Analog a dying breed


I spoke with a dealer today and we discussed the business of hi-end audio. He feels that in 10-15 years the analog market will not exist. He says the younger generation is
not interested in vinyl. Do you think this dealer is correct.
taters

Showing 3 responses by onhwy61

I can see that 15 to 20 years from today that vinyl will become a truly niche market, similar to reel to reel tape today. A typical 15 year old today has never seen a record. They have no more interest in vinyl than black and white silent movies.
Is anybody bothered by the fact that as far as new music is concerned the percentage of pure analog recordings is getting smaller and smaller. Even if the basic tracks are recorded on analog tape, the subsequent editing and some mixing is nearly always done digitally. The last Steely Dan recording, "Everything Must Go" is a good example. The basic tracks were recorded an 2" analog tape, but there was extensive editing with ProTools. The recent Ron Isley/Burt Bacharach "Here I Am" says it was recorded live at Capitol studios (on tape), but the production credits list a ProTools operator. I love vinyl, but the writing is on the wall.
Lugnut, there are many versions and configurations of ProTools and they can run at sampling rates from 44kHz up to 192kHz. The earlier systems were 16 bit and generally were considered quite poor sounding. Newer systems are 24 bit and sound somewhat better. Still there has been a lively debate among engineers as to whether the internal PtoTools mix channels squash the sound quality of audio run through it. Many people actually edit within ProTools and then output to an analog desk for the actual mixing. Even with the added conversion stage(s) these people think the final mixes sound better than those done internally within ProTools.

Here's a link to a discussion forum hosted by George Massenburg about the negative effects of ProTools style manipulation on the quality of music prodction.

Sorry if I've gotten off topic.