I seriously appreciate creators who just get to the point and don't make people sit through annoying intros. I've gotten so used to having to fast forward through the early part of a video that it feels weird not having to do that.
I just had to pause your discourse to say that, I have never heard a better discussion of "analog-versus-digital" sound recording and production. Ever. Thank you !!
Excellent videos! I did a bit of audio engineering (not sound engineering) and they manage to explain some complex stuff in a correct and understandable way.
I have been having troubles getting my own computer built, but the main reason i have it is so that i can make muisc. The back to basics video was extremely helpful. Thank you guys in advance for the excellent lessons!
Great video! Being a professional audio engineer hailing from the days of analog tape, I can tell you that sometimes we didn't always like "the non-linearness" that came with it. The first time that I ever used a Alesis ADAT, I was very impressed with the fact that the output sounded identical to the input. But, there was a time when just the thought of having to use a plug-in just made me wince. Since then, digital recording has made exponential strides. Nowadays I don't think twice about using plug-ins. And you're dead on about distortion; I have more saturation, distortion and transformer emulations than I can count! Thank you.
Excellent demonstration and explanation. Now we can understand why adding analog emulation plug-ins makes audio sound better. It's also why it seemed to make sense to add distortion and saturation to make it more like what I thought it should sound like.
Thanks! That is finally an explanation why analog sound might sound better even if the signal quality is technically worse. It's the first time I hear this and it makes a lot of sense.
Thank you. Have been studying this for awhile; You express this excellently, succinctly, fine examples, with emphasis yet pleasantly! Have noted this; I can try to explain this, but if someone still doesn't understand, & they see your video, still don't, `get it,' well ~ !
Awesome video! People should also understand that louder doesn’t mean better. It’s like people try and make a mix as loud as possible which isn’t always a good thing
MAN that was cool! when those harmonics showed up on the screen from the recorded audio being pushed past the limit of the equipment i screamed lmao. MAN that is so cool! harmonics are everywhere!!!
Always a great day when audio University and Kyle post a video 🔥 such a great idea to go into depth about this topic I feel like most people just tell you the difference but never actually explain why they distort differently
EDIT: it's not only digital audio but Bipolar Junction Transistors also had, in analog mode, harmonic distorsion was concentrated on higher odd harmonics - similar to clipping. It's not only if they are even or odd but also if they are low or higher. Old and small tube amps had around 20% THD to make the sound better on little power and bad speakers. The harmonic distortion of tubes happen mostly in the second and fourth harmonics - that is, it adds two octaves above the fundamental. On old piano roll player pianos, the arrangements - like Gershwin did - used exactly the same trick (adding octaves above) to get better sound out of short strings. BTW, I hope the exchange rate in my country gets better so I can get a Universal Audio DSP.
Great video. As a long time audio professional, I've collected some stories about quality and fidelity. In a discussion with a music professor many years ago, the idea of perfect reproduction came up. His thoughts were fascinating. If you record a piano in an acoustically perfect room* using the best available gear and then play it back with the best playback system available, even a layman when blindfolded could tell you the difference. Our perception of sound is mostly made up of reflections from the local environment. If you introduce the effects of a different environment into it, the difference becomes obvious. There's no way around this, it's how our brains are wired. There is also the sonic differences of mic proximity to source (the same as speaker proximity to listener?). That said digital or not, perfect fidelity is a nearly impossible dream. In the end it is my opinion that the electronics in the middle don't matter much weighed against differences in transducers and environment. There is a quote from some engineer that said "Flat response? Get the jack change the tire." Maybe we should be trying to make music more "musical" than accurate :). Thinking about sonic extensions or additions to music is nothing new. A Chamber orchestra's music was written to be played in a chamber (smaller room). Bagpipes, in an open field were designed to scare the bejesus out of an enemy. There are many divergent examples. Most modern music was written to be compressed, streamed and played back through sub standard Bluetooth speakers or earbuds (ouch!). I have subscribed. Thank you for a peek into the psychics and psychology of sound. Cheers *What is acoustically perfect?
Great video. I do have an issue with the term 'better' for it implies more objectivity than it deserves. Like you state in the beginning, we 'learned', got used to music having distortion, we got used to it. We prefer it that way. Maybe we don't, or didn't know any better. Would someone not/never exposed to 'naturally' distorted music experience digitally perfect recorded music experience it as sterile, 'clinical' and emotionless itself? And how is that in a live performance of a classical orchestra (i.e. no electrical (amplified) instruments). Is there distortion too? So 'better' 'd better be called 'more appreciated'. And appreciation is a thing we develop and develops over time (things we consider noise can turn in (exciting) music over time, to become boring in the end, when new noises arrive and in their turn develop into exciting music). And I wonder, is this appreciation in the ear (our hearing) or in our experiencing an appreciating mind? In short, aren't we trained to appreciate certain kinds of distortion?
You pose some interesting questions here - I'm not certain of the answer to any of them. Distortion is when any change is made to the waveform, so you're right that distortion existed long before we were around to hear it or synthesize it or form judgements around it. Our atmosphere can cause distortions, our ears and everything else having to do with sound can also. I like to believe that there's something intrinsic about our connection to the actual analog sound, but I'm just not sure. Maybe it is all just what we are conditioned to like...
It may be an apples to oranges comparison, but having grown up with rabbit ears on a black and white television, I have a distinct appreciation for the 4 and 8k images I now enjoy. The advent on video tapes, then DVDs and BluRays and now streaming is incredible for me, but basic to new viewers. And I doubt anyone of us can now sit through a 480p tape just because it cost $60 when we made $200 a week. The average listener today, content with music off a cellphone, likely never hears intentionally recorded distortion. As a foreign element to the sound, I doubt many would think it adds character, rather just noise or static. (I've kept my 1000 vinyl records for nostalgia, not fidelity. I guess I prefer digital like I prefer 4K over anything less, but not because it's all I know; it's because of all I've endured, lol.) @@AudioUniversity As for "better," I think a $100 bottle of wine must be better than a $10 bottle, though I don't taste why, or certainly don't understand a 10 times higher price. But if a wine expert tells me it's better, then it's better. My lack of appreciation for it the more expensive wine is my inexperience (or lack of taste, a different problem). I think "better" can be quantitative as well as qualtitative, in other words objective, not only subjective. btw, great video!
Great video series. Nicely done. I've been interested in this topic for many years. For anyone interested, the landmark article on the audible difference between solid state and vacuum tube circuits was documented by Russel o. Ham in his article Tubes Versus Transistors - Is There an Audible Difference", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, May, 1973.
A short contribution to try and make harmonics easier to understand: Western music started in ancient Greece with the single string (monochord) Archimedes used and found some interesing relationships. Imagine a Diddley Bow - one string streched and held in place at both ends: which frenquencies can this string produce *for a long time*? If both ends are held in place, only the frequencies that produce knots (parts of the string that don't move) in both ends. The first way the string can oscillate is going up and down in the middle and leaving both ends as the knots - the frequency this mode of vibration produces is called Fundamental Harmonic. Archimedes realized that there were other modes with equally spaced knots between both ends. The second harmonic, for instance, has a knot in the middle of the string, the third harmonic has 2 knots and the fourth has 3 knots and so on. What Archimedes noticed is that the pitch of the second and fourth hamonics seemted like they were the same "note" while the third harmonic sounded weird when played with any of the other three. We know call the interval from the Fundamental to the Second an "Octave" and from the Second to the Third a "Perfect Fifth" and from the Third to the Fourth a "Perfect Fourth" while the interval from the Second to the Fourth is again an "Octave". And here's the thing: Western music is based on the characteristics of the harmonics and on the math behind it. But there's a mystery: why we recognize the octaves as being the same note? The mystery lasted over 2,000 years but in the 2nd half of the 20th century it was solved: it's biology! Perceiving the octaves as being the same note makes it easier to recognize the voices of women and children that belong to your group! The harmonics are the foundation of Western music and they were known long before Fourier and his famous transformation. Now it's time for me to take a step much longer than my legs: I think that, perhaps, because tubes had that nice distortion that sounded like you were not alone but had your wife and kids with you (or husband and kids) we developed a taste for that type of sound and that's why we still like that type of cozy distortion. It's important to note that what I said in this paragraph is an idea that came to me while writting the comment and just that! COMPLEMENT: have you ever tuned your guitar using the harmonics? Have you noticed that plucking the string closer to the bridge makes those harmonics louder? That happens because when we pluck the string closer to the bridge we add energy into the higher harmonics - and that's also why putting those things that capture sound on guitars in different places changes the "eq" of the instrument. (sorry, I forgot how those are called in English) Understanding and feeling how we can produce different wave forms by changing where we pluck the string will help you to later understand *and* feel the Fourier Series and Theorem.
I think we know where the presentor stands when using terms like 'character' and 'magic' to describe the analog devices. Of course one can pursue whatever sound they like during the creative production process.
Meet to waiting to watch....Always old audio gears are awesome.... And the equipments are equivalent to gold...... Always old is gold & old is sweet!!!
Great video! My main takeaway is that Digital is the best way to reproduce faithfully what the original signal contains. Bingo. That's what I want. That being said the original might contain analog elements that are there naturally because of certain analog equipment being used and/or introduced via plugins etc... So my rudimentary understanding of this complex topic is that Digital and/or analog recording methods are best while digital playback is superior to analog for an honest representation of the original source. But I could be wrong😅
I agree with this. I’ll just add that someone could reasonably find analog playback subjectively better. So, digital recording and playback are best for high fidelity, analog recording and playback are good for color and texture.
This is great, but I wish you played the audio for all of the distortion examples. It would have helped strengthen the argument and would have taught us more if we could actually hear what you were talking about.
Harmonic distortion is only ONE of the factors involved in "that analog sound." As someone who worked in the recording studio for many years, analog audio recorded on tape has a MUCH HIGHER RESOLUTION than digital audio. Secondly, the physics of a tape head color the sound in a specific manner, which rounds off some of the extreme low frequencies (as the low end limit of the tape head is determined by the circumference of the tape head) and accentuates frequencies in the high end at what is known as the "resonant peak" of the head, determined by the gap spacing of the head. (When you set up a tape machine taking ALL of these factors into consideration, engineers would often comment that the playback had more "air" in it... something they almost universally loved.) Then... another factor in the high end was the bias frequency. Without AC bias, one could NOT record on magnetic tape with any real fidelity. A bias frequency had to be at least twice the highest frequency that one wanted to record. Some manufacturers, like 3M, had bias frequencies a lot higher than this, which gave them a better sound that many engineers liked. Then... add in Dolby noise reduction, especially DOLBY SR, and one could argue that a well aligned tape machine sounded both better, and quieter, than digital recordings... especially that recorded through early ProTools analog electronics. Then... for the icing on the cake... music recorded through consoles with discrete analog electronics (such as the Neve 8060 and 8070 series consoles, or API consoles, and even old Quad Eight consoles) had an even greater depth and presence than music recorded through consoles with IC op amps as the method of amplification. The creme de la creme of this was recording through a discrete console to a Stephens 2 inch machine that had only 3 op amps in the signal path, all of which were discrete, hand build circuitry with class A electronics, so there was no 'crossover distortion' as part of the signal. So to say that 'that analog sound' was only due to one major factor is incredibly misleading. THEN, add to that the coloration of the recorded sound added by the different tape oxide formulations... and there were many choices one could make in an analog recording that would positively influence the sound of a particular music genre. 3M had 206, 207, 250, and 996. Ampex had 406, 407, 456, and GP9, BASF had their own formulations... and these were not the only choices available. It would behoove you to do a very comprehensive coverage of "that analog sound" to include all of these factors, along with anything else (like head wear and the heads made by different manufacturers... along with the electronics of different tape machines) that contributed overall to "that analog sound." To this day, a two-track machine that was first released in 1978 (which means that it was designed even earlier than that) is STILL THE MOST POPULAR two track machine available... the Ampex ATR-102. With the myriad of factors in that machine, it's been re-engineered by many, and almost universally customized to be one of the BEST sounding two track machines ever!!
Steady state sinewave measurements. Harmonic Distortion. The bane of the audio industry! Got my electronics degree back when tubes still ruled. THD and IM were used as tests because it was hard to get a good sinewave generator, much less test equipment to measure much else! At the TV stations in analog video systems we also had differential phase and gain measurements. A bit like TIM. Then digital video came along and the video industry came up with an entirely new set of T&M for it. I sold the leading edge of that test equipment. Audio kept THD and IM. Music is transients, not steady state sine waves. Yet we do not have a single measurement for it.
I thought Dan Worrall was the best at explaining such things, but you have overtaken him IMHO. Keep up the ridiculously good work. And thank you for doing what you do!
"Over taken Dan worrall" You say that like you have to only listen to one person..SMH This is the mentality of people these days, find a team and only stick with them (until a better team comes along)
@@Notinserviceij bruh. Wtf? At no point did I say that I no longer like Dan Worrall. I friggin love Dan Worrall. I'm still subscribed to his channel and I'm still just as happy when he releases something new. How you arrived at such a weird conclusion is beyond me. I guess the best of something by definition describes a single thing, but it in no way implies everything else is not worthy of consideration. I mean, c'mon man, maybe you are just having a bad day or something. If so, I hope you sleep well tonight and you wake up feeling like a million bucks tomorrow.
@@Notinserviceij another bad day? To be clear, I never put anyone down. The only way you make sense is if you are literally referring to my newly updated opinion which moves Dan Warroll down to the #2 position in my own personal rankings of audio related content creators. I do wonder if this is all just semantics - is English your native language?
A couple of years ago I resurrected an older Sony real to real recorder and played back what ever tape was in there. It was Chuck Mangione's _Encore_ . I was shocked of the fidelity of bass and of warmth and realness.
To answer the question of why expensive analog gear is still made is simple. Nostalgia+ $$. 😃 Analog colors the sound and when that is what you were raised with then you like it.
2:31 This reminds me of the case of making Swiss cheese with modern technology and sealed sterile environment, only to find out that because of the lack of environmental imperfections, the cheese won't form its characteristic holes that were caused by dust. So they started introducing hay powder into the process to get them back.
In a world of overinflated vocab and monotonous explanation methods, your technique of relaying info is commendable. A good teacher/communicator should present consumable information. Cheers my guy
Great video. What's good about about today's technology is that we get to make a choice whether we go for the pristine recording and reproduction of high quality digital systems and also introduce the colouration from analogue if we want to. There are times where that's a desirable artistic choice and I've certainly done it (e.g. used some emulated tape saturation to achieve a certain sound, but keeping the recording in the digital domain) That surely has to be progress.
The analogy here is modern digital TV being very crisp vs. older CRTs, which were "softer" in their reproduction. Or a very exact digital photo vs. one that has a haze filter to soften it. The haze filter isn't better or worse, just different. The sharp photo (or TV) shows every possible detail and is more fidelity.
As an audiophile, I always buy my analog gear based on lowest THD (total harmonic distortion). As I recall, Onkyo EQs at 0.003% THD was the cleanest - or maybe a Rotel amp at 0.005% THD. As a musician, I don't like compression - it kills dynamics. And distortion should only come from guitar pedals! 3 decades ago I was already recoding direct to the hard drive in my bedroom. I guess when you are both musician and sound engineer it's easier to get what you want in the first place, and you don't have to resort to tricks to "fix it in post [production]".
Great question. The next few parts will go into more details of how analog is not able to be fully emulated in digital. But in almost every way I've found, these UA emulations (and many modern emulations) are insanely realistic. Only thing missing is the physical controls.
This topic was debated to death a few decades ago. On pen and paper digital licks the floor on analogue in everyway. However in reality, that analogue sound via vinyl just is unmatched. All you need is to listen to a high end vinyl and digital playback setup. The difference is immediate. As mentioned before this debate has been done to death before many here are even born yet. Just like valves vs transistors. As old as the tech valve is. it just have that unique human warmth sound...
I mean I'm not sure you have understood this video It's not analog vs digital It's what happens in each of these domains when the signal is clipped . Digital is just a clean capture You are still recording analog I don't think anyone ever doesn't use a preamp going into the box? A pre amp is analog This idea that digital exists without analog is really out of context with what anyone is actually doing It's not a 1 or the other thing it's a Mixing desk and tape machine (out of box mixing) add harmonic distortion and digital doesn't unless the plugin used models this behaviour We don't mix clipping in and outputs of digital gear (unless you are sound experimenter or designer and that's very specific non normal use) Imo It's a very simple mentality to be analog vs digital, not very engineer like if you ask me
@@Notinserviceij your hot takes are "interesting", shall we say. Yes, since you mentioned it, I'd like to ask you - how is thinking about the differences between analog and digital audio "a mentality"?
With an analog tape machine, is it possible to distinguish between distortion introduced by overdriving the preamp, and that introduced by saturating the tape?
I believe that the production process is for the enjoyment of the producer, and that the vast majority of people don't know or care how music is made, only how it makes them feel.
Andrew Scheps and Chris Lord Alge that were shown at the beginnig of the video are mixing ITB (in-the-box) for years now.Pictures in front of big analog consoles are just for commercial purpose,because they look good.
Scratches on a vinyl has its charm lol. When listening to albums i grew up with on CD for the first time, there was something missing, same for cassette tapes. Scratches and tape noise was part of the listening. When hearing them on CD for the 1st time, they sounded naked, something missing. Nowadays the debates are 16 bits vs 24 negligable difference. Vinyl junkies still claim the vinyl albums sound more natural and true to the source. Wtv vintage junkies claim... Just remember that on your 1st CD purchase how it was written on the back: "This compact disc digital reproduction can reveal limitations from the original source master tapes." 😬
The analog sound is - simply put - nice distortion. And, it’s automatic! Well, actually, it’s unavoidable. The ability to eliminate it is a real brain pleaser. I was a design engineer at MCI in 1975 and 1976. Distortion was considered unacceptable and we worked very hard to reduce it as much as humanly possible. Then we’d send our JH24 recorders and JH500 consoles out into the world and engineers would push them far beyond what we at the factory deemed correct, completely ignoring what we explained so carefully in the user manuals. MCI recorders particularly were widely loved for their harmonious distortion on drums, bass, guitar; and in fact still are. I used them in my own studio 1976 thru 1990-ish. I transitioned to digital recorders over a period of time that had to have been a good part of a decade. I wouldn’t go back with a gun to my head. Why? Noting to do with sound. Calibrating two 2”, 24-track and two stereo analog recorders prior to every single session is the ultimate groove-killer. It turned music recording into a science project. Bouncing became a guessing game. “Does 11 sound the same on both recorders?” “What do you think?” Yikes! The knowledge of what analog distortion does is very helpful in emulating it. An overdriven transistor preamp is fairly easy to measure and thus, to emulate. I recall one of my later projects at MCI was developing a mic preamp that deliberately distorted in lower order harmonics - 2nd and 3rd. Ultimately, since no one could agree on what was sugar and what was shit, we abandoned this rather involved investigation. We were keenly aware of what Neve was accomplishing and wanted to compete at a lower cost, eschewing the inefficiency of Class A and the cost of interseries transformers. Too bad, it was ahead of it’s time. Tape distortion is enormously complex, with a large number of parameters depending on tape type, tape speed, record head shape, record bias level, and most of all, level which we called fluxivity when we wanted to be annoying. Honestly, a ‘tape’ plug-in has an enormous job to do and it’s no surprise many are disappointing. Cymbals simply never sounded the same again. I spent more time trying to get that sound than any other instrument. A tape-saturated cymbal is perfection. Sorry for the length.
Right so to emulate recordings done on analog gear you need to add saturation at every point then you have to do the steps you would do to remove it afterwards. It sounds silly and yes you can just skip a step by using analog gear but this way you get complete control over it in a non destructive way. VFX artists do a similar thing. They remove noise from their footage so they can start working on and compositing with it then they re add the noise over the, it sounds silly on paper but its a necessary process.
@@briumphbimbles You describe a procedure that doesn’t exist, at least not for me or any of the top producer-engineers with whom I work. We knew exactly what our analog gear did and never applied it in such a way that would require the impossible job of undoing it. The analogy to video is not correct. Video resolution, during the very same time in history, was simply horrendous and irreparable. It hardly mattered because the television system, from broadcast signal right through to the end users’ televisions, matched that horror perfectly. In short, sound recording was years ahead of video recording for a very long time. We only half-joked with the video engineers that no one would change the channel when the video was replaced by a ‘difficulties’ message as long as the excellent sound continued. They only achieved parity in the early 1990s, after many decades of comparatively excellent sound recording and yes, even broadcasting. The analogy of emulation you mention is not actually correct. Today’s music recording allows us to emulate the sonorous qualities of tape saturation very selectively and I promise none of us deliberately applies those only to search for a way to remove them. Audio tape recording is a truly special case, much more along the lines of film, in that it enjoyed and still enjoys a broad latitude of legitimate sonic benefits from its creative use. We didn’t record vocals at +12 because it sounded like crap. Ditto all symphonic recording, the lion’s share of jazz, dialog, etc……
If a performance is improved by analog distortion (or given "life" or "character"), then "better" probably means "sounds more like stuff i listened to growing up" or "like the classics".
Question- if you can use EQs, compression, etc. to add harmonics, what can you do to remove harmonics from say a recording of an acoustic guitar (short of precision EQing throughout the track)? How do you make something sound more sterile?
@quintessenceSL, Good question - It's difficult to remove harmonic distortions because the signal itself contains a lot of harmonic content. It would be easy to low-pass a sine wave to remove the distortions, but it's MUCH more difficult (if not impossible) to do the same thing with a real instrument that has energy at a lot of different frequencies.
There are different types of distortion pedals, but most of them create very audible distortion. The sound I'm describing in the video can be much more subtle too.
@@AudioUniversity Many thanks. I was just wondering, if humans like harmonics, perhaps there are pedals that add it. Just a tthoght. Not muscician. Your videos are very didactic and knowledge-expanding, appreciate them.
Once you see iron oxide under an electron microscope you understand that the typical statements about digital being more accurate and therefore better than analog (tape) are massively flawed and short sighted. Oxide particles are not uniform tic-tac shaped objects, they are globules of sea creature shaped clusters that can arrange themselves under a magnetic influence in shapes that will blow your mind. In the process of a tape head reading a recorded tape the oxide formations impart way more information than frequency, phase alignment, for example, is many times more accurate than with digital at lower gauss levels. You can talk about noise until you get winded and fall over. But, why should you unless your point is to convince rock musicians to appreciate jazz or some other sterile, pristine, pretentious geekery? Analog equipment doesn't gaf about aliasing, either. The most convincing experiment I've seen for being pro analog is in phase rotation differences. 9 out of 10 times the medium that tends to rotate phase in a harsh way is digital. I know, I know, analog is actually cheating here because the flux translation through any transformer tends to somewhat skew the final alignment BUT it does so in a more in phase manner - meaning, it is much easier to get a nasally skewed recording digitally than to/from tape. If the universe were 2 dimensional then, sure, all the chalkboard logic applied by the digital fanboy kiddies would translate to reality but it's not. There are infinite combinations of the random oxides in analog tape that give DEPTH as well as all the rotational and amplitude properties that digital is capable of. The main benefits of digital are cost and ease of distribution. Apart from those it is pretty much a dickpull and a gaslighting from retailers and manufacturers invested in making a quick buck.
💯! This desperation to push the S/N because ... big numbers!!!!! If you are lucky you will have a 40dbSPL noise floor in your listening environment. 50dbSPL with forced air heating/ cooling. Threshold of pain, ears bleed at 120dbSPL. OSHA requires ear protection @ 100dbSPL. Most listening environments have 50-70db of available dynamics at best. As an active member of AES living in Nashville and selling audio to studios, I sat in on an AES meeting that was playback comparisons of a session recorded Direct to Disc (in that room), Soundstream digital and Ampex 2track analog in the '70's. The DtoD was played back on the cutting lathe as was the tape on the Ampex it was recorded on. Dr. Stockham, Jr was there. 100% picked the DtoD as superior. AFAIK the only time such a test was ever done. RE the time smear (phase shift) from digital? I have a graphical explanation for it that Sony and JVC engineers from their digital team agreed with. It is a linear with time problem making it more noticeable that the logarithmic shift of inductance. I sold the PCM-F1 and 3/4" umatics.
The most of the sound engineers that lived the transition from the analog master tapes to digital (even with only 16bit/44,1 kHz!) state that the output of the digital recorder is practically identically to the input sound. Much more than the analog tape (figure out adding the final degradation to vinyl!), and this is the only thing that matters when speaking of “High-Fidelity”. This what the nostalgic people of vinyl and analog don't want understand. What they like is not fidelity. They spend a lot of money to get a not faithful sound to the original, thinking that it is! The problem now is that the vinyl/tube/analog revival has brainwashed also many of the youngest generations, burying the belief in their head, that the vinyl sound is more close to the original master than a CD or digital. Fidelity and what you like are two different things, and should newer be confused. Not to mention that the most vinyls are recorded from digital masters today, but when passing into vinyl, the sound just looses all the fidelity they don't like.The use of all these analog plugins everywhere also contributes to the lowering of the quality of the digital formats.
Interesting to consider other aspect of this subject: Im my opinion recording on tape and mixed through analog gear, then mastered analog to vinyl is 100% analog. The rest of "combinations" between analog and digital when producing a song are a matter of personal perception and are very subjective when it comes to say that the recording sounds "analog". Once the recording is not anymore on tape, and mixing is done ITB by many famous engineers, I'm not sure how much of it can be called "analog". Also, many albums released in the 80s which are considered the culmination of music production, were recorded and mastered on digital gear. Just a few thoughts 😊
The balance of harmonics determines the shape of the composite waveform, the shape of the composite waveform determines the balance of harmonics. If you look at those composite shapes, they follow a pattern. This is what I showed in the video regarding triangle, sawtooth, and square waves. 7:53
Guys like Lord Alge and Clearmountain have hybrid studios. No one records on tape anymore (unless it's for fun). Everything going in and out of those consoles comes and goes to and from ProTools. It's all analog signal converted to digital, and visa versa. So their main reason for keeping the consoles (according to them) is efficiency of workflow. They can record and mix songs in half the time it woul take to do it ITB. When you're at their level, time is money. Not to mention it's second nature to them. If you've ever seen videos of Chris Lord Alge mixing in the box... it's painfully hilarious. But on his console, he can level a mix faster than a bulldozer on a dollhouse I have an analog console for the same reason. Besides the cool factor, it's just easier and simply more fun to work with. (Of course, I don't have a quarter million dollar Neve, so I am sacrificing some sound quality for a more enjoyable experience)
I have an interesting Proposal for you. Have you ever done the analysis of Vacuum tubes...but considering a classic tube console since they were usually custom built. BUT the particular pre-amp tube they were using. SO it would be a question of a sampling of older NOS items as baselines ......but also include the modern Russian and Chinese & the JJ's. Keep in mind the Plate as to short plate or long plate etc as that has impact. So there is that factor in the equation. So basically they would have been familiar with the RADIOTRON and more or less a basic design for a Pre-amp based tube application in class A...and the cathode adjustments and the BLOCKING cap on the Plate/Anode of the tube. The tables in the book would specify PAPER in wax perhaps for the Capacitors...they usually specify a particular material. So looking passed material brings the Value and look at the book charts perhaps as capacitor are usually in a line up of a few values.........so in general the basic values that should be there. So .022 uf , .047 uf, & .1 uf, and thus a proportional aspect. So the function of a frequency filter....but then to WALK it in to find a particular range and work up from a lower value by paralleling a particular value cap .. to add on for finding the MAGIC value as a filter. So its a DUAL existence....
If compression is what happens as we start pushing a signal into clipping, saturation is what happens if we keep going: the signal gets squashed a bit more, and Harmonic Distortion starts to increase.
Wish there was more analog gear specifically to add subtle or large amounts of saturation/ harmonics/ distortion/ fuuzzz; I can think of only one outfit that makes units for this.
I agree - I believe analog does a few things very very well and analog gear should focus on doing those things in a controlled way. Reminds me of the discussion about analog I had in this video: ruclips.net/video/CIp8BX8BcLE/видео.html
What about the linear response of analog gear in respect to high frequencies when it's not clipping? I heard that analog gear tends to sound warmer because they sort of reduces the high frequencies, which can be sort of emulated by a high-cut. I dont know if that's true have you checked this?
Analog gear by definition does not have a high frequency limit like digital does. Yes signals will roll off as you go up in frequency. But digital hits a brick wall! Half the sampling rate at best! Once you hit that wall, the signal just goes into bad distortion compared to in analog where it is just a bit quieter than the lower frequencies. Hi cut filtering is an absolute requirement in digital and rejected for it's distortions in analog!
@@glenncurry3041 I think you're mixing some things up here. First of all half of the sampling rate is still much more than humans are able to hear. And what do you mean by 'hitting that frequency'? There's nothing like frequency related distortion, just general distortion when you're incoming signal exceeds the threshold of your ADC or your preamplifier, regardless of the incoming frequency. The only thing is, you will get Alias Effects when you try to capture higher frequencies than your sampling rate. To avoid that usually every ADC has a dedicated Low Pass filter which addresses that. I'm pretty sure that Analog gear has also built in Low pass filters. So my question was not a general question, but rather a specific question. How do the high frequencies behave in some Analog gear/Analog emulations?
@@joa1232 The 20khz number is just pure bogus! Like 8 glasses of water a day. It was from the days when they likely did not even have flat enough drivers for the measurement! It just keeps getting repeated! While other actual modern test prove it bogus! "Microsecond temporal resolution in monaural hearing without spectral cues? Abstract The auditory system encodes the timing of peaks in basilar-membrane motion with exquisite precision, and perceptual models of binaural processing indicate that the limit of temporal resolution in humans is as little as 10-20 microseconds." pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12765396/ 10μs = 100khz! So show us all any PCM spec capable of twice 100khz! "frequency related distortion" is how FM radio works. Side Bands for regular AM transmitters. Phase and/ or frequency shifts. In audio we call it WOW and Flutter. And I gave you answers to your questions. "Analog gear by definition does not have a high frequency limit like digital does." Tube still rule when it comes to bandwidth. Try buying a solidstate microwave oven! TUBES, magnetrons are required at that frequency!
have yet to watch the series but maybe do "Dynamic Convolution" topic after this ? Is it possible to capture everything for analog hardware not just their EQ response.
When you listen to a band in the recording room and go back to the control room, tape will sound more faithful, so digital beeing more faithful is bullshit. Like russ elevado said-you aint heard yourself till you record on tape
Tape sounds amazing - I agree. Maybe even better depending on the situation. But aside from the noise floor, there will be additional distortion to the waveform when compared to digital. That's not to say it would or wouldn't sound like a more faithful representation to you. I've also experienced analog tape recordings as having felt more alive or real. That aliveness and realism has a lot to do with the subtle distortions (or enhancements) that come along with the components in an analog recording signal chain.
I would love to see you challenge the consensus on the premise that even harmonics sound objectively better that odd ones. Because isn't it also subjective?
It is subjective! Especially as we start to hear more and more odd harmonics in modern audio production. I believe we think "what's familiar" sounds better, so that will continue to evolve over time.
@@AudioUniversityIt's like ducks mistaking their human groomer to be their actual mom. it doesn't matter what it is, it's that were emotionally attached to it. 🤯
You're very educated and it shows. You present well, but those who taught you, clearly don't have a true appreciation for what analog actually is. I will give you a simple analogy that I hope will help break their programming for you. Incandescent lights are much more attractive than led. Do you know why? Because, though we can't typically make out the blinking of the led circuit, it's there. And very abrasive to the eye. It introduces a pulsing rhythm; albeit, fast, which stands as a separate and substantial part of the experience of its illumination. Add to this that it is quite focused and precise in its travel and direction with very little variance and you have a pronounced but somewhat fragile display of radiance. Incandescent light takes much more energy to produce because it's accomplishing far more than the led ever can. It's not only sending out a continuous ray into the direction of the observer, but it is also pushing in various refraction into the bulb and creating a bath of light within and around the filament and its enclosure. The lack of which, in the led light, is easily noticeable as missing. Even seeming weak. Because it is. Clear fidelity of digital music can get the job done with precision. But the reason it's able to is that it takes shortcuts. It gets there without all the fluff of making stops along the way and creating all those beautiful blooms and saturation that we recognize as natural to the real world but easily noticeable as missing from a weak digital representation.
@nrezmerski everyone knows that the clarity of digital lacks the saturation of what came before. That part is undisputed. So your statement is not correct in that respect. What I'm claiming is that the effect of saturation within the natural experience of sound and how it normally reaches our ears and is experienced is vital to the quality of it being perceived as a genuine, lifelike, sound.
@nrezmerski everyone knows about reflection and dampening. We see these things come up in the subject of room sonics and reverberation. But what I'm saying is that at all times, in a natural environment, these things are playing a roll that far exceeds our typical breakdown and analysis. Object vibrating at specific frequencies only and only when the sound get loud enough in those frequencies to actually cause it to occur. Interference waves stacking at specific points in the room and creating coloration within certain parts of the spectrum. This combination between absorption and reflection leads to a lot of what we typically think of as undesireable effects. But I submit that the human ear is capable of making sense through all that and that it's what we are used to.
@nrezmerski because we are familiar with the way certain Hardware works we are able to select carefully the preamps and individual processes that we use in the hopes of introducing favorable saturation blooms to a sound that will make it sound favorable to us as if truly sounded in a way that was pleasing when it was first sounded in its environment. You know this effect that I'm talking about because everyone knows that if you use specific Channel strips you will actually mimic a vintage sound as if it is a jazz band playing in a very specific type of environment. That is not just because you have chosen vintage equipment they can be done with modern equipment to if we know which saturation points to hit
@nrezmerski I would add that the complexity is infinite on this subject because what might saturate a certain area of the spectrum changes as you turn the volume up on a preamp and different frequencies at different points of the volume changes are accentuated more so and some less so
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I seriously appreciate creators who just get to the point and don't make people sit through annoying intros. I've gotten so used to having to fast forward through the early part of a video that it feels weird not having to do that.
I just had to pause your discourse to say that, I have never heard a better discussion of "analog-versus-digital" sound recording and production. Ever. Thank you !!
Glad you like it! Thank you for taking the time to let me know. 🙂
You need to get out more lol
There's just nobody out there consistantly producing easily understandable yet concise videos like this channel. So good.
Thank you for your support!
Misinformation
Excellent videos! I did a bit of audio engineering (not sound engineering) and they manage to explain some complex stuff in a correct and understandable way.
This actually explains a complex topic VERY clearly, plainly, and utilized excellent examples… thank you! 👍🏻👍🏻
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!
I have been having troubles getting my own computer built, but the main reason i have it is so that i can make muisc. The back to basics video was extremely helpful. Thank you guys in advance for the excellent lessons!
Great video! Being a professional audio engineer hailing from the days of analog tape, I can tell you that sometimes we didn't always like "the non-linearness" that came with it. The first time that I ever used a Alesis ADAT, I was very impressed with the fact that the output sounded identical to the input. But, there was a time when just the thought of having to use a plug-in just made me wince. Since then, digital recording has made exponential strides. Nowadays I don't think twice about using plug-ins. And you're dead on about distortion; I have more saturation, distortion and transformer emulations than I can count! Thank you.
Agreed.
Clear and concise information presented without bias. This makes it a lot easier to decide which tools are best for the desired result. 😎
Thank you! I've always felt it with my ears, but I've never tested it with analyzers. With this video, everything became very clear.
Excellent demonstration and explanation. Now we can understand why adding analog emulation plug-ins makes audio sound better. It's also why it seemed to make sense to add distortion and saturation to make it more like what I thought it should sound like.
Thanks! Great comment!
Thanks! That is finally an explanation why analog sound might sound better even if the signal quality is technically worse. It's the first time I hear this and it makes a lot of sense.
Thank you. Have been studying this for awhile; You express this excellently, succinctly, fine examples, with emphasis yet pleasantly! Have noted this; I can try to explain this, but if someone still doesn't understand, & they see your video, still don't, `get it,' well ~ !
Thanks! Glad you like it.
Awesome video! People should also understand that louder doesn’t mean better. It’s like people try and make a mix as loud as possible which isn’t always a good thing
MAN that was cool! when those harmonics showed up on the screen from the recorded audio being pushed past the limit of the equipment i screamed lmao. MAN that is so cool! harmonics are everywhere!!!
Always a great day when audio University and Kyle post a video 🔥 such a great idea to go into depth about this topic I feel like most people just tell you the difference but never actually explain why they distort differently
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you!
@@AudioUniversityis
This is a very valid approach and a great presentation on the subject. It is worth watching the whole series. Well done. Thank you, Audio University.
Thank you!
What is your name please?@@AudioUniversity
Godsend of a channel, answering questions people ask themselves at least once
EDIT: it's not only digital audio but Bipolar Junction Transistors also had, in analog mode, harmonic distorsion was concentrated on higher odd harmonics - similar to clipping. It's not only if they are even or odd but also if they are low or higher.
Old and small tube amps had around 20% THD to make the sound better on little power and bad speakers. The harmonic distortion of tubes happen mostly in the second and fourth harmonics - that is, it adds two octaves above the fundamental. On old piano roll player pianos, the arrangements - like Gershwin did - used exactly the same trick (adding octaves above) to get better sound out of short strings.
BTW, I hope the exchange rate in my country gets better so I can get a Universal Audio DSP.
Great video. As a long time audio professional, I've collected some stories about quality and fidelity. In a discussion with a music professor many years ago, the idea of perfect reproduction came up. His thoughts were fascinating. If you record a piano in an acoustically perfect room* using the best available gear and then play it back with the best playback system available, even a layman when blindfolded could tell you the difference.
Our perception of sound is mostly made up of reflections from the local environment. If you introduce the effects of a different environment into it, the difference becomes obvious. There's no way around this, it's how our brains are wired. There is also the sonic differences of mic proximity to source (the same as speaker proximity to listener?). That said digital or not, perfect fidelity is a nearly impossible dream. In the end it is my opinion that the electronics in the middle don't matter much weighed against differences in transducers and environment.
There is a quote from some engineer that said "Flat response? Get the jack change the tire." Maybe we should be trying to make music more "musical" than accurate :). Thinking about sonic extensions or additions to music is nothing new. A Chamber orchestra's music was written to be played in a chamber (smaller room). Bagpipes, in an open field were designed to scare the bejesus out of an enemy. There are many divergent examples. Most modern music was written to be compressed, streamed and played back through sub standard Bluetooth speakers or earbuds (ouch!).
I have subscribed. Thank you for a peek into the psychics and psychology of sound. Cheers
*What is acoustically perfect?
Great video. I do have an issue with the term 'better' for it implies more objectivity than it deserves. Like you state in the beginning, we 'learned', got used to music having distortion, we got used to it. We prefer it that way. Maybe we don't, or didn't know any better. Would someone not/never exposed to 'naturally' distorted music experience digitally perfect recorded music experience it as sterile, 'clinical' and emotionless itself? And how is that in a live performance of a classical orchestra (i.e. no electrical (amplified) instruments). Is there distortion too? So 'better' 'd better be called 'more appreciated'. And appreciation is a thing we develop and develops over time (things we consider noise can turn in (exciting) music over time, to become boring in the end, when new noises arrive and in their turn develop into exciting music). And I wonder, is this appreciation in the ear (our hearing) or in our experiencing an appreciating mind? In short, aren't we trained to appreciate certain kinds of distortion?
You pose some interesting questions here - I'm not certain of the answer to any of them. Distortion is when any change is made to the waveform, so you're right that distortion existed long before we were around to hear it or synthesize it or form judgements around it. Our atmosphere can cause distortions, our ears and everything else having to do with sound can also. I like to believe that there's something intrinsic about our connection to the actual analog sound, but I'm just not sure. Maybe it is all just what we are conditioned to like...
It may be an apples to oranges comparison, but having grown up with rabbit ears on a black and white television, I have a distinct appreciation for the 4 and 8k images I now enjoy. The advent on video tapes, then DVDs and BluRays and now streaming is incredible for me, but basic to new viewers. And I doubt anyone of us can now sit through a 480p tape just because it cost $60 when we made $200 a week. The average listener today, content with music off a cellphone, likely never hears intentionally recorded distortion. As a foreign element to the sound, I doubt many would think it adds character, rather just noise or static. (I've kept my 1000 vinyl records for nostalgia, not fidelity. I guess I prefer digital like I prefer 4K over anything less, but not because it's all I know; it's because of all I've endured, lol.) @@AudioUniversity
As for "better," I think a $100 bottle of wine must be better than a $10 bottle, though I don't taste why, or certainly don't understand a 10 times higher price. But if a wine expert tells me it's better, then it's better. My lack of appreciation for it the more expensive wine is my inexperience (or lack of taste, a different problem). I think "better" can be quantitative as well as qualtitative, in other words objective, not only subjective. btw, great video!
Great video series. Nicely done. I've been interested in this topic for many years. For anyone interested, the landmark article on the audible difference between solid state and vacuum tube circuits was documented by Russel o. Ham in his article Tubes Versus Transistors - Is There an Audible Difference", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, May, 1973.
A short contribution to try and make harmonics easier to understand:
Western music started in ancient Greece with the single string (monochord) Archimedes used and found some interesing relationships.
Imagine a Diddley Bow - one string streched and held in place at both ends: which frenquencies can this string produce *for a long time*? If both ends are held in place, only the frequencies that produce knots (parts of the string that don't move) in both ends. The first way the string can oscillate is going up and down in the middle and leaving both ends as the knots - the frequency this mode of vibration produces is called Fundamental Harmonic.
Archimedes realized that there were other modes with equally spaced knots between both ends. The second harmonic, for instance, has a knot in the middle of the string, the third harmonic has 2 knots and the fourth has 3 knots and so on. What Archimedes noticed is that the pitch of the second and fourth hamonics seemted like they were the same "note" while the third harmonic sounded weird when played with any of the other three. We know call the interval from the Fundamental to the Second an "Octave" and from the Second to the Third a "Perfect Fifth" and from the Third to the Fourth a "Perfect Fourth" while the interval from the Second to the Fourth is again an "Octave".
And here's the thing: Western music is based on the characteristics of the harmonics and on the math behind it. But there's a mystery: why we recognize the octaves as being the same note? The mystery lasted over 2,000 years but in the 2nd half of the 20th century it was solved: it's biology! Perceiving the octaves as being the same note makes it easier to recognize the voices of women and children that belong to your group!
The harmonics are the foundation of Western music and they were known long before Fourier and his famous transformation.
Now it's time for me to take a step much longer than my legs:
I think that, perhaps, because tubes had that nice distortion that sounded like you were not alone but had your wife and kids with you (or husband and kids) we developed a taste for that type of sound and that's why we still like that type of cozy distortion. It's important to note that what I said in this paragraph is an idea that came to me while writting the comment and just that!
COMPLEMENT: have you ever tuned your guitar using the harmonics? Have you noticed that plucking the string closer to the bridge makes those harmonics louder? That happens because when we pluck the string closer to the bridge we add energy into the higher harmonics - and that's also why putting those things that capture sound on guitars in different places changes the "eq" of the instrument. (sorry, I forgot how those are called in English)
Understanding and feeling how we can produce different wave forms by changing where we pluck the string will help you to later understand *and* feel the Fourier Series and Theorem.
Eagerly expecting 😁 🙏
I think we know where the presentor stands when using terms like 'character' and 'magic' to describe the analog devices. Of course one can pursue whatever sound they like during the creative production process.
100% - The balance of even- and odd-order harmonics within a mix should be decided by what sounds better.
Meet to waiting to watch....Always old audio gears are awesome....
And the equipments are equivalent to gold......
Always old is gold & old is sweet!!!
Great video! My main takeaway is that Digital is the best way to reproduce faithfully what the original signal contains. Bingo. That's what I want. That being said the original might contain analog elements that are there naturally because of certain analog equipment being used and/or introduced via plugins etc... So my rudimentary understanding of this complex topic is that Digital and/or analog recording methods are best while digital playback is superior to analog for an honest representation of the original source. But I could be wrong😅
I agree with this. I’ll just add that someone could reasonably find analog playback subjectively better. So, digital recording and playback are best for high fidelity, analog recording and playback are good for color and texture.
Excellent, excellent discussion of this matter.
Excellent video. Thanks for explaining everything so clearly.
Excellent video - thank you very much! Looking forward to part 2
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for tuning in!
Excellent presentation, thank you!
This is THE MOST VALUABLE advice I've ever heard in my life..
Thanks so much Brother 😎💪👌
This is great, but I wish you played the audio for all of the distortion examples. It would have helped strengthen the argument and would have taught us more if we could actually hear what you were talking about.
Thanks for Audio Enlightment in SIMPLE WAY
Harmonic distortion is only ONE of the factors involved in "that analog sound." As someone who worked in the recording studio for many years, analog audio recorded on tape has a MUCH HIGHER RESOLUTION than digital audio. Secondly, the physics of a tape head color the sound in a specific manner, which rounds off some of the extreme low frequencies (as the low end limit of the tape head is determined by the circumference of the tape head) and accentuates frequencies in the high end at what is known as the "resonant peak" of the head, determined by the gap spacing of the head. (When you set up a tape machine taking ALL of these factors into consideration, engineers would often comment that the playback had more "air" in it... something they almost universally loved.)
Then... another factor in the high end was the bias frequency. Without AC bias, one could NOT record on magnetic tape with any real fidelity. A bias frequency had to be at least twice the highest frequency that one wanted to record. Some manufacturers, like 3M, had bias frequencies a lot higher than this, which gave them a better sound that many engineers liked. Then... add in Dolby noise reduction, especially DOLBY SR, and one could argue that a well aligned tape machine sounded both better, and quieter, than digital recordings... especially that recorded through early ProTools analog electronics. Then... for the icing on the cake... music recorded through consoles with discrete analog electronics (such as the Neve 8060 and 8070 series consoles, or API consoles, and even old Quad Eight consoles) had an even greater depth and presence than music recorded through consoles with IC op amps as the method of amplification. The creme de la creme of this was recording through a discrete console to a Stephens 2 inch machine that had only 3 op amps in the signal path, all of which were discrete, hand build circuitry with class A electronics, so there was no 'crossover distortion' as part of the signal. So to say that 'that analog sound' was only due to one major factor is incredibly misleading.
THEN, add to that the coloration of the recorded sound added by the different tape oxide formulations... and there were many choices one could make in an analog recording that would positively influence the sound of a particular music genre. 3M had 206, 207, 250, and 996. Ampex had 406, 407, 456, and GP9, BASF had their own formulations... and these were not the only choices available.
It would behoove you to do a very comprehensive coverage of "that analog sound" to include all of these factors, along with anything else (like head wear and the heads made by different manufacturers... along with the electronics of different tape machines) that contributed overall to "that analog sound."
To this day, a two-track machine that was first released in 1978 (which means that it was designed even earlier than that) is STILL THE MOST POPULAR two track machine available... the Ampex ATR-102. With the myriad of factors in that machine, it's been re-engineered by many, and almost universally customized to be one of the BEST sounding two track machines ever!!
Steady state sinewave measurements. Harmonic Distortion. The bane of the audio industry! Got my electronics degree back when tubes still ruled. THD and IM were used as tests because it was hard to get a good sinewave generator, much less test equipment to measure much else! At the TV stations in analog video systems we also had differential phase and gain measurements. A bit like TIM. Then digital video came along and the video industry came up with an entirely new set of T&M for it. I sold the leading edge of that test equipment. Audio kept THD and IM.
Music is transients, not steady state sine waves. Yet we do not have a single measurement for it.
Absolutely phenomenal information! 🙏
Thank you for this absolute masterclass of an explaner vid on this topic. Truly worthy of the university brand, Well made! 🔊😃
I thought Dan Worrall was the best at explaining such things, but you have overtaken him IMHO. Keep up the ridiculously good work. And thank you for doing what you do!
Dan has taught me a lot! Thank you for saying this - it means a lot to me.
"Over taken Dan worrall"
You say that like you have to only listen to one person..SMH
This is the mentality of people these days, find a team and only stick with them (until a better team comes along)
@@Notinserviceij bruh. Wtf? At no point did I say that I no longer like Dan Worrall. I friggin love Dan Worrall. I'm still subscribed to his channel and I'm still just as happy when he releases something new. How you arrived at such a weird conclusion is beyond me. I guess the best of something by definition describes a single thing, but it in no way implies everything else is not worthy of consideration. I mean, c'mon man, maybe you are just having a bad day or something. If so, I hope you sleep well tonight and you wake up feeling like a million bucks tomorrow.
@captain_crunk so your version of complimenting someone is putting down another.... hmm seems to make sense
@@Notinserviceij another bad day? To be clear, I never put anyone down. The only way you make sense is if you are literally referring to my newly updated opinion which moves Dan Warroll down to the #2 position in my own personal rankings of audio related content creators. I do wonder if this is all just semantics - is English your native language?
Fantastic explanation. You made it simple. I learned a lot. Thanks. 😊
Great to hear this, Henry! Thank you for watching!
EXCELLENT explanation and demonstration of analog distortion.
Really well done.
😎👍👍
Thank you!
Love your work!!! awesome content!
Glad you enjoy it! Thank you!
A couple of years ago I resurrected an older Sony real to real recorder and played back what ever tape was in there. It was Chuck Mangione's _Encore_ . I was shocked of the fidelity of bass and of warmth and realness.
Great video with great info. Thanks. I can't wait for parts 2 and 3.
To answer the question of why expensive analog gear is still made is simple. Nostalgia+ $$. 😃 Analog colors the sound and when that is what you were raised with then you like it.
Could be, but do you have sources for this? To me this subject is unclear.
2:31 This reminds me of the case of making Swiss cheese with modern technology and sealed sterile environment, only to find out that because of the lack of environmental imperfections, the cheese won't form its characteristic holes that were caused by dust. So they started introducing hay powder into the process to get them back.
Great explanation! I’m ready for the test now
Great video. I found your voice to have neither too much distortion, nor too little.
In a world of overinflated vocab and monotonous explanation methods, your technique of relaying info is commendable. A good teacher/communicator should present consumable information. Cheers my guy
Great video. What's good about about today's technology is that we get to make a choice whether we go for the pristine recording and reproduction of high quality digital systems and also introduce the colouration from analogue if we want to. There are times where that's a desirable artistic choice and I've certainly done it (e.g. used some emulated tape saturation to achieve a certain sound, but keeping the recording in the digital domain) That surely has to be progress.
The analogy here is modern digital TV being very crisp vs. older CRTs, which were "softer" in their reproduction. Or a very exact digital photo vs. one that has a haze filter to soften it. The haze filter isn't better or worse, just different. The sharp photo (or TV) shows every possible detail and is more fidelity.
Level matching is a must...
It's so hard to not be fooled by level increasing...
As an audiophile, I always buy my analog gear based on lowest THD (total harmonic distortion). As I recall, Onkyo EQs at 0.003% THD was the cleanest - or maybe a Rotel amp at 0.005% THD. As a musician, I don't like compression - it kills dynamics. And distortion should only come from guitar pedals! 3 decades ago I was already recoding direct to the hard drive in my bedroom. I guess when you are both musician and sound engineer it's easier to get what you want in the first place, and you don't have to resort to tricks to "fix it in post [production]".
What a content! Automatically subscribed!
Very cool. Well laid out and explained. Thank you for this.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Just WOW! Thank you!
Why Use analog when you can emulate analog harmonics with software while maintaining a lower noise floor or is high noise floor also musical?
Great question. The next few parts will go into more details of how analog is not able to be fully emulated in digital. But in almost every way I've found, these UA emulations (and many modern emulations) are insanely realistic. Only thing missing is the physical controls.
Aliasing.
@@Chicken-1923 what do you mean?
Because you can not hear digital. Well not enjoyably!
@@glenncurry3041 you can't hear analog either you hear sound waves. or all cables would be audible if that was the case
Incredible video!
Wow - I guess you do learn something new every day-Thank you 🤙🏽
Maravilloso material, gracias por el esfuerzo de hacer este video.
Excellent tutorial
Glad you liked it! Thanks!
Ironically digital actually is an analog signal. It's a just square wave versus a sine wave. It's still a wave of different voltage levels.
Digital is discrete but there "wave" is indistinguishable to analog.
This topic was debated to death a few decades ago. On pen and paper digital licks the floor on analogue in everyway. However in reality, that analogue sound via vinyl just is unmatched. All you need is to listen to a high end vinyl and digital playback setup.
The difference is immediate. As mentioned before this debate has been done to death before many here are even born yet. Just like valves vs transistors. As old as the tech valve is. it just have that unique human warmth sound...
I mean I'm not sure you have understood this video
It's not analog vs digital
It's what happens in each of these domains when the signal is clipped .
Digital is just a clean capture
You are still recording analog
I don't think anyone ever doesn't use a preamp going into the box? A pre amp is analog
This idea that digital exists without analog is really out of context with what anyone is actually doing
It's not a 1 or the other thing it's a Mixing desk and tape machine (out of box mixing) add harmonic distortion and digital doesn't unless the plugin used models this behaviour
We don't mix clipping in and outputs of digital gear (unless you are sound experimenter or designer and that's very specific non normal use)
Imo It's a very simple mentality to be analog vs digital, not very engineer like if you ask me
@@Notinserviceij your hot takes are "interesting", shall we say. Yes, since you mentioned it, I'd like to ask you - how is thinking about the differences between analog and digital audio "a mentality"?
Just because something was done to death years ago does not mean it is the definitive correct answer....
With an analog tape machine, is it possible to distinguish between distortion introduced by overdriving the preamp, and that introduced by saturating the tape?
Yes very easy.
How is it done?@@glenncurry3041
Top video. Many thanks. And no background music.....YAY!
This video was very informative.
Glad it's helpful! Thanks for watching!
I believe that the production process is for the enjoyment of the producer, and that the vast majority of people don't know or care how music is made, only how it makes them feel.
Very educative, thank you.
Glad you think so! Thanks!
Very Informative Sirjee
Thank You 😊
Andrew Scheps and Chris Lord Alge that were shown at the beginnig of the video are mixing ITB (in-the-box) for years now.Pictures in front of big analog consoles are just for commercial purpose,because they look good.
Really great video.
Glad you liked it! Thank you.
Scratches on a vinyl has its charm lol. When listening to albums i grew up with on CD for the first time, there was something missing, same for cassette tapes. Scratches and tape noise was part of the listening. When hearing them on CD for the 1st time, they sounded naked, something missing.
Nowadays the debates are 16 bits vs 24 negligable difference.
Vinyl junkies still claim the vinyl albums sound more natural and true to the source.
Wtv vintage junkies claim...
Just remember that on your 1st CD purchase how it was written on the back:
"This compact disc digital reproduction can reveal limitations from the original source master tapes."
😬
The analog sound is - simply put - nice distortion. And, it’s automatic! Well, actually, it’s unavoidable. The ability to eliminate it is a real brain pleaser.
I was a design engineer at MCI in 1975 and 1976. Distortion was considered unacceptable and we worked very hard to reduce it as much as humanly possible. Then we’d send our JH24 recorders and JH500 consoles out into the world and engineers would push them far beyond what we at the factory deemed correct, completely ignoring what we explained so carefully in the user manuals. MCI recorders particularly were widely loved for their harmonious distortion on drums, bass, guitar; and in fact still are.
I used them in my own studio 1976 thru 1990-ish. I transitioned to digital recorders over a period of time that had to have been a good part of a decade. I wouldn’t go back with a gun to my head. Why? Noting to do with sound. Calibrating two 2”, 24-track and two stereo analog recorders prior to every single session is the ultimate groove-killer. It turned music recording into a science project. Bouncing became a guessing game. “Does 11 sound the same on both recorders?” “What do you think?” Yikes!
The knowledge of what analog distortion does is very helpful in emulating it. An overdriven transistor preamp is fairly easy to measure and thus, to emulate. I recall one of my later projects at MCI was developing a mic preamp that deliberately distorted in lower order harmonics - 2nd and 3rd. Ultimately, since no one could agree on what was sugar and what was shit, we abandoned this rather involved investigation. We were keenly aware of what Neve was accomplishing and wanted to compete at a lower cost, eschewing the inefficiency of Class A and the cost of interseries transformers. Too bad, it was ahead of it’s time.
Tape distortion is enormously complex, with a large number of parameters depending on tape type, tape speed, record head shape, record bias level, and most of all, level which we called fluxivity when we wanted to be annoying. Honestly, a ‘tape’ plug-in has an enormous job to do and it’s no surprise many are disappointing. Cymbals simply never sounded the same again. I spent more time trying to get that sound than any other instrument. A tape-saturated cymbal is perfection.
Sorry for the length.
Right so to emulate recordings done on analog gear you need to add saturation at every point then you have to do the steps you would do to remove it afterwards.
It sounds silly and yes you can just skip a step by using analog gear but this way you get complete control over it in a non destructive way.
VFX artists do a similar thing. They remove noise from their footage so they can start working on and compositing with it then they re add the noise over the, it sounds silly on paper but its a necessary process.
@@briumphbimbles You describe a procedure that doesn’t exist, at least not for me or any of the top producer-engineers with whom I work. We knew exactly what our analog gear did and never applied it in such a way that would require the impossible job of undoing it. The analogy to video is not correct. Video resolution, during the very same time in history, was simply horrendous and irreparable. It hardly mattered because the television system, from broadcast signal right through to the end users’ televisions, matched that horror perfectly.
In short, sound recording was years ahead of video recording for a very long time. We only half-joked with the video engineers that no one would change the channel when the video was replaced by a ‘difficulties’ message as long as the excellent sound continued. They only achieved parity in the early 1990s, after many decades of comparatively excellent sound recording and yes, even broadcasting.
The analogy of emulation you mention is not actually correct. Today’s music recording allows us to emulate the sonorous qualities of tape saturation very selectively and I promise none of us deliberately applies those only to search for a way to remove them. Audio tape recording is a truly special case, much more along the lines of film, in that it enjoyed and still enjoys a broad latitude of legitimate sonic benefits from its creative use. We didn’t record vocals at +12 because it sounded like crap. Ditto all symphonic recording, the lion’s share of jazz, dialog, etc……
@@artysanmobile You never high passed or noise-gated away your noise floor?
@@briumphbimbles Nope to noise gates, yes to HP. Noise is an automation job.
If a performance is improved by analog distortion (or given "life" or "character"), then "better" probably means "sounds more like stuff i listened to growing up" or "like the classics".
This, but I would replace the term "probably" with "maybe".
I always think of the manual for Zynaddsubfx and the "bandwidth of harmonics" for a beautiful sound.
You make great videos!
Very cool. Now I want to try to insert an analog compressor plugin into my VO processing mix!
You should try it out! There's a free trial here: geni.us/nignZ
@@AudioUniversity Thanks, Kyle. I'll keep you apprised!
Really good video!
Question- if you can use EQs, compression, etc. to add harmonics, what can you do to remove harmonics from say a recording of an acoustic guitar (short of precision EQing throughout the track)?
How do you make something sound more sterile?
You can not remove harmonics , you can add more distortion in order to change the overall timbre, Aphex 250 type lll.
@quintessenceSL, Good question - It's difficult to remove harmonic distortions because the signal itself contains a lot of harmonic content. It would be easy to low-pass a sine wave to remove the distortions, but it's MUCH more difficult (if not impossible) to do the same thing with a real instrument that has energy at a lot of different frequencies.
So what a distortion pedal do (el. guitar)?
There are different types of distortion pedals, but most of them create very audible distortion. The sound I'm describing in the video can be much more subtle too.
@@AudioUniversity Many thanks. I was just wondering, if humans like harmonics, perhaps there are pedals that add it. Just a tthoght. Not muscician. Your videos are very didactic and knowledge-expanding, appreciate them.
Once you see iron oxide under an electron microscope you understand that the typical statements about digital being more accurate and therefore better than analog (tape) are massively flawed and short sighted. Oxide particles are not uniform tic-tac shaped objects, they are globules of sea creature shaped clusters that can arrange themselves under a magnetic influence in shapes that will blow your mind. In the process of a tape head reading a recorded tape the oxide formations impart way more information than frequency, phase alignment, for example, is many times more accurate than with digital at lower gauss levels. You can talk about noise until you get winded and fall over. But, why should you unless your point is to convince rock musicians to appreciate jazz or some other sterile, pristine, pretentious geekery? Analog equipment doesn't gaf about aliasing, either. The most convincing experiment I've seen for being pro analog is in phase rotation differences. 9 out of 10 times the medium that tends to rotate phase in a harsh way is digital. I know, I know, analog is actually cheating here because the flux translation through any transformer tends to somewhat skew the final alignment BUT it does so in a more in phase manner - meaning, it is much easier to get a nasally skewed recording digitally than to/from tape. If the universe were 2 dimensional then, sure, all the chalkboard logic applied by the digital fanboy kiddies would translate to reality but it's not. There are infinite combinations of the random oxides in analog tape that give DEPTH as well as all the rotational and amplitude properties that digital is capable of. The main benefits of digital are cost and ease of distribution. Apart from those it is pretty much a dickpull and a gaslighting from retailers and manufacturers invested in making a quick buck.
💯! This desperation to push the S/N because ... big numbers!!!!! If you are lucky you will have a 40dbSPL noise floor in your listening environment. 50dbSPL with forced air heating/ cooling. Threshold of pain, ears bleed at 120dbSPL. OSHA requires ear protection @ 100dbSPL. Most listening environments have 50-70db of available dynamics at best.
As an active member of AES living in Nashville and selling audio to studios, I sat in on an AES meeting that was playback comparisons of a session recorded Direct to Disc (in that room), Soundstream digital and Ampex 2track analog in the '70's. The DtoD was played back on the cutting lathe as was the tape on the Ampex it was recorded on. Dr. Stockham, Jr was there. 100% picked the DtoD as superior. AFAIK the only time such a test was ever done.
RE the time smear (phase shift) from digital? I have a graphical explanation for it that Sony and JVC engineers from their digital team agreed with. It is a linear with time problem making it more noticeable that the logarithmic shift of inductance. I sold the PCM-F1 and 3/4" umatics.
The most of the sound engineers that lived the transition from the analog master tapes to digital (even with only 16bit/44,1 kHz!) state that the output of the digital recorder is practically identically to the input sound. Much more than the analog tape (figure out adding the final degradation to vinyl!), and this is the only thing that matters when speaking of “High-Fidelity”. This what the nostalgic people of vinyl and analog don't want understand. What they like is not fidelity. They spend a lot of money to get a not faithful sound to the original, thinking that it is!
The problem now is that the vinyl/tube/analog revival has brainwashed also many of the youngest generations, burying the belief in their head, that the vinyl sound is more close to the original master than a CD or digital. Fidelity and what you like are two different things, and should newer be confused.
Not to mention that the most vinyls are recorded from digital masters today, but when passing into vinyl, the sound just looses all the fidelity they don't like.The use of all these analog plugins everywhere also contributes to the lowering of the quality of the digital formats.
Interesting to consider other aspect of this subject:
Im my opinion recording on tape and mixed through analog gear, then mastered analog to vinyl is 100% analog.
The rest of "combinations" between analog and digital when producing a song are a matter of personal perception and are very subjective when it comes to say that the recording sounds "analog".
Once the recording is not anymore on tape, and mixing is done ITB by many famous engineers, I'm not sure how much of it can be called "analog".
Also, many albums released in the 80s which are considered the culmination of music production, were recorded and mastered on digital gear.
Just a few thoughts 😊
@@Chicken-1923 true....they got heated by the oscillators inside the synths🤣
why are even and odd harmonics the fundamental analytic lens?
The balance of harmonics determines the shape of the composite waveform, the shape of the composite waveform determines the balance of harmonics. If you look at those composite shapes, they follow a pattern. This is what I showed in the video regarding triangle, sawtooth, and square waves. 7:53
Because... cheap shots are easier!
This is very good.
Guys like Lord Alge and Clearmountain have hybrid studios. No one records on tape anymore (unless it's for fun).
Everything going in and out of those consoles comes and goes to and from ProTools.
It's all analog signal converted to digital, and visa versa.
So their main reason for keeping the consoles (according to them) is efficiency of workflow.
They can record and mix songs in half the time it woul take to do it ITB. When you're at their level, time is money.
Not to mention it's second nature to them. If you've ever seen videos of Chris Lord Alge mixing in the box... it's painfully hilarious.
But on his console, he can level a mix faster than a bulldozer on a dollhouse
I have an analog console for the same reason. Besides the cool factor, it's just easier and simply more fun to work with.
(Of course, I don't have a quarter million dollar Neve, so I am sacrificing some sound quality for a more enjoyable experience)
No, that phase passed years ago. Straight to 10101001 now…. It was too costly and time consuming for the labels….
I have an interesting Proposal for you. Have you ever done the analysis of Vacuum tubes...but considering a classic tube console since they were usually custom built. BUT the particular pre-amp tube they were using. SO it would be a question of a sampling of older NOS items as baselines ......but also include the modern Russian and Chinese & the JJ's. Keep in mind the Plate as to short plate or long plate etc as that has impact. So there is that factor in the equation. So basically they would have been familiar with the RADIOTRON and more or less a basic design for a Pre-amp based tube application in class A...and the cathode adjustments and the BLOCKING cap on the Plate/Anode of the tube. The tables in the book would specify PAPER in wax perhaps for the Capacitors...they usually specify a particular material. So looking passed material brings the Value and look at the book charts perhaps as capacitor are usually in a line up of a few values.........so in general the basic values that should be there. So .022 uf , .047 uf, & .1 uf, and thus a proportional aspect. So the function of a frequency filter....but then to WALK it in to find a particular range and work up from a lower value by paralleling a particular value cap .. to add on for finding the MAGIC value as a filter. So its a DUAL existence....
Digital Harmonic Distortion is not Analog Harmonic Distortion is that correct?.
Is Distortion not a clipper to some degree?.Unlike Saturation?
If compression is what happens as we start pushing a signal into clipping, saturation is what happens if we keep going: the signal gets squashed a bit more, and Harmonic Distortion starts to increase.
Digital distortion usually is not harmonic distortion.
Hopefully the video answered some of these questions for you @thegroove2000. Thanks for watching!
Why not using right sound at beginning , instead using tools to enhance wrong sound ? Great video, good explanations.
Thanks for watching! I like that mentality - find the right sounds from the beginning.
Wish there was more analog gear specifically to add subtle or large amounts of saturation/ harmonics/ distortion/ fuuzzz;
I can think of only one outfit that makes units for this.
I agree - I believe analog does a few things very very well and analog gear should focus on doing those things in a controlled way. Reminds me of the discussion about analog I had in this video: ruclips.net/video/CIp8BX8BcLE/видео.html
Maybe a klon
What about the linear response of analog gear in respect to high frequencies when it's not clipping? I heard that analog gear tends to sound warmer because they sort of reduces the high frequencies, which can be sort of emulated by a high-cut. I dont know if that's true have you checked this?
Analog gear by definition does not have a high frequency limit like digital does. Yes signals will roll off as you go up in frequency. But digital hits a brick wall! Half the sampling rate at best! Once you hit that wall, the signal just goes into bad distortion compared to in analog where it is just a bit quieter than the lower frequencies. Hi cut filtering is an absolute requirement in digital and rejected for it's distortions in analog!
@@glenncurry3041 I think you're mixing some things up here. First of all half of the sampling rate is still much more than humans are able to hear. And what do you mean by 'hitting that frequency'? There's nothing like frequency related distortion, just general distortion when you're incoming signal exceeds the threshold of your ADC or your preamplifier, regardless of the incoming frequency. The only thing is, you will get Alias Effects when you try to capture higher frequencies than your sampling rate. To avoid that usually every ADC has a dedicated Low Pass filter which addresses that. I'm pretty sure that Analog gear has also built in Low pass filters. So my question was not a general question, but rather a specific question. How do the high frequencies behave in some Analog gear/Analog emulations?
@@joa1232 The 20khz number is just pure bogus! Like 8 glasses of water a day. It was from the days when they likely did not even have flat enough drivers for the measurement! It just keeps getting repeated! While other actual modern test prove it bogus!
"Microsecond temporal resolution in monaural hearing without spectral cues?
Abstract
The auditory system encodes the timing of peaks in basilar-membrane motion with exquisite precision, and perceptual models of binaural processing indicate that the limit of temporal resolution in humans is as little as 10-20 microseconds." pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12765396/
10μs = 100khz! So show us all any PCM spec capable of twice 100khz!
"frequency related distortion" is how FM radio works. Side Bands for regular AM transmitters. Phase and/ or frequency shifts. In audio we call it WOW and Flutter.
And I gave you answers to your questions. "Analog gear by definition does not have a high frequency limit like digital does."
Tube still rule when it comes to bandwidth. Try buying a solidstate microwave oven! TUBES, magnetrons are required at that frequency!
Thank you mane 💯
have yet to watch the series but maybe do "Dynamic Convolution" topic after this ? Is it possible to capture everything for analog hardware not just their EQ response.
Where is part 2 and 3?
Part 2 and 3 will be posted over the next few weeks! Thanks for watching!
When you listen to a band in the recording room and go back to the control room, tape will sound more faithful, so digital beeing more faithful is bullshit. Like russ elevado said-you aint heard yourself till you record on tape
Tape sounds amazing - I agree. Maybe even better depending on the situation. But aside from the noise floor, there will be additional distortion to the waveform when compared to digital. That's not to say it would or wouldn't sound like a more faithful representation to you. I've also experienced analog tape recordings as having felt more alive or real. That aliveness and realism has a lot to do with the subtle distortions (or enhancements) that come along with the components in an analog recording signal chain.
I would love to see you challenge the consensus on the premise that even harmonics sound objectively better that odd ones. Because isn't it also subjective?
It is subjective! Especially as we start to hear more and more odd harmonics in modern audio production. I believe we think "what's familiar" sounds better, so that will continue to evolve over time.
@@AudioUniversityIt's like ducks mistaking their human groomer to be their actual mom. it doesn't matter what it is, it's that were emotionally attached to it. 🤯
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You're very educated and it shows. You present well, but those who taught you, clearly don't have a true appreciation for what analog actually is. I will give you a simple analogy that I hope will help break their programming for you.
Incandescent lights are much more attractive than led. Do you know why? Because, though we can't typically make out the blinking of the led circuit, it's there. And very abrasive to the eye. It introduces a pulsing rhythm; albeit, fast, which stands as a separate and substantial part of the experience of its illumination. Add to this that it is quite focused and precise in its travel and direction with very little variance and you have a pronounced but somewhat fragile display of radiance.
Incandescent light takes much more energy to produce because it's accomplishing far more than the led ever can. It's not only sending out a continuous ray into the direction of the observer, but it is also pushing in various refraction into the bulb and creating a bath of light within and around the filament and its enclosure. The lack of which, in the led light, is easily noticeable as missing. Even seeming weak. Because it is.
Clear fidelity of digital music can get the job done with precision. But the reason it's able to is that it takes shortcuts. It gets there without all the fluff of making stops along the way and creating all those beautiful blooms and saturation that we recognize as natural to the real world but easily noticeable as missing from a weak digital representation.
@nrezmerski everyone knows that the clarity of digital lacks the saturation of what came before. That part is undisputed. So your statement is not correct in that respect. What I'm claiming is that the effect of saturation within the natural experience of sound and how it normally reaches our ears and is experienced is vital to the quality of it being perceived as a genuine, lifelike, sound.
@nrezmerski everyone knows about reflection and dampening. We see these things come up in the subject of room sonics and reverberation. But what I'm saying is that at all times, in a natural environment, these things are playing a roll that far exceeds our typical breakdown and analysis. Object vibrating at specific frequencies only and only when the sound get loud enough in those frequencies to actually cause it to occur. Interference waves stacking at specific points in the room and creating coloration within certain parts of the spectrum. This combination between absorption and reflection leads to a lot of what we typically think of as undesireable effects. But I submit that the human ear is capable of making sense through all that and that it's what we are used to.
@nrezmerski because we are familiar with the way certain Hardware works we are able to select carefully the preamps and individual processes that we use in the hopes of introducing favorable saturation blooms to a sound that will make it sound favorable to us as if truly sounded in a way that was pleasing when it was first sounded in its environment.
You know this effect that I'm talking about because everyone knows that if you use specific Channel strips you will actually mimic a vintage sound as if it is a jazz band playing in a very specific type of environment. That is not just because you have chosen vintage equipment they can be done with modern equipment to if we know which saturation points to hit
@nrezmerski I would add that the complexity is infinite on this subject because what might saturate a certain area of the spectrum changes as you turn the volume up on a preamp and different frequencies at different points of the volume changes are accentuated more so and some less so
@nrezmerski Ergo the term nonlinear
ITB = winner. no doubt.
Audible examples too please if yoy make something similar next time
Great video! I trust that you'll touch on how analog processing affects loudness and peaks.
Thanks!
Lenny Kravitz loves that distorted analog vocal sound. I wonder if he used true analog equipment or software that emulates the analog sound.
Chris Lord Alge uses Sony digital tape machines, I would have you note.