>On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 01:03  PM, Lee Elliott wrote:
>
>>>My experience w/ ProTools has been primarily for MIXING & MASTERING...not
>>>necessarily recording. All the finessing in the
>>>world of digital technology will NEVER replicate the sounds analog
>>>tape can capture...but I can certainly vouch for the ease of mixing and
>>
>>Never say never - we'll get a plug-in some day, only a matter of time.  Who
>>knows how long, but many many smart people are probably working on it right
>>now.
>
>The guys at Universal Audio (formerly their dad's UREI) are taking a 
>logical approach to this. As well as continuing to build their 
>fathers famous analog component designs, they are working on 
>emulating these same components in plug-in form. They do this by 
>going through each and every aspect of the design and emulating the 
>sound and effect of each resistor, capacitor, etc. in the chain. So 
>far, it has resulted in some pretty amazing results. Their 1176 and 
>LA-2A compressor/limiter plugins are very realistic sounding, and 
>are heads above the Bombfactory versions (which aren't half bad 
>themselves).
>
>The McDSP "Analog Channel" is pretty cool as well. I was very 
>skeptical of their analog emulation, but it does a decent job of 
>mimicking bias and a variety of tape compression. It's not quite 
>realistic, but I was quite surprised by how far it has come along. 
>What I am waiting for is someone to develop a plugin that allows for 
>emulation of various tape formats, CCIR EQ curves, etc. This would 
>be especially nice if emulation were included for vintage tape 
>formulations which are no longer made... particularly Scotch 250. 
>250 was used on most of the 60's and early 70's recording, and it 
>had a wonderful, unmistakable sound. And eventually, I fear most 
>analog tape will no longer be manufactured, so it would be nice to 
>have an accurate emulation for it. I can't imagine getting the 
>guitar sounds I now get without plowing the signals into 456 at 
>ridiculous levels... or getting the smooth bass guitar sound you can 
>get from hitting Emtec 911 with a little force. Maybe one day, they 
>will get it right.
>
>Ryan

A word about words like never and such.  I've been following this 
thread, and as a digital recording guy who loves old records and 
analog sounds, I wouldn't argue about loving the way old consoles 
sound and especially big fat warm tape.  But there is probably a 
scientific certainty that someone is going to figure out  a nearly 
perfect plug-in that can imitate what any studio does to sound.  They 
may even figure out a process where they can go to abbey road, run 
ten tones through the consoles and various tape machines, and come up 
with a preset for whatever combination of Beatles recording gear you 
want to emulate.  That plug will never mean anything to the 99.99% of 
musicians who don't have the unlikely combination of vision, talent, 
or inspiration to make great music.

As an aside:

I recorded my entire last album on a computer digital format.  I 
wanted to really get that fat tape sound, so I thought about whose 
records I really loved the sound of and who might be available for 
mixing.  I emailed Mitch Easter, despite all of his awesome work for 
himself and others, more because of Teenage Symphonies to God than 
anything else.  I love how that record sounds.

We mixed with Mitch and our record really warmed up in the process of 
transferring the computer tracks to tape.  About midway through the 
process, I told Mitch one of the main reasons I called him and 
decided to mix analog at his studio was that record.  We were already 
half-way through the mixing.  He laughed and told me that record was 
entirely recorded and mixed off of 16 bit ADAT.

Part of what sounds good about tape is tape, as Ryan already knows, 
and some people, like Ryan, are experts in the sounds of different 
tapes, formats and machines.  A big part of what sounds good about 
analog studio, though, is analog stereo summing.  That is to say, if 
you record directly to protools, and mix inside of protools, 
everything sounds kind of sterile and weirdly seperate.  If you take 
the individual tracks from pro-tools (or any other kind of digital 
format) and put them together to stereo through a nice mixing board, 
they sound blended together in a totally different way.  Nice 
consoles (mixing boards) impart special sound (warmth), gain and 
compression to the tracks getting recorded and also change the sound 
when it is getting mixed back through the board.  In addition, 
turning multitrack information into stereo information on a computer 
is a digital process, the processor and software are doing an 
impression of what all those tracks might sound like mixed together. 
This is a different process, obviously, than the stereo summing that 
happens when individual tracks are summed to stereo through an analog 
mixer.  Having heard pro-tools and other computer formats summed to 
stereo with an analog summer (dangerous 16 bus, etc.) and being 
easilly able to flip back and forth between the two forms of summing 
for comparison, made it really easy to tell just how much warmth is 
imparted just by having all the tracks smushed to stereo in an analog 
process.

I don't want to stick up for digital, but I do sometimes feel like 
the magical proerties attributed to tape compression and warmth are a 
little overrated compared to the effect of a great mixing board, 
great mic pre's, and analog summing.

Now back to discussions about music instead of the sometimes boring 
process of how it's made.

Frank.