The Future of Audio Engineering....

[CraigM]

This is what I have to write a paper on. Hoping some folks could chime in with their opinion. Specifically, do you think we will see the day when analog is, aside from dude's like me in their basement, obsolete? I'm thinking studio-wise, mainly.
I wonder if the day will come when there are no spare parts to repair a tape machine, therefore, forcing people to go digital entirely. Sounds like a bad movie theme from the 60's. "Attack of the....."
If anyone could weigh in on this that would be awesome! THANK YOU!
--
Craig

[Professor]

Of course that day will come, just as certainly as the day will come when digital, or at least PCM digital is replaced... provided history continues as it has.
Have you seen many quill pens around the office?
Any hand-crank printing presses?
When was the last time you heard about someone pressing a lacquer 78?
Have you ever even seen a wire recorder? or a steam engine? or seen a cop sporting a broad sword?

Technology progresses, that's just how things work. Sometimes it happens in a tidal wave and sometimes it limps along like a sloth. Some people are drown in the torrent, some ride the wave, some paddle along in the wake, and others try to slow down that slug like a pimple on the ass of progress (as my high school band teacher used to say).
Once upon a very short time ago, audio was the height of technology. We were the tidal wave that was crashing in on the world around us with almost magical inventions like the telephone or the 'wireless' (radio) or all the various generations of recording technology from cylinders to discs to tapes to digits.
But now we're no longer the conveyors of technology, but rather the beneficiary. Once upon a time audio defined the standard for our storage medium of choice (tape) and now the finance & information industries define the standard of our storage medium and we reap the benefits of hard drive space that costs less than a buck-a-gig.

Now af course our technique for capturing audio still involves creating an alternating current signal wave that is an "analog" of the pressure changes in air. Since that critical first step can't really be bypassed (or at least nobody has developed a method to do so yet) then analog technologies will always be a part of what we do in terms of microphones, amplifiers, processors and speakers. And the technology works well for the task we require so it will stay around just as sure as you can still see sailboats skimming along the sound... alongside the ships driven by diesel and below the roar of jets departing SeaTac. (But have you noticed many steam ships?)
If you want to know how close the 'end of analog tape' is, just take a quick look around for commentary about the closing of Quantegy last December which was the last company proding analong open reel tape, and read about the panic buying with paying outrageous sums for those last few reels of a medium that left the manufacturer bankrupt.
Someday the binary bits of data will be replaced by the next generation of computing technology - likely based on some kind of "super-bit" that can represent more than just two states of "on" or "off", and the whole cycle will repeat, and some guy in school 20, 40 or 60 years from now will be wondering about whether digital will ever really die.

Of course the bigger question is whether or not there will be an industry for recording music anymore when the combination of the DIY aesthetic and media piracy finally remove all profitability from the commercial production and consumption of music.
Is that possible, ever?
I don't know, go find a 16-year old with an iPod and ask 'em the last time they dropped $15 for a CD.
Or I guess as an analogy from another art form, ask a typical family the last time they had a protrait painted.

For lots of great information on such topics, you might visit the website of a truly visionary futurist who was also quite a pioneer in our humble little industry and check out Ray Kurzweil's current endeavors at www.kurzweilai.net

-Jeremy

[John Jeffers]

Of course that day will come, just as certainly as the day will come when digital, or at least PCM digital is replaced

DSD or whatever technology is around the corner can only help, since it kinda feels like we've hit a wall in terms of what we can do with PCM.

What I mean by "hit a wall" is the fact that plenty of people don't see any point in going beyond 96K, yet hardware manufacturers keep pushing 192K.

[Professor]

Although even DSD is based on a binary system. And let's face it, most of the audio industry could care less about moving towards DSD since so few of the economic side of technological development shows no benefit to the average engineer and/or studio for a move to DSD. Hell, it barely shows any benefit towards a move past 16/44.1 in many genres.
My own prediction is that the next major technological advance for the audio industry will not come from within the industry. (Hell, I said that in 1995 when I was in my second year at the conservatory and knew nothing about the recording industry - I just knew that the next advance in recording delivery would be a memory chip with no moving parts. No great foresight there, it was an obvious development that simply needed time.)
As to what that development may be, well that's hard to say. It will obviously have more to do with storage & delivery than with production, artistry or sound quality. And my current hope is that it will revolve around a "super-bit" since that would indeed revolutionize all technologies. 3-dimensional data storage is looming very near on the horizon, but is still based on a binary system. It will provide a push, but not as much as a bit that represents prehaps 8 or more states rather than just 2.
And either way, neither one has anything to do with aesthetics, just storage & delivery. Oh, and it is of course still "digital" or at least close enough to it.

-Jeremy

[dokushoka]

This is what I have to write a paper on. Hoping some folks could chime in with their opinion. Specifically, do you think we will see the day when analog is, aside from dude's like me in their basement, obsolete? I'm thinking studio-wise, mainly.
I wonder if the day will come when there are no spare parts to repair a tape machine, therefore, forcing people to go digital entirely. Sounds like a bad movie theme from the 60's. "Attack of the....."
If anyone could weigh in on this that would be awesome! THANK YOU!
--
Craig

Analog being obsolete? How many people out there are using digital preamps? Analog equipment will exist in recording studios for a long time, obviously.

If you're talking about analog recorders, I think they'll be around for a long time, too. If you don't want to record digitally, a 2" tape machine (especially something like an a827) is THE MOST high fi non-digital multitrack recording device you can pretty much get. If you think of it in those terms, you can see that its not obsolete at all.

[centurymantra]

Of course that day will come, just as certainly as the day will come when digital, or at least PCM digital is replaced... provided history continues as it has.

Any hand-crank printing presses?

A friend of mine who has works in the field of printing/graphic and web design just bought a letterpress printing set-up. This style of printing is certainly a niche, but offers a unique aesthetic that can't be reproduced any other way.

When was the last time you heard about someone pressing a lacquer 78?

The Sun City Girls actually released a 78rpm record a few years back.

http://www.suncitygirls.com/discography/78rpm.php

...don't the cops in Texas have standard issue broadswords

That aside, your observations are quite correct. A friend and I were just discussing our love/hate relationship with digital technology. It is interesting that, for all it's revolutionary advances and the abilities it provides us, it could spell the death of music and culture as we know it. In a society that has become increasingly geared towards being little more than disposable, this has simply paved way for music to becoming yet another disposable commodity. For a large chunk of the masses, it's not so much about listening to music as it is about simply "having" music. By jamming a million gigs into our portable player of choice (which is, in itself, yet another disposable commodity) this satisfies a certain kind of gluttonous desire to consume, with the music being put to use as background noise and lifestyle support. Much of the artistry and cultural relevance of music is being slowly drained away. It's kind of sad, but you can see this happening throughout our society in all forms of art, as the socio-cultural landscape becomes increasiningly homogenized and culturally vacant. I have often said and firmly believe that, in a forward-progressing society, it is art that fuels all of lifes technologies and it is almost seems like we need to reverse this statement at this point. Not a good trend IMHO.

[wiggins]

I'll probably be called all different shades of "crackpot" for saying this, but a big concern of mine is the permanence of digital media - on a very long time scale.

Let's pretend together, just for a moment:

================ (< that means wavy dream-sequence thingys.. you know what i'm talking about)

It's the year 4006, about 1,994 years after the world economy as we know it collapsed under its own weight. Archaeologists dig deep in an area where, according to legend, a vast civilization with an astonishing culture once lived.

On one particular dig, they find two objects:

1. a small, white-and-silver plastic amulet. There is a wheel with primitive, indecipherable glyphs etched on the front, and a small window.

2. a thin, black disc two hand's breadth wide, with a small spiral groove beginning from the outside of the disc to the inside, where there is a small label and a hole. On the label is printed, in an ancient script called "English", the following:

John Coltrane
"A Love Supreme"
ABC/Impulse! Records
(c) 1965

After much research into these two mysterious items from our world's past, not much is known about the small white amulet - it has been opened, its primitive circuitry examined, electrically charged, a team of code breakers tried and failed to decipher its odd, cryptic symbols. Anthropologists may only speculate as to the purpose of this weird little machine - perhaps it was of religious signifigance?

Meanwhile, a team of researchers feel close to cracking the code with the black disc - they've found patterns in the grooves with a microscope, and some believe it might contain a message from the past to our present, their Future. Scientists and Anthropologists inch closer every hour to discovering this relic's astonishing secrets!

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

I know it sounds crazy, but think about it - digital media may only be reproduced by digital means, with digital equipment. it is not tangible, it is not permanent. A record can be played and its information decoded with a straight pin and a piece of paper. I believe, like most of us do, that music is a very vital part of our culture, and it would be a shame if all the progress we've made in music over the past 2 to 300 years is lost in the ether once our ipods die, the internet crashes, the military/industrial/entertainment complex crumbles under its own weight, and digital storage as we know it today becomes obsolete - just like 5-1/4" floppy discs, ADAT, Zip discs, and even now CD's and CD-R's.

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

I've read an article about how the Church of Scientology has bought up all the DMM laquer lathes in order to press L. Ron Hubbard's 'teachings' to gold phonograph discs, and place them in a time capsule with a mechanical hand-crank phonograph player. Wouldn't it be grand if, 2000 years from now, the only remaining record of man's first 30,000 years or so of progress is some dumbass going on about Lord Xenu?

We have an incredible way to preserve our way of life for the future. Yet, it is being discarded to appease our culture of consumption. Imagine if we had Jesus's teachings on a phonograph record, in his own words? Or Buddha's? or Aristotle's? I imagine we would be a little better off today. We humans consume and consume, and think nothing of the importance of what we're doing. Our only concern is to make as much money as possible with the least amount of soul-crushing dispair involved, in as little time as possible before we die.

Look, I own an ipod. I think it's awesome. I don't live out in the country on a commune, and I know I'm guilty of all this "culture of consumption" crap, and I don't have delusions about my own way of life changing, much less the rest of the world's. I'm just saying it's a shame.

[/crazy-talk]

[puls]

Just to be sure everybody's got their everything straight, my understanding was that Quantegy's reel-to-reel tape was still producing a profit. What drug them under was the video tape market.

I also thought I saw a thread about someone starting production of reel-to-reel tape again.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

jwp

[wiggins]

Just to be sure everybody's got their everything straight, my understanding was that Quantegy's reel-to-reel tape was still producing a profit. What drug them under was the video tape market.

I also thought I saw a thread about someone starting production of reel-to-reel tape again.

That's right. Quantegy is producing tape again, there's a very smart man in the northeast named Spitz that's getting all his stuff together to produce tape.

www.atrmagnetics.com

I saw an ad in the last TapeOp saying that the old Emtec formulas will be available soon from a facility in Europe.

There's demand for tape, just not enough to support multi-million dollar corporations like Quantegy. It's definetly a boutique market now, but it's still there.

[ckeene]

I've read an article about how the Church of Scientology has bought up all the DMM laquer lathes in order to press L. Ron Hubbard's 'teachings' to gold phonograph discs, and place them in a time capsule with a mechanical hand-crank phonograph player. Wouldn't it be grand if, 2000 years from now, the only remaining record of man's first 30,000 years or so of progress is some dumbass going on about Lord Xenu?

Interesting and intriguing post. The part above made me laugh.

[wiggins]

I've read an article about how the Church of Scientology has bought up all the DMM laquer lathes in order to press L. Ron Hubbard's 'teachings' to gold phonograph discs, and place them in a time capsule with a mechanical hand-crank phonograph player. Wouldn't it be grand if, 2000 years from now, the only remaining record of man's first 30,000 years or so of progress is some dumbass going on about Lord Xenu?

Interesting and intriguing post. The part above made me laugh.

It's totally true! That's why you can only get DMM mastering in the UK/Europe!

I'll try to find the article.

[Professor]

I knew there would be someone to come along and point out 1 exception as a way of proving some technology isn't obsolete. Look, there are plenty of Amish folks in Pennsylvania that preserve arcane technologies, and there's a guy at Long Island University who created an Egyptian mummy in the late 1990s, and you can still ride a steam train in little tourist towns around the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, the museum curiosity style of preservation of those technologies is exactly what proves their obsolescence. Sure they still "work" and certainly many technologies cannot be duplicated in their quaint idiosyncracies, but the fact that nobody is standing in line to replace their Excursion with a nice Model T is probably a suggestion that the particular technology is obsolete.

If you want permanence into the nether realms of the future, than etching into stone is about all you can do - and even then how much do we really know about the Romans, or the Greeks before them, or the Egyptians before them, or the Sumerians before them. Etching out some phonograph discs to preserve a religious movement is cute, but the choice of gold is kinda foolish since gold is awful malleable compared to a nice high-tech ceramic.

2000 years from now, all the lacquer and wax will have either been melted by global warming or nuclear bombs, or they will all have decayed into dust, and all that will be left are the etchings on the tomb stones... and some time capsule from the scientologists.

-Jeremy

[trodden]

and it will still cost you $35 for a review of those etchings.

[wiggins]

and it will still cost you $35 for a review of those etchings.

haha!

Hey man, I'm just sayin! And "just sayin" ain't gonna change anything, anyway. I hardly think Analog recording is obsolete - good recordings are still made with tape, to much the same commerical success and fidelity that records made with digital media have, with little difference in effort on the part of the engineer.

It's a subjective matter at this point, and no one is right or wrong. It all depends on your work habits as an engineer, or any preference to 'fidelity' differences between the two that you think you hear.

There's something to be said about the fact that literally any magnetic tape in the what, like, 50-60-year history of magnetic tape can still be played on modern tape machines, yet, we've ALL got ADAT tapes sitting in our closets that are almost completely worthless now.

I just think one of digital media's downfalls (to be fair, it has very few) is that it's at the mercy of computer-technology companies, and that industry in general changes so fast that little thought can be given to how quickly old technology becomes truly obsolete.


For the record, I am not a member of the recording industry - I do not work in a studio, I do not own a recording company, I've never made a record that saw widespread distribution, I've never been paid more than $400 for a recording. I'm what you'd call a hobbyist. I like to record my friends bands, and read everything I can about the subject.

In short, just ignore me - for real. I believe in aliens, for chrissake...

[radionowhere]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=1216139

This link references a story I heard on NPR a few years ago (sadly, the audio doesn't seem to be online anymore). The gist was that out of all the audio storage methods ever devised, the Library of Congress archivists couldn't find one that was more dependable than....shellac 78s.

The piece opened with a clip of some Eminem song coming off of one of these discs, scratchy and super bandwidth limited. Then some librarian explained that they couldn't count on future generations being able to decode any of our digital formats, but they were pretty sure people would always have access to a needle and a horn, Victrola-style. Pretty amusing, and thought-provoking