7 ms·

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

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.

nitrogen 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
plaguuuuuu 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
  - snarfy 11y ago
    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.
ddingus 11y ago
Where there are limits, there is art.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
  - ddingus 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      > 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.
lifeformed 11y ago
It's not about things sounding/looking better, but about them sounding/looking different.
- VLM 11y ago
  And most important of all, showing off spending money.
hellofunk 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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
Jgrubb 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
w8rbt 11y ago
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.
lallysingh 11y ago
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.
dharma1 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
jevgeni 11y ago
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.

nitrogen 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.

plaguuuuuu 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.
- snarfy 11y ago
  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.

ddingus 11y ago

Where there are limits, there is art.

SwellJoe 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
- ddingus 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    > 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.

lifeformed 11y ago

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

VLM 11y ago
And most important of all, showing off spending money.

hellofunk 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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

Jgrubb 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.

w8rbt 11y ago

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.

lallysingh 11y ago

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.

dharma1 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.

jevgeni 11y ago

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.