Photo from 1983 of the editor with a bumper sticker he had made in 1983, which read "Compact Discs Sound Terrible."
Ten Years Into The Digital Revolution: A Continuing Disaster in Sound
A Look Back at the Digital Debacle (Reprint from the now Defunct Pulse! Magazine)
by Michael Fremer
December 01, 2009
Ed. note:
In light of Bob Dylan's recent Rolling Stone interview in which he championed vinyl and complained both about CDs and modern recorded sound, we thought it appropriate to bring this to the home page yet again:
Back in 1994, ten years into the "digital revolution," the editor of Tower Records's "Pulse" magazine, bravely commissioned me to write an article expressing my feelings about digital sound, ten years after the introduction of the compact disc. It was published in "Pulse!" much to my delight. I thought you might find it interesting in 2005'MF
" We've gained control, but we've lost the sound. The sound is gone". Its sensory depravation: you think you're hearing it but you're not. It's an insult to the brain and heart and feelings to have to listen to this and think it's music", so says Neil Young about digital recording. Young should know: he records all of his albums digitally.
"I'm keeping my records" says a well known CD reissue masterer whose work is praised by every gushy CD reviewer. "Its a disgrace", says a top Grammy Award winning digital engineer whose recordings have been heard and enjoyed by most Pulse readers. "The more I work with digital, the more I hate it" says another well known remastering engineer who works for one of the big labels. I can't mention his name: he wants to keep his job. "Digital sucks...a good analogue tape recorder will blow away any digital machine", said veteran engineer Eddie Kramer (Hendrix, Traffic etc.) in a recent Audio magazine interview. "I've yet to hear a CD cut from the same source sound as good as the vinyl cut from the same source" says Rhino's Bill Inglot.
"The Nirvana (Nevermind) vinyl LP blows away the CD! I cut it from the original analogue master tape so of course it sounds better", veteran Masterdisk engineer Howie Weinberg told me last year. And indeed when I played the LP for an MTV producer recently he almost keeled over. "It sounds like a different mix- much more reverberation around Kobain's voice. Much more punch altogether", he said in amazement.
In fact virtually all of the CD masterers with whom I've spoken over the past few years- industry veterans- names familiar to anyone who's ever read the back of a CD booklet- agree that an "old fashioned" all analogue vinyl LP played back on a good turntable through a good stereo system sounds much better- much more like the real thing than the finest CD made from an analogue or a digital master tape. These guys have no axes to grind- they're doing quite well in the "digital revolution".
Recently, an executive at a major label told me, off the record of course, that workers at the company have noticed that they are not "into" the music as much as they used to be- not tapping their toes as much. At first they chalked it up to the staff's advancing age, but finally they realized it was something about the "anonymous" sound of CDs. The emotional content of the music seems to have been stripped away. She was concerned, but as long as sales continue strong, it won't become an issue.
One thing is obvious: younger music lovers don't seem to be listening to music as intimately as an older generation did- lights out plunked between the speakers. Today music serves more as background to an activity- driving, sunbathing, sex. It always did that, but it used to count for more. Is that because of "lifestyle" changes? Is it the music itself? Or does the "wall of anonymous digital sound" as Neil Young characterizes it, contribute to a feeling of alienation from the music?
"Digitally remastered for better sound" is right up there in the truth department with "transferred to video tape for better picture". I've proven this over and over again even to the most committed CD diehards. Of course you need a good system to hear it. Then again if your only exposure to film is 8MM home movies, you might also believe the line about video tape.
Even proponents of digital recording like the excellent engineer George Massenburg (Little Feat, Linda Ronstadt) admit that the format at this point in its development has some serious sonic problems.
If you think digital is "perfect", if you think a CD sounds identical to a mastertape-analogue or digital, if you believe that bullshit on the back of an AAD CD that says "The music on this compact disc was originally recorded on analogue equipment. We have attempted to preserve as closely as possible the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape". If you believe that, there's some land in the Everglades I'd like to sell you. Or maybe you want to buy a Minidisc recorder/player?
In fact, analogue is a high resolution medium- despite its problems (every technology has problems- we've had 100 years to lick analogue's). Digital, sampled at 44.1K 16 bit words is low resolution. Minidisc is an even lower resolution medium- a compressed digital format that sounds the way it feels when you try to stand up from a window seat on an airplane- that's the best I can do to describe it succinctly. And when the ad says "Finally a CD you can record on", that's more advertising b.s. . Full 44.1K CD-R (recordable CD) has been around for years. Its just very expensive right now. Remember when CD players were $1000? Just wait. In the last few years CD-R machines have gone from about $8000 to $3000.
