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a few questions for older or more knowledgeable

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busknuckle:
I read a lot about how digital will never be as good as analog at recording the waveform of sound. (maybe I have this wrong but...) Since records supposedly sound better than cds....it seems a classic case of going to a format that is newer but not better.

SO...
were 8 track cassettes better (quality wise with regards to sound) than cassettes. I realize that this isn't really about taping as much as it is studio recording but I'm still curious.


When records were still done in MONO, would both channels have the same exact thing coming out.

It's possible to have a MONO recording that has different sounds coming out of different channels....no?


Are there any old school tapers or just tapers in general who refuse to go digital and still tape shows using analog?

Swampy:
I think that when people are talking about how they like analog, they arn't talking about cassette. I know that a TON of bands still mix to 2 inch tape. I don't know if this will help you, but I thought I'd put in my $.02 ;)

wbrisette:

--- Quote from: Willis on June 29, 2003, 09:31:58 PM ---I read a lot about how digital will never be as good as analog at recording the waveform of sound. (maybe I have this wrong but...) Since records supposedly sound better than cds....it seems a classic case of going to a format that is newer but not better.

--- End quote ---

I would argue they are different. Is one better than the other? That's a hot, and long debate. Records certainly have a very different sound to them, and mastering for a record is/was a very hard process to get right.

Mastering for the CD isn't much different, but not as many people are doing mastering the right way now. There was an article on the latest Rush CD, so I previewed the CD and man, who ever mastered that CD really blew it. But, at least they had somebody master it. The age of the computer has allowed anybody to "master" a CD, and that's exactly what is happening. The problem is not everybody can really Master a CD. It's more than just making sure the levels don't go over 0 dB.

And that too may be part of why analog sounds very different from digital, depending on the tape being used you could really push it +4, +6, it sometimes helped give a recording the punch it needed.


--- Quote from: Willis on June 29, 2003, 09:31:58 PM ---SO...
were 8 track cassettes better (quality wise with regards to sound) than cassettes. I realize that this isn't really about taping as much as it is studio recording but I'm still curious.

--- End quote ---

8-tracks were designed as a portable medium with no better sound than a cassette. Medium wise they really sucked because songs had to be rearranged in order to not split a song when the tape loop ran out and had to jump to another channel. If this happened (and sometimes did) there would be an audible break in the song.


--- Quote from: Willis on June 29, 2003, 09:31:58 PM ---When records were still done in MONO, would both channels have the same exact thing coming out.

It's possible to have a MONO recording that has different sounds coming out of different channels....no?

--- End quote ---

Yes. Left and right are identical. Mono is just that one channel. When mono is played through a stereo system it's called bi-mono (not true stereo). When done correctly it can sound as good as a normal stereo recording. The problem is you can't get a little more xxx in the left vs. the right. Another problem is when listening with headphones, in particular, you tend to get a very flat image.

Up until the mid 80's it wasn't uncommon for some local bands in this area to produce their stuff in a 4 or 8 track studio and release a stereo LP and bi-mono cassette (the cost was about half of stereo cassettes at the time). As the price of duplication equipment came down (and folks like Tapematic helped reduce the cost of cassette loading equipment), mono was reduced to lectures only.

Anyhow, not sure if any of this helps, but maybe.

Wayne

busknuckle:
thanks guys...+T

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