Analogue discussion

[Tagirijus]

With the point of not losing the "perfection from analogue gear", wouldn't it be mandatory to always let the final product stay in analogue domain (never convert it to a file, but let it in tape for example)? ... Thus people these days without analogue playback gear could not listen to it ... Or am I naive right now?

Regarding the blind test: official studies or I won't believe. Moreover: it really depends how you presented the audio (communication before playback ... even subconscious what you might not had realized). Some really independent people should have made this test to be 99% sure or something like this. Just trying to point out that "private" studies are probably not that much significant.

I really have to admit that I did not hear many real hardware! But I experienced many people and companies which loved to let the old things rule the world. So at least I really believe in this point and I trust Vojtech. But yeah: again I have to admit that I can just questions things, while having not much knowledge or experienced with HW. At least I can tell that I could do nearly everything with the Melda plugins I wanted so far, hehe.

[Burillo]

the issue is how much of what kind of distortion a given person can hear. for most people CD quality is enough - hence why consumers jumped on CD and gave up every analogue format before it. most people can't hear the distortion present in digital audio at 44/16, or they hear it but it doesn't cognitively register as being an issue. my mother, for example, doesn't "get" HD television - she says "I don't see a difference" and its not possible to point out to her the differences because she is convinced there is no difference. she is uninterested in anything better because she doesn't care. SD video is fine by her. and so it goes with 44/16.

but for people that can hear the difference, and care, the higher the sample rate and bit depth, the more data there will be in reducing the distortion caused by approximation.

what a load of crap. higher sampling rate is not at all analogous to "HD" television. it's more like television with a spectrum extended to reproduce ultraviolet and beyond - you're not seeing it anyway, so it doesn't make any difference. please educate yourself.

Question(s): Can't a digital EQ perfectly mimic ANY analogue EQ? (Insert any processor you like in place of EQ)

yes. it's just math. of course, if we're talking about EQ curves. if you factor in the analog distortion - you'd have to throw in some kind of saturator in the mix.

[MeldaProduction]

Grizzella: I might have been a little too steep against the analog, but my point is: We should focus on the future, take the experience from both analog and digital (and everything else), but always for the future . It all started with analog, but there are many many flaws in that, so instead of justifying these flaws and trying to give them some awesome names to be able to sell them for eternity , it could be better just to analyze them, take the good stuff from them, trash the bad stuff (as technology lets us do that) and develop something magnificent . I just don't see a point of recreating them. But as I said, I'm glad all these giants are doing that, leaves the rest of the market for us .
Btw. convolution is the basic filter, then you have others, plus some nonlinearities & dynamics. That's the toolkit of the analog sims. But the convolution is the main one, and it can be dynamic. How to you think MVintageRotary works (psssst ). And simulating rotary is waaaaaay more problematic than some electric circuits...that is the actual physical modeling!

Batty: Voltage isn't mathematically perfect of course, but it tries to be, and it represents the same thing as the numbers and that's the point. It tries to be as perfect as the numbers (which are well not totally perfect either ). One needs to look at these 2 things as just 2 different representations of the same thing. Much like spectral & time domain representation.

plexuss: True, digital is an approximation of the analog, a very good approximation actually, if you take a very good A/D and D/A and just convert it there and back, I don't expect anyone to hear a difference. But mainly, analog is NOT how we hear things! It's again an approximation of the air pressure, a very bad one actually.
For example I love sound of piano. But I literally never heard a recording even remotely close to what you feel when you sit next to the "thing". And I never will, because the 2 speakers just cannot reproduce it. It's the air pressure that is changing all around you. We then take 2 (or more) poor mikes, place them somewhere, convert them to electricity, store the signal somehow, then convert them back, all in a very very inaccurate way, a play them using faulty monitors/headphones... The added link of digital conversion (after which everything can be perfect if we develop it well) is the strongest part of all that imperfect machinery. Sure, every conversion to anything is sort of a problem, but eventually everything gets digital, and that's good, because at that point, no electrical circuit imperfection can harm it anymore, so the question is more like if we should process as much as possible via electrical circuits or via digital processing, and my opinion is pretty clear .
Then we can simulate the imperfections of the analog in digital, and simulate only those we actually want. Main question is if we actually want that, and that's what this is all about. Btw. I heard an analog gear and its replication via UAD (I don't remember what it was, some tube thingy) and I was completely disgusted - the analog itself was ok, a little noisy as it usually is, but that's all. But the UAD was horrible, it added so much innatural noise/mess/buzz that it completely ruined the music . One of the reasons one should be picky about what to simulate.

werzel: I cannot agree more . Btw. these things can be duplicated, again using convolution mainly actually, add a little saturation and you are done. And then you have the crazy folks who start adding noise, because the original had that . Why? No idea...

Repeating my conclusion : We should learn from the previous achievements, analog & digital & who the hell knows what comes next (except for apocalypse ). I'm 100% sure it is possible to simulate analog using digital, so that people don't hear a difference. But I think that's completely pointless. We should get the positive stuff, use it if we want to, and trash the bad stuff (like noise, hum... there's mostly the bad stuff imho). And evolve... that's I'm going to do anyways .

[jmg8]

OK, massive FR (sorry!)

Is there any chance of dynamic convolution? I don't know a huge amount about it, but if it lets us simulate more accurately, it sounds like fun to me.

[Tagirijus]

Is there any chance of dynamic convolution?

Haha, that's exactly what I thought reading the posts!!

[Batty]

To break down your points one by one, Vojtech:
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. :p
I agree with you in all positions...but one remains still: our ears are simply made to listen to analog sounds of our surrounding world. That's a fact....even tho our brain makes digital signals out of everything again.
Simple example to show you what I mean:

Does an unaltered sinus wave sound warm when played on the keayboard - or a saw, or a pure noise, or two or three? To me it sounds neutral...but somehow cold.
So what do you do?...you put a saturator or even a distortion effect on it or something else....things that are originally "analog" or let's call it: chaotic alterations. Our analog world is chaotic: Wind, trees, water, birds, lions (and they are all moving...their sound I mean - never the same)..... And we are tuned to that sound...that's why too much order makes it "clinical" and for many of us unwelcoming/thin/cold.
+ Our digitalized sound uses resolution, unlike Vinyl records. But with 96kbit I'm over that.....mostly...no...I am. .....am I? Who am I?
No...with96k we are above Vinyls perceptive resolution.
And before you say something ....the borderline is totally floating between analog and digital.
But from the clinical pure digital tone to the analog...there's a lot of shades in between.

[plexuss]

I think you guys are going to have a hard time convincing the studios that are responsible for producing professional music releases to work in the box only (no analogue processing) and keep everything at 44/16. There are good reasons why analogue is used and why their converters and digital projects are set at a minimum of 96/24.

[Burillo]

No, there aren't. There are good reasons to keep sampling rate slightly above 44.1, but not even 96 makes much sense. The reason why "pros" use high sampling rate is mostly ignorance and marketing. Which is kind of whole point of Vojtech's posts in this thread, only he extends it to "analog gear" as well

[plexuss]

No, there aren't. There are good reasons to keep sampling rate slightly above 44.1, but not even 96 makes much sense. The reason why "pros" use high sampling rate is mostly ignorance and marketing. Which is kind of whole point of Vojtech's posts in this thread, only he extends it to "analog gear" as well

Well, I guess all those researchers at the Audio Engineering Society and people like David Lavry can learn a thing or two from you! And all those people with expensive high end converters that run them at 96/24 or greater. and forget sites like HD Tracks that sell 96/24 and 192/24 digital media - they are also barking up the wrong tree according to you. So much stupidity out there! Vintage King should be going out of business soon. And forget hacks like Jack Puig and all those other studios crammed full of analogue gear and high data rate gear. Wrong wrong wrong. Yep, a copy Tracktion and some Melda plugins running at 44/16 are all that is needed to produce professional music records.

[steve2KVR]

...now now now...let's calm down here ...there's lots of people doing lots of different stuff different ways and creating great things in the process...some really great stuff has been done on "low end" gear ...and god only knows how much really expensive crap has been done at 96000k+ or whatever ...so wherever this here train is headed it's gonna get there regardless of how we speak to each other in the meantime...I, fortunately totally agree with both sides of conversation ...cheers! .../s~

[Grizzellda]

Grizzella: I might have been a little too steep against the analog, but my point is: We should focus on the future

Okay, so first of all, it is spelled "Grizzellda"... And I agree about focusing on the future!

So hey, alot of good posts here, I'll say...and I could quote a bunch of em' and try to challenge viewpoints, etcetera, but that would turn into a boring essay and who would give a shit, quite frankly.

Instead, I'm going back to where all this stuff started, the "eighties"...

Yeah that's right...the dawn of the compact disc!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but here is what I think unfolded...

Digital technology in general had been fermenting in academic laboratories and was finally ready for some kind of commercial unveiling. Since we are talking audio here, then it must be the CD, or "compact disc".

It didn't take long, did it, for CD's to become normal...say, where did all the records go? heh heh...

The selling points: Clean sound, no noise, instant song access, durability.

So they "took off" quite quickly... became very successful. But while the masses were busy dancing, soon some careful listeners said "they sound kind of cold and empty somehow..."

But by then, maybe the late nineties, the personal computer was basically revolutionizing the recording industry, and most music was now all digital, and so a sub-industry arose to "warm it up", with (Vojtech's favorite )...Analogue Emulation. = "warmth"!!!

Fast forward to "now" 2016...it seems to have worked well enough to satisfy folks...except of course this "warmth" extravaganza is helped greatly by...

Oh God, should I say it?...MARKETING!!!

Oh for f**k sakes, Vojtech is right, and I'm so embarrassed!

But I still stand by all my posts...I think!!!

[steve2KVR]

...and i totally agree with both of you ...thnx.../s~

[Grizzellda]

Nice to hear it steve2KVR, but no ideas to add, no conflicting opinions?

You can't just agree with everyone and give warm hugs...don't you know this is KVR???

[steve2KVR]

fwiw...ive been at this a very long time (60+) and have seen a lot come and go, along with the attending "arguments" one way or the other, sigh , and mostly i've noticed the "creators" that keep me going just use/d whatever was/is at hand and got on with it...i've owned at lot of "the" HW mentioned, and now couldn't care/less...(once had to keep a tube compressor in the fridge to get "that sound") ...sigh ...so now u know...back to the future.../s~

[Grizzellda]

Oh, I guess you are talking about making music, yeah I hear you...