Digital or Traditional - how do you like/make your music?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:27 pm

Now that the music industry has been blown apart because people are programming, sequencing and recording their own music in their bedrooms (because of the availability of open source software and software that can be cracked) and downloading music for free - which do you guys like more - the warmth and familiarity traditionally recorded instrumental music or new age, programmed, digitally composed music?

I'm sitting on the fence for this one, I play guitar, bass and keys but love my technology so I want you to help me out!!

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:32 pm

I would rather be dragged naked by 10 angry bulls through a pit of broken wine bottles (twice) than listen to Digital, I wont call it music Cool

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:41 pm

Is digital not now traditional? Electronic music has been around for what? Nearly 40-50 years in the mainstream. And it's been well over 100 years since the first "synthesizers" were invented.

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:22 pm

Your absolutely right, electronic instruments with valve tubes and oscillators have been around since the dawn of the 1900's i.e. theremin, trautonium, but I'm talking about programming music without the use of instrumentation at all. Back in those days those instruments were still recorded using analog. I mean purely digital - by use of sampling, sequencing and programming with use of just software - i know it's been around for a few years but it's still not traditional.

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:57 pm

If you are talking about say a real grand piano vs a piece of software that emulates the sound of a grand piano, then there is no difference except in the digital world it is probably far easier to arrange a work than than analogue. I doubt that due to the tonal and dynamic range of digital that there could be any real difference. CD, the mainstay of the music industry for the past 20 odd years, is after all digital, just a bunch of 1's and 0's, is that any different than making the actual piece of music in 1's and 0's in the first place?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:22 pm

There is an unmistakable difference between a grand piano and midi/softsynth version - because the digital version fails to capture the reverberations and harmonic partial phases that would be relevant in any specific recording space - the room ambience.
There is quite a difference within the recording process - how do you record the rich sound of a fender guitar with the use of software substituting the actual guitar - impossioble.

You can still record digitally on cd whilst using conventional instruments but what I wanted to know was whether people prefer to listen to or record conventional instruments as opposed to the arrangement of music programmatically without traditional instrumentation.

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:42 pm

Thats what DSP's are for, to compensate for the lack of spacial accoustics. DSP's have come along way over the past couple of decades and can faithfully recreate just about any space if the correct room correction is used. If you were to setup a high end hi fi system with a digital source on a stage next to a grand piano, I doubt very much if you could tell the difference between a high bitrate high resolution digital recording and the same piece played live. As much has been proven in blind tests. The end result of a digital recording will only be as good as the equipment used to recreate it. I.E. Decent stereo equipment, quality speakers and quality digital recordings.

Digital instruments or VSTi's themselves come in varying quality. Free or cheap ones will not be as faithful to the sound of the real instrument as more expensive ones that have had more time and effort spent on them to sound correct. So in my opinion, when done right, there is absolutely no reason why digital music cannot sound as good as analoge.

As real instruments are used to determine the proper sound of its digital counterpart, and as a computer is just as capable at translating the electrical impulses from a recording microphone as any analogue recording equipment, there is no difference between an analoge recording of an instrument and a digital reconstruction of that same instrument.

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:00 pm

yeah your prob right I don't know a lot about dsp - I was supposed to cover it in college but it didn't happen. You definitely can't emulate a guitar performance without a guitar though. I think this is getting a bit too specific, i didn't want a debate, especially against you!!

I am just asking which type of music people prefer and how they record?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:09 pm

Nice points though dude you seem to know your shit,

are you into recording music?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:11 pm

I prefer to listen to Pink Floyd from vinyl and record digitaly using 24 bit or 32 bit at 96khz. Laughing

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:55 am

wow thats a high old sampling rate considering our hearing range (20-22khz) only requires arround 44.1khz. it's usually advised that recording be done at 48khz just be sure but I guess you really wanna make sure!! Smile

I just thank my lucky stars that I don't have to splice tapes!!
(Stockhausen would be turning in his grave)

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:11 pm

It is high, but then the frequency range of some instruments extends far beyond 22k. Even some vinyl recordings reproduce frequencies to 48khz and beyond. Using a 96khz samplerate ensures you're capturing as much of the audio as possible (192khz is probably too high for most things). While those may be beyond the threshold of human hearing, filtering them out has a knock on effect of the lower frequencies. Dont know if you've ever heard DVD-A or studio mastered 24/96, but it sounds infinately better than CD.

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:25 pm

I didn't read the long profesional discussion.
Sinthetic or Instrumental? My answer is instrumental. I like a mmix of both, but if I have to listen to synth only, I would rather cut my wrists and and listen to my pulse fading away

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:09 pm

Yeah a lot of electroacoustic music is recorded (well diffused) on dvd-a because of it's 5.1 capabilities, have you listened to electroacoustic or ever went to concerts - really intense stuff - far out!

Speaking of sampling rates, do you think music will ever be exchanged online at cd quality as the availability of MP3, now that bandwidth and storage space are so inexpensive - i'm so sick of MP3 and as much as I'd love my complete collection in vinal, I'm still a student!!

I know there are lossless versions like FLAC but is it comparable to wav or aiff, I'm not really familiar.

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 8:09 pm

Linn Records have downloadable high definition classical and jazz albums at very reasonable prices. They sell SACD, HDCD, Gold Pressed Audio CD (yes real gold) and offer downloads for 24/96 and 24/88.2 Studio Masters (Flac), CD quality Flac, and MP3. You can check them out HERE .

Flac is lossless so is comparable whatever the source format was. The advantage of Flac is it supports up to 8 channels at 24 bit and 192khz, so is perfect for compressing very large stereo and multichannel wav files. We've had a few dicussions here on the merits of Flac vs MP3, most people don't care and cannot tell the difference anyway, so Flac is completely wasted on them. The ipod generation with their shitty headphones and who think a set of Creative speakers are quality, dont know the meaning of the word nor do they particularly care. Hell if they could only get an album in Flac, the first question they'd ask is how to convert it to MP3. Sad as it may be, MP3 is not going anywhere any time soon.