Analog vs. Digital? Nah. PC vs. Hardware.

The other day, I saw this YouTube video. Watch it, or at least minute of it. I’ll wait. Or, you know, be a grownup, skip the video, and get what you need from context.

If you’re a “let’s ask the eternal question yet again” kinda chick, you’re going to love this video.

In this video, this cool old school audio engineer tells us that analog really is better than digital when it comes to recording music, but not because it sounds better. It’s because of the process recording to tape forces you to go through. You’re in the flow, in a room, with people, playing instruments while the music happens. You are not hunched over a computer shaking your wrist back and forth, skipping back and forth over musical time for hours on end. And this live music-playing, he says, makes for better records.

So first thing’s first — I love and generally agree with the sentiment in this video. But I don’t think analog vs. digital is the right frame. For me, it’s about making music with personal computers vs. hardware.

Efficiency for the modern office worker

You know there’s a personal computer in his VERY near future.

PCs, no matter what OS they’re running, are all about efficiency for the modern white collar worker. The mouse is a pivotal invention if you’re an office worker, but for many of the psychological reasons this YouTuber points out in his video, it’s terrible for art-making.

I’m not saying someone can’t get musical with a mouse, but…wait. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You cannot get musical with a mouse.

An electronic music studio with light wood floors, blue walls, and acoustic panels with red striped fabric on them
A healthy mix of analog and digital technology

But I have loads of digital synths, and I use hardware sequencers and samplers to record them sometimes. Those all run on 1’s and 0’s. When I play them, I can to be fully performance-minded, in the flow, and making musical gestures. Then, I run the sequences and use the DAW pretty much like a tape machine, and I get to hear my whole studio rocking out together! And I can play any instruments I want while it’s all going on, or sing! What joy!

This is not how I’ve always done it. Most of the most I’ve produced over the years has been, shall we say, lovingly crafted in the DAW, with ludicrous (Ludakris?!) amounts of editing and automation. That’s become the norm today. But I’m not the first person to notice that it’s not so fun. It’s even got a hashtag: #dawLess

I guess if you’re recording bands or acoustic ensembles, the choice would feel more confined to analog vs. digital. But even then, there are all kinds of multi-track hardware recorders, both new and old, that have the advantage of the longevity of good hardware (it will almost certainly work in 30 years), but also of digital storage (backups are easy and cheap). Tascam has a new 24-track recorder, for instance, that does nothing but what a tape machine does, except it records to a digital medium. Pretty cool! If I were recording bands I’d do that over tape for sure.

Anyway, rant over. But remember, you cannot get musical with a mouse.1

  1. Holding this place for the person who sends me a YT vid that proves me wrong about this. ↩︎