Steve Albini Recorded All Wave Movement

[joelpatterson]

...When Pong was revolutionary....

Can you say "video tape"? What, like.... you mean a movie?

[channelcat]

Apparently I have a pretty nice calculator, because I like the way my Xeroxs sound.

Stu

[wedge]

People seem to like what he does. More power to him. We should be so lucky.

Hear, hear!

[jc_terrones]

Smells like high school in here.

[Mark Alan Miller]

Smells like high school in here.

...with apologies. All apologies.

[Judas Jetski]

What a great idea! A number of us have been trying to do this all along. Now it has a name. And a snazzy logo. Thanks, Steve and Kim!

[cgarges]

Nicely played, Mark.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[donny]

please don't get mad because i am new here, but i must respond with some obvious things that have yet to be written.

i am not out to point fingers or make any enemies, as i respect what all of you are doing with whatever means you do them, i might be right, i might be wrong,

someone mentioned tape being cool and trendy, i was not aware that tape was cool or trendy. if this is the case, why have tape manufacturers been struggling? not that many people buy tape compared to digital. maybe talking about analog is trendy, but few actually use it compared to those who use digital.

people have also mentioned how being poor somehow requires you to record digitally. i am about as poor as they come and have an all-analog recording setup. there are a lot of misconceptions out there, and i see many of them being reinforced right here on this message board. what
about poor kids in the 80s? there were options to record your music on a budget, and there are many now as well, including analog. in fact, if any of you reading this are in the austin, tx area, i will record your band on tape for cheap if i like it. in fact, i will record your band for free if i really like it and we become friends. i recently bought a scully 280 1/2" 4 track for $200. i do not own a computer, but i don't think i could even find a computer for that price. it just depends on what your interests are and where you choose to focus your energy and spend your money.

this "all wave" philosophy had me really excited when i read about it. i don't know much about it, but it seems that the readers here may be misinterpreting it. i took it as basically going back to recording tecniques that existed before everyone had endless options to correct everything after the fact. the other thing (implied in the "all wave" name) that i noted was that it seems to advocate a pure signal transfer every step of the way.
when you convert your signal to numbers, you lose electric energy. analog is energy storage and digital is information storage, two simple factual differences that people fail to realize sometimes. i am not stating one is better than the other, just pointing out some major differences.

i released an album this summer on the reel to reel tape format (as well as CD and cassette) because i believe in tape. we have
only had a few sales so far in this format.

[RefD]

please explain to me how "analog is energy storage".

[radical recording]

please explain to me how "analog is energy storage".

I was wondering that one myself. If you touch your tongue to the tape will it shock you?

I have no problem with anyone using tape to record with--if I could afford it I'd have a 24-track Otari and racks of analog gear. I love the way tape does a lot of the work for you with saturation and compression. With digital you have to know the tricks to make it work--and it is work--nobody said digital was easier.

My digital setup cost me about $2000 five years ago and is still going strong. Hopefully one day I'll be able to afford better gear, a bigger recording space and better microphones. Until then, this works for me. I get plenty of work and always finish with a great sounding product, even if I do work with ones and zeros.

Ultimately it's not the gear, it's the finished product that counts. How many non-musicians can hear a song and tell if it was recorded all-analog or digitally anyway without looking for the All Wave symbol on the back of the CD?

[JGriffin]

I love the way tape does a lot of the work for you with saturation and compression. With digital you have to know the tricks to make it work--and it is work--nobody said digital was easier.

There's processes you have to know with both systems.





* uses old Maxell cassette tape to power celphone *

[RefD]

* uses old Maxell cassette tape to power celphone *

[donny]

I am not a tech-type of person, perhaps the term "energy" is somewhat vague. I have read the writings of Stephen Desper, the main recording engineer for the Beach Boys from 68-71, and he used the terms "energy" and "information" to describe analog and digital respectively. this man knows the ins and outs of analog and digital sound and is considered to be something of an audio expert. his words were, "Analog is energy storage and transfer - Digital is information storage and transfer." please look him up. perhaps we can say "physical sound storage" vs "information storage" or something like that.

my basic point is that sound quality and duration of program material is determined in 2 very different ways in an analog storage medium vs. a digital one. with analog, it is stored as energy, a physical reproduction of the sound that occured. with digital, it is stored as information to be retreived and recreated later (with an analog end result).

let's compare cd to a vinyl record. the vinyl record stores physical energy, the limitations (in terms of how much bass you can cram in vs how many songs you can put on, etc) are purely physical. when you play it back, the needle responds to the physical changes. the fact is you can play a vinyl record without electricity and it will produce sound. you could build an acoustic record player if you wanted to.

with a cd, there is no sound physically present on the disc, only information - which must go through a conversion process to become analog sound again. so the issue here is the amount of information that the storage medium can hold and how effeciently the reproducer can turn this information into sound.

that's a very basic explanation for my very basic understanding. you can apply this to a professional recording situation as well and the basic principles are similar.

obviously there are numerous other major contributors to sound quality, which i have not mentioned and don't care to get into because those are not the main reasons that i prefer analog.

[RefD]

analogue recording and digital recording are both electronic means of capturing and storing representations of sound pressure changes.

that's about it.

[;ivlunsdystf]

When albini himself showed up here and told one of us to go f**k himself for having an opinion about the all-wave thing, some of us (at least I speak for myself here) lost a bit of respect for the whole thing perhaps?

A few posts back from the guy in austin, that all makes sense. And I agree that many of us have been all-wave at times in the past before albini and deal co-opted it and drew up a phallic logo. Which is another reason to bust on it. Maybe not the greatest reason, you be the judge.