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Digital VS. Analog for guitar tones

3/9/1999 11:09 AM
Trace	Digital VS. Analog for guitar tones Hey all; I'm curious to see who has analog recorders and who has digital recorders here. I was also curious if anyone has been lucky enough to record on both and to see what their opinions are as far as guitar sounds go. Give a hollar!! Trace

3/9/1999 11:41 AM
Benjamin Fargen	Trace, I was waiting for you to post! congrats on helping to get this forum going! IMHO: I have recorded on both analog and digital systems. I was fortunate enough to record at Hyde street studios in San Fran.....they have a Studer 24 2" machine and a NEVE console with flying faders. It really doesn't get much better than this! But lets come back to the real world of everyday home recording. You can still get killer guitar tones out of a digital system.(you already know this Trace!) You just have to take a little more time to work with it. You need to run a Tube pre and a little compression. Run hot levels and experiment with mic placement. The thing that really makes a big difference in digital recording is the amount of cool direct X plug in FX that are out there. Magneto, waves C1+ compressor and Sonic Foundry acoustic modeler are a great way to fatten up your tone and put some "MOJO" back into the track. Don't forget about double tracking your parts also. See ya, Benjamin.

3/9/1999 11:41 AM

Benjamin Fargen

Trace,
I was waiting for you to post! congrats on helping to get this forum going!

IMHO:
I have recorded on both analog and digital systems. I was fortunate enough to record at Hyde street studios in San Fran.....they have a Studer 24 2" machine and a NEVE console with flying faders.
It really doesn't get much better than this!
But lets come back to the real world of everyday home recording. You can still get killer guitar tones out of a digital system.(you already know this Trace!)
You just have to take a little more time to work with it. You need to run a Tube pre and a little compression. Run hot levels and experiment with mic placement. The thing that really makes a big difference in digital recording is the amount of cool direct X plug in FX that are out there. Magneto, waves C1+ compressor and Sonic Foundry acoustic modeler are a great way to fatten up your tone and put some "MOJO" back into the track.

Don't forget about double tracking your parts also.

See ya,
Benjamin.

3/10/1999 10:40 AM
Trace	Ben; Yeh, I agree with you about Mic placement. It's more critical when recording on digital. With analog you have the wonderful option of slamming a signal on tape which does give you the flexability of not being quite as critical on mic placement verses analog. I just picked up the Roland VS-880 and it was expanded with all the goodies. I also have a Fostex R-8 at home. I'm afforded the luxurey of being able to record on 2" tape with a Neve when ever I want but for home recordings I use the R-8 or the VS-880. I'm an analog lover when it comes right down to it!! (ha, ha) Nothing beats that tape saturation no matter what's out there. I've recorded some pretty good tones with digital and I'd also like to share some tones with others somehow. Maybe snail mail tapes around?? Any idea would be most helpful indeed!!!!! I'm a firm believer in recording without EQ. I can see the whirl wind of S#!t flying my way now!! (ha, ha) I only use minimal (if any) compression when tracking. Just enough to keep the signal from peaking the meters on a digital format. I don't use compression when it comes to analog. Slam the signal onto that tape I always say!!! (ha, ha) Just my thoughts! Trace

3/10/1999 10:40 AM

Trace

Ben;

Yeh, I agree with you about Mic placement. It's more critical when recording on digital. With analog you have the wonderful option of slamming a signal on tape which does give you the flexability of not being quite as critical on mic placement verses analog.
I just picked up the Roland VS-880 and it was expanded with all the goodies. I also have a Fostex R-8 at home. I'm afforded the luxurey of being able to record on 2" tape with a Neve when ever I want but for home recordings I use the R-8 or the VS-880.
I'm an analog lover when it comes right down to it!! (ha, ha) Nothing beats that tape saturation no matter what's out there. I've recorded some pretty good tones with digital and I'd also like to share some tones with others somehow. Maybe snail mail tapes around??
Any idea would be most helpful indeed!!!!! I'm a firm believer in recording without EQ. I can see the whirl wind of S#!t flying my way now!! (ha, ha) I only use minimal (if any) compression when tracking. Just enough to keep the signal from peaking the meters on a digital format. I don't use compression when it comes to analog. Slam the signal onto that tape I always say!!! (ha, ha)

Just my thoughts!
Trace

3/10/1999 2:52 PM
Benjamin Fargen	EQ Trace, I totally agree with your thoughts on EQ......especially for electric guitar. you should be able to get a sweet tone to "tape" without the use of heavy EQ before or after the track is laid. Change guitars or amps or amp settings to achieve dark/bright/thick/thin sound rather than mess with EQ all day. What I use to mix up my tones is to record all my parts with different guitars and amp combo's and maybe even double a part with two completely different tones. This makes for huge tone that covers the whole spectrum instead of using the same tone over and over to track parts. Also....a cheap way to change tone is buy your choice of pick thin,medium,thick or none at all! Now this forum is starting to get fun! Benjamin.

3/10/1999 2:52 PM

Benjamin Fargen

Trace,
I totally agree with your thoughts on EQ......especially for electric guitar. you should be able to get a sweet tone to "tape" without the use of heavy EQ before or after the track is laid. Change guitars or amps or amp settings to achieve dark/bright/thick/thin sound rather than mess with EQ all day.
What I use to mix up my tones is to record all my parts with different guitars and amp combo's and maybe even double a part with two completely different tones. This makes for huge tone that covers the whole spectrum instead of using the same tone over and over to track parts.
Also....a cheap way to change tone is buy your choice of pick thin,medium,thick or none at all!

Now this forum is starting to get fun!
Benjamin.

3/15/1999 7:41 PM
Trace	Benjamin; Another way to get great tone when you only have one guitar and one amp is to use different mics (without changing the tone at all) or simply move the mics to achieve a differnt tone. Remember it's always cool to tight-mic a cabinet for a track and then record another with the mic back a little bit. Just some thoughts; Trace

3/9/1999 5:48 PM
warren	Re: Digital VS. Analog for guitar tones First off, let me say i'm really stoked to see a recording techniques forum here. After all, whats the point of having a great sound if you can't share it with the rest of the world. The analog vs. digital debate is alot like the tube vs. solid state or fender vs. marshall debate. there are crazed extremists on both sides, but it all really comes down to picking the proper technology for the task at hand. I've worked in studios for the last 10 years, using both analog and digital mediums with both good and bad results for each. I think there's two major problems with digital and both are user related. First, if your gonna record digitaly, you should stay digital through the whole process. the AD/DA converters on most gear are the weak link, and every time you enter and exit the digital domain you are losing quality. If you have a MDM (modular digital multitrack ie. DA-88 or ADAT) and a digital board, they should be connected digitaly. Which means of course, that if you have a favorite piece of analog outboard gear, you have to print it to tape as you track, rather than processing it as you mix. This brings up the second point. Working with digital requires different techniques and approches. Most gear, especially the older stuff we engineers are so fond of was designed with the characteristics of analog tape in mind. Any one whose ever been involved in a long project on tape knows that as the tape get run across the heads time after time, the high end starts to dull and some of the punch is lost. In order to keep the high end crisp at the end of the project, engineers have traditionaly recorded things (like cymbals and guitar) on the bright or harsh side. With digital, the sound (theoreticaly at least,) stays the same throughout the process, so what you put in is what you get back. Right now my favorite method of working is to track on analog 2 inch, then immediately dump to ProTools24. Do your editing and sonic tomfoolery there. Then mix to 1/2 inch analog. Of course this is a very costly setup and is feasable when you have a budget of $100,000 or more. Most of the stuff I produce is for indie bands with very small budgets so I work mostly on DA-88's and small digital consoles. But no one has ever complained that my recordings sound sterile or harsh, and I've had many clients who have returned to me after 'going analog' and being disapointed. My tricks are simple: proper mic selection and placement, using old outboard gear as sonic crayons, and lots of crazy unorthodox techiques. Like cutting vocals through microphonic PU's, or miking amps and kickdrums with a 15 inch speaker, to name a few. The only rule is: Does it sound good and does it work in the context of the song. I'd love to hear other peoples take on this and learn some more tricks for getting new sounds. Warren

3/9/1999 5:48 PM

warren

Re: Digital VS. Analog for guitar tones

First off, let me say i'm really stoked to see a recording techniques forum here. After all, whats the point of having a great sound if you can't share it with the rest of the world.

The analog vs. digital debate is alot like the tube vs. solid state or fender vs. marshall debate. there are crazed extremists on both sides, but it all really comes down to picking the proper technology for the task at hand. I've worked in studios for the last 10 years, using both analog and digital mediums with both good and bad results for each.

I think there's two major problems with digital and both are user related. First, if your gonna record digitaly, you should stay digital through the whole process. the AD/DA converters on most gear are the weak link, and every time you enter and exit the digital domain you are losing quality. If you have a MDM (modular digital multitrack ie. DA-88 or ADAT) and a digital board, they should be connected digitaly. Which means of course, that if you have a favorite piece of analog outboard gear, you have to print it to tape as you track, rather than processing it as you mix.

This brings up the second point. Working with digital requires different techniques and approches. Most gear, especially the older stuff we engineers are so fond of was designed with the characteristics of analog tape in mind. Any one whose ever been involved in a long project on tape knows that as the tape get run across the heads time after time, the high end starts to dull and some of the punch is lost. In order to keep the high end crisp at the end of the project, engineers have traditionaly recorded things (like cymbals and guitar) on the bright or harsh side. With digital, the sound (theoreticaly at least,) stays the same throughout the process, so what you put in is what you get back.

Right now my favorite method of working is to track on analog 2 inch, then immediately dump to ProTools24. Do your editing and sonic tomfoolery there. Then mix to 1/2 inch analog. Of course this is a very costly setup and is feasable when you have a budget of $100,000 or more. Most of the stuff I produce is for indie bands with very small budgets so I work mostly on DA-88's and small digital consoles. But no one has ever complained that my recordings sound sterile or harsh, and I've had many clients who have returned to me after 'going analog' and being disapointed.

My tricks are simple: proper mic selection and placement, using old outboard gear as sonic crayons, and lots of crazy unorthodox techiques. Like cutting vocals through microphonic PU's, or miking amps and kickdrums with a 15 inch speaker, to name a few.

The only rule is: Does it sound good and does it work in the context of the song.

I'd love to hear other peoples take on this and learn some more tricks for getting new sounds.

Warren

3/10/1999 10:52 AM
Trace	Warren you crazy cat!!! Warren; Heyyyyyy!!! You're right up my alley with all that silly miking stuff! I've used the 15" speaker and a subwoffer as well. Great for kick sounds that get lost on small speakers or even radio. Man, I've posted some really out there stuff for recording guitar tracks as many of these guys here will tell you! (ha, ha) I also have been working as an engineer/producer for a while now. I'm getting engineering credit for my band's debut release (thank god!) here's the link http://asitis.net there's five tunes posted. The song "Big Switch" has a pretty wacky guitar tone in the verses. I placed a post as to how to use this technique and I don't know if anyone even dared to try it!! (ha, ha) It was wacky I agree. I'd also like to share tips on recording all other instruments too Warren!! I'm a fan of 2" and tossing it into ProTools. I recently learned something very important from a big producer. Everytime he mixed a tune he demanded the heads be cleaned after every pass of the tune! This sounds a bit excessive but after that session you could really hear where he was coming from. The high end getting lost is just build up on the tape heads. Clean'em up and presto! It's all there!! I've even recorded digital and transfered all those tracks to a 2" machine o warm things up and slam some signals to tape for tape saturation. Let's swap some wacky recording techniques!!!!! Trace

3/10/1999 10:52 AM

Trace

Warren you crazy cat!!!

Warren;

Heyyyyyy!!! You're right up my alley with all that silly miking stuff! I've used the 15" speaker and a subwoffer as well. Great for kick sounds that get lost on small speakers or even radio.
Man, I've posted some really out there stuff for recording guitar tracks as many of these guys here will tell you! (ha, ha)
I also have been working as an engineer/producer for a while now. I'm getting engineering credit for my band's debut release (thank god!) here's the link http://asitis.net there's five tunes posted. The song "Big Switch" has a pretty wacky guitar tone in the verses. I placed a post as to how to use this technique and I don't know if anyone even dared to try it!! (ha, ha) It was wacky I agree.
I'd also like to share tips on recording all other instruments too Warren!!
I'm a fan of 2" and tossing it into ProTools. I recently learned something very important from a big producer. Everytime he mixed a tune he demanded the heads be cleaned after every pass of the tune!
This sounds a bit excessive but after that session you could really hear where he was coming from. The high end getting lost is just build up on the tape heads. Clean'em up and presto! It's all there!!
I've even recorded digital and transfered all those tracks to a 2" machine o warm things up and slam some signals to tape for tape saturation.
Let's swap some wacky recording techniques!!!!!

Trace

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