen more utility boxes of
>>various kinds all in- house built. Couple that with mixing sessions with
>>great musicians and producers who, for the most part, really knew what
>>they were doing, and it was a killer job. Didn't pay much, but you
>>can't have everything;-)
>
> Great story...
>
> When/where was this?
>
> Frank Mobile Audio

Chicago Sound 1964 built from ground up with an in-house built console (4-
buss) in A and a much modified Gates radio board (2-buss) in B. Only 50s
era Gates with echo sends and 2 aux busses I'm guessing. Then, Sound
Studios (in Chicago, now out of business...aren't they all) in 1965 -
1970, then Paragon Studios 1970 - 1974. Forgot to mention that Sound
Studios Studio A 4-buss board was in-house built (not by me) based on
Langevin tube pres, until we replaced it with a Neve 8-buss delivered by
Rupert his self.

Steve

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Peter Larsen wrote:
> Mike Rivers wrote:
>
>> On 12/19/2013 9:39 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Thirty years ago you'd go out into
>
>>> a big studio and half the gear would be handbuild and specific to
>>> that studio, sometimes even the console. Why don't we have studios
>>> with custom DAWs yet?
>
>> We sort of do. Most of the commercial DAWs have tools to customize the
>> user interface. You can color code tracks, you can tuck features out
>> of sight that you rarely use and will probably forget about soon, you
>> can customize keyboard shortcuts. And of course you can add plug-ins
>> ad nausium.
>
> And develop all kinds of presets for compressors and equalizers, which is
> why I have been pushing for being able to run them off of a usb-key or
> floppy.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Peter Larsen
>
>
>

REAPER has a thing somewhat like that - you can install it to a USB
thumb drive.

SFAIK, all your presets would go with you, and that *is* the install.
'Course, you'd have to configure to the local interfaces and all,
but that's not too bad.

--
Les Cargill

[Luxey]

With due respect, as well as to all great posts and posters that followed, that was not what I was talking about. I was merely saying, not a single person in the world can build half decent piece of hardware, read computer (PC), by todays standards, from scratch, in own shop.

There's plethora of self coded software being made. Lads of it available on the net, even as freeware. Why the studios are not hiring coders for in house work, I don't know. Maybe because everything they need is already available on the net, even as freeware? Is it 5 seconds delay, with feedback at minimum, on my voice, or what?

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Les Cargill wrote:

>> And develop all kinds of presets for compressors and equalizers,
>> which is why I have been pushing for being able to run them off of a
>> usb-key or floppy.

> REAPER has a thing somewhat like that - you can install it to a USB
> thumb drive.

Hmmm ... will look into that,

> SFAIK, all your presets would go with you, and that *is* the install.
> 'Course, you'd have to configure to the local interfaces and all,
> but that's not too bad.

nah, plug in the memory gadget, point preset-loading to it, go do your thing
and avoiding "Nah, A2 can't find activation server and wont start, so all
presets stored in that installation are lost".

That installation was deactivated because it was on a laptop and I
"would always be able to reactivate it". It actually "was there" back when
it had the settings in the ini-file. But of course, nothing is is as
important as knowing what you want to do and how to do it ...


Kind regards

Peter Larsen