all hardware setup

[AK]

Yeah, obviously at the analog to digital conversion everything gets changed to 1's and 0's but how much of that is a representation of anything thats perceivable? Probably not by todays high quality converters. Besides, all my favourite electro records have been converted to digital and they all have the sound they had that I remember.

There are of course analog purists who want to maintain the analog signal path all the way, recording to reel to reel or whatever. I doubt I could ever be concerned about hunting down a studer or anything but the analog signal path will be an inevitable part of my set up and just having interesting bits and bobs of kit to run things through can add these small bits of character, however subtle that just make things a little pleasing (or not perhaps) and its stuff like that which id happily get up on a patch bay. If only I knew what though.

You read about people just running a mix through like a pre in the signal path just at unity and claiming it comes out the other end having been coloured. Im not sure about that but it does fascinate me. People claim static drum samples take on more punch when they are triggered from their mpc as oppose to a softsampler, I can see a character being imparted by perhaps an akai s900/s950 and others via resampling but I dunno about a pre recorded sample just being triggered.

I know a lot of guys in the breaks scene used a fair bit of outboard to deliberately dirty up their sound. Thats a genre where rough is definitely better than pristine, general midi used to swear by their dbx compressors even though they had a top end avalon 747.

A lot of modern techno I hear is pristine, modern technological perfection, all neat with no rough edges, as 'good' a sound (if thats the right word?) as technology permits. Some of the rawness and grit you might hear on perhaps basic channel stuff has been replaced by everything being spick and span, which might be a good thing for some but im not sure its for me.

Thing is, how do actually avoid it with modern gear? Im not wanting to go to the length of recording to tape but some gear with 'character' would be nice to acquire, I have no idea what though.

[oblioblioblio]

With ones and zeros I'm really not sure. The thing which gets fucked up the most is the high end, becuase a very fast wave requires higher sampling rate to be able to represent stuff. But even with a hgih enough sample rate to prevent aliasing, there's something a bit fishy going on. A voltage machine is constantly flowing... it has near infinite resolution of electrons freaking out.

Thing is, how do actually avoid it with modern gear? Im not wanting to go to the length of recording to tape but some gear with 'character' would be nice to acquire, I have no idea what though.

I think anything analogue has it's own little mysticism. Every analogue component has it's own little quirks and flaws, and of course, when you add a load of these little quirks together in a quirky circuit, and you add a quirky user using the circuit in a quirky way, then you have a recipe for something interesting.

It's hard to say about the benefits of a 100% analogue signal path.

[steevio]

my signal path isnt 100% analogue, i record into a pro quality soundcard in stereo, no multitracking, which i consider to be the main point in the chain where things start to go wrong.
i also use digital reverb, but through an analogue desk.
so i'm not a purist by any stretch of the imagination, but i do as little digital processing as feasibly possible.

i have a friend who has a 100% analogue studio with a direct link from his desk to his neumann cutting lathe. he's a purist.

[Phase Ghost]

i have a friend who has a 100% analogue studio with a direct link from his desk to his neumann cutting lathe. he's a purist.

That's hardcore.

[AK]

@ steevio, yeah Im definitely in favour of going into the soundcard as a stereo out from the mixer. I just dont want to recording and then summing itb. That kinda defeats the object of where I wanna be as well as that then leads to the desire to maybe arrange and stuff and I'd be back where I dont wish to be.

How do you think the quality of the desk affects the summing? Its obviously a big issue financially, theres silly money that can be spent. I know I'm going to need about 32 inputs, so like a 32:4:2 might work for me but that could be very expensive. Im tempted to look at the behringer stuff because of what they offer for the money but, im aware they get a bad rep too.

[TechnoMusic]

fukit
whats the point

Wow I won an argument on the internet!!!




Only joking. I respect your gear choices and position on how you do stuff. Its just not for me.

[steevio]

@ steevio, yeah Im definitely in favour of going into the soundcard as a stereo out from the mixer. I just dont want to recording and then summing itb. That kinda defeats the object of where I wanna be as well as that then leads to the desire to maybe arrange and stuff and I'd be back where I dont wish to be.

How do you think the quality of the desk affects the summing? Its obviously a big issue financially, theres silly money that can be spent. I know I'm going to need about 32 inputs, so like a 32:4:2 might work for me but that could be very expensive. Im tempted to look at the behringer stuff because of what they offer for the money but, im aware they get a bad rep too.

when i bought my soundcard the idea was to be able to balance levels ITB from my 8 buss desk if anything was out during recording, so i'd have a seperate buss for kick, bass, synths, percussion, effects etc. but i found i didnt end up using it. i didnt like the sound of the multitracked recording, it just sounded different, so i went back to stereo, plus i'd gotten so precise at mixing live, i rarely had any level problems.

the quality of desk is soooo important, i made the big mistake of buying a Behringer desk it was so cheap for a 48 ch desk, but the EQ was rubbish, it eneded up being a patchbay. deffo the worst desk ive ever had.
my current soundcraft ghost is a very nice desk, ive had a few soundcrafts and a Mackie, plus an old studio master and Allen and Heath, the Ghost is the best desk ive had, and i dont see any need to ever replace it. if you're going to spend money on a desk, get one that you wont ever want to replace.

[steevio]

fukit
whats the point

Wow I won an argument on the internet!!!

thats subjective


Only joking. I respect your gear choices and position on how you do stuff. Its just not for me.