[Neil[_9_]]

I watched this movie the other day, and found it to have some revealing
perspectives on analog vs. digital production. Much of the movie focuses
on the Neve console built for the studio, and has interviews with Neve
and several artists that recorded their hits at Sound City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_City_(film)

--
best regards,

Neil

[Robert Stevens]

I ended up with one of the Studer A800s they had from the early 80s. It is in a couple scenes in the middle of the movie.

[[email protected]]

Neil:

Just found it and watched on Hulu!
What a ride! And the revival at the
end was touching and energizing -
I won't let on just which famous
Brit rocked the place.

Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.


Enlightening to know that a large
proprtion of my album collection was
recorded at Sound City!

[geoff]

On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:


Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

geoff

[Neil[_9_]]

On 2/25/2017 6:25 AM, geoff wrote:
On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:


Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

geoff

My take on it is that a lot of artists' perspective toward digital was
formed in the early transitional years, and this movie is largely about
that time period. From a personal perspective, I sold our analog studio
about that time (late 70's) simply because the cost of conversion was
unjustifiable due to many things, including the rise of home studios and
disco-based "beat" music.

--
best regards,

Neil

[Scott Dorsey]

In article , Neil wrote:
On 2/25/2017 6:25 AM, geoff wrote:
On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:

Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

What was cool was that the filmmakers let him talk about how digital
technology makes things different but they didn't let him go off on any
of his bizarre tangents. He was edited well.

My take on it is that a lot of artists' perspective toward digital was
formed in the early transitional years, and this movie is largely about
that time period. From a personal perspective, I sold our analog studio
about that time (late 70's) simply because the cost of conversion was
unjustifiable due to many things, including the rise of home studios and
disco-based "beat" music.

Well, there are a lot of different things going on. The main difference
between traditional analogue and digital production methods is not sound
quality per se but the fact that everything is so much faster in the digital
world and you're not locked down to doing things in realtime. Add that to
being able to undo, and you have totally changed the way production is done
and not always for the better. The fast pace and not having the ability to
slow down and think about things is where a lot of artists have problems.

But you're right that early digital systems sounded pretty bad, and a lot
of artists remember those days (and many of them heard better back in those
days too). So you have a lot of the same kinds of issues that we had in
the eighties with people complaining about how bad solid state electronics
sounded, because they remembered the solid state gear of twenty years earlier
that sounded very bad.

Neil Young has a different set of problems, though. He has severely damaged
his hearing and has extreme recruitment, and likely this exaggerates the
artifacts of lossy encoding. Perceptual encoding systems like mp3 rely on
a model of how hearing works, and when your hearing doesn't match that model
they can go horribly wrong. So he likely has a legitimate concern about
lossy encoding. It probably does sound much worse to him than it does us.

However, because he doesn't have the slightest idea about the actual technology
he confuses a lot of different unrelated issues together and waves his arms and
comes out and says "everything digital is bad." This doesn't help anything.
--scott

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

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 11:44:54 AM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , Neil wrote:
On 2/25/2017 6:25 AM, geoff wrote:
On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:

Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

What was cool was that the filmmakers let him talk about how digital
technology makes things different but they didn't let him go off on any
of his bizarre tangents. He was edited well.

My take on it is that a lot of artists' perspective toward digital was
formed in the early transitional years, and this movie is largely about
that time period. From a personal perspective, I sold our analog studio
about that time (late 70's) simply because the cost of conversion was
unjustifiable due to many things, including the rise of home studios and
disco-based "beat" music.

Well, there are a lot of different things going on. The main difference
between traditional analogue and digital production methods is not sound
quality per se but the fact that everything is so much faster in the digital
world and you're not locked down to doing things in realtime. Add that to
being able to undo, and you have totally changed the way production is done
and not always for the better. The fast pace and not having the ability to
slow down and think about things is where a lot of artists have problems.

But you're right that early digital systems sounded pretty bad, and a lot
of artists remember those days (and many of them heard better back in those
days too). So you have a lot of the same kinds of issues that we had in
the eighties with people complaining about how bad solid state electronics
sounded, because they remembered the solid state gear of twenty years earlier
that sounded very bad.

Personally, I have yet to HEAR any of what people complained about with EARLY CDs. Was this less than impressive sound attributed with D-A convertors? Heck, no. I attribute the less than impressive sound to A.) Not working with genuine First Generation Master tapes, B.) Ill sounding Sony PCM machines that most didn't know how to operate, C.) HUMANS that had no business (re)mastering music but loved the money they gained, and D.) Not having the electronics (replaced by DAW) as they did back in the days of analog mastering.

Some silly attempts to RECTIFY the ill CD audio was to use vacuum tube equipment. Brilliant! As Doug Sax wrote, before RIP, is that MAN will eventually get a better handle on digital sound.

Jack


Neil Young has a different set of problems, though. He has severely damaged
his hearing and has extreme recruitment, and likely this exaggerates the
artifacts of lossy encoding. Perceptual encoding systems like mp3 rely on
a model of how hearing works, and when your hearing doesn't match that model
they can go horribly wrong. So he likely has a legitimate concern about
lossy encoding. It probably does sound much worse to him than it does us..

However, because he doesn't have the slightest idea about the actual technology
he confuses a lot of different unrelated issues together and waves his arms and
comes out and says "everything digital is bad." This doesn't help anything.
--scott

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

[Neil[_9_]]

On 2/25/2017 11:44 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , Neil wrote:
My take on it is that a lot of artists' perspective toward digital was
formed in the early transitional years, and this movie is largely about
that time period. From a personal perspective, I sold our analog studio
about that time (late 70's) simply because the cost of conversion was
unjustifiable due to many things, including the rise of home studios and
disco-based "beat" music.

Well, there are a lot of different things going on. The main difference
between traditional analogue and digital production methods is not sound
quality per se but the fact that everything is so much faster in the digital
world and you're not locked down to doing things in realtime. Add that to
being able to undo, and you have totally changed the way production is done
and not always for the better. The fast pace and not having the ability to
slow down and think about things is where a lot of artists have problems.

During the "dawn of digital" one could see the potential for new
production techniques, but it wasn't realized until about a decade after
studios had to decide what they were going to do. For example, the 3M
and other digital recorders were still based on reels of tape, so
retakes were required and splicing was out. In the meantime, classic
electronic music (read, synthesizer techniques aka musique concrete)
dominated the disco scene, and bands that previously would go to a
studio to record their demos were using Tascam gear at home, so the
money was siphoned off.

But you're right that early digital systems sounded pretty bad, and a lot
of artists remember those days (and many of them heard better back in those
days too). So you have a lot of the same kinds of issues that we had in
the eighties with people complaining about how bad solid state electronics
sounded, because they remembered the solid state gear of twenty years earlier
that sounded very bad.

There wasn't anything really wrong with solid state electronics per se,
even in the '60s. There was some bad design using transistors, but there
was also some excellent gear. What I think musicians had a problem with
is that solid state didn't mask artifacts such as the odd harmonics that
were a part of the overdrive they liked. But, that was easily dealt
with, too, if one knew what they were dealing with.

--
best regards,

Neil

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

On 25-02-2017 17:44, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Neil Young has a different set of problems, though. He has severely damaged
his hearing and has extreme recruitment, and likely this exaggerates the
artifacts of lossy encoding. Perceptual encoding systems like mp3 rely on
a model of how hearing works, and when your hearing doesn't match that model
they can go horribly wrong. So he likely has a legitimate concern about
lossy encoding. It probably does sound much worse to him than it does us.

I can't find any real difference in the workings of lossy encoding and
threshold shift.

However, because he doesn't have the slightest idea about the actual technology
he confuses a lot of different unrelated issues together and waves his arms and
comes out and says "everything digital is bad." This doesn't help anything.

Very often nowadays "digital" unspecificed is lossy encoded digital and
then the vinyl LP does come out on top. I'm beginning to wonder just how
much full wordlength digital audio that gets to the end consumer.

--scott

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[geoff]

On 26/02/2017 2:41 AM, Neil wrote:
On 2/25/2017 6:25 AM, geoff wrote:
On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:


Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

geoff

My take on it is that a lot of artists' perspective toward digital was
formed in the early transitional years, and this movie is largely about
that time period. From a personal perspective, I sold our analog studio
about that time (late 70's) simply because the cost of conversion was
unjustifiable due to many things, including the rise of home studios and
disco-based "beat" music.



Most of the great unwashed seemed to equate 'digital' with MP3 9and
Apple equiv) , and crappy streamed downloads. This can be either in a
positive or negative light.

Apparently CDs other other media are not 'digital' any more, but get
dmaned when the negative mode is on.

geoff

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 6:25:19 AM UTC-5, geoff wrote:
On 26/02/2017 12:09 AM, wrote:


Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.

Ah yes, his famous total lack of ability to comprehend A-D and D-A and
resultant damning of it. Apart from the Pono, that is ...

Remember when Neil was part of CSN&Y? Remember when Neil wanted several Takes, because HE was displeased with sound quality? No, you don't, because Neil didn't give a crap about sound/audio quality.

He just seen an opportunity to compete against Apple, but failed. Had Neil had ALL of what he offered for Pono, remixed, he might have stood a chance, but he didn't.

Now, let's talk Steven Wilson, who "remixed" a Chicago (group) album. Steven's own music must not be that great (even asked local radio station), so he remixes other's work. Steven does make subtle changes to the stereo mix, and I agree with them. However, now Steven is into remixing Horn bands (via Rhino Records (guess Bill Inglot is GONE).

Actually, I like Steven's work, since he is (sometimes too) conservative, nice to digitally enhance!

Jack

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 6:09:28 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Neil:

Just found it and watched on Hulu!
What a ride! And the revival at the
end was touching and energizing -
I won't let on just which famous
Brit rocked the place.

Neil Young about half-way through
got about as in-depth regarding
digital audio as anyone would,
mentioning an "error" with it that
he didn't elaborate on. Just that
digital wasn't quite what analog was.


Enlightening to know that a large
proprtion of my album collection was
recorded at Sound City!

Neil Young? A dipwad, period. Him and his Pono crap and Neil's friends who enjoy deceiving others. A late bloomer, audiophile. Right.

Jack

[Klay Anderson[_2_]]

For a god tine, find "The Wrecking Crew" on a streaming service.

Klay

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Klay Anderson wrote:
For a god tine, find "The Wrecking Crew" on a streaming service.

Klay



Also "Muscle Shoals."

--
Les Cargill