[SwellJoe]

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries that are mostly subjective but happen to bump up against a lot of technology. Audio, photography, video, and now film have all been through this.

The final product will be delivered digitally for 99.9% of consumers. Why fight it? Why spend so much money, time, and effort, to work with inferior media? I dunno. I worked on analog tape machines (I was even a hold out, for a while, having a 1" 16 track machine, as big as a mini fridge, in my house for several years after digital multitracks were the smart choice), but there really is no good argument for it today.

There was a brief window where the best digital equipment was inferior to the very best analog equipment, but it didn't last long. Maybe five years. We may still be in that window for film when comparing 70mm film to the best digital equipment...but, on the low end? Hell no. This janky little camera from Kodak will be a joke compared to digital equipment in the same price range. And, the film/processing costs will be outrageous comparatively speaking, limiting ones options when shooting to a significant degree.

In short: This is just hipster bullshit. Just like analog audio is hipster bullshit.

[hellofunk]

Is it really an issue of image quality? Because while the qualities are different, analog media has its own character. You have to do quite a bit of image manipulation in digital to get that "super 8" look, and it isn't always that convincing. Same with black/white photography vs. digital -- the way a digital chip reacts to light is very different than the way chemicals in film react, and some film stocks have a range and tone that is very hard to emulate with digital images. I don't think it is a question of which is "better" but rather that aesthetic that an individual wants. You have to learn lighting techniques in a new way when you switch from celluloid to digital, and a good DP's intimate understanding of how a particular film stock will respond in the shadows and highlights no longer applies when dealing with a very different medium.

[cornholio]

At first it might seem like a fad, but "character" is essential when making art. You are trying to reach another human being, not simply deliver the best image possible, so her past experiences, memories, the fact that she grew up watching grainy movies at the local theater, will all interact and elicit a certain emotional or instinctual response. It's not that analog is better, is that your audience reacts uniquely to analog artifacts, even when delivered digitally.

This, and not superstition is the reason we still have tube amps, 24 fps polyester film ("celluloid"), vinyl records and the rest. That's not to say superstition is not rampant in the professional fields, We've all seen it: gold plated wires that deliver no measurable improvements, creators that refuse to touch the same application in an (much cheaper and faster) Windows PC as opposed to the "pro" Mac version, "magic" equipment brands that "all the pros use" and so on.

It's essentially a cargo-cult: we try to emulate successful creators and get fixated on the appearances. If we get success, often time by sheer luck, we attributed to brand X or Y and spread magic thinking to others.

[earlz]

Heh, I'd say tube amps are a bit more out there than everything else you listed (unless you mean tube headphone amps or something). It's INCREDIBLY difficult to accurately emulate tubes on normal computers in real-time due to their non-linear behavior. And there is at least some kind of science behind tubes "sounding better" since second-order harmonics are suppose to be more enjoyable for a listener, and are generated naturally by a single-ended tube amp design. I wouldn't say musicians using tube amps are trying to elicit memories of the past, rather that's just the best way they can make their instrument sound good

[wreckimnaked]

Sure, on a normal computer that may be the case. But, products like the Kemper Profiling Amp (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0SmSl1aS1w) are on the same price range as high-end amps and have been able able to model _any_ amp with an incredible precision for years already. Still, it's easier to find a wide selection of analog amps in recording studios than one of those. That said, I think it has a lot to do with the guitar player "fetish" of recording on a boutique valve head with a pair of 4x12 cabinets.

[developer2]

creators that refuse to touch the same application in an (much cheaper and faster) Windows PC as opposed to the "pro" Mac version

You're ignoring the fact that the application must run within the confines of an operating system.

I'm not using a single application at a time. "The same application" you refer to might be nearly identical on both platforms, but I need to switch between applications. On OS X I have Mission Control (with trackpad gestures!) that makes context switching incredibly efficient. On Windows I have to click taskbar buttons, or press alt+tab hundreds (thousands?) of times a day, or take a break to hit windows+tab to have a laugh at the incredibly useless task switcher (I've never understood why windows+tab was allowed to ship). How people multitask on Windows is beyond me, with no friendly built-in solution and third-party applications that all have problems.

How about copy/pasting? Using ctrl+c and ctrl+v on Windows with a PC keyboard is frustrating compared to the cmd+c and cmd+v finger positioning on an Apple keyboard with OS X. Microsoft requires an awkward readjustment to reach for the control key, while Apple uses your thumb that is already resting on the spacebar to hit the cmd key that is right there. When you use copy/paste hundreds of times in a typical day (ex: programmer), this minor annoyance adds up.

How about finding per-application settings? On OS X this is always accessible via the cmd+, shortcut and the menu entry is always within the app's primary menu. On Windows every application has its own shortcut (if any), and the menu entry might be found under any of File, Edit, View, or Window. It's always a hunt just to open application preferences. I personally find this to be a frustrating experience and a waste of my time.

Finally, I simply prefer the visuals and widgets/controls of OS X compared to Windows. OS X is flat and simple whereas Windows tries way too hard to look "cool" (ie: designed by children for children). Also, OS X developers (other than for game clients) don't think it's cool to throw away the default window border and window controls (minimize, close, etc.). Whereas far too many Windows developers think it's cool to customize their fucking window style. Leave the system components alone.

[TheMagicHorsey]

Even photography experts can't tell the difference between a digital photo that has simulated grain added to it, and tone manipulation done in post, versus a picture shot on film and scanned to digital.

I suspect its the same thing in cinematography.

Double blind tests do real havoc to all kinds of fetishism from wine-tasting to high end audio.

[hellofunk]

You are confusing the experience of the audience with the creative process of the artist.

[TheMagicHorsey]

That is a good point. It is different experience to shoot with film than to shoot digital. However, I haven't heard people argue for film from a strictly process point of view. It is, after all, a strength of digital that everything is just software--easy to manipulate, reset, copy, distribute.

Having said that, you are still probably right. There is always going to be someone that prefers an analog process--maybe BECAUSE of how inconvenient it is--to a digital process. Some people also like working within constraints as it stimulates their creativity.

[plaguuuuuu]

With photography, film and audio alike, it's easy to prove that digital has orders of magnitude more precision and accuracy. That's great, but it's not the whole picture.

Mixing desks are said to colour the sound in certain ways, and in doing so, introduce harmonics and other sorts of imprecision that would be anathema to digital components, for which THD and SNR are paramount and utter precision is the ultimate goal. Then, in the end, people listen to the source material with their own ears, which have totally different frequency responses anyway and the eardrum is basically an analogue device that will color the sound in the end anyway :D

But then you start getting into things like guitar sounds. It's not that digital guitars sound better or worse - all you can really say is that they sound different. The real issue is that there's no objective sound that it should have - the electronics, whether digital or analogue, are effectively part of the instrument. And in the same way that analogue amps and effects colour the signal in specific ways that a guitarist or engineer might prefer, film imparts its own aesthetic qualities that a director or cinematographer might prefer.

[mikepurvis]

I don't think anyone disputes that. The real question is, can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary? Are Instagram and Photoshop an adequate substitute for real life film grain?

I say yes, but I'm a software guy. And I've had this argument with a serious pro audio engineer who has a Pro Tools workstation built around a Neve 8816— even though every track is digital, and dozens of digital filters are applied, the tracks each pass through their own DAC connected to this old-school analogue summing mixer, and then are re-recorded on the other side. It seems totally foreign to me, but there are definitely recording professionals still spending a lot of money to set up and maintain these workflows.

[bsder]

> the tracks each pass through their own DAC connected to this old-school analogue summing mixer, and then are re-recorded on the other side. It seems totally foreign to me

There was, at one point, good reason for doing this. Digital summing is really easy to get very wrong. ProTools used to introduce some really nasty artifacts back in the 16-bit days if you had non-linear effects.

24-bit chains have made a lot of this moot. And using 32-bit float as intermediate calculation steps makes even more of it moot. And, increased computer power ... etc.

Then there is the always present "Magic Box X adds tonal coloring that I like." You can't actually argue against this very well unless the box really doesn't do anything at all.

[chipsy]

I think there are some answers to be found in technological histories, both creative tools and otherwise. The main point to consider is that new technologies augment the possibilities - outright replacement is actually the unusual case, because there's always some odd reason to have the old stuff around.

Artistic workflows definitely rank among those reasons; they do tend towards Taylorist efficiency when the artist doesn't want a restriction, but desire to be a maximally efficient artist in every aspect can lead to a deep probing of your motivations for doing any art to begin with, instead of just jotting down what the piece is supposed to be. So most artists will take on at least one technical restriction of some kind, consciously or no. That restriction subsequently guides and shapes everything else they're doing.

So for people who want their focus to actually be built on the limitations of analog, they need analog. Period. And that isn't most people, since there are many other ways to go about setting limitations, and what is usually needed when it's called for is an indication of analog, not its every nuance and imperfection. But like a car enthusiast who can enjoy old and inefficient designs, someone who really cares about analog audio will want to have the experience of the real stuff, despite the painstaking elements of doing so.

edit: And I welcome digital imitations. The newest VA synths really capture the imperfections of old stuff in a way I haven't heard from previous attempts, and I want to use them for that. But I don't want to have an analog box to tote around and maintain.

[mjn]

> can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary?

In principle yes, but it's surprisingly tricky, to the extent that even some very simple analog audio things, like '70s-era voltage-controlled-oscillator synths, are only recently able to be emulated reasonably well. The research field is called "virtual analog synthesis". I'm not sure if there's a canonical overview, but some googling turns up this 2014 PhD thesis: http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2014/isbn9789526055862/isbn9789526055...

[dharma1]

I've got a bunch of friends who have worked on this at some point, and I know some of the people cited in that PhD thesis. I can still hear the difference, even with state-of-the art current virtual analog emulations, like Diva.

Have to say the gap is narrowing though.

One approach I haven't seen used yet is using the latest AI/neural networks to learn and model the inherent nonlinearities in analog audio

[ShinyCyril]

I wish I had picked that for my masters dissertation - ML + DSP seems like a really interesting area!

[jschwartzi]

I don't think the issue is with the system's ability to replicate the effect. Rather, with a digital system you're now faced with the problem of explicitly representing the effect, where the analog system had the effect built-in. If you can't quantify the effect then you will be unable to replicate it, and if you can then you have to do the work to replicate it. If these effects are a signature of your work, I can see how it would feel like a step backward to suddenly have to quantify them, and it would be very tempting to switch back to the equipment that already applies the effect.

[snarfy]

For audio, yes, digital can replicate analog to 100% accuracy. You cannot differentiate the output signal using an oscilloscope. The signals are identical. People using workflows you describe are a cult, IMO.

[earlz]

I think this is true, but definitely not in real-time. Go observe how fast a complicated analog SPICE emulation is. Typically it's about 1000x slower or worse than real-time, though in the end the wave form might exactly match the actual circuit.

[donatj]

> Are Instagram and Photoshop an adequate substitute for real life film grain?

I thought you were making a good point about how filters were shitty needless imitations and then you threw it all out most unexpectedly.

[thedudemabry]

I once had an audiophile coworker describe how he listens to his favorite records. In his words, the way it was intended to be listened to is probably (but not always) the closest thing to the artist's desired vision. A 2016 blues album recorded in an old shack in Tennessee and printed to vinyl is intended to be heard on a record player. A 2016 pop album released in stunning digital clarity, but also released on vinyl, is probably best listened to on a good digital setup. All communication and art is about authorial intent. What did they want to listen to?

[nitrogen]

It's the same thing as using Polaroid cameras with Impossible film, or vinyl records. It's to find some tangibility in an era of intangibles. The low fidelity is the point.

[mobiuscog]

Absolutely - the lack of anything tangible in the modern digital world is a huge problem, and slowly people are realising this.

Humans aren't designed for a 'virtual' existence - the technologies may be very useful and empowering in many ways, but they shouldn't take over life and reality.

[jevgeni]

It's a creative tool. And it's not comparable to music production, because film has a huge influence on the end result, whereas in music you must have a very well trained ear to appreciate the difference.

I sometimes shoot medium format film and the artistic results are often better, albeit with lower fidelity. The reasons as far as I can tell are due to both technical constraints that force you to be more mindful of what you are doing, the unique way light is interpreted by film, and mechanically superior vintage optics.

Could I achieve the same results in post processing? Yeah, if I calibrate exactly to colour rendering of my sensor, figure out the correct white balance, colour space, and the necessary adjustments. Although, given that even DxO Optics with their FilmPack addon doesn't give me the exact results I get from say Fujichrome Provia 100F film, I doubt that it's that easy.

Telling everyone you're vegan is hipster bullshit. This is just an artistic tool.

[dharma1]

Sometimes it's the imperfections that we are attracted to. I started with digital audio a long time ago, but have been buying almost solely analog equipment (synths, effects, reel2reel) for the past 5 years. Often it just sounds more alive. I still use digital too, a lot, but it's nice to have another type of texture in the tool box.

Not sure I'd film on Super 8 though, it ends up being pretty costly and hassly, and you can get a pretty good match to those colours (if that's what you want) using flat or RAW profiles and film stock LUTs on digital cinema cameras

[SonicSoul]

I think analog synths are in a different category because they generate sound vs capturing it. When it comes to instruments like that you can't make an argument that digital does it better because that is subjective. Similarly I don't think a synth with guitar sampled mod can replace the guitar because it would be impossible (or very hard) to capture all quirks/permutations of strings together. You could make a case that capturing guitar sound digitally is better than on analog, which is more in line with what's Kodak is doing

[dharma1]

As far as art, it's all subjective, there is no "better" :) Accurate - now that's a different story.

And I agree with you, analog nonlinearities are more apparent when you generate the sound.

Having said that, as a practical example, there is a big difference in the sound of drums (loud, fast transients) recorded to tape vs digitally. I really like the sound of tape for certain things. For some things, it doesn't make that much of a difference. The amount of mojo depends on your tape recorder, tape formulation and amount of overdrive.

[lifeformed]

It's not about things sounding/looking better, but about them sounding/looking different.

[VLM]

And most important of all, showing off spending money.

[ddingus]

Where there are limits, there is art.

[SwellJoe]

I compose music on a Gameboy and a Commodore 64. You don't have to tell me. But...well, this is just spending unnecessarily large amounts of money for mediocre output.

I feel like there's a difference between working with limited means as a tool for creativity, and something like this.

But, I guess, more importantly: I hate the delusion, under which so many people operate, that analog provides higher quality than digital. If your argument is that this is a great idea because it kinda sucks and working with kinda sucky equipment makes you feel more creative, then I can't argue (again, I enjoy writing music on a Gameboy, which is truly sucky), but the moment you make the argument that it looks/sounds better than modern digital equipment is the moment I dismiss the opinion as hopeless superstition.

[ddingus]

Some times it is.

Go look at great pixel art from the 80's and 90's era on an analog CRT.

Overall, modern displays do more and are better in every way. But, I find watching SD media is best on analog SD media.

Or I see a movie in ultra high resolution. Looks like a set. I can see it. But my copy of "How The West Was Won" reissued on Blu Ray is one of the very best I've seen.

This stuff has subtleties that people appreciate.

I find it much easier to go looking for and appreciate art where I see it, and largely ignore the more objective persist of perfection. It's a good thing, but I don't always care.

[bsder]

> Go look at great pixel art from the 80's and 90's era on an analog CRT.

> Overall, modern displays do more and are better in every way. But, I find watching SD media is best on analog SD media.

Well, this is because the pixel art was specifically designed (sometimes intentionally--sometimes just because that's what the artist used to make it) to the limitations of the CRT's is was going to be used on. Consequently, it looks worse when viewed on something that doesn't have the particular blurring, filtering, circularizing characteristics for which it was designed.

[ddingus]

TL;DR version = new tech is superior, not always better in the artistic sense and not always worth it in the trust and make, do, build sense.

[ddingus]

Indeed, though I do recommend watching that old western on BluRay. Someone who knows how to nail it with film actually does capture way more than they even expected back then.

There is a fine art there to be appreciated. This is why Spielberg still shoots film. He has a mastery that continues to have value. He may find all of that blunted in the digital realm. Can't blame him.

I think we will eventually find the art in high resolution digital comes down to things other than perfection. Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much.

On another thread, I mentioned Pink Floyd, "The Wall" and how it has been reissued on CD and a remastered gold version that is insane good.

Actually, it is too good. The average person may well appreciate the production values from the earlier work more, despite its considerable distance from perfection.

The trouble on all these discussions centers in on what people like as opposed to perfection. Those two are not always the same, and "better" has that subjective component to it always.

Many digital movie productions I see have subtle aspects to them one can find distracting or that break the immersion a movie is supposed to deliver. Not breaking that is Cinematography. I remain unconvinced everyone really understands that.

That's where the art is.

This is not to say advances in tech are bad or to be discouraged. Neither is true.

However, value perception of said tech may vary considerably from expectations.

On your last point, we actually lose the pixel art, and often the discussion goes to other things. Fine, but it's not always bad to see the pixels.

With gaming, extreme realism, or just extreme quality, can break some of the escape and fantasy, abstraction inherent in the entertainment form. There is definitely room for both and an active retro culture and indie scene taking liberally from retro in order to see that art continue.

The are also some economies with analog means. I'm on a chip project right now that can offer up great analog display. (Truth is, it will do a 4k on analog, no sweat, if one wants to do that)

Some of that is lost on digital devices. The thing is, generating the analog is at least an order more lean, while being able to offer comparable quality. Barrier to entry is low. That is also high value.

Raising that bar is good in many cases, but not all. So I find myself dealing with many subtle timing matters, artifacts of A to D conversion all a non issue on actual analog displays. I will end up with a lean device that can do HDTV signals nicely, while still maxing out an old TV, which does way more than most expect, and do so sans an awful lot of hassles.

As a "do it myself" kind of person, I do not always see the benefit of complex, resource intensive signals, compression, etc... as a good, or the better thing. And there are IP concerns too, all near completely absent from analog means and methods.

So then, "better" takes on some new depth when on is making or building from first principles. In the end, the system will deliver a great display for a fraction of the effort required to employ a fully digital path.

That's tech I know down to the core, can trust and control in any way desired. Does exactly what I want. High value as far as I am concerned. Timeless too. Works on anything ever made.

I just got a media player that refuses to interface with my other goodies. HDCP in play. It's hooked up via analog component, and delivers the great experience it is supposed to. Funny how that mess can all work.

[ddingus]

Me too, and I like to work with small and old computers too, and for similar reasons.

The thing is, if a tune is really good, that it was done on SID won't matter. It's good art.

Not better in an objective sense, just something we crave.

[rodgerd]

99% of this is not people creating "better" (whatever that is) art. It is, if my experience with photography is any guide, people churning out the same crap everyone else does, while affecting a position of being somehow superior because they "aren't obsessed with the latest gear" - while being, in fact, vastly more obsessed with what equipment to use.

[ddingus]

Their skill may be mapped to specifics. It's a kind of technical debt.

Remapping those onto new gear may cost them more than they feel it's worth, or they don't see the value somehow.

Whether that makes objective sense varies a lot.

[w8rbt]

The main driver is efficiency. Smaller, faster, cheaper. More accessible. More convenient. That's basically the heart of all technology advancements.

However, the end result may or may not be better/higher quality. Transportation is moving from mostly hydraulic/mechanical to electrical/computer controlled, Comms (analog to digital), Food (local whole foods to distant mega farms and processing), etc.

Old technology is far less efficient, but can be much more robust. For example, knowledge recorded in a book cannot become corrupt due to a failing hard disk controller, or lost due to electrical surge from a near by lightning strike. And, one can still send a message over radio waves using Morse Code to distant places even when cell phones fail due to network outages or cyber attacks.

So while we are smaller, faster, cheaper and much more accessible today (in almost every way... thanks to technology), our systems are much more fragile and dependent on other components. In many cases, this is why older technology is used.

[Jgrubb]

Friend, analog audio is not hipster bullshit. Running through vacuum tubes and transformers, printing to tape, dumping it back into a DAW is not hipster bullshit. It's using the best tools for their portions of the job.

[SwellJoe]

Did you miss the part where I went to school for audio? I don't want to appeal merely to authority, but, well, at some point I become frustrated at the level of superstition that backs these kinds of claims.

Look, I own multiple all-tube amps for my guitars. I understand the appeal (though it's much more complicated than "tube is better"). I even understand the science for why tubes sound "good" and why solid state amps sound "less good". (To be clear: It is not merely the presence of tubes.)

There are so many confounding variables, however, that people end up believing that a shitty so-called "tube" preamp that costs $20 to manufacturer and runs on a 5V power supply is somehow superior to a high quality solid state preamp just because it has a tube. The most sought after old Neve consoles and channel strips that people love so much? Solid state; not a tube in sight. They're loved because they were extremely high quality, and have a subtle distinctive sound that is what our favorite records sound like (at least, our favorite records from a certain era of well-funded studio dilettantes).

And, while we're at it, the best way to capture that particular color is digital. The difference between Dark Side of the Moon and a digital recording today that doesn't sound as amazing as Dark Side of the Moon has less than nothing to do with DSOTM being recorded analog vs. digital and everything to do with the kind of budget, time, and skill Pink Floyd had in the studio.

I'm not arguing there isn't a difference in quality to be discerned between different pieces of equipment. There absolutely is. But, Super 8 is not and never was, a high quality way to get images onto a screen. It was a compromise based almost entirely on cost. It just so happened that for many years it was a compromise that was necessary for filmmakers on a tight budget...video took a long while to catch up, and it probably took the switch to extremely high definition digital video to really put the nail into film's coffin.

[Jgrubb]

Get off your high horse. I went to school for audio too. I own a ton of the same stuff you do. I spent 15 years on the road as a musician and 8 of those in the studio as an engineer. I've soldered custom Trident snake heads onto new snakes so we could build our studio with that board as the centerpiece. I used to use Pro Tools before I discovered (as you apparently did as well) that software is a more comfortable living. I have audio credentials.

If you're telling me that there is no sonic reason to put stuff to tape then I'm sorry, you have no authority to me. BTW, the reason old Neve boards sound that way it because of the transformers and the analog components in the path. You're so convinced of your own opinion that you didn't even read what I wrote.

[iolothebard]

Come on man, everyone knows solid state amps > shitty 1950s tube amps! ;-)

Sarcasm aside, the modeling amp I'm looking at getting has a tube in it (Vox VT40X, 12AX7). I love my JVM410H but it's nice to not share with the entire neighborhood sometimes.

[lallysingh]

At first I was going to disagree with you on the premise that the noise added by the analog system may be quite desirable, but then I read some comments that had the prices in there. Holy crap this is bullshit.