Has anybody out there an Eight Track Recorder for sale?
A Four track would do at a pinch.
We have something like 200 reel to reel tapes which need transcribing as well as wanting to record for a CD of old songs and tunes. We prefer analogue sound to digital............we are dinosaurs.
If it were because of nonsense, then many more discussions would be deleted - what about the one where we were trying the patience of the anti-profanity elves. I have noticed, however, that out Benevolent Dictator won't tolerate any talk of pollerticks.
I'll second his policy! Many a real session is ruined by such a boring topic! Over here we also try to avoid religion creeping in too! So let's keep it all MUSIC & NONSENSE from here on in - but not necessarily in that order of preference!
Can't you just master digitally to make it sound like as if it was your old analogue sound. There are programs that are designed to make the sound more like a particular record (vinyl) label from a particular era. If it is going to end up on a CD it might as well become digital sooner rather than later. Overcome the technophobia now!
Seriously, then! - have you thought of ebay? You can also post "wants" on ebay but I've personally never had any luck with that.
Do you mean an 8-track 1/4" machine, or something else? (most 1/4" machines were 4-track - 2 going one way and 2 the other). I'm sure ebay is the answer (to everything!).
Alright, lets get a bit techie. Yes, an analogue recording can have frequencies on it that even the very best digital recording cannot reproduce. But you have to have really top end microphones (very dear) to capture these frequencies, top class hearing in perfectly designed acoustics with top speakers, amps, etc. And besides, you lose these frequencies when you go to CD anyway.
But what people usualy refer to as the "warm" sound of analogue and the cold sound of digital is actually a reduction in the amount of frequencies and harmonics that, practically speaking, your average analogue recording ends up with. It realy is just a preference for a particular eq range that rounds the edges off spikes. It is easily reproduced with modern digital techniques.
Spot on Michael, a very good description. Technically of course, it is possible to create an analogue sound with digital equipment but I've never heard one that comes up trumps.
I know BegF - I know - I sent Donough off to read the thread, about the deleting of thread 7889, then I started a whole new train of thought about who member 7889 might be - come on BegF, read my mind!
Michael's right (and his left). If a CD sounds "cold", it's because it wasn't EQ'd to sound "warm".
I don't know what your experience has been, Ian, but when people in the big-time music industry, at least the ones who know what they're talking about, say they prefer analog recording, they are referring to top quality professional studio equipment, not hobbyist 4-track/8-track stuff. And that includes the microphones. You won't get that legendary analog sound from an 8-track tape machine. You'll get an adequate sound but with a lot less flexibility and security than with digital.
But I won't downplay the downside of digital recording. Having all those options means there's a learning curve to deal with. A digital recorder is basically a computer with audio peripherals. The possibility for software options is practically limitless, which means you have to navigate through screen menus to access them. I do not enjoy this.
Actually, to be fair to Ian, his origianl post mentioined that he has loads of "reel to reel tapes which need transcribing". I'm not sure whether he means he want's them to be converted to dot's on pieces of paper or burn't to CD, or what? Either way, he does need a machine to play them on. How about just hireing a tape machine and decent AD converter?
Michael, The tapes need to be listened to and sorted, there is probably a lot of rubbish as well as gems. Some of my own collecting, Radio programmes from the early seventies etc
I could hire a machine but to listen to some 200 tapes, both 7in
and 10in would be cost prohibitive, hence the idea of buying a deck. We already have an old Akai 4 track reel to reel deck but it needs overhauling badly as the heads are a little out of alignment and it is difficult now to find a repairer with the knowledge to do it. As for the CD, we are looking for a professional machine, Tascam, Otari, Teac etc.
The HHB CD recorders are very nice - nice A/D stages.
If you've recorded these on various machines you'll need something you can tweak azimuth on. The Revox / Studers are pretty bombproof in this respect, Nagras too. But then of course you're very unlikely to get a 4-track machine that's that good since most decent machines are 2-track full-width stereo.
Wot about distortion then eh? eh? I'm talking about "overloading" analog tape. This is one of the factors that gives the desirable warmth to recordings. Try that with digital and you'll end up with snap crackle and "sh*t, I've overcooked the friggin inputs again!" It's not just about the magical "EQ"...
Isn't distortion the thing that stops a recording sounding like the original signal that was going into the machine?
If you're saying overloading analogue tape = distortion = good, and overloading digital inputs = distortion = bad, then the issue is with controlling the levels properly, I'd have thought.
Unfortunately with analog, you don't have the s/n ratio you do with digital - well, almost. For a year I had a nagra (1/2 track stereo) and a portable dolbyA (ie multiband) compander, and that gave amazing recordings. It was almost as good as digital!
Of course it's about controlling levels. The point is though - analog can be pushed and even overloaded (within limits) to produce desirable results, digital can't. But maybe that's coming too.. some kind of tape simulation.. who kens..
I think analogue can soften transients (not saying that's a bad thing, BTW!) - whereas digital can distort them badly (or just square them off and give you spurious harmonics in the process).
I guess the thing about controlling levels is that it's actually quite difficult to register and allow for transients. So maybe some sort of tape simulation could be a good thing (I think Cool Edit Pro has some compression settings you can experiment with - but maybe it wouldn't quite do what analog tape can).
I guess, though, a lot of recording techniques in the "old days" were designed to compensate for deficiencies in the recording chain. I expect that's a whole 'nother debate!!
Cammy, is tape saturation something you'd use in a trad recording? I wouldn't think so, but there are two or three million things I don't know about recording.
Poor Ian just wanted a simple answer to a simple question. I do know of an 8-track reel-to-reel deck that might be for sale. I know it's been out of use for years.
Bob, in reply to your question: I only have digital recording gear myself. It seems to be generally agreed though that tape saturation can sometimes create a warmer sound. Why wouldn't this be desirable for a trad recording?
I'm only (slightly) familiar with tape saturation in the context of recording an electric guitar to get a creamy sort of distortion - creamy, but also distorted. I just don't know how to imagine the technique in a trad recording where we usually expect accurate reproduction of the instruments and voices. Wouldn't you have to severely compress the mix in order to get the saturation effect spread evenly? Electric music usually *is* heavily compressed.
Or have I completely misunderstood how it can be used?
Ian, you could try the reader's ads in 'Sound on Sound' mag, and its site : http://www.soundonsound.com/adverts/ . Looking at the actual August paper issue of the mag, there's a geezer / geezeress selling a Fostex A8 for £120. Good price, assuming good nick (and availability) - also, check max reel size, as some machines can only take 7" reel max. You can submit a 'wanted' ad from the site too from that web address.
Now for the rant : I thought Michael's joke about recording analogue tapes to CD was quite funny, and typical of his calculated dry sense of humour! It prompts me to give my viewpoint on the whole analogue / digital recording thing.
Every important process in recording real people playing real instruments (and / or singing) is analogue anyway - from the mic, through the recording medium's first entry point, then out to the speakers - all analogue, and cannot be anything else but analogue.
'Digital' recording - all other things being equal : the quality of the end product depends on the the quality of the A/D (Analogue-to-digital) and D/A converters used in the recording chain. Nothing else.
Theoretically, the result of a totally analogue recording/mixing/mastering process will sound better than a digital one, because the original compulsory analogue signal will be preserved. The only degradation in sound quality will be when copying from multi-track tape to 2-track master, but with high-speed tape recorders this is undetectable to the human ear.
The headroom (amount of signal you can input before distortion) is far greater with analogue than with digital recording. Another reason why anaogue recordings sound 'different'.
But - the convenience and cost benefits of digital recording (esp home recording) far outweigh any analogue option - so my previous few paragraphs become irrelevant, I suppose.
"the convenience and cost benefits of digital recording (esp home recording) far outweigh any analogue option"
That's the thing, innit? The current digital home recording products give us an amazing amount of control over the process. The rub, as I've said, is that we have to learn how to use that awesome power. It's techie and not very intuitive.
"'Digital' recording - all other things being equal : the quality of the end product depends on the the quality of the A/D (Analogue-to-digital) and D/A converters used in the recording chain. Nothing else."
I think that oversimplifies it, Jim. You certainly can't make a good recording without good converters, but in between the A/D and the D/A is a whole world of digital signal processing (pure mathematics) that replaces a whole world of electronic processing. You could just as well say that, all other things being equal, the quality of the end product depends on the quality of the signal processing algorithms.
"Theoretically, the result of a totally analogue recording/mixing/mastering process will sound better than a digital one, because the original compulsory analogue signal will be preserved. The only degradation in sound quality will be when copying from multi-track tape to 2-track master, but with high-speed tape recorders this is undetectable to the human ear.
The headroom (amount of signal you can input before distortion) is far greater with analogue than with digital recording. Another reason why anaogue recordings sound 'different'."
Mmm, hafta disagree with that, if by "better" you mean "more accurately reproduced". Every link in the chain of analog recording introduces noise and degrades the sound, however slightly. Every signal processing device, every layering of tracks and every stage of amplification does this. Any professional recording engineer of an analog age will tell you that the effects can be audible.
In pure digital recording, the signal is digitized after the preamp and before any EQ or fader or compressor or gain stage can degrade it. From then on, it's all mathematics. With a high enough bit resolution in the A/D, the headroom is *practically* limitless. Twenty-four bits can handle as much dynamic range as the human ear can detect; 32 bits, considerably more. With a high enough sampling rate, the accuracy is arbitrarily close to perfect.
The built-in signal processing of analog tape produces a familiar, warm sound. If a particular digital recording doesn't produce an equally warm sound, it's not the fault of the medium. The technical capability is there.
I'm not aware of a real, unbiased, double blind comparison of digital vs analog. Every comparison I've ever heard about or read about has been apples vs oranges.
Analogue
Analogue
Has anybody out there an Eight Track Recorder for sale?
A Four track would do at a pinch.
We have something like 200 reel to reel tapes which need transcribing as well as wanting to record for a CD of old songs and tunes. We prefer analogue sound to digital............we are dinosaurs.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
You prefer analogue sound to digital, yet you want to do a CD?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Analogue
The CD is only the last stage in the recording process - some folks still like to record using analog equipment and master finally to a CD..
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Cammy
Re: Analogue
I'm pretty sure Michael realises that.
Why not do the recording in a vinyl format too?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Analogue
Thanks Cammy.
Michael, I would have thought it was obvious!!!!!!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
I have often thought of a limited edition of 100 vinyl records. There must be lots of unemployed presses out there rusting away in factory cellars.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
I'd also have thought that Michael was just being humourous was fairly obvious!!! too.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Analogue
JohnJ - is Michael paying you?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
Hey! Waht happened to discussion #7889?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Analogue
I refer the honorable gentleman to my updated biog
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Analogue
I think we were all ejected because of our "Nonsense".
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Analogue
Careful, If he does it know would it bring you closer to your death bed ?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by BegF
Re: Analogue
Well, I feel mortally wounded and insulted.
:~}
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Analogue
Michael being 'humerous'? Ha Ha - Naw that'd be a first!!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Analogue
If it were because of nonsense, then many more discussions would be deleted - what about the one where we were trying the patience of the anti-profanity elves. I have noticed, however, that out Benevolent Dictator won't tolerate any talk of pollerticks.
Probably just as well.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
Please people. Can't we all just get along? Stop this madness. It's chaos. Ye're out of control!!.
I shed a tear for the anger and hate
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by copo24
Re: Analogue
Right lads - let's get him!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
I'll second his policy! Many a real session is ruined by such a boring topic! Over here we also try to avoid religion creeping in too! So let's keep it all MUSIC & NONSENSE from here on in - but not necessarily in that order of preference!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Analogue
I don't think it was political. Topical, maybe.
Anyway, I heard that no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Analogue
I did attempt to rescue #7889, but to no avail.
Trevor
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by lazyhound
Re: Analogue
Who the hell is #7889?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
Come on Donough - read the thread.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
Can't you just master digitally to make it sound like as if it was your old analogue sound. There are programs that are designed to make the sound more like a particular record (vinyl) label from a particular era. If it is going to end up on a CD it might as well become digital sooner rather than later. Overcome the technophobia now!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
http://www.thesession.org/members/display.php/7889
We could all email No 7889 and say Hi.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
Whoops I missed the bit about the missing thread - aka dropped stitch 7889.
Blame it on the red wine!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
Looks as if Aoifer has been a tad inactive for a while - maybe even beyond rescue!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
Aoifer is #7889
http://www.thesession.org/members/display.php/7889
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by grego
Re: Analogue
Grego I think we got that part of it hence my comment
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
No - how could 6 e-mails have arrived in such a short space of time! d'Oh!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by grego
Now it's 7.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by grego
Re: Analogue
This is the fasht side of town
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
Discussion 7889 not Member 7889
Come on Showdaddy, read the thread.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by BegF
Re: Analogue
BegF how the hell are you. Good to see you on this inane thread
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Donough
Re: Analogue
Where else would I be ???
Email is up and running again by the way, so
I should have soemthing for you soon.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by BegF
Re: Analogue
Could you add a few scratches and thumps to the CD?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
This is all very interesting and sometimes amusing but all I want to do is find an 8 track recorder................
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
Seriously, then! - have you thought of ebay? You can also post "wants" on ebay but I've personally never had any luck with that.
Do you mean an 8-track 1/4" machine, or something else? (most 1/4" machines were 4-track - 2 going one way and 2 the other). I'm sure ebay is the answer (to everything!).
Mark
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Eg (if you're in the UK):
http://search.ebay.co.uk/tape-recorder
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Alright, lets get a bit techie. Yes, an analogue recording can have frequencies on it that even the very best digital recording cannot reproduce. But you have to have really top end microphones (very dear) to capture these frequencies, top class hearing in perfectly designed acoustics with top speakers, amps, etc. And besides, you lose these frequencies when you go to CD anyway.
But what people usualy refer to as the "warm" sound of analogue and the cold sound of digital is actually a reduction in the amount of frequencies and harmonics that, practically speaking, your average analogue recording ends up with. It realy is just a preference for a particular eq range that rounds the edges off spikes. It is easily reproduced with modern digital techniques.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Analogue
Spot on Michael, a very good description. Technically of course, it is possible to create an analogue sound with digital equipment but I've never heard one that comes up trumps.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
I know BegF - I know - I sent Donough off to read the thread, about the deleting of thread 7889, then I started a whole new train of thought about who member 7889 might be - come on BegF, read my mind!
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
It's all going into my little book Showdaddy.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by BegF
Re: Analogue
Michael's right (and his left). If a CD sounds "cold", it's because it wasn't EQ'd to sound "warm".
I don't know what your experience has been, Ian, but when people in the big-time music industry, at least the ones who know what they're talking about, say they prefer analog recording, they are referring to top quality professional studio equipment, not hobbyist 4-track/8-track stuff. And that includes the microphones. You won't get that legendary analog sound from an 8-track tape machine. You'll get an adequate sound but with a lot less flexibility and security than with digital.
But I won't downplay the downside of digital recording. Having all those options means there's a learning curve to deal with. A digital recorder is basically a computer with audio peripherals. The possibility for software options is practically limitless, which means you have to navigate through screen menus to access them. I do not enjoy this.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Analogue
BegF - you're on the wrong page!
The next line in your script should say "I can't read anything that small"
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Analogue
But, if you really want to go analog(ue), are you looking for a self-contained portastudio or a standalone 8-track deck to go with a mixing board?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Analogue
Actually, to be fair to Ian, his origianl post mentioined that he has loads of "reel to reel tapes which need transcribing". I'm not sure whether he means he want's them to be converted to dot's on pieces of paper or burn't to CD, or what? Either way, he does need a machine to play them on. How about just hireing a tape machine and decent AD converter?
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Analogue
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!
(I don’t get it)
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by BegF
Re: Analogue
Michael, The tapes need to be listened to and sorted, there is probably a lot of rubbish as well as gems. Some of my own collecting, Radio programmes from the early seventies etc
I could hire a machine but to listen to some 200 tapes, both 7in
and 10in would be cost prohibitive, hence the idea of buying a deck. We already have an old Akai 4 track reel to reel deck but it needs overhauling badly as the heads are a little out of alignment and it is difficult now to find a repairer with the knowledge to do it. As for the CD, we are looking for a professional machine, Tascam, Otari, Teac etc.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Analogue
The HHB CD recorders are very nice - nice A/D stages.
If you've recorded these on various machines you'll need something you can tweak azimuth on. The Revox / Studers are pretty bombproof in this respect, Nagras too. But then of course you're very unlikely to get a 4-track machine that's that good since most decent machines are 2-track full-width stereo.
# Posted on September 29th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Wot about distortion then eh? eh? I'm talking about "overloading" analog tape. This is one of the factors that gives the desirable warmth to recordings. Try that with digital and you'll end up with snap crackle and "sh*t, I've overcooked the friggin inputs again!" It's not just about the magical "EQ"...
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Cammy
Re: Analogue
Isn't distortion the thing that stops a recording sounding like the original signal that was going into the machine?
If you're saying overloading analogue tape = distortion = good, and overloading digital inputs = distortion = bad, then the issue is with controlling the levels properly, I'd have thought.
Unfortunately with analog, you don't have the s/n ratio you do with digital - well, almost. For a year I had a nagra (1/2 track stereo) and a portable dolbyA (ie multiband) compander, and that gave amazing recordings. It was almost as good as digital!
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Of course it's about controlling levels. The point is though - analog can be pushed and even overloaded (within limits) to produce desirable results, digital can't. But maybe that's coming too.. some kind of tape simulation.. who kens..
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Cammy
Re: Analogue
I think analogue can soften transients (not saying that's a bad thing, BTW!) - whereas digital can distort them badly (or just square them off and give you spurious harmonics in the process).
I guess the thing about controlling levels is that it's actually quite difficult to register and allow for transients. So maybe some sort of tape simulation could be a good thing (I think Cool Edit Pro has some compression settings you can experiment with - but maybe it wouldn't quite do what analog tape can).
I guess, though, a lot of recording techniques in the "old days" were designed to compensate for deficiencies in the recording chain. I expect that's a whole 'nother debate!!
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Cammy, is tape saturation something you'd use in a trad recording? I wouldn't think so, but there are two or three million things I don't know about recording.
Poor Ian just wanted a simple answer to a simple question. I do know of an 8-track reel-to-reel deck that might be for sale. I know it's been out of use for years.
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Analogue
...and there's still Ebay, Ian!!! There are tons of machines there and you can pick them up very cheaply.
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Analogue
Bob, in reply to your question: I only have digital recording gear myself. It seems to be generally agreed though that tape saturation can sometimes create a warmer sound. Why wouldn't this be desirable for a trad recording?
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Cammy
Re: Analogue
I'm only (slightly) familiar with tape saturation in the context of recording an electric guitar to get a creamy sort of distortion - creamy, but also distorted. I just don't know how to imagine the technique in a trad recording where we usually expect accurate reproduction of the instruments and voices. Wouldn't you have to severely compress the mix in order to get the saturation effect spread evenly? Electric music usually *is* heavily compressed.
Or have I completely misunderstood how it can be used?
# Posted on September 30th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Analogue
Ian, you could try the reader's ads in 'Sound on Sound' mag, and its site : http://www.soundonsound.com/adverts/ . Looking at the actual August paper issue of the mag, there's a geezer / geezeress selling a Fostex A8 for £120. Good price, assuming good nick (and availability) - also, check max reel size, as some machines can only take 7" reel max. You can submit a 'wanted' ad from the site too from that web address.
Now for the rant : I thought Michael's joke about recording analogue tapes to CD was quite funny, and typical of his calculated dry sense of humour! It prompts me to give my viewpoint on the whole analogue / digital recording thing.
Every important process in recording real people playing real instruments (and / or singing) is analogue anyway - from the mic, through the recording medium's first entry point, then out to the speakers - all analogue, and cannot be anything else but analogue.
'Digital' recording - all other things being equal : the quality of the end product depends on the the quality of the A/D (Analogue-to-digital) and D/A converters used in the recording chain. Nothing else.
Theoretically, the result of a totally analogue recording/mixing/mastering process will sound better than a digital one, because the original compulsory analogue signal will be preserved. The only degradation in sound quality will be when copying from multi-track tape to 2-track master, but with high-speed tape recorders this is undetectable to the human ear.
The headroom (amount of signal you can input before distortion) is far greater with analogue than with digital recording. Another reason why anaogue recordings sound 'different'.
But - the convenience and cost benefits of digital recording (esp home recording) far outweigh any analogue option - so my previous few paragraphs become irrelevant, I suppose.
Jim
# Posted on October 1st 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: Analogue
"the convenience and cost benefits of digital recording (esp home recording) far outweigh any analogue option"
That's the thing, innit? The current digital home recording products give us an amazing amount of control over the process. The rub, as I've said, is that we have to learn how to use that awesome power. It's techie and not very intuitive.
"'Digital' recording - all other things being equal : the quality of the end product depends on the the quality of the A/D (Analogue-to-digital) and D/A converters used in the recording chain. Nothing else."
I think that oversimplifies it, Jim. You certainly can't make a good recording without good converters, but in between the A/D and the D/A is a whole world of digital signal processing (pure mathematics) that replaces a whole world of electronic processing. You could just as well say that, all other things being equal, the quality of the end product depends on the quality of the signal processing algorithms.
"Theoretically, the result of a totally analogue recording/mixing/mastering process will sound better than a digital one, because the original compulsory analogue signal will be preserved. The only degradation in sound quality will be when copying from multi-track tape to 2-track master, but with high-speed tape recorders this is undetectable to the human ear.
The headroom (amount of signal you can input before distortion) is far greater with analogue than with digital recording. Another reason why anaogue recordings sound 'different'."
Mmm, hafta disagree with that, if by "better" you mean "more accurately reproduced". Every link in the chain of analog recording introduces noise and degrades the sound, however slightly. Every signal processing device, every layering of tracks and every stage of amplification does this. Any professional recording engineer of an analog age will tell you that the effects can be audible.
In pure digital recording, the signal is digitized after the preamp and before any EQ or fader or compressor or gain stage can degrade it. From then on, it's all mathematics. With a high enough bit resolution in the A/D, the headroom is *practically* limitless. Twenty-four bits can handle as much dynamic range as the human ear can detect; 32 bits, considerably more. With a high enough sampling rate, the accuracy is arbitrarily close to perfect.
The built-in signal processing of analog tape produces a familiar, warm sound. If a particular digital recording doesn't produce an equally warm sound, it's not the fault of the medium. The technical capability is there.
I'm not aware of a real, unbiased, double blind comparison of digital vs analog. Every comparison I've ever heard about or read about has been apples vs oranges.
# Posted on October 2nd 2005 by Bob himself