Analog vs. Digital — Which Is Better and Why?

0:00 Music Appreciation. What up guys, it is Scoobert Doobert. I want to talk to you guys about analog versus digital in this solo podWe'll be having some more guests on pretty soonBut until then I want to set up some of the conversations that I want to haveGot a guy that we're going to talk with who's kind of a tape expertTo set up to tee up that conversationI think it's important to talk about what makes something analog

0:38 What makes something digitalAnd why is music starting to sound by starting I mean like the last like ten yearsSo much betterSo to startAnalog, analog, analog, analogSo when you listen to classic records let's take BeatlesGoing back to the 60sYou know, 62 years ago, right?1960s

1:01 So when you're listening to records made around then you're hanging everything is analogYou've got stuff flowing onto analog circuits that are amplifying itAnd then it is running into an analog board where you are compressing it and adding equalizationAnd you to create the reverb you are putting it into a physical room called an echo chamber

1:27 Basically what you're doing is you're taking the input from like this microphone say for exampleYou are amplifying that making a louder cutting off the highest peaks which is compression so it becomes a more stable audio soundAnd then sending that into a speaker which is in a echo chamber

1:46 And then those echo chamber has another microphone and then you blend in those two signals to create that ambiance, that sense of reverbSo all of this is happening in analog circuitryAnd so there's this concept called color that each of these bits of gear is impartingAnd one of the things that I think people like to hung up on is the idea of one things colorIt is all additive

2:14 So like I think for example like an Instagram filter, like you run something into an Instagram filterAnd it gives it that saturation or that extra color to itSo it hypes up that imageLet's say for example each of these analog circuits is another filterAnd you know some of them are as extreme as the most extreme terrible Instagram filters circa 2011And some of them are really really subtle and clean

2:40 They don't have a ton of color, they're more cleanBut everything analog has some amount of change to the signalIn the same way that if you choose a different microphone my voice would sound radically different right nowIt's still my voiceBut you can think of a microphone like another earThe microphone is the ear to the entire recording studio

3:03 That then goes back out to your ear through a speaker that also colors the soundSo you have all of these layers, all of these things that are coloring inAnd the twist where you go from this analog world where it's not ones and zerosAnd then you move it into the digital worldYou end up losing a lot of colorWhich at first I think was a really bad thing

3:28 Is that you took something that was like known, very musical, very colorful, very interestingAnd then you flattened itAnd it's like the difference between a perfect curve and a bunch of pointsThat create the impression of a perfect curveIn other words, it would be like switching from a film camera to early digital cameraThere's just this like loss of vibeBecause it's more sterile

4:00 And you're taking something that is like analog in the acoustical senseAnd you are flattening it into mathematicsI mean everything kind of is but like this ones and zeros is now an imperfect replication of this thingBut imperfect in the sense of reduction rather than in the sense of additionSo when I run a vocal through an analog preampIt is adding all of this interesting stuff

4:32 And when I put it into a perfectly digital, it is just trying to completely replicate it like copy pasteThe beauty of what we're at now is that there have been a lot of really great advancements in computers and programmingBut also the way that we think about stuffThat has allowed the digital to instead of it being like this sterile, flat, non-colorful thing

4:57 Instead it allows it to basically be a perfect starting pointIn the same way that you can picture a white roomOriginally we would just put out that white roomAnd that's why I think a lot of music in the early digital eraEven music like 2006 and stuff like thatA lot of it doesn't sound very goodAnd some of the stuff that does sound good, they were using analog stuff

5:26 And so I created a perception that digitals can never live up to analogBut in reality it's just isolating what is the difference between a digital signal and an analog signalAnd then applying some of that difference to the clean signalAnd it's not a, you know, one thing is missing kind of argumentBecause what people used to do is they used to go, oh it's because we stopped using tape

5:52 And so if all we do is we record everything digital and then bounce it all on to tape before we release itIt'll give it that analog punchThat's sort of trueBut really what's going on is it's the additive approach of all of these different bits of analog gearThat creates that impression of warmth and sound and color and interest and grittiness

6:14 You know, that distortion, the difference between a digital clip kind of distortion harsh and the musical warmAnalog distortion of low-rich midsLike think of it like a solid state amplifier versus a tube amplifier for a guitarAt least what they used to beWhat we've changed now is that now we've gotten pretty, pretty good at modeling that sense of color

6:38 And not just modeling it in the sense of like we're going to take our digital session and bounce it down to a analog tapeIt's saying I am currently running into my SM7B microphone, you know standard normal microphone podcasting microphone in the pop microphoneAnd it's running into a interface that is converting the analog signal that's coming out of the microphone into the digital signal that goes into my computer

7:04 But as soon as that happens it hits a digital preampThat's the amplifier that is going to take that signal and make it louder before it goes into my computer or goes into the other effectsBut that preamp that though it's digital is an analog modeled preampAnd what that means is it's taken the analog preampAnd it's basically run a pure sound wave into it at a bunch of different levels

7:29 And then it looks at what is the input and what is the outputSo if the input is a perfect sound wave, a sine wave, and then the output is jagged or interesting or colorfulAll you have to do is subtract the input from the output and you create this delta, this change between what you fed into that little piece of gear and what you got out of it

7:53 And when you fully understand that change which is hard because you know all of this gear kind of like lives and breathesIt reacts to dynamics, it reacts to different sorts of inputs so you have to do a lot of modelingBut once you figure out that model you can now apply it to a digital sourceSo if I you know put into the digital source 010101 and normally I would get back out 010101

8:18 But because it's being colored by the model, that delta, that change that we saw from the analog preampIt'd be 010100 or something, you know?And that little tweak is enough to trick our ears into thinking hey, that was recorded on a preamp that cost $3,000Like no, it was a bit of software that cost $100, you know?

8:41 And the trick was doing that over and over and over again to all of the different parts of the signal chainSo not only do I have a analog modeled digital preamp, I do the same thing for a compressorAnd for all of the distortion effects and saturation effects, all the things that I loveAnd I like to think of mixes as I was talking in the mixing workshop very holistically

9:05 And what that means for me is that it's not about one bit of gear, it's not about one pluginIt's the additive effect of running it into a bunch of colorful things in a very specific orderAnd running multiple things into these colorful things because like I was saying, this stuff has become modeled so well

9:26 That now it reacts in the same way like, you know, I've got this one really cool bit of gear called black boxIt's Plugin Alliance, makes it, it's Brainworx, awesome, saturatorAnd it kind of feels like a tube amplifier like I was talking about solid state which is digital versus tubeOld school 19, you know, like post-World War II kind of technologyBut you know, super popular in the 60s for recording

9:56 I'm able to put this thing on everything including the voice that you're hearing right nowIt's got a little bit of black box on it because it warms up the entire signal and it gives it that sense of, you know, musical distortion and saturationBut the real secret to it is when you start running like bass and drums into it at the same time

10:21 Because it's been modeled so well it can react differently to a bunch of things going into it rather than just one thing going into itAnd all of the transients and the ways that it attacks that little bit of gear is now good enough to reactAnd so it was, it's too old reallyThe reason why music is starting in my opinion to sound way better is that we have changed our mentality

10:46 So changing from like analog to digital as being like two separate worlds to thinking of them as kind of one interacting thingBut it flows, it's not just one magic bullet of gearIt's that mentality that we also change our capability where this stuff can rock nowIt sounds really, really goodAnd there are a lot of like awesome taste test things where you'll, you know, these good plug-in companies will show

11:11 You know, A and B like Pepsi and CokeWhere you listen to one, you listen to the other and they say this is a $10,000 piece of gear that breaks down every four daysAnd this is our bit of software that is $100 and you'll be able to use every day for the rest of your lifeIt's kind of magical

11:29 But it took like that breakdown and it took like the shift in taste and also in capability to allow for that to happenSo what exactly is happening?All this audio stuff has to happen really, really fastSo I've done a little bit of audio app developmentI'm not very good at it, that's why it's not my careerBut it's like, you know, it's something that I like to poke around in

11:52 And it's good to understand the tools that you're using, right?Like it's good to get down and solder some stuff, it's good to open up some, you know, pedals, guitar pedalsAnd it's also good to like get into your software and understand how your software's made a little bitSo the thing that I was using was called Juice, J-U-C-EAnd Juice runs on C++, which is a very low level programming language

12:17 Low level, not in the sense of like easyIn the sense of it doesn't use a ton of resources to run itSo you might have heard of like Python or some of the other tools that people use to do like machine learningThat's very high level because basically those you can talk to them more like a normal human beingYou can like, you don't have to tell it like every little detail

12:39 You can call these different packages, you can do stuff that makes it easierBut like easier to communicate with the program in a more natural wayThe C++ and a lot of stuff is a lot more difficultBecause it's not, it's trying to do things very quickly and very efficientlyBecause as audio, you want to be able to play with that effect as you're playing it

12:58 And so you don't want to have a lot of latency of the computer processing that soundThen spitting it out laterYou want it to sound like that analog gear where you play itIt comes right back out, musical and colorfulAnd so one of the things that we use is a Fourier transform or a fast Fourier transformThat that's where that delta is being applied to that new sound source

13:20 And so it's all math but it's fun math because it's analyzingOkay, what makes like you might have seen some of these guitars that can like you press a buttonIt sounds like a sitarYou know basically what it's doing is it's taking very quicklyIt's taking the mathmatic representation of the audio that is coming out of yourYou know instrument or whatever and it is applying some new stuff to it to transform that audio

13:45 And it happens so quickly because it's using C++ in these really low level programming languagesThat you're able to have the impression like it's happening instantlyIt's not happening instantly but it's having a matter of milliseconds fast enough thatYou know if it's within two to five milliseconds it is passable more or less

14:05 So that's kind of like what's going on under the hood is you know we're transforming this stuffBut in order to transform it we had to turn it into math and that gave us more flexibilityAnd it's also kind of fun because it takes these mythical bits of gearThat I would never have accessibility to especially my current level as a home recorderAnd it makes it accessible again

14:32 It also like it takes away some of the mystique which I think is a positive thingI was talking about in the last podcast about how like you can get tricked by your eyesI was trying to say like you know we're not pilots we're not like going based on my instrumentsI need to like I need to fly with my ears not with my eyes not with like the knobsThose can trick me into thinking that things are cooler than they are

14:58 And by applying it more in the box aka like on the computerI think it's easier to step away and say like no this sounds like crapEven like I've been in big recording studios where like we run through really nice gearAnd yes it does make things easier but it also can trick you easierBecause you go oh I'm running through like $100,000 worth of gear of course it sounds good

15:23 And then you listen to it the next day and you're like oh it doesn't sound that goodIt's the same it's the same concept is like have you ever gone to a winery and you try a glass of wine and it soundsIt tastes amazing there and then you bring back the bottle to your house and you pour it later

15:35 And you're like this tastes like crap because the environment changed and the environment was diluting your senses into thinking that it was cooler than it isThat happens in recording studios all the timeAnd so that's I think that's part of the advantage of working in a non-ideal spaceAnd the bed is within arm's distance I'm on basically a folding table

15:55 You know it's like it's not the best but I'm focused on music manLike if this sounds bad there's nothing environment that's changing thatAnd if it sounds good it's going to transcend the environmentIt'd be like having the world's best wine like next to a portapod or somethingYou know it's like that if it holds up in that environmentBoy is it going to hold up in other places rather than vice versa

16:20 And that's one of the perks I think of, you know, stepping out of those big studiosLike you can you can help resensitize yourselfAnd then you can also like hopefully, somewhat impartially use the tools that you need toAnd you have access to bits of rare gear like MellotronYou know this is like a super cool early style synthesizerWhere every note was another tape deck

16:51 Press the C key it's going to play an orchestra recorded on a tape deckPlaying the notes CAnd that's how you get like strawberry fields foreverThe flute toneThat kind of like sounds like a pianoIt's played like a piano but it's a bunch of flutesThat's a MellotronThey're brutal because they break down all the timeBecause you imagine it's like a tape deck for every single note

17:23 Oh no one of the tape techs goes like I guess I can't play in that key anymoreBut now we have digital versions of those MellotronsAnd they sound really good I use them in the music all the timeIn no way I could afford to have that $25,000 bit of gear in my bedroom next to meAnd pay for all the repairs and stuff like thatBut I'm able to have this thing that sounds maybe 75% is goodThen it works all the time

17:49 So you give a little bit, you get a lotIt's the same thing with these awesome, awesome echo chambers that are coming outRight now universal audio is just banging them outLike a Hitsville reverb and Capitol ChambersI'm using them like crazyI started on KŌANSo when I started using Capitol Chambers and now I got Hitsville amusing that on like everything I makeThe reason is it sounds like I'm in

18:14 You know, the hitsville one is sounds like I'm in MotownIt's a super characteristicFamiliar but nostalgicBut also not super lush sweeping reverbIt feels like a real roomAccess to like feel like I'm recording in a million dollar recording studio from my deskAnd I just pop that onIt uses a ton of computer resourcesBecause like think about what reverb is, it's a million little delay pointsYou know, like a delay

18:47 Hello, hello, hello, helloThat kind of a thingBut times a bajillion because it's every surface of the wallIs what creates the illusion of reverb with the illusion of being in a spaceSo if I can take my input by clean digital channelAnd then apply a million different delays to itPoof I'm in a new roomI can be in the Taj MahalIt just apply that FFT to itThat little bit of math that changes

19:13 From the subtracts the input from the outputAnd then applies that delta to this new inputPoof I can be anywhere in the world from my deskThere's a thing called IR ReverbsThat that's how those workIt's amazingAnd they sound greatIt sounds like you recorded thereIt's magicAnd like, yeah sure, maybe going there is going to give you a depth of resultBut do you really want to fly out your entire studio

19:42 And rent out the Taj Mahal to playOr do you want to just throw it onDo I need to go book out MotownOr do I just use the Hitsville reverbHitsville reverb I got for on sale for like 120 bucksAnd it sounds, I bet it would sound better if I went there, but not by muchAnd that's the differenceIs that every year that we go that gap closesAnd that's a brand new plugin, so that's part of itIs it sounds really good

20:08 The stuff that came out in like 2006Still using some of this technologyBut it's just not as robustAnd it wasn't just computing powerWhich is obviously like, I've got an M1 MacBook Pro nowThat thing flies, M1 MacsBut it's not just thatIt's also like the way that people approached modeling back thenIt's just differentThey have a greater richness and sense of what they want to achieve nowthan I think they did then

20:37 And I think it's showingAnd so I'm really excitedAnd I'm also like kind of like a little frustrated by some of these companiesThat aren't revisiting their stuffLike sound toysI use them all the timeBut they need to update their pluginsOr they need to think differentlyThere's a company called Goodhertz that I think has eclipse themBecause they are thinking of the analog in the digital space in a very novel way

21:03 Baby audio is kind of like the aberrant audioIt's probably the number oneThey are thinking of likeWhat are the modern tools to degrade audioTo make things sound worseLike they have a great new one that I just downloadedThat it focuses on likeCD sounds and bad early digitalWhich is so hilariousThat we've wrapped back around thereBut like I can put on a plug

21:32 And it can make it sound like it's a scratched up CD that I burntLike a hundred timesYou know, it degrade that audio in that wayWhich is another like totally bizarreThrust is the whole thing of likeNow intentionally bad sounding digital is kind of coming back in VogueWhich I'm all I'm here for tooBut it is thatThat gets cooler when you can control itAnd that's part of the reason why I have this like slogan

21:58 It's Scoobert Doobert, it is hi-fiLow-fi, wi-fiIt's just like trying to think ofEverything gets cooler when it's in its contrastWhen you bright things are cooler when they're next to dark thingsLoud things are cooler when they're next to quiet thingsDegraded audio is coolerWhen it's next to really high quality audioAnd low-fi and the wi-fi side is like the futuristicLike super you knowOut there and big and confusing

22:25 Blending all those thingsAnd so that's what I'm trying to achieveAnd luckily I live in a time where I've got these toolsYou know, I'd be really frustratedI actually remember because I was in high schoolYou know, making some of this stuff on like logic and whateverAnd being really frustrated about how far it was from what I wanted to sound likeSo the tools just weren't thereTools are here now and they sound awesome

22:51 So I invite you to maybe rethink some of your biases against digital or into favor of analogBecause not to say that like either one is good or badThey're just differentAnd I like to think of digital now as this like blank canvas that you can paint with all of this colorAnd it has more flexibility than analogAnd it also kind of removes you from that environmental effect

23:17 To where you can I think assess it truly for what it is its musicAnd all these other things are just tools to try to achieve cooler sounding musicAnd why I let anything stand in the way thatIf you like what you heardNew podcast every weekAnd some cool guests coming upI'm really excited to dig into this with some other people that know analog better than I doBecause I am obviously biased in favor of digital

23:47 Because I use it every dayI use analog stuff too but not that muchI've got my tube guitar amp and a few little things but nothing seriousSo I'm excited to talk to some other people and have them tell me why I'm wrongAnd record all of that so that you can hear a nice healthy debate analog digitalBut I think most people are coming around to kind of where I'm at now the digital is so good

24:11 Anyway, definitely if you're on a podcast platform that lets you like stuffWould have really appreciated if you rated this pod five starsAnd share it with any friends or anything like thatWe'll have lots of additional information, mixing, music, creationAnd DIY and artificial intelligence and all that stuffWe'll be digging into a bunch of stuff this yearAnd if you want to hear some of my stuff

24:42 Go to scoobertdoobert.pizzawww.scoobertdoobert.pizzaAnd you can hear the music that I makeSo you can see if I'm full of itAlright, see you next week