digital deadness...

[Eric Rottmayer]

i didn't really know where to post this...i guess it's maybe more of a
physiological thing rather than technical...and maybe this has already been
discussed, i'm sure it has. OK, so i've been recording digitally for a couple
of years now. i've invested in some better pres, mics, amps, guitars and
other stuff and had been initially very happy with my digital results in
comparrison with my old 4-track cassette recordings and more recent
8-track 1/2 machine, but now i'm sort of getting worried. everything is
starting to sound 'dead' to me, as in, 'no life' in any of the sounds i'm
getting. i'm still happy recording and i'm learning new stuff and still using
plently of tube gear...and i guess some of it sounds warm, especially when
i'm recording it but then later, after mixing, i'm hearing a lot of deadness.
i listen to all the albums that i love from 30 and 40 years ago and they
all sound 'alive' to me and when i turn on the radio and hear new stuff
it all sounds 'dead' including my stuff.

does anyone know what i mean? am i going crazy? am i losing my
hearing? is my perception of what i want to hear being clouded
by what i think i want to hear? yikes, this is scary.
please, somebody talk me down. thanks! i am not high, i swear.

[eeldip]

have you ever had anything you recorded mastered properly? are you comparing your mixes to mastered material... or your mastered material to mastered material?

[Mark Alan Miller]

Are you using natural ambience to your advantage? Or artificial?
Are you 'cleaning up' your tracks all the time (gating, editing out between notes, etc)?
Are you expecting your gear to get the sounds for you? Please don't take this the wrong way, but it starts at the source - if all of your source sounds are 'dead' (by that I generally think people mean lacking in ambience, so correct me if I'm wrong in this case) then when you add 'em all together...
Are you thinking about the three dimensions of a stereo mix when you mix (or track for that matter) - 'height' (low to high frequencies) 'width' (left-to right panning/placement/localization) and 'depth' (front to back cues, including ambience or lack thereof?)
Percieved depth is probably most easily achieved by ambience cues, but judicial limiting of spectral information (rolling off some lows and highs, for example) can also cue the brain into perceiving a sound as being 'farther away'.

Just some thoughts.

[msmith4060]

Things Ive(And most everyone else) nooticed with digital recording-specifically with the lower end converters:
Loss of spatial reference
Loss of integrity at the low and high ends of dynamics
Lack of mid-range clarity
More High end than Steely Dan would even allow
Loss of head bump---hey wait---
So---given these issues, I usually try to compensate--
And just to clarify----I still use analog, but digital is king now, and these issues have been addressed enough to make a grown man break down and cry on these forums---search man search...Every medium has its issues, and try to really listen to the differences in your stuff, and make adjustments accordingly----a good engineer should be able to make the same great record on any format---

[Marlowe]

Perhaps you're doing something wrong that might be responsible for your experience but... if I had to pick a word to describe the sound of digital as compared to analog, I think "dead" is it. For me, the challenge of recording digitally (I've been at it for about 10 years) is to make the recording sound as "alive" as analog.

I never thought of it that way until I read your post.

i didn't really know where to post this...i guess it's maybe more of a
physiological thing rather than technical...and maybe this has already been
discussed, i'm sure it has. OK, so i've been recording digitally for a couple
of years now. i've invested in some better pres, mics, amps, guitars and
other stuff and had been initially very happy with my digital results in
comparrison with my old 4-track cassette recordings and more recent
8-track 1/2 machine, but now i'm sort of getting worried. everything is
starting to sound 'dead' to me, as in, 'no life' in any of the sounds i'm
getting. i'm still happy recording and i'm learning new stuff and still using
plently of tube gear...and i guess some of it sounds warm, especially when
i'm recording it but then later, after mixing, i'm hearing a lot of deadness.
i listen to all the albums that i love from 30 and 40 years ago and they
all sound 'alive' to me and when i turn on the radio and hear new stuff
it all sounds 'dead' including my stuff.

does anyone know what i mean? am i going crazy? am i losing my
hearing? is my perception of what i want to hear being clouded
by what i think i want to hear? yikes, this is scary.
please, somebody talk me down. thanks! i am not high, i swear.

[nipsy]

What do you expect from a bunch of 1's and 0's.......

There's a great back issue article with that curmudgeon Walter Sear you should read....





(steps aside after opening can of worms...)

[these_go211]

races desperately to try and put top *back* on can of worms........

[Russian Recording]

Cheaper conversion definately can sound "dead", especially when mixing out of the box (ie using lots of a/d AND d/a).

I use a pair of MOTU HD 192s for my A/D and D/A. They are decent converters, but not what I would consider "awesome". Still, very good and acceptable.

I recently purchased a Crane Song Spider. The Spider has 10 ch. of "awesome" A/D, and also has an "awesome" clock. Now I track 90% of everything through the Spider's A/D, and while the MOTUs still serve as my D/As, they are clocked from the Spider's clock, which I find improves the sound substantially. I was very happy to find that the overall improvement in sound is truly astounding. While the sound of the recordings without the Spider wasn't exactly "dead", the recordings I'm making with the new setup are definately much more vivid and have a girth to them that is hard to explain. All the sounds have more authority to them and really stand out.

Of course, the most significant variables in the quality of your recordings are you, the instruments you are recording, and the acoustic space you are working in.
With that said, there is definately "good" digital and there is "bad" digital. You will know good digital when you hear it. I would highly recommend getting a really nice pair of A/Ds for tracking (ie Lavry, Mytek, Crane Song, etc). Even if you normally record more than 2 tracks live, you can clock your cheaper converters from your nice ones, and then you can also track all of your overdubs through the nice converters. If you are mixing in the box, get yourself a really nice D/A as well. Otherwise, clock your D/As from your nice converter to get the most out them.

best,
mike

[wedge]

I personally think that *life* in a recording is the result of the life that the performers have infused into their performances, platform of recording be damned (almost). How's that for a can of worms?!?

Oh. And make sure that you use compression effectively. That helps, too. Try parrallel compression. Seems a good way to go, so as to not overcompress and suck the life outa the sound.

[Mark Alan Miller]

I personally think that *life* in a recording is the result of the life that the performers have infused into their performances, platform of recording be damned (almost). How's that for a can of worms?!?

That's along the lines of what I was saying in a way. It's more about the source, not the recording medium. I think pretty much any medium available these days is capable of making recordings that have 'life' to them. Some, perhaps, don't make it quite as easy...

[Knights Who Say Neve]

I had a similar experience. Went digital, was satisified for a while, and then slapped on some old cassette recordings (done with the same stereo mic and compressor BTW) and liked the cassette better than the later DAT stuff. The cassette, though darker and noisier, had life to it. Hmmm...

Then I compared a newly remastered CD to a less-than-pristine vinyl copy. I liked the vinyl better. Noisier, but...it sounded better to me. Hmmm...

...and I could go on like this but I won't. I could add my technical explanation of why good analog will beat good digital but I won't. It's like arguing about politics. Suffice to say, it is not "just your imagination". It's what YOU hear that matters. If you like anlog, use it! Don't let majority preference talk you out of what YOU like. And that goes for most things in life.

[Russian Recording]

I don't think this is an "analog vs digital" debate.

The fact that the performance and the music itself is the most important aspect is a given. If you don't already know that than you probably should not be recording music. This is not what the poster is inquiring about.

He is talking about sound quality. I think that excellent sound quality can be achived from any medium, analog or digital. Poor sound quality can also be achived from analog or digital. The main difference is that shitty analog recordings seem to have more "charm" to them, whereas bad digital recordings usually just sound sterile and hard.

All I am trying to say is that excellent sounding digital recording does exist. It's not better or worse than good sounding analog recording... they both (can) sound very good. It's just frustrating that some people are so quick to write off digital recording as sounding "bad" and analog recording as "good", or "better" than digital.

I have used some of the best analog recording equipment ever made, and have also used really good digital, and in both cases I was extremely happy with the sound of the recordings.

best,
mike

[Mark Alan Miller]

Mike, I like the way you said all that. Well put.

[Marlowe]

I don't think this is an "analog vs digital" debate.

Maybe it is... after all, you yourself say "The main difference is that shitty analog recordings seem to have more 'charm' to them, whereas bad digital recordings usually just sound sterile and hard."

That's my point. Digital may have an inherent quality of "deadness" for lack of a better word whereas analog doesn't.

The fact that the performance and the music itself is the most important aspect is a given. If you don't already know that than you probably should not be recording music. This is not what the poster is inquiring about.

Yeah, yeah... that the music is the most important thing is old news. "Should not be recording music"? Whatever.

All I am trying to say is that excellent sounding digital recording does exist. It's not better or worse than good sounding analog recording... they both (can) sound very good. It's just frustrating that some people are so quick to write off digital recording as sounding "bad" and analog recording as "good", or "better" than digital.

Who's writing off digital recording? The discussion is about the inherent qualities of digital recording.

[kayagum]

Is it a function of medium or technique?

Another dimension is not necessarily D or A, but close-mic vs. room mic, hiss vs no hiss, proximity effect vs no proximity effect, on axis vs off axis, and so on.

Cassette recording's "charm" (to call that a euphemism is being kind) is the hiss, its unique EQ curve and its unique compression (from the tape, or from the machine's noise reduction, whatever). With digital, you lose all three. Are you bothering to replace it with some other quality, or are you just doing what you've always done?

Here's one story: I once had to do a turd polishing remedial mixing project. It was just voice and church organ, with horrific hiss (bad gain structure, from what I could gather) and ice-pick digital EQ. I ran it through a denoiser (Audition), and lo and behold there was some nice church reverb behind it. But it wasn't enough to just leave it alone- some EQ and other adjustments needed to be made in order to bring it out. Chilling out the ice pick EQ was a big part of that, but I had to do other tweaks on top of that.

You have to bring out whatever charm that was inherent with the performance and/or space. Just blindly shoving a close mic on a source is not going to get you there.