Here's a fun test - analog vs digital

[aron]

I know people here have really good ears. Can you take this survey and see if any of the tracks have been recorded to analog tape or not?


https://forms.gle/uwR7FuiPEqgGmfv47

[Phend]

I shall try.

[Keppy]

Submitted! Will you be posting the answers?

[aron]

Yes I will and it is enlightening!!!! Thank you for taking the survey!!!!!

[fryingpan]

Submitted.

Nice hiss generator.

[imJonWain]

Man I have no idea haha

[aron]

Don't feel bad. This was just a test to see if "tape" was really that much more amazing than recording purely digitally and whether plugins could simulate the "tape" sound.

[knutolai]

Same as how reputation and presentation colours the taste of a meal the knowledge of how a song was recorded will colour how we feel about it's texture. The test is interesting but at the end of the day sound is so subjective that comparing true vs simulated tape (if done well) in a blind test IMO becomes rather meaningless.

(I can't tell the difference  )

[vigilante397]

I knew reading your description there's no way I would be able to tell, years of loud music have removed all subtlety detection from my ears, that's why I can't do mixing

But I gave it a shot

[aron]

Thanks Nathan! The test is definitely trending a certain way. And in a way that is surprising. Will let it go one day more and then post the results.
Thanks!

[aron]

Knut,

I don't want to give away too much but there is a pure digital recording in there as well.

[OiMcCoy]

The piano sounds like it could be midi.

Also, just a note on the mix, the mids of the bass are not leaving enough room for vocal and guitar mids. The bass tone sounds fantastic until the rest of the mix comes in.

Outside of that... heck if I can tell if something is digital or tape once it has been bounced. In a studio I could more than likely stand a decent shot at what instruments were recorded onto what medium. So in the theme of the "argument" I have always said that once its bounced to digital, it really does not matter, so long as it sounds good.

[aron]

Yes, it is not mixed Everything is at unity except the guitar track which for some reason was unusually low in the digital track.

What brought this on was that a video was going on and on about how great analog tape sounds. So I used the files and made up these test bounces to see if anyone could really tell which one was which without someone telling them.

As it turns out, the results are so far surprising!

[amptramp]

I am listening on an internet connection which means that regardless of the source, I am listening to a digitized signal.  It all sounds digital because it is all digital and another conversion between analog and digital gets lost in the process.

[Electron Tornado]

Don't feel bad. This was just a test to see if "tape" was really that much more amazing than recording purely digitally and whether plugins could simulate the "tape" sound.

Aron, wouldn't this also depend a great deal on the quality of the playback system is that the listener is using?

[iainpunk]

Don't feel bad. This was just a test to see if "tape" was really that much more amazing than recording purely digitally and whether plugins could simulate the "tape" sound.

Aron, wouldn't this also depend a great deal on the quality of the playback system is that the listener is using?

no, not really, the power of tape is what it adds, it adds some harmonic distortion (non-linear transfer function), which people claim to sound warmer and fuller, even when it goes digital > tape > digital it should sound ''warmer''

i don't hear any of it tho.

cheers

[aron]

OK, here are the long awaited results!!!!


First off, the reason I did this is that when people were "told" that a track was recorded to tape, people were saying "WOW, I even hear it on my laptop speakers", it makes a huge difference, etc....!


I took a listen to the raw tracks and there is a slight difference in the digital vs. tape. So I attempted to use a compressor with saturation to mimic the similarities. I also did a match EQ and noticed that even with saturation, the tube track was a little brighter so I used EQ to to gently mimic sound of this.
This became track 1. Track 1 is digital: MTurboCompLE with 1176 compressor with saturation and Logic EQ.


Track 2 is tape. This is the one that has been recorded direct to 16 track tape and the tape was apparently "pushed" so you hear compression and distortion.


Track 3 pure digital straight into Pro Tools. All digital, never hit tape at all and no plugins.


Track 4 is digital and Ozone 9 advanced tape simulation plugin on default settings. It sounded close without doing anything so I just slapped it on the rhythm tracks.


ALL vocal is pure digital - same track.


Now for the results!!!!!


The WINNER BY VOTE IS TRACK 3 which is pure digital. So I guess the analog "tape" artifacts is not as impressive as might seem.
In second place is track 1 - the one I worked on to "simulate" the analog tracks.
Tied for 3rd is track 2 and 4. Now this is interesting because 2 is recorded to real tape and 4 is Ozone's tape simulator. So I guess they sound similar but not what people think what tape should sound like.


BUT most people think I am a trickster and voted that it's a trick and NONE of the tracks ever touched tape.
A minimal subset of people thought every track was recorded to tape.


Thank you for the test!

[Electric Warrior]

Ha! I was sure Track 1 was digital and Track 2 analog. The latter sure had the most obvious compression, but quite pleasing. The bass drum almost gets lost here, though.

I was guessing track 3 and 4 were tape being not hit that hard or various kinds of tape emulation, so I voted tape - how wrong I was. 

[iainpunk]

i thought track 3 was tape and the rest was digital... how the turntables have changed, haha
track 3 sounded the best to my shitty laptop speakers, more natural/open, in lack of better words to describe it.

so my new opinion: digital is better than tape.

cheers

[Phend]

In my opinion, Live is better than digital. What comes closest to live, digital or analog ?