- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 13,000
Do you believe that digital recordings are inferior? Id like to think that the differences have more to do with modern mixing practices rather than technical limitations.
Digital technology has never been a true friend to audio. After all, digital sampling slices and dices. Thats fine for visual images, which stand still in time. Its fine for movies, which have always had a frame rate. But audio is a continuous phenomenon. Digital technologys need to sample music at some specific rate and then recompose it into something that sounds like one continuous thing is necessarily a compromise. Add compression algorithms to the story, and were no longer listening to music, but a simulation of music designed to fool the ear into filling in the missing frequencies.
Digital technology has never been a true friend to audio. After all, digital sampling slices and dices. Thats fine for visual images, which stand still in time. Its fine for movies, which have always had a frame rate. But audio is a continuous phenomenon. Digital technologys need to sample music at some specific rate and then recompose it into something that sounds like one continuous thing is necessarily a compromise. Add compression algorithms to the story, and were no longer listening to music, but a simulation of music designed to fool the ear into filling in the missing frequencies.