Question-Analog vs. digital seperation?

[sada10]

I have inquired on this and other forums about a phoenominam that I have experienced where it sounded to me that material that I have listened to that was tracked on analog tape had a more pronounced seperation than that of digital recordings. I read an article on the internet today (see linkhttp://emusician.com/signalprocessor...ic_sum_tracks/ that has added to my curiosity on this. This article seems to suggest that result of what I believe my ears are perceiving is do to the tracked material being ran back through analog mixers; the article goes on to say that some engineers who believe in this are purchasing analog summing devices or mixing digital tracks through an analog mixer. I guess my question is, do any of you guys who have heard recordings done on analog equipment perceived this same thing and if so, is this created by tracking on analog multitrack tape or running the tracks through an analog board?

[DAS]

Saying this is a controversial subject is an understatement.

There's a lot of history to understand to fully get where some of this stuff comes from...of course that can't all be covered here. The extreme shortened version is that digital conversion and mixing haven't always been as refined technically as they are now. Consequently there are people out there living with perceptions that digital audio is flawed or broken due to experiences they had in the past. To whatever small extent this (digital is broken) may be true...it is FAR, FAR less so today than 10 or even 5 years ago. Digital mixers are not broken or flawed (at this point). They simply don't do all of the things to the audio that an analog mixer does, which can be a good thing...or not.

Meanwhile some people just like the sound of their analog gear. They know how to use it and how to make it sound great. Give them digital gear, and they just can't get what they want. Some of this is because they are using tried and true techniques on equipment that doesn't react the same way, and some of it is because digital really can sound different than old analog gear.

To make a long story short some engineers do still prefer to record, mix or master analog. Analog equipment tends to add a color (through various kinds of distortion mostly) to the sound that they like, and in some cases people do hear things like better separation and so forth.

There are still a significant number of recordings made on digital gear that get mixed through big analog desks for just these reasons. The number is decreasing all the time, but...

The summing bus devices try to emulate some of what you get in an analog console for mixing...with varying degrees of success. There are some limitations to what they can do for you since...well...they aren't mixers. This means you still have to mix (as in set levels), automate, and usually even subgroup things in your DAW (which requires mixing in the DAW, presumably what you'd be trying to avoid in the first place). So there can be some benefits if you like what they do to the sound, but it's not the same as having a real analog mixer to go through where you have control over the levels, panning, automation, etc.

I have a big, old analog mixer that I do still use for some projects because I do like the sound it can add to some things. But most of the time I find it either doesn't sound as good as my DAW (or my DAW with various outboard gear) or it's just too much of a hassle (mostly the automation) to deal with on a given project. I find that doing the automation and levels inside the DAW and then just running the outputs through the analog mixer does not sound the same (or as good) as actually mixing on the analog desk so I usually work entirely in the DAW or just use the DAW as a tape machine with editing and mix entirely on the mixer. There is no in between for me...and as such I am not a big proponent of the summing boxes. But that's just me. There are some guys doing great work on them who absolutely swear by it.

The one really great thing about the summing boxes is they do give you a little analog character without having to constantly replace pots and faders!

I hope this helps. I'm sure there will be other opinions and thoughts for you.

[Dave Burris]

It is not physically possible for analog medium such as phonograph or multi-track tape to have more separation than possible with digital techiques. I cannot account for what people believe they hear or think is "better", but on the question of "more separation" it is simply not possible unless intentionally or unintentionally degrading the separation of the digital material.

[Joseph Hanna]

It is not physically possible for analog medium such as phonograph or multi-track tape to have more separation than possible with digital techiques. I cannot account for what people believe they hear or think is "better", but on the question of "more separation" it is simply not possible unless intentionally or unintentionally degrading the separation of the digital material.

Dave....I agree on one point.

It IS certainly hard to account for what people believe they hear or think.

However are you then saying poor digital conversions don't smear the stereo field???

Could you go a bit more in depth??

I duuno I'm certainly a "do it in the digital world guy" but imaging in the analog world was ALWAYS noticably more pleasing.

[Dave Burris]

However are you then saying poor digital conversions don't smear the stereo field???

No, I actually didn't say anything about poor digital conversions, nor do I understand what you mean by "smear"?

Could you go a bit more in depth??

Sure! The question was about separation. As a function of the physical media, the opposite of separation is crosstalk. There are a number of sources of potential crosstalk, with the primary sources being poor isolation in the record and playback electronics and the electromechanical coupling of the transducer.

While poor isolation in electrical circuits can certainly be an issue with the analog circuitry, once in the digital domain there is no additional audible crosstalk possible except the playback circuits. These sources of crosstalk are typically well below the analog input transducers such as multitrack magnetic tape.

I duuno I'm certainly a "do it in the digital world guy" but imaging in the analog world was ALWAYS noticably more pleasing.

Perhaps, but there are plenty of digital recordings that I would say are superior to all but the best analog recordings. I would attribute that mostly to skill and technique. In general, digital recording is very unforgiving of many common mistakes that analog equipment would tolerate and sometimes even flatter.

[DAS]

I am presuming that what the original poster means by separation is not a crosstalk issue (one track bleeding into another), but rather the perception that instruments seem to sit "better" in the soundstage and perhaps have more separation from one another in terms of discernability in the mix. Clearly I think we can all agree that digital should not (and does not) unintentionally blend signals together the way analog does. What I think we are talking about is more subjective than that, which does make it hard to quantify. But in digital improvements can sometimes be obtained by something as simple as a better clock the clock on the D/A. This isn't going to effect crosstalk one bit, but clarity and separation of instruments in the mix can subjectively be improved.

[dpd]

At what point in an analog system is crosstalk audible? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything conclusive on this topic.

One would assume crosstalk sensitivity would be spectral-related. I tend to think the sonic imprint of analog crosstalk is more perception than fact - most of the time the crosstalk is below the system noise floor and when it is not, the opposite-channel crosstalk levels are probably masked by the main channel signal.

[DAS]

At what point in an analog system is crosstalk audible? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything conclusive on this topic.

One would assume crosstalk sensitivity would be spectral-related. I tend to think the sonic imprint of analog crosstalk is more perception than fact - most of the time the crosstalk is below the system noise floor and when it is not, the opposite-channel crosstalk levels are probably masked by the main channel signal.

Well, for one blatantly obvious example: record SMPTE time code on a track of your tape recorder and then listen to the adjacent track.

[Dave Burris]

Well, for one blatantly obvious example: record SMPTE time code on a track of your tape recorder and then listen to the adjacent track.

That would certainly be a blatant one!

The question of SEPARATION versus crosstalk is easily shown on even the best analog tape machines and even easier on vinyl.

[dpd]

Well, for one blatantly obvious example: record SMPTE time code on a track of your tape recorder and then listen to the adjacent track.

Touche! Reminds me of my old Honeywell 101 24 channel data recorder. You always put the time code on edge tracks to keep it away from the data.

To be honest, I wasn't thinking tape - I was thinking purely crosstalk between two audio channels. Recipe for disaster - running logic-level signals at low source impedance near low-level signals at high source impedance.