Digital or Analog?

Note: If you have sold your car (and re-mortgaged your house) to buy one, stop reading and start chanting: "It's okay to record on a G4, it's okay to record..."

This is not another digital versus analog article, I promise. This is a highly opinionated, anecdotal investigation regarding the uses and misuses of Pro Tools Mix Plus 24 in the context of recording electric/acoustic instruments. While I am stridently pro-analog, I have no problem with the possibilities and promise of digital audio. I am a great champion of MP3 (the little codec that could) and hold the heretical view, at least in the analog world, that CDs are a superior storage medium to vinyl. I will focus on the sound (or, more accurately, my opinion of the sound) of Pro Tools, not on the supposed by-products of digital editing (i.e., decrease in the overall performance level of musicians — slick, lifeless, quantized, over-produced records), nor will I consider the larger question of hard disc recording.

I was reminded time and again by the people I interviewed for the article (many of whom, by the way, did not share my negative feelings about PT) that hearing is subjective and wholly personal. Tony Visconti, the brilliant producer/engineer who worked on over half of Bowie's earth-shattering '70s work, reminded me that hearing is a chemical process of the brain. "The bottom line is that Pro Tools is just a storage medium, just like tape, it does it in a different way." He adds, "Digital recording is still in its infancy and is getting better and better."

My studio, Tiny Telephone, has PT Mix Plus 24, and I've spent countless hours in the past two years using it for looping, sampling, recording and mixing demos. As a result, I have overwhelmingly dour feelings about this soon-to-be studio standard.

There was a time when the only projects in my studio that requested our Pro Tools rig were doing club remixes, sequenced beats, or the occasional rock band seeking Eric Valentine-like sheen [producer for Third Eye Blind, etc...]. But I've noticed a sea change in the past year: bands that have made great home recordings in the past (and who grew up listening to analog classics like the White Album and The Who Sell Out ) started asking me about getting Pro Tools for their home studios. They not only wanted to do editing and sequencing on PT, they wanted to record directly into the computer. Indie bands that a few years ago would have been knee-jerk pro-analog would ask about bypassing the 2". "There's so much more we can do there, besides we don't want to buy tape..." And who can blame them? If PT sounded good it would be a dream come true, wouldn't it?

I should come clean: I have been hostile towards digital recording since buying my first ADAT (that I sold my Tascam TSR-8 to get it only made it worse). I had no idea why it sounded bad (I mean look at the specs...) but I was thoroughly uninspired to record on that loser. When I started my studio, I bought the only 2" I could afford, an Ampex MM1000. That beast sounded wonderful, but I lost much sleep (and many sessions) dealing with its idiosyncrasies (i.e., breakdowns). So let's admit it, analog is a major pain in the ass, tape cost is a consideration for any budget, and the whole thing is going the way of the wax cylinder. But while it's here, it will provide us with an important benchmark: in my opinion, nothing sounds better than a properly aligned, well-maintained 2" deck.

For low cost recording, digital can be the right choice, but Pro Tools is another matter. A functional 24 Mix Plus system with 2 888s runs over 20 grand. The first thing people do when they spend that kind of cash is repress any negative feedback their ears are giving them — it took me years to admit that my ADAT was not right for me, and man I was depressed when I finally did. Let's not mince words: Mix Plus 24 is a supreme rip-off — you can start a serious analog studio for that kind of money, especially considering that MM1200 16-tracks are now selling for $3,000 and under.

I am partial to the accidents of analog recording: tape hiss, distortion and compression, bass bump and high-end suppression, to name a few. It's not the absence of these that makes Pro Tools so lame, but it certainly doesn't help. What are some of the problems, you ask?

Sonics

"Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" is the first single entirely recorded and mixed with a Digidesign Pro Tools digital audio workstation to reach the Number One position on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart."

-Digidesign Press Release

My general feeling is the more you lean on Pro Tools, whether as an editing tool, effects unit, mixer, or recording device, the further you degrade and compromise your audio. PT, for most of the engineers who work at my studio, is an invaluable and efficient editing tool. Tracks are flown from 2" tape, manipulated, and flown back. This is the least disruptive use and you'd have to be a bah-humbug Luddite to think this is going to ruin a perfectly nice, organic analog recording. "It's really best in a situation where a lot of fixes need to made," says John Croslin, my partner at Tiny Telephone. "If it's a band that's not really happening but there's some potential that makes it worth working on, that's when Pro Tools is useful." But, he cautions, "it won't necessarily have a lot of soul."

Once or twice a year, our Ampex 1200 gives out in the middle of a session. We give the band the option: you can reschedule or discover hard disc recording. This gives us a unique opportunity to A/B, with the same band, signal chain, mics and engineer. The jump to Pro Tools is a shock. Everything coming back off the G3 sounds aurally fatiguing, brittle and just plain cheesy . There is no center, no floor, to the drums, as if someone had patched in a mastering EQ and scooped out some low-mids — guitars and cymbals have a trashier, more volatile high end. The effect would be similar if some evil gnome sneaked into the studio and replaced the U67s and Coles 4038s with cheap mics. I can always tell when I enter the control room if an engineer is recording into PT — its sonic imprint is as recognizable as tape.

"The impact of Pro Tools is not as pleasing," Croslin adds, "if you have a drum hit or guitar chord — when it comes back it seems as if something's missing that you would have had on analog tape." Jim Eno, drummer in Spoon and studio owner, thought he was getting good drum sounds on PT until he bought a 2" deck. "It kicked me in the ass," he says, "it's like the difference between seeing a painting in a book and going to a museum." Billy Gould, ex-Faith No More member and current Kool Arrow label head, is more blunt: "After recording on Pro Tools I just don't feel very good."

One major problem with Pro Tools may be the A/D converters: many engineers I know, including quite a few who love Pro Tools, are of the opinion that the proprietary 888s are substandard and use third party ones instead. Michael Belfer, a Bay Area producer, uses his Akai S3000 sampler on the front end. Visconti feels the PT converters are "great." He reminds me that "even analog has a converter — if you play analog tape through a Neve desk, it's gonna sound different than if you played it through an API desk." I prefer the sound of the

Panasonic 3800 DAT converters — not exactly a paragon of audio fidelity. Comparing a mix from our Ampex ATR 102 with the PT safety elicits nervous laughter from bands at Tiny: "Wow, we dodged a bullet..."

Things get catastrophic when Plug-Ins enter the picture. I'm not talking about hi-fi hair splitting here — program material coming off the G3 suffers deeply when TDMs get added to the signal path. There are two issues here: their actual sound and the phasing problems that develop from using many at once.

What self-respecting musician would use cheeseball amp modelers like Amp Farm instead of their own amplifier? Well, you'd be surprised. Musicians who scoff at an ART multi-effects unit will gladly load up a mix with crappy sounding TDMs. And once the mix is heavy with Plug-Ins, you will have latency and phasing problems to deal with. Latency is caused by the time it takes a signal to be routed through a TDM and back into the mix. It may be only a few milliseconds delay, but additional Plug-Ins will increase this time and possibly create serious phasing issues.

Tiny Telephone has recently bailed on Pro Tools — we're looking into Sonic Solutions for mastering. I have to admit: it was great for burning CDs.

Where to now?

Digital recording will be great one day — there's no doubt about that. "Obviously the more bits, the higher sampling rate, the better it's going to sound," Visconti reminds me. "It all comes down to resolution." I have heard good records done on Pro Tools, but they are not my favorites and they would have undoubtedly sounded better if recorded on a 2". I truly believe that in years to come we will be ashamed of these quantized, Amp Farmed, obsessively edited monstrosities that are coming out now. The early '80s should provide a grim reminder of what happens when the recording collective adopts new technology (early digital multi-tracks and all-in-one effects boxes) without cynically listening to the end result. Visconti counters my gloom and doom, "If you were on a desert island and you were given Pro Tools, you would find a way of making it sound great. I don't really believe that gear sounds great, technique sounds great. Always did and it always will." I agree, in theory, I definitely agree. But please, dear Tape Op reader, if you're considering Pro Tools as your primary format, A/B it against analog tape. You too can dodge the bullet.