Technology Assignment Talk/Paper Amalgamation

Analog vs. Digital Music Technology

The Basics

Analog recording dates back to the days of Thomas Edison. It uses as certain form of media (for example, a cassette tape) to store a continual waveform representation of the recorded sound. This can be done in several ways, from the actual physical representation of a groove in a record, to the changing magnetic fields used on a magnetic tape.

The first recognised analog recording was made by Thomas Edison in 1877. Using a machine called a phonograph, a diaphragm controlled a vibrating needle which in turn scratched an analog signal onto a tinfoil cylinder. The needle could then be run back over the grooves that had been scratched into the tin, vibrating the diaphragm and reproducing the sound.

The Edison Phonograph

This device was then altered by Emil Berliner in 1887 to use what we know as “records”, a round disc with a spiral groove that the needle travels along. The diaphragm was eventually replaced with electronic amplification.

In digital recording, it is not an analogous representation of the sound but rather a very similar representation that does not deteriorate in quality no matter how many times it is played. The recording process is more complicated than that of analog recording. An analog to digital converter, also known as an ADC, is used to represent the analog wave as a series of numbers. To play the sound, the process is reversed with a digital to analog converter (DAC).

With digital recording, if a faithful reproduction of the original sound is to be done then the sampling rate and sampling precision must be as high as possible. This is controlled by the sampling rate, and sampling precision. The sampling rate controls how many samples are taken each second, and the precision how many gradations are available. A CD’s sampling rate is 44 100 samples per second and 65 536 gradations. A sound quality such as this will generally sound indiscernibly close to the real-life sound to most human ears.

Why Use Analog in the Digital Age?

A studio full of tasty analog and digital equipment, soundtracked by someone who fails to sync a synth line and beat

At the end of 2004, the last remaining company to manufacture analog tape, Quantegy, was shut down citing bankruptcy. It seemed like the end was near for analog recording. However, due to the realisation that analog is still the preferred way to record for many established and well-respected music producers and engineers, a company called Discount Tape recently bought out Quantegy and began producing tape again. Several other companies have announced their intention to start or re-start tape production as well. So it seems despite the prevalence of digital technology, and every second person having their own pro-tools setup in their bedroom, there are still many that prefer the sound of Analog.

Sound Engineer Steve Albini, responsible for hundreds of albums through the 90’s and 00’s including Nirvana’s In Utero, has a studio in Chicago called Electric Audio. This studio is one of the well-known analog only studios that remains in America. Most of the larger and more well-known places have moved to digital. Albini prefers the warmer sound of analog recording and effects, and feels that he has more control over the whole recording process. For example, if a certain module or effect is not working in the equipment rack, quite often the solution to fixing it can be as simple as making sure it is plugged in correctly!

Steve Albini recording Tom Cary. Gives a good sense of the beautiful organic sounds he manages to capture in his studio.

Certainly, it seems that familiarity and a small fear of the digital age could be key factors in certain studio engineers preference for analog. There are certainly less variables in the process – with a digital setup, there are an extraordinarily large amount of factors that can be changed in a computer and in each individual program the computer is using at the time. Add to that the chance that the entire system could crash at any second and you can see why an engineer that had grown up with analog would feel much safer with his work immortalised on tape rather than a hard disk!

Another point of contention against digital is the use of effects to treat the sound. In most cases with external effects and analog technology, the sound travels from the instrument being used, into the amplifier, then the effect processor, then is recorded onto tape. This means the sound is already manipulated when it is recorded onto the tape, giving the effected sound a “warmer” and more real feel.

But Digital Can….

However, if we cast the techno-paranoia to one side briefly we can see an amazing amount of versatility opened up by the advent of digital technology. For starters, high quality recordings can be made in the privacy of one’s bedroom and then produced in the same room. No longer are bedroom artists confined to using a crappy 4-track tape recorder until they can save up enough money to enter a recording studio before getting their demos down.

Digital effects have their advantages too. Although the analog style gives a warmer, fatter sound, with digital effects the recording process is non-destructive. This means that the sound from the instrument is recorded to a hard drive first, before effects are added. Thus, if the selected effect produces an undesirable sound, the effect can be swapped, changed or removed altogether without the need to re-record the instruments part. This gives great versatility and saves huge amounts of time in an industry that is becoming increasingly more expensive to work in for unknown artists.

He makes it seem so easy...

Spreading the Word

The broadband internet era has also opened up another world for digital music. Musicians can send an unfinished song via the net to a band member or producer. That second party can then open up the song on their copy of ProTools (or whatever platform they happen to be using) and begin adding parts, effects, and doing whatever they want! The internet is also a veritable smorgasboard of downloadable effects and programs, some of very high quality, that can be used to tweak and enhance music to an incredible degree.

The Test of Time

Finally, analog recordings have the unfortunate characteristic of deteriorating over time and with repeated use. The more the sound is played, the quicker the quality will degrade, as you will notice when you record onto a cassette tape more than a few times, or play a certain tape over and over. The same is true for analog recording tape- it only has so much lifespan.

But when media is stored in the digital format, provided the data is not corrupted in any way, it will be exactly the same sound that you hear whether it is played one hundred or one thousand times. The storage is also a lot less bulky – analog tape requires a fairly large amount of storage room, whereas hundreds of albums worth of music can fit on a single hard disk.

Conclusion

So, it seems like despite the fact there will always be people in the music world (for the next 50 years, at least) that will not give up the way of analog, digital has already taken over. For those of us without access to expensive and increasingly rare technology, digital allows us unprecedented control and ability over the creation of our music. It enables us to share our music with an incredibly large and diverse audience, and increases the odds of getting all the good unheard music out to the world.

Please Send Lots of Money For Analog Synths

After our final Tech Forum session before the mid-semester break, I can unequivocally say I have fallen in love with the sound of analog synth. Whilst always maintaining a particular love for a nice tube amplifier as opposed to digital modeling, and being able to frequently distinguish the difference between analog and digital synthesizers on recordings, I don't think I had a proper impression of how amazing a high-quality analog synthesizer could sound when you were both in the same room whilst it was being played.

The first synthesizer to utilize a keyboard as a controller was created by Robert Moog and demonstrated at an Audio Engineering Society convention in 1965. Taking sometimes hours to set up, things had come a long way by the time the 80's hit, which if I recall correctly was roughly the time that the 2 main synths we played with were from.

The first thing that struck me as the first note was played in the Analog Studio was the Vanstone-sized, thick, enveloping tone of the sound emanating from this relatively small machine. The next was the incredible versatility of sound – one twist of a dial to alter the sine wave, or filter cutoff, or any of the other multitude of parameters – would result in a startlingly different sound, from piercing and crystalline to dark, soft and murky.

I have a friend who writes and produces trance music under the name Systembot, that swears by analog synths in the creation of his music. There has always been a discernable difference between his sound and that of many other commercial electronic artists of today (the type that get airplay on stations like Fresh FM) – a thick, warm and complex sound as opposed to the cold and soulless digital production of much modern trance music. Some of the modern digital modellers create a very convincing replica of the sound of a particular synth, but there still seems to be that can't-put-your-finger-quite-on-it something that isn't there. I think there's still quite a long way to go in authentically replicating the sound of a real, tangible live instrument.

Check out Josef Skrzek shredding.....on a moog!

The MiniMoog Model D from 1971

The Synergy of Sight and Sound

On The 27th of March we were given a presentation by several students who were currently enrolled in the Con's Diploma in music technology. I found Luke Digance's project particularly interesting, the exploration of synergy between audio and visual art and real-time manipulation of both.
The link between visuals and music is in many cases inseparable in the music world today - ask a person what images a certain piece of music conjures up in their heads and you'll often get all kinds of vivid descriptions of scenes, colours, characters and all sorts. Particularly in the image driven world of popular music, today's prevalance of so many different formats of media allows musicians to explore an aspect of their music that has become almost as important in some genres as the music itself.
Bands such as Tool, pictured below:



have used visuals as an intrinsic part of their performance since their very early days. The photo above is taken from one of their live shows and it's safe to say if you were a fan present at that show that the visuals would leave an indelible image in your mind that would from that point onward be associated with their music, and perhaps a particular moment where the music and visuals peaked. Sure, music alone can be just as powerful but if the visuals are planned and controlled by the band it allows them to have a much larger influence upon the colours and feelings associated with their music, taking the performance to another level of complexity for the senses to absorb. This is also seen in their music videos, most of which are claymation and have central themes and colours running through them that seem to complement the Tool sound.

Stinkfist, from Tool's "Aenima" album:


I'd be very interested to see the next performance by Luke and check out his 6-channel sound panning, adding another dimension to the experience...

Plogue Bidule

Plogue Bidule is a program for recording creating music designed to give the user a great deal of versatility as far as sound construction and manipulation goes. As well as the usual bevy of sequencing and synth functions, Bidule users are also able to take apart and reconstruct virtual instruments and effects and tweak them to get a completely individual sound. The interface is, so they say, relatively clutter-free and easy to understand:

Plogue can also be used to run VST plugins that tend to crash applications such as Cubase, with the audio then being routed back to the main application via Rewire. After viewing posts on Plogue's online forums it seems like this application has quite a bit of power in the realms of digital audio and MIDI processing, with people being able to run many plugins at a time, multiple-tempo loops, and live sequencing, triggering and real-time manipulation of sounds.

The people behind Plogue are a team of audio/DSP programmers from Montreal, Canada. Bidule is their main project but their work can be found in other popular music programs such as Sibelius, and in designing custom plugins and effects for companies.

Tracey Silverman

Tracey Silverman is an American performer who is considered one of the leaders in contemporary violin music. Mixing influences such as classical, rock, blues, reggae and many more, Tracey is renowned worldwide for his innovative use of the electric violin. Some of his recent projects include performing a symphony written specifically for the electric violin, and performing in his 3-piece band, Eclectica.

Being in town for the Fringe Festival, Tracey hosted a question and answer session in Elder Hall with a few songs thrown in to demonstrate his technique on the violin. Wielding an impressive array of effects pedals, a 6 string and 4 string electric violin and a Fender amplifier, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from him.

He started off with an original piece (that I can't recall the title of) that began with a repeated phrase that had a percussive rhythm to it. He then used a pedal to loop this phrase, complete with tapping from the bow to add a beat, and built the song up slowly from there. I thought this was the strongest of his songs and definitely the most original, the song had a very thick atmosphere about it that could perhaps be attributed to the place he wrote it about – again, the name escapes me but it was contained in the title. It became immediately apparent that he had a strong melodic but also rhythmic sensibility and by the time the song was in full swing it was easy to forget it was just one curly haired fiddler creating the sounds that washed over you. The melody was quite reminiscent of a few songs by Perth drum and bass outfit Pendulum – all it needed was a hard breakbeat behind it!

Tracey then went on to answer questions about his setup, his violins and his classical training – and the breaking from classical conventions for the sake of creativity. There were a few more songs played, and he actually had quite a nice voice, although I didn't care much for the lyrics (“If Love Ain't In The Picture”). Upon listening to more of his work on his myspace site, I think his strength definitely lies in his instrumental compositions, and frankly they say enough without needing any cheesy commentaries on love...

Proving himself to be a true innovator on the violin (and with a hefty fanbase if you're to believe his website), I'd like to hear some more of his instrumental works, especially the ones involving gratuitious use of pedals and looping. It's nice to see someone doing the one-man, “Fuck the band!” style approach. Oh, and he has a band too, Eclectica. But he sings. Still, check them out if you like funky rhythm sections and awkward lyrics about internet sex (seriously).

The ReacTable

The ReacTable – looking like some music-making device plucked straight from a bad sci-fi movie, this is an intriguing way to control the properties of various synthesizers. Despite the first impressions of “Well what the hell am I supposed to do with this?”, on closer inspection it appears to be quite a versatile and convenient way to control sequencing and synthesizer modules in a live environment.

I first noticed this instrument at this year's Big Day Out, being used by a member of Bjork's band (during “Declare Independence”, I think) and was immediately fascinated with the strange man playing with the table and the blocks. Upon further research at it's official site, I discovered that the ReacTable is “A collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface.” It was developed by the music technology area within a Spanish university, Pompeu Fabra, and is designed for one or more operators to have complete ease of use without having to refer to complex manuals or instructions.

The synthesiser modules are controlled by the application and manipulation of “Tangibles,” small blocks that are placed on the luminous surface of the ReacTable. The tangibles have symbols on one or several sides determining what their function is, the symbols being read by the camera that is beneath the surface of the ReacTable. Information is relayed to the user by a series of lines and circles connecting the tangibles across the surface. These lines represent waveforms, frequencies and velocities. These factors can then be changed by turning the blocks and also with fingertips over the surface of the screen. Additional tangibles acting as filters, LFO's and other variables can be placed on the ReacTable between the signal input (the tangible) and the signal output (the centre of the table) to further alter the signal.

Whilst this all comes across as incredibly complex in print, in a practical sense it actually seems as if the ReacTable succeeds in what it sets out to do – perform as a simple, easy to learn interface that still provides a great deal of control over the sounds the user is creating. Whilst it may not be anywhere near as in-depth and versatile as something like Jazzmutant's Lemur. this would appear to be an important (and very cool-looking) development in synthesiser and sequencer technology that has a high level of practicality in a live setting.

To check out a video of the ReacTable at work: