Micing up a FRFR speaker = Analog recording?
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbj5OvL5Mtc&t=19s
This clip makes me wondering is micing up a FRFR speaker+ modeler the same as analog recording?
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Normally, analog recording would mean not recording to a digital medium, so, wax cylinder, analog tape, straight to vinyl, etc...
Micing an FRFR would be a few extra stages of analog to digital, so I guess there's that analog
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@pipelineaudio Eh what is that "few extra stage of analog to digital" meaning?
I'm sorry i'm not a native speaker 😅 -
Assuming you are coming from a computer or some other digital modelling device, you would need to convert the signal from digital to analog in order to give the FRFR a signal to play, then record with the mic which would require an analog to digital converter to get back into the computer to record, and then in order to hear it, you would need to convert from the recorder's output from digital back to analog again so you could hear the recording
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@pipelineaudio Okay that's deep but i get it.
That means that i'm going through stages of A/D conversion back and forth.I think i have to clear my point.
The question is if i'm recording something like this does that mean i'm recording analog sound source as opposed to digital sound source if i'm doing direct recording?
Like i'm running through a digital modeler, convert it to analog and then record the analog signal with a mic.
That way i can get an analog sound source? -
Technically, it would be recording analog. But be careful, there is a lot of myth out there and a ton of marketing nonsense, anti-science and psuedoscience, lots of money spent trying to sell you things under the premise that analog = good and digital = bad.
There is a ton of money spent trying to separate you from your wallet proclaiming that there is some super secret special magical sauce simply putting "analog" in the chain will give you.
There are several reasons we do some things digitally and several places where without a doubt something is better done in one domain than another.
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Technically there is really no more analog recording unless you go to a very high end studio and even then they track digitally into Protools or some other form of software.
Analog used to be, a miced up guitar cab (usually tube amp cranked), into an analog board onto tape, and the tape medium was technically analog, then from tape to vinyl.
The video is just demonstrating the CLR cab, which looks interesting. he is not micing it to record, but to get a better sound for youtube vids, vs a camera mic.
That being said, that would not be analog recording, going from digital into a powered cab, through a mic and then into a DAW. Most likely the DAW will be software driven, and then exported into an MP3 format, wav, or flac, depending what you are using, these mediums are technically digital.
If you take the setup in the video and plug the mic into an old analog board and feed that straight to a tape machine, then technically the outcome would be an analog reproduction. Then you would have to remaster it into a format that we could all listen to, and that now a days is always done digitally.
The source which is the AXE FXII is digital, so not matter how you slice it, it will be a digital replication of what once was an analog sound.
Can you make the digital source sound more analog ? Well yes, thus the VST plugins consisting of tube replication to mellow out the harshness of digital artefacts. Some sort of pre or post tube device to create that so called warm analog tone again.
So there was a challenge with recording studios getting the right combination of board, tape, tons of outboard equipment to capture the sound they wanted. It was a fine art way back in the days, but now the challenge is to get a sound that is pleasing to the ears to hear it over and over again, and that is an art and a challenge. Anyone can record at home in a DAW and export to MP3, but the majority create harsh recordings which fatigue the ears, so to get a so called engineer who can make the recording pleasing is the key nowadays.
