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Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

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Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#11

Post by riprowan »

quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

This is a profound misunderstanding.

Euphony and accuracy are quite different. Euphony derives from nonlinearity.

These are not cherished for their accuracy. They're built to sound good, For this reason most of the best sounding records still make very heavy use of analog signal path.

I've been recording since the earliest days of DAWs. Yes you can do amazingly good things with a computer, but it is still not possible to build digital devices that "sound as good" IMO. After 15 years of living "in the box" as a mix engineer, waiting for modeling to catch up to hardware, I finally broke down when I realized that the best mix engines still don't compete with the best analog devices. Since that time I've become a convert.

For editing, accuracy, durability, price/performance, and maximum dynamic range through the mix bus, digital is king. If I were recording a symphonic orchestra I would absolutely use an all-digital signal path.

But if I want to make an expressive album like Dark Side of the Moon, I want to stick as much analog in the path as I can fit.

Why try to model chaos, when there's an old box stuffed with tubes and a zillion other nonlinear components?

Nobody - almost - builds devices like these anymore. It comes from the Golden Age, when engineers had different priorities, and the difference is palpable.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#12

Post by dcwca »

quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored.

The big reason working with hardware like this produces unique results is more about the layout and workflow than the tech inside the machine. The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. The sound is in the physical design.

Another example is the MPC sampler, which has a workflow that can be heard in hip hop music. Of course software samplers can do everything the MPC can do, and more, but you can hear the signature sound of someone working on an MPC.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#13

Post by veli_joza »

quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

Can be done with a laptop, but this huge console features fast user interface with great feature discoverability and is arguably much better tool for creating music. If you connected some MIDI controllers to your laptop and spent few days mapping controls to knobs, you'd get a technically better system. Still, if some musicians prefer analog/vintage technology, why is it so important to prove them wrong?

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#14

Post by riprowan »

dcwca wrote: post #12
quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored. The big reason working with hardware like this produces uniqu…

> The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally.

You raise an excellent point here. A full-blown DAW is practically without limits: hundreds of tracks, unlimited effects on every track, any signal chain is possible.

But making art is about working within constraints. Most of the best art derives from the constraints as much - or more - as the capabilities of the devices or instruments used.

However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#15

Post by quakeguy »

dcwca wrote: post #12
quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored. The big reason working with hardware like this produces uniqu…

Hmm, that "forcing your hand" to do something is a point i maybe have underestimated. I'll adjust my judgement, thank you for your answer!

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#17

Post by riprowan »

MrJagil wrote: post #8
butterfi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that consoles like this are really unique animals, each one having its own sound. Dave Grohl did a documentary called "Sound City" about his efforts to maintain a legendary console from another studio: https://www.fastcocreate.com/1682339/dave-grohl-explains-how...

That documentary is hogwash, a marketing stunt, feeding off nostalgia and romanticism. There's a reason they never use actual data and measurements to prove their points. If you really want to try those famous consoles, i'd recommend Sound Toys' "decapitator" plugin.

> There's a reason they never use actual data and measurements to prove their points

Artists use the most advanced measurement devices in the world: a binaural listening device connected to the world's most advanced neural net. The neural net is the best part.

Sorry. There is much more to sound than frequency response, dynamic range, phase shift, and total harmonic distortion -- and moreover, the "optimum" amount of each of these is not fixed, but depends entirely on the material and the taste of the engineer & producer.

You can get great sound "in the box," don't get me wrong, but ultimately there is, as yet, no substitute for the real thing. A saturation plugin is nowhere close.

To accurately simulate this device, you would have to practically simulate at the molecular level.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#18

Post by dcwca »

riprowan wrote: post #14
dcwca wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored. The big reason working with hardware like this produces uniqu…

> The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. You raise an excellent point here. A full-blown DAW is practically without limits: hundreds of tracks, unlimited effects on every track, any signal chain is possible. But making art is about working within constraints . Most of the best art derives from the constraints as much - or more - as the capabilitie…

> However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted.

Digital advocates are quick to point out that all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box. We have convolution reverbs and tube amp models and emulation that can be scientifically proven to match the analog gear.

By point is, you _can_ do all that, but will you? You have a world of possibilities, and so the likelihood when working with a digital / software workflow is that you'll stick to the relative strengths of that setup.

Another thing to note about the hardware console interface is the nature of a classic design. Consoles like the Neve or SSL are familiar to engineers, they are instruments with a hand feel. A recording or mixing engineer can go into a studio and get similar results from similar gear. The listeners ear can pick up a je ne cest pas familiarity from it, what you call "good sound" in another comment, without quote knowing what they're hearing. The same way the Telecaster just "sounds good". It's not better, it's just familiar. Digital workstations are all different and don't achieve the same familiar sound.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#20

Post by sofaofthedamned »

danjambur wrote: post #16

Fun fact, my dad installed this.

Nice. My old boss Mike Grimwood worked for Neve in the 60's and 70's and told us loads of tales about making bespoke desks for the likes of Led Zeppelin etc. Would have loved to have been around then, but I suppose they say the same about the digital era.
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