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Digital Recording
One cannot understand digital recording without first understanding how analog (or tape) recording works. In analog recording, the sound is picked up by the mic, which changes it into voltage. The voltage travels to the mixing board, where it is amplified. From there it travels to tape heads, which print magnetic impulses onto the tape, which represent the voltage, i.e.. the sound.
In the digital process the first two steps are the same, but instead of hitting a tape head, the voltage encounters something called an analog to digital converter. This handy item turns the voltage into bits which can be read by a computer. Once the recording has been made, the bits must be converted back into voltage before we can hear it. When we press "play" the signal passes back through a digital to analog converter and we hear the music again.
The battle wages on about what sounds better, but digital has some pretty cool advantages. For one thing, tape has to move very fast (30ips) or a hiss results, so multi tracking on tape requires a lot of tape, and for the best quality the tape should be very large. (Two inches). At about $150.00 a reel giving you about 15 minutes of recording time, you can spend quite a bit of money laying your original tracks. All that tape takes up a lot of space too, and it's volatile. If it's not stored properly, bye bye master.
With digital recording, you are only limited by your available disc space. Once the recording has been made, that space can be cleared, and the project archived on CDROM. The CDs don't take up much storage space, and claim a data life of 100 years+, with no special handling requirements. As far as sound goes, the big complaint about digital recording is that it lacks warmth. This is due to the extremely accurate nature of the medium.
There is a phenomenon in analog recording called "natural tape compression." When the tape becomes saturated with high volume levels, a squeezing of the sound results which is subtle, but beneficial to the overall sound. Audiophiles prefer this to the comparatively harsh reality of digital recordings. If you choose to record digitally due to the cost factors, the solution is to make whatever you're recording sound warm, before you hit the record button The medium is very effective at capturing those subtleties.
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