Hey man… I’m listening on a really wonky hi-fi system (one of those 3 foot tall column speakers with a built in sub)… but the way the hi-hat’s translating is really low in proportion to the kick and the snare. I really like the tone of the snare, was just wondering if that was intentional or not.
The snare and the vocals are the only thing I really hear a difference in on this speaker, but going of this completely untrustworthy speaker, both the snare and vocals in Molasses come across as having a slightly more smooth, warm, and bulky weight to them. If I had to guess, I’d say this one because of the tendencies tape has to mellow out and tame real high range harmonics and frequencies (according to Dave Pensado).
Jeez, I’m having a hard time deciding which one sounds analogue or digital. The more I listen to each recording, the less confident I become. Initially I thought that the Molasses = Analogue. I think it was because the piano at the beginning of the song seemed to sound a bit fuller . But after going back and forth A/ B -ing them, I’m feeling unsure.
My past experience recording bass on cassette is that the bass guitar had a really nice, smooth and powerful sound compared to what I achieve in digital DAWs. I’ve got a bunch of Ampex Reel-To-Reel 456 (1/2 inch, 1 inch and 2 inch, but I haven’t listened to them in a long time. I seem to remember bass guitar sounding fuller and better on those reels verses digital, also). But memory is a faulty thing…AND, plugins as well as other things can compensate for the “digital” sound, making things sound analogue.
Probably the best method of identifying the digital VS the analogue versions you posted above, would be to hone in on a specific instrument and analyze them individually, one by one. It would take a bit of time and patience to come to a reasonably confident conclusion…And I wouldn’t bet my life on my conclusion!
I was recently reading a thread on another Recording/ Mixing forum where the TS had just purchased an expensive 8 track reel to reel recorder. I think he paid around $5000 pounds or maybe it was euros (I can’t remember). The guy was asking the forum members if he got a good deal. I was thinking the guy is absolutely nuts to pay that much for an 8-track reel-to-reel. The maintenance, the mechanical parts, the tape reels and the storage of those tape reels…not to mention the editing and splicing that might be required!..All of that makes me feel very happy to be in the digital world. I used to love all that recording gear but it was a bit burdensome compared to what we have now. Storage is SO MUCH easier now and you can store your songs and files in a little hand-sized hard drive. Years ago that hard drive was basically a big room…And that room’s temperature and humidity needed to be carefully regulated.
My mate was saying using tape is ok but you are forever trying not to loose to much high end .
Too much hassle and expense for most people to bother now days
Had another listen, again laptop with standard laptop converters but now with decent cans (AKG 701).
I stick with my earlier conclusions. The difference is not night and day and its hard to put the finger on, but terms like clarity (Mollases) and glue (Syrup) describe it best to me. Whether other people understand the same thing with such vague descriptions of a subjective hearing experience is a whole different question of course .
So I slightly prefer Syrup.
As far as there is anything to bash: the only thing that stood out to me is that the kick has a lot of high end in it. It sounds to me like a distorted click. To be honest: I’m not a fan. But then, I’m not a fan of a lot of click, full stop. I really dislike the clicky kick in modern metal, makes me want to turn it off! So this is probably more a preference thing.
Oh and I had an other small gripe with the snare. At about 2:22 it turns to tapping. It sounds fine but then gets louder at about 2:27. The change is a bit abrupt because it not only sounds louder, but also quite a lot more higher frequencies that dominate my eardrums for a second or two.
Haha, I thought everyone had forgotten/was not interested/would rather talk about non-music stuff … It’s been so long that I’ll have to check which was which …I shall get back to you, Sir!
Molasses - All Digital
Syrup - Drums, Bass, one of the Electric Guitars, and the Piano all recorded to analogue tape, the rest are the same as Molasses.
Ok, so for years, we used to hear, “Analogue is better sounding than digital”. “Analogue sounds warmer than digital”. It seems like only in the last approximately 5 to 10 years people have started to become much quieter about that. Is digital finally fully accepted as just as good, if not better than analogue?
I always had a suspicion that audio engineers, musicians, music people and music snobs in general were spewing nonsense because of their pretentiousness and nostalgia (wanting things to remain unchanged and to keep things the same). Seems like there has been a paradigm shift and almost a universal acceptance that digital is GOOD. We don’t seem to be hearing those old analogue VS digital debates much anymore. The paradigm shift is complete now…,or very close to being completed.
I definitely get where you’re coming from @Wicked. I think a lot of nonsense has been promulgated over the years regarding this subject - and often by those who should know better!
Without getting too deeply into it, digital has definitely copped some very unfair labels. I think it is highly ironic that the reason early digital productions were often described as “cold” and “harsh” was because of the analogue components that conveyed the signal in and out of the digital realm - ie. the A/D and D/A convertors.
Additionally, it was primarily the inability of engineers to understand and adapt to the fundamental differences between analogue and digital capture that resulted in them trying to impose the “best practice” from the analogue method on to digital. Due to the fact that digital was in fact an accurate reproduction of what was captured, rather than a medium that introduced it’s own “sound” that needed to be compensated for to minimise noise and maximise high end clarity, recording with the “best practice” from the analogue domain would further exacerbate the perception of “harshness” and “coldness”.
There is an underlying aspect to this discussion that underlines the importance of how a technology needs to mature over time. If we think about it, by 1978, analogue recording on reel to reel tape had 30 years of development behind it, and by the late 90’s it was a technology that had half a century of use in which to mature. Digital, on the other hand, (by the time it began to be widely used professionally in the early 2000s) was only just out of it’s teens in terms of studio use. Is it any wonder that recordists and producers preferred analogue?
Although recordists were known as “engineers”, the fact is that often their knowledge was primarily the result of handed-down studio “lore”, rather than rigorous technical study. This is an easy environment for unjustified prejudices to flourish in.
In another irony, I think the upsurge of file sharing and streaming that hastened the death of the “traditional” record industry also forced the “leaders” in audio to look at digital as the only viable way to stay relevant in a world of rapidly shrinking budgets.
Around 5-10 years ago, suddenly most of the major mix engineers started saying they were moving to ITB mixing. Was digital suddenly “good enough”? Personally, I don’t think much had changed technically. Sure, digital technology had kept progressing, but it was primarily that artists and record companies no longer would accept the long turn-around times and resulting high cost of analogue workflow that forced their hand. In other words, they had to find a way to make digital work… and where there is money to be made, there is a will. And where there is a will, there is a way!
The upshot of all this is that ultimately one method is not inherently superior to the other. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Not “better”, just “different”. Personally, for the world we live in today, I’m ecstatic to have access to digital recording technology - it works for me, and I have no desire to complicate things by introducing an analogue element.
I hear this a lot. I agree in some ways, but not in others. I’m not qualified to comment on this from a technical standpoint, like someone like @bozmillar would be. From observation though, I think increases in available computing power and the resultant increase in detail of analysis has enabled developers to produce plugins that more accurately can simulate the “sound” and non-linearities imparted by analogue equipment.
On the other side of the coin, probably 80% of the plugins I used on this mix are between 10 and 15 years old - some are even 20 (Waves L2) and 27 (Waves L1) years old! Certainly, I can get a better mix than I could 15 years ago. What has changed, though?..
…It’s mainly me - I’ve improved vastly as a mixer since then… and I think that speaks to the point I made above about digital becoming a mature technology that people are finally learning how to use to it’s best advantage.
explains why I thought Syrup was more together, the tape saturation acts as a binding agent. I liked both though but I definitely thought Syrup was more analog and translated better! Great experiment!
My take is that standards and expectations have improved. 20 years ago, having a plugin that functioned was good enough. As people demanded more, developers provided more and today you end up with plugins like ProQ2 that basically do everything an EQ could possibly do. It’s not that the quality is better or even that it’s more CPU intensive, it’s just that it does more stuff in more ways.
Our ability to measure and reproduce algorithms haven’t changed (we’re basically using algorithms that were invented before computers) it’s just that we have to take a plugin farther before we say “Yeah, that’s good enough to release.”
If Waves released Q10 as a new plugin today, nobody would think anything of it, but back in it’s day, it was revolutionary.
In some sense, yes, but it can also lead to the opposite problem. I’ve seen some plugins that use tons of cpu to do almost nothing. I think they generally come from synthedit type development environments where you just put modules in and link them together. They can be super inefficient, but they let people make plugins without having to learn how to code. So you end up with more plugins like that, which wouldn’t have been possible years ago.
You also get things like Gullfoss, which would have been too heavy to use years ago be can be used now.
I think of it more in terms of there are more possibilities and not so much in the “better emulation” thing.
Samples can also be CPU and RAM intensive, so you see that kind of thing taking off a lot.
Multi-FX and synths can take advantage too. Synths have to cut a lot of corners to keep their processing power down. I think that’s why we’ve seen a lot of advancements in guitar emulators.
But for bread and butter plugins, you still have to keep the cpu low because a loooooot of people are still using old machines.
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… It’s been so long that I’ll have to check which was which 
…I shall get back to you, Sir!