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Why Steve Albini Still Prefers Analog Tape

Posted by timothy on from the he'd-have-to-reinvent-his-legend-otherwise dept.

CNET's Steve Guttenberg ("The Audiophiliac") profiles prolific audio engineer and general music industry do-it-all Steve Albini; Albini (who's worked on literally thousands of albums with musicians across a wide range of genres) has interesting things to say about compression, the rise of home-recording ("The majority of recordings will be crappy, low-quality recordings, but there will always be work for engineers who can do a good job, because there will always be people who appreciate good sound."), and why he still prefers to record to analog tape. (Note: Albini is justly famous not just for his production work, but in particular for his essay "The Problem with Music.")

17 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. "Digital recordings will be unplayable" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And the longevity of analog tape? It decays. We have a steady stream of older musicians who are desperate to use our ancient reel-to-reels for a chance to digitize their brittle, fragile old tape recordings.

    No storage medium is permanent, but PCM audio has remained mostly unchanged since Max Mathews, Bell Labs, 1957.

  2. Re:how can you not play an audio file? by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How will a regular musician know if the format or encoding is common enough to have decoders in the future? That's hard to predict. Some new something could be just around the corner that will make people dump and forget the current stuff. And the current stuff could have some goofy DRM in it that the musician cannot detect and that limits decoder makers because they don't want to get sued.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Why Analogue? Stranded investment. by cblood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you had a few hundred thousand dollars tied up in analogue equipment you would champion it's "superiority" too. That and resistance to change. Don't get me wrong the guy makes great sounding records. but I doubt if Steve or anyone else for that matter could pass a double blind test and identify analoge from high end digital.

    1. Re:Why Analogue? Stranded investment. by greg1104 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can credibly claim to be in the "golden ear" crowd as a former high-end audio reviewer. You need functional ears, but that's more about training than anything else. The better reviewers have spent years of their life carefully listening to different equipment and music, trying to become good at hearing small differences.

      There are a few small tricks people usually fall for that good listeners try to get a handle on:

      • Louder is better. This one is very hard to isolate out; if you're not using tools like a voltmeter sometimes to match levels, you're being fooled by it.
      • More compressed is better.
      • Boosted bass and treble is better.
      • Familiar is better.

      The last one is the most insidious, and I have an anecdote on how deep that goes. When 24/96K digital was first being released for studio use, I sat through a single-blind demo room at an AES show. They played an excellent analog master jazz recording, a version sampled at 24/96, and a version at 16/44.1 CD resolution downsampled via their equipment. I correctly graded the three from better to worse, seemed pretty obvious to me even though the high res digital was very close to the original.

      As the presenter worked the room asking people which of his samples A, B, and C were, it was obvious mine was not the majority opinion. There were a few vocal people expressing their opinion that got things completely backwards. They thought the CD quality version was the "best", and therefore it had to be the original master. As this was an AES show, these were people who worked with audio all day, and their preference didn't match reality as I heard it at all.

      Listening to their (incorrect) arguments for why they made their decisions, I realized they liked CD quality and its limitations. There was some compression to the CD version and a bit of a fuzzy/harsh roll off at the top end. But it was what they were used to. They thought recordings were supposed to sound that way, because most recordings they listened to did. You can see "familiar is better" in every generation of listener. People who grew up on vinyl like surface noise, early CD listeners are used to terrible aliasing filters, and people who grew up with low rate MP3s like their artifacts. And on the studio side, there are people who like the way analog tape sounds. To be fair, that was better than any digital available until very recently. Recent remasters of old analog recordings are still digging out details you couldn't hear in the earlier digital transfers. I think current generation 192/24 bit digital equipment is more than good enough to replace analog tape though; we passed that point a few years ago.

  4. Re:how can you not play an audio file? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you care about longevity, you write PCM. You know the stuff, a number per sample and channel. An idiot could look at a file like that and understand what it is with not a header in sight.

  5. Re:how can you not play an audio file? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How will a regular musician know if the format or encoding is common enough to have decoders in the future?

    Perhaps in the same way that VXA, for example, allows you to future-proof compressed archives?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  6. Re:how can you not play an audio file? by greg1104 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Analog master tapes normally have extensive printed notes on their label, about things like the speed used and which tracks are in what location. Digital files need similar documentation on things like format used. Studio masters being made by the musician shouldn't have any DRM silliness to deal with.

    The main challenge for digital audio preservation is that all audio tracks need to be exported into simple PCM files. I would agree that some common studio digital formats will not be readable in the future. That means the musicians need to get .wav files instead of things like ProTools files. But saying properly exported and documented digital is fragile compared to analog tape is ridiculous. I expect to be able to read PCM files saved onto current CD and DVD media for at least another 50 years, while it's already hard to get good quality tape playback.

  7. stupid industry know-nothings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Albini records to analog tape, not because he's in love with the sound of analog. No, he's concerned that as digital formats continue to evolve, today's digital recordings will be unplayable in the future. I loved the way Albini put it: "I feel it would be irresponsible to give my clients digital files as their permanent masters, knowing they would eventually disappear or become unusable, so I won't do it. Some of the bands I work with don't appreciate the difference, or take seriously the notion that music should outlive the people who make it, and I understand that." Still, Albini feels that analog tape offers the best chance for recordings to survive. I agree, and analog tape can be used to create great sounding high-definition digital masters. That's not true of the vast majority of recordings that are being made today; most are limited to 48-kHz/24-bit digital.

    Seriously, WTF? Apparently, Albini hasn't heard about the troubles studios and bands that existed before 1980 have been experiencing with their archives. They have to bake the tapes in the oven to get one last good play before the substrate disintegrates entirely. With digital, at least, you can keep backing up your precious masters to new formats without loss, to say nothing of the benefits of having redundant clones stored in disparate locations. I doubt very seriously that capability to read WAV or other formats that are simply a header tacked onto interleaved PCM samples will ever be lost.

    Then the schmuck writing the article thinks noisy analog tape has "higher definition" than 24-bit digital. The fight against audiophoolery and ignorance will probably never end...

  8. Re:No Analog is not better... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is so fraught with unsubstantiated nonsense it makes me ill. Which resolution are you referring to, sample rate or bit depth? Do you know what those actually do?

    Sample rate: a higher sample rate allows for higher frequency representation. As in, if you have a sample rate of 48,000Hz, you can play back a frequency of 24,000Hz (already above the range of human perception). Higher sample rate = more high frequencies you can't hear.

    Bit depth: higher bit depth increases dynamic range (think: ability to represent *quieter* sounds), and reduces quantization error (white noise). A 24bit CD has a 144dB dynamic range and 1/33,554,432th of the signal will be noise. Even 16 bit (CD) has 96dB range and 1/131,072th noise. Going higher won't make anything sound better.

    It is MUCH more important that you have a guitar amp that doesn't buzz, a drum kit that's been tuned well, and a singer that can actually sing than it is to get 'super digital quality.' But please, continue to believe in nonsense numbers like 500MB per song.

  9. He's a moron by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He might be a fantastic audio engineer, but I think his reason for continuing to use analog tape is idiotic.

    Albini records to analog tape, not because he's in love with the sound of analog. No, he's concerned that as digital formats continue to evolve, today's digital recordings will be unplayable in the future. I loved the way Albini put it: "I feel it would be irresponsible to give my clients digital files as their permanent masters, knowing they would eventually disappear or become unusable, so I won't do it" ... Albini feels that analog tape offers the best chance for recordings to survive.

    I can't see FLAC losing support for a long long time. When it finally does, the beauty of lossless digital formats is that you can batch-convert your entire library into a newer, better format with a very small script and no loss of quality. Seriously, if you don't have the diligence to convert your music library once every 25 years, do you really think you'll be able to keep a tape from rotting or being accidentally degaussed?

    As for tape -- once it's on there, that's it. You can't transfer the audio anywhere else without it being lossy. Audio engineers have been able to transfer older recordings from tape with excellent results so I'm not say it would necessarily sound bad (assuming your tape is still good) but why use a lossy format if you don't have to?

    I can only assume his reasoning is for the super-long-term Roland Emmerich future. In 2000 years, some aliens will be digging up a post-nuke Earth and come across a collection of tapes, which will be easy to reverse engineer relative to a digital system's multiple formats (HDD/file system/compression).

    This sounds like the classic case of an audiophile finding a way to justify use of an ancient technology, but I don't understand how an actual audio engineer could succumb to such nonsense.

    1. Re:He's a moron by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Informative

      Does FLAC support 24bit/192kHz? If not, it's useless for recording masters.

      FLAC supports up to 32-bit @ 655 kHz

  10. Polemical Pontification by bmo · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a PhD in Digital Music Conservation from the University of Florida. I have to stress that the phenomenon known as "digital dust" is the real problem regarding conservation of music, and any other type of digital file. Digital files are stored in digital filing cabinets called "directories" which are prone to "digital dust" - slight bit alterations that happen now or then. Now, admittedly, in its ideal, pristine condition, a piece of musical work encoded in FLAC format contains more information than the same piece encoded in MP3, however, as the FLAC file is bigger, it accumulates, in fact, MORE digital dust than the MP3 file. Now you might say that the density of dust is the same. That would be a naive view. Since MP3 files are smaller, they can be much more easily stacked together and held in "drawers" called archive files (Zip, Rar, Lha, etc.) ; in such a configuration, their surface-to-volume ratio is minimized. Thus, they accumulate LESS digital dust and thus decay at a much slower rate than FLACs. All this is well-known in academia, alas the ignorant hordes just think that because it's bigger, it must be better.

    So over the past months there's been some discussion about the merits of lossy compression and the rotational velocidensity issue. I'm an audiophile myself and posses a vast collection of uncompressed audio files, but I do want to assure the casual low-bitrate users that their music library is quite safe.

    Being an audio engineer for over 21 years, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. While rotational velocidensity is indeed responsible for some deterioration of an unanchored file, there's a simple way of preventing this. Better still, there have been some reported cases of damaged files repairing themselves, although marginally so (about 1.7 percent for the .ogg format).

    The procedure is, although effective, rather unorthodox. Rotational velocidensity, as known only affects compressed files, i.e. files who's anchoring has been damaged during compression procedures. Simply mounting your hard disk upside down enables centripetal forces to cancel out the rotational ruptures in the disk. As I said, unorthodox, and mainstream manufactures will not approve as it hurts sales (less rotational velocidensity damage means a slighter chance of disk failure.)

    I'd still go with uncompressed .wav myself, but there's nothing wrong with compressed formats like flac or mp3 when you treat your hardware right

    --
    BMO

  11. Re: how can you not play an audio file? by ForMeToPoopOn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wishful thinking. There's a lot of stuff around that's 50 years old and is already lost in obsolescence. Conversely, there's plenty of stuff from the middle aged (paper, stone) that is perfectly accessible today...

  12. Re:how can you not play an audio file? by drkim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Analog tape playback is still available, after almost a century...

    Unfortunately, analog (magnetic) tape starts shedding oxide after about 15 years.
    Magnetization starts to print through and creates pre and post 'echos.'
    As the magnetic signal weakens, the signal-to-noise ratio degrades.
    To be archived, you have to bake the tape (in an oven) and then you get one playback on your analog deck, so it can be digitized for archive.

    If instead you record it onto another magnetic tape, you've just added more tape hiss and distortion that wasn't there in the original.

    If you want true 'analog,' go to a live concert with no amplification.
    If you want fidelity: record, mix and deliver digitally.

    I don't want to sit at home and listen to analog tape hiss, or wow, or flutter, or dynamic or frequency limitations. (or for so-called vinyl "purists": vinyl record noise.)
    I don't want to hear all the limitations and artifact of the recording media.
    I want to hear what the people sitting in the studio heard. Digital get me closer to that than analog tape.

  13. don't trust Albini by globaljustin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Albini is not a trustworthy opinion on this stuff...

    He is a disciplined **studio engineer** but he only worked on *one* national release album after In Utero...because he's actually kind of a douchenozzle...

    Here's a post from another thread that gets into detail that I wrote...

    The point is, I don't trust technical opinions from people who can't see beyond their own expertise...

    Here's a recent interview he gave: http://vishkhanna.com/2013/08/16/ep-24-steve-albini/

    He's the bad kind of luddite audiophile...the guy who understand waveforms and shit but really just likes to thrown around their expertise b/c it gives them social power...they always hear things that are 'obvious' that no one hears adn they love it...

    Also, this caught my eye in your comment:

    You remind me of a 19 year old classmate in college who questioned the professor's knowledge of the subject, who told the kid "Son, I've forgotten more than you ever learned."

    and *you* remind me of the old, lazy tenure Prof. who teaches a course on tech business but can't check his own email...

    that scenario you present is a common trope of human behavior...just as often that 19 yr old college classmate drops out and starts their own company...

    in my experience teaching HCI at WSU-Vancouver I never encountered a scenario like you describe...sure I had 'know it all's' who like to hear themselves be smart...but my job as an educator is to focus that into productive work...

    a good prof doesn't need to bring out credentials to sit a sophomoric undergrad down

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  14. Re: how can you not play an audio file? by gnu-sucks · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have no idea what you are talking about.

    I have a feeling you are comparing analog cassette tapes with DAW performance. Well of course, 3.5 IPS cassette tapes suck, nobody is debating that.

    But a 30 IPS properly aligned Studer multitrack will have frequency response up through 80Khz and dynamic range greater than what can realistically be achieved on most DAWs.

    There are merits to the old way. Wow and flutter and hiss are consumer perceptions based on inferior formats like the cassette tape and vinyl records.

    Having said that, on a sub-$250k budget, many DAWs rival cheap all-analog setups.

  15. Re: how can you not play an audio file? by daftna · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have no idea what you are talking about

    ...

    But a 30 IPS properly aligned Studer multitrack will have frequency response up through 80Khz and dynamic range greater than what can realistically be achieved on most DAWs

    A DAW at 88.2k samples and 24 bits can record up to 44khz, well above the ceiling of human hearing (20khz) with a dynamic range of 144 decibels (the difference between more-or-less absolute silence and putting your ear next to a 747's jet engine, which would kill you). You can purchase a converter capable of recording at this bitrate/depth for $500. I think the grandparent seems to know what they are talking about.

    Now you can say that you might only get a bit depth of 20 reasonably out of a $500 converter but even if it's only 16 bits (an audio cd) you still have 96 db of dynamic range. Analog tape using Dolby-A noise reduction can have a dynamic range of around 80-90 decibels, at very best 6 decibels less than a mere CD (or even MP3!).

    $250,000 is a LOT of money to spend in the audio production world. Personally I would much rather spend that on a huge mic locker, top of the line preamps, acoustic treatment etc. Tape is a royal pain - back in the day there might be a room full of people just to operate the tape decks. Now, I can plug my laptop in to my interface, launch pro tools and be up and running within a couple minutes without worrying about alignment, expensive analog tape etc.

    magic is magic, though. If it helps your creative process then by all means, enjoy it! however, it seems clear now that digital is superior on a strictly technological basis