For Analogues….

[Minicoupeman]

For those sensible people who prefer analogue to digital (LP’s that is) there is a quick way to determine if the record you are about to buy was pressed from original analogue tapes or from a digital copy. If the back of the LP states ‘also available on cassette’ then it is almost certainly analogue

 

[DomT]

For those sensible people who prefer analogue to digital (LP’s that is) there is a quick way to determine if the record you are about to buy was pressed from original analogue tapes or from a digital copy. If the back of the LP states ‘also available on cassette’ then it is almost certainly analogue

Although cassettes were still a big thin throughout the 80s and so many will have been recorded and mixed and mastered on digital. It’s probably better to say anything pre 1980 although I am not sure when the first digital multitracks were used.

 

[Klassik]

If the back of the LP states ‘also available on cassette’ then it is almost certainly analogue

Nein, not necessarily. In fact, by the 1990s, some of the big labels were using digital bin duplicators for their cassette releases. Some may remember the so-called 'Digalog' cassettes. In Klassik's opinion, those Digalog cassettes had some of the best recordings Klassik had ever heard on cassette. Supposedly the digital duplicators were so refined that they allowed for very hot recordings onto Type I ferric tape with very low distortion in a way that even the best home cassette decks could never achieve. Thus, the signal-to-noise on those cassettes was very good for the cassette format.

 

[russell2010]

Also if an LP does not have a barcode anywhere on the sleeve, that would indicate it is pre-digital..

 

[Antonmb]

And cassettes are making a minor comeback. There are new albums being recorded digitally and released on both vinyl and cassette.

 

[Southeastern]

And cassettes are making a minor comeback. There are new albums being recorded digitally and released on both vinyl and cassette.

That's just for hipsters to do 'retro' after they wore vinyl out...plus vinyl is too expensive now for the kids and for many adults for that matter!

 

[StingRay]

Although cassettes were still a big thin throughout the 80s and so many will have been recorded and mixed and mastered on digital. It’s probably better to say anything pre 1980 although I am not sure when the first digital multitracks were used.

I think they started around the mid 80s, albums such as Brothers in Arms, although even that used analogue mastering desk. But then Stevie Wonder was doing digital recordings in the 70s. Bop Till You Drop by Ry Cooder is considered the first digital recorded album by some. So cassettes don’t mean a thing.
Some 90s albums were analogue recordings apparently, Talk Talk, PJ Harvey, Stereolab, Roger Waters etc. Probably best to look on a cd and see if it’s AAD or ADD or DDD, but even that is not accurate.

 

[griffo104]

https://www.aes.org/aeshc/pdf/fine_dawn-of-digital.pdf
Interesting reading, digital recordings predating the release of CD. Doubt any of these will have made it on to Top of The Pops though.

 

[Klassik]

Interesting reading, digital recordings predating the release of CD. Doubt any of these will have made it on to Top of The Pops though.

Herb Alpert's Rise album, and the famed Rise track from that album, were recorded digitally on a 3M 32-track digital recorder in 1979. Rise was very popular in the US. It may or may not have not been the first popular album/single recorded digitally, but popular digital recordings date to the 1970s.

Here are some details about the recording: https://herbalpert.com/classic-track-rise-herb-alpert/



This is one of Klassik's favorite Herb Alpert works...obviously borrowed from Rodrigo's famed Concierto de Aranjuez:

 

[Antonmb]

from Wikipedia:
"January 1971: Using NHK's experimental PCM recording system, Dr. Takeaki Anazawa, an engineer at Denon, records the world's first commercial digital recordings, The World Of Stomu Yamash'ta 1 & 2 by Stomu Yamash'ta (January 11, 1971)[3] and Something by Steve Marcus & Jiro Inagaki (January 25, 1971). Both had to be recorded live, without edits. Marcus is released first (in February 1972), making it the first released digital recording."

A lot of qualifiers for "Bop Till You Drop" - it was the first US, non-classical popular music release. There had been Japanese recordings and US classical recordings before that, including from Telarc Digital.

 

[DomT]

I think they started around the mid 80s, albums such as Brothers in Arms, although even that used analogue mastering desk. But then Stevie Wonder was doing digital recordings in the 70s. Bop Till You Drop by Ry Cooder is considered the first digital recorded album by some. So cassettes don’t mean a think.
Some 90s were analogue recordings apparently, Talk Talk, PJ Harvey, Stereolab, Roger Waters etc. Probably best to look on a cd and see if it’s AAD or ADD or DDD, but even that is not accurate.

And there are plenty of recording that use an analogue desk, analogue outboard gear and mastered using analogue outboard. It’s just that instead of tape it’s a hard drive.

It’s way too simplistic to just say analogue vs digital.

 

[MVJ]

And there are plenty of recording that use an analogue desk, analogue outboard gear and mastered using analogue outboard. It’s just that instead of tape it’s a hard drive.

It’s way too simplistic to just say analogue vs digital.

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