Audiophile is full of nonsense but one of the more hilarious ones in something like this where the goal is "no digital" is it's been a long time since you could guarantee there was no digital going on between the instrument and the master.
They talk about Thriller a lot. Is it possible to have a completely analog copy of Thriller if it turned out a guitar went through a digital rack unit or a digital synthesizer was used? I don't know the answer to the question but in 1982 there were plenty of digital effects available.
The more recent you get the more unlikely it is the signal got from the instrument onto the master without going digital at some point, even if the recording is done on tape and then transferred to vinyl in a completely analog old fashioned sense.
If I plug my guitar directly into my amp and you're in the room you hear 100% analog. If I use the pedal board it got transferred A <->D <-> at least once before it went into the amp. Possibly with a dry signal staying analog but the effects might be digital and mixed back in.
I don't agree with the "no digital!" crowd, but surely their claim is that digital can't accurately reproduce the original intended sounds, so (even if they were right) that wouldn't make them need to boycott anything where the original intended sound includes something produced digitally? It's not like they're claiming to be allergic to digital noise, just that it loses fidelity in the transfers.
Reminds me of the home espresso world. Just get a good grinder, scales and a half decent machine.
No need for a 20 step process where you are raking the coffee, levelling it off with another widget before tamping, checking the stream with a bottomless filter, etc. etc. and all that jazz.
There are digital pedals? Honest question - I had a side gig at school repairing and modifying pedals - it was all just transistors and op-amps, bistable oscillators, etc. - nothing digital at all.
Oh yeah totally. There are pedals these days that are a ADC->DSP->DAC. What's actually on the DSP can be programmable, so you have pedals who's function can be changed with the twist of a knob. They kept the same interface (aka quarter inch cables, and foot-stompable buttons), just modernized the interior. They range from something like the Zoom MS-70 CDR at $150, to $1,200 for one with multiple buttons, an analog pedal, and is laptop controllable via USB. (Line 6 Helix LT or Boss GT-1000.)
They talk about Thriller a lot. Is it possible to have a completely analog copy of Thriller if it turned out a guitar went through a digital rack unit or a digital synthesizer was used? I don't know the answer to the question but in 1982 there were plenty of digital effects available.
The more recent you get the more unlikely it is the signal got from the instrument onto the master without going digital at some point, even if the recording is done on tape and then transferred to vinyl in a completely analog old fashioned sense.
If I plug my guitar directly into my amp and you're in the room you hear 100% analog. If I use the pedal board it got transferred A <->D <-> at least once before it went into the amp. Possibly with a dry signal staying analog but the effects might be digital and mixed back in.