I found these to units very good and interesting reading.

Being really young, and not a millionaire, I of course use a digital workstation, and it alows me to record my own stuff, and other musicians stuff without spending more money than a new car. Living in a country where a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse starts at 60 thousand dollars ( It costs about 20-30 in the USA), one can see how being able to record cheaper is a necesairy evil. But at the same time I think the points about peoples demands for sonic wuality are very good.

As a guitarist in several different musical projects myself, I am appaled at how nobody I know see anything wrong in downloading a song for free instead of buying the CD. Even buying the song for 1 dollar at iTunes Music Store, seems to expencive for the general consumer (with knowledge of p2p), and it seems like the only people who buy music, are the ones who don`t know about the Illegal options.

I also see how this means that the only way for a musician to make music their main income, is touring ,playing gigs and such. Music sales won`t feed their kids anymore. (Unless you are a big budget artist and anything you release is guarranteed to sell atleast 100`000 units.)

For these artists, low-price smaller digital studios are the only way to get their music on disk, and thus the only way to build a fanbase, so there`s even a point in playing the livegigs.
I think this is an important issue to consider.

If you have a really good song, which could be a gigantic hit, but no other way of reaching the general public, (because there are SOOO many bands/and artists out there today, it takes more than it used to to get noticed,) than goig to a cheap digital studio, or even just recording it yourself with a 50$soundcard and audacity, may be a necesary evil. After all, if it gets your song out on the net, generates a following of your band, and thus enables you to play a venue large enough to feed your children, than you should be satisfied, right?

I`m not defending the reduction in sonic quality wich I think is a bad thing too. But I also see how it is the only means for many good bands, to ever rise above all the crap out there, and thus becomming the next legends of music.

To me it seems like the biggest enemy of sonic quality is the illegal pirating of music.
There are many mp3 players out there capable of recreating quite high quality (even though not perfect) and I don`t see anything wrong with these players, or the legal downloading networks like iTunes, MSN and so forth.., If every mp3 in existence had been payed for thru one of these wendors, than all those artists and labels could afford bigger recording budgets and kept bigger and better studios in the game, leaving lowprice digital ones to do garagebandwork and demos, instead of ALL the work. At least that`s MY theory on the subject.

So I say, the p2p networks and the general publics attitude towards copyrighted works, are the enemies here.

But what can we do about it?
When I tell my friends :" Madonna must really be thankful you find her music SOO good thatyou would go as far as to Break the law just to obtain her. Must be a wonderful compliment to her hard work.." - They just look at me like I`m a jehovas witness telling them about the dangers of drinking alcohol or having a smoke..

General mentality is a hard thing to change..



Snarf/Stian

Norway

I enjoyed the rant, too. Said much the same thing many times...

But I'm in the same boat as Snarf. I sought out some 1/2" tape decks recently, but already had the rest of the setup (mixers, outboard effects, etc.) for a DAW so it was easy to fit the decks in. And even though I have a 1/2" 8 track that frequently sounds better (even the 16 track sounds better sometimes)... my clients usually say "How quaint! Where's Pro Tools?"

Its amazing what people can't hear, though. Its *obvious* what the differences are when you A/B between a full 24/44.1 multi-track mix, the 24 bit mixdown, a 16 bit CD master, and the "CD Quality" mp3. But some people literally can't hear it.

Convenience rules the day, though, and that's easy to understand. My studio is no exception, even if on a different scale. Sometimes the glass is half empty and I'm part of the problem causing the dumbing down of music... and sometimes is half full as I do my best to get the best sound possible for artists who couldn't afford to do it otherwise.

I do my best to make sure its half full all the time and my clients are happy with my work...

But then they sometimes can't tell the difference between an mp3 and the multi-track mix...

- Chris

I'm not a seasoned veteran, I'm hardly a producer/engineer, I'm just a measly songwriter who's been producing my own stuff for the last 3-4 years. And without "digital" I simply wouldn't have: I'm not going to go into all the details, I'm just going to sum it up into two points. 1) I can do my own stuff cheaper (compared to buying and doing maintenance on analog gear), and 2) I can do it faster (which means I can spend more time WRITING).

I record everything at 44.1KHz, 24 bits, and as long as my assumed final media is a 44.1KHz 16 bit CD, that's fine for me, and judging by the comments I receive from collab partners and industry people, from a technical standpoint, what I do sounds just fine.

Having said that, sure, I can definitely tell a 16-bit reverb tail from a 24-bit one, and yeah, I can buy (on a theoretical level at least) that higher sample rates will have less quantization errors.

But do CD's really sound bad? Ok, some do, I'm not mentioning titles here, but I've heard CD's released in the past few years that REALLY distort, where you can almost HEAR the limiter screaming "Hay-elp!", but listen to the really well-mastered, well-recorded ones, do they actually sound bad?

And if they do, does 96KHz at 24 bit sound that much better? Does it justify the industry forcing us to re-buy our entire music collection in SACD or DVDAudio formats? To me, that question seems to be answered by the sales of mp3 players.

Bruce: thanks a lot for a GREAT site, lots of interesting material, and while I don't agree with all your opinions, especially concering digital audio, I'll be coming back again and again and again. Thank you.


Peran.

It is not necessarily technology itself that is the bain of all existence. Part of what makes a good recording is possessing the skills to do a great job with the material handed to you, and the desire to do so. Part of digital technology is convenience. Digital makes many recording techniques and practices easier, period. With convenience comes easy ways out and a lack of willingness to try. Why work hard if you don’t have to? Many producers, artists, and like are just looking for the quick solutions to issues.

Now, digital can be, and in some cases is, a great medium. There have been many days when I have been amazed with tracks that astound me with the depth and fullness not possible without this technology but those come from people who go the extra mile, and have the skills, creativity, and desire to use every tool at their disposal for greatness.

Part of what makes this audio course so important is that Bruce emphasized the importance of the basic skills and recording techniques while adapting to the use of digital technology. What is most important to me is that the skills to record are not lost in the knobs, faders, and ease of digital technology. Use your mind and creativity with each recording and the greatness will happen.

Right. It is possible to make great music with ANY medium.

In response to the great emails I have received I have tweaked the units on DIGITAL = GOOD and DIGITAL = BAD, removing sarcasm in some places and adding more in others.

I have to admit that I LOVE what these units stirred up!

I, for one, can't believe this has stirred up such a debate. And even so much so that people have requested being taken off the e-mail list...? Wow, apparently people take ones and zeros really seriously!

Like you mentioned above Bruce....great music is great music, no matter what medium you use. As an engineer you can put all your time and effort into getting perfect expensive converters, high sample rates and bit depths...hell, even dish out tons of money on a perfectly calibrated Studer machine matched with the best preamps you can buy. But NONE of it is going to matter if you can't get a good sound AT THE SOURCE.
The musician's talent/sound and the engineer's ear matter more than the digital versus analog arguement.

Out of the many replies I received, this one really stuck out as indicative of a certain point of view. Although he is young, I did not include his age because I have heard similar comments from people much older than him.
Here are the excerpts from both the email and my response to him.

-------- HIS EMAIL:

I read your rant and I have just a few things to rant about in reply. All in all, I disagree with you for several reasons that you may or may not have heard from anyone else. Well, here it goes..

…ever since I began recording 5 years ago, one of my pet peeves has always been people who spend lots of time debating things like minute differences in sample rate, bit depth, compressors, mixer brands, preamp quality, and even some microphones (i.e. how one model of the same microphone sounds slightly different than the other... give me a break...). Why does this bother me so much? Well, it's because I think that a lot of these people are, quite simply, spewing garbage. How do I know? Because I've heard some of their mixes they've done and they sound, without question, awful! Recording has both an artistic and technical aspect to it, and these people have all the technical without a trace of the artistic. They have no ear for mixing so they make up for it in talking.

…They think that they can definitively hear the difference between one piece of gear and the next days apart! In my quest to figure out what the "huge differences" in different preamps were all about, I went out and purchased several models of preamps ranging from $180 - $500. I A/B'd them up with the same, high quality condenser mic ($500 GT66) going straight into my 'critically acclaimed' Echo Layla 3G interface. The results? Nothing. There were maybe some very slight differences between the preamps (neither being obviously superior or inferior in tone) and, if anything, the two built-in preamps on my interface were slightly superior to the $500 stand alone model. Now do you see why I feel the way that I do? Many of these people think that their ears are so good that they can hear these minute details and describe them in very vague, meaningless terms (warm, shimmering, etc).

…It's about a superiority complex, it's about sounding smart, it's about playing with the "big boys," and it's about self-deception. You can deceive yourself into thinking that one thing sounds better than another simply by expecting that it will. I would challenge many of these people who claim they can hear the difference between a fully mixed rock song at 24/48khz or higher and one at 16/44.1khz to a blind A/B comparison…I would also ask them to tell me blindly whether something is a 192kbps Mp3 or a CD. I would love to hear some of these people struggle to give the right answer and then make up excuses when they guess wrong.

From the consumer perspective, if technology was caught up to the point that we could fit as many wave files on a digital music player as we could mp3 files right now, I think that a lot of people would switch to the wave files. But, convenience is a huge issue, and, moreover, if you can barely hear the difference, why not compress for convenience? …Sonic quality has reached a height with CD quality where going any further is simply unnecessary and unnoticeable to all but the most gifted set of ears. Cassette tapes lose quality over time and have a hiss problem. Not so with digital CD's.

Digital is, basically, true to reality. Why should anyone care enough to spend more money on a new format and a new type of player for that format just so they can add a few inaudible bits and samples, especially when recordings already, through both the magic of production techniques and digital technology, consistantly sound significantly better than live performances? I mean, if not here, where should the "quality enhancing" stop?

Your comments belittling "pro-tools engineers" bothered me quite a bit. I think you fail to see that, no matter how much technology there is, there will always be a place for recording engineers. Not everyone wants to take the time to learn how to record, has the ear for mixing, or has the right kind of brain for the job. The improved availability and quality of the tools themselves have allowed many more would-be engineers to have a shot at it, and I don't see how that's a bad thing (unless people are just scared because they want to protect their own jobs).

…In other words, people need to stop whining!

-------------- MY REPLY:

...I do agree that recording has a technical as well as a musical side, but understanding what all the different technical variations will give is the same as understanding the different types of musicality involved in using different settings on an instrument. I know people that consider single coil pickups to sound the same regardless of which pickup is used (bridge, middle or neck) and even people who think the difference between a single coil pickup and a dual coil does not matter.

You will find as you continue working and listening that the differences in sound between different pieces of equipment are important, especially when you begin to work with just the sound of the mics rather than needing to process everything. Yes, if you do put instruments into (lots of heavy processing) things sound similar, but the problem is that everything is going to sound like the PROCESS rather than the original tones.

Maybe the mic pre's sounded the same to you, but I am curious as to what your source material was. Also, if you ever get the chance to check out mic pre's above that price range (which may be difficult to do) you will find that the better mic preamps allow more of the original sound to come through. It is true that (less expensive gear) is more similar to each other, but when you deal with Neve or API (etc) mic preamps you will find that one definitely sounds more warm and one will sound more hard. This will lead to definitive opinions about what to use when.

Granted this is a luxury that most do not have. The point is that perhaps the differences at the lower price ranges are less, and depending on what processing happens after the mic the differences may end up being evened out.

I do have a problem with people that do not learn how to listen and instead let some plugin or preset give them the sound. This is not engineering. For a musician that just needs to get ideas down that is fine, but for someone who is calling himself an engineer it is just indicative of the diminishing quality that comes from pointing and clicking without real understanding of what they are doing.

I am sorry that you feel the way you do, although I certainly understand it from what you said. I hope that you have patience and learn the craft rather than let preset boxes do the work for you. Hitting "play" on a player piano does not make you a musician the way that learning to play the individual notes will. In the same way, using presets and not caring about the differences between mics and mic preamps will not make you an engineer in the same way that trying to concentrate and HEAR the differences will.

I can DEFINITELY tell the difference between 24 bit and 16 bit files of the same material. If you listen closely, you should be able to tell the differences as well. Initially these differences may be easier to feel than hear. Granted by the time everything is made into an MP3 for consumers, many of the differences are lost.

I suggest you try to find an old cassette recording of an album that you can compare with a new CD of the same material. I am sure you will be able to tell the difference, which can start you down the road to developing your ears.

Digital tools are no different from what has always been here. EQ, Compression, Delay, etc are all the same as they were a long time ago. The problem is that the sounds of these effects are certainly inferior to their older analog counterparts.

I really hope you find this email inspiring and not insulting. The differences are there for you to hear if you focus. If you do not give yourself and your ears the chance then you will not hear them.

It's not that people need to stop whining, but that people need to stop being lazy and take the time to LEARN the craft they wish to claim as their own instead of pushing a button and letting a machine do it for them.

I encourage you to listen to the Toku Baba PARADISE CAFÉ mp3 on my site. That was recorded and mixed with no eq or compression because the mics and equipment I used was SO GOOD that the sound of the real instruments came through clearly enough to be just right .

You can learn to hear these things and work at a higher level than you may be working at now. I encourage you to try to find even a part time gig at a studio where you will be exposed to the differences...and be able to better train your ears to hear the nuances of the craft.
Thanks for your email,
Bruce A Miller