From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V5 #16 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Monday, January 17 2005 Volume 05 : Number 016 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] another country heard ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] Re: [loud-fans] Photography/Analog Geakery [Cardinal007 Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another country heard On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Bradley Skaught wrote: > One of the biggest problems I have with digital recording so far is that it > really does seem difficult to create anything like a sense of space and > depth, and i'm not sure why. Maybe because analog recording is a continuous transcription of voltages, but digital requires a translation of those voltages to a language that is discreteness-based, and that translation is always an approximation at best. Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 10:15:32 -0800 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: [loud-fans] from the Tape Op message board.. I haven't had a chance to dig through the five+ pages of responses, but = here's what I found on the tape op message board... Just got off the Phone with the guys from Lyndstrom/ATR services.=20 THEY WILL BE MAKING TWO TAPE FORMULATIONS, IN ALL FORMATS WITHIN TWO TO = THREE MONTHS!!!!!!!=20 Carl Rusk is who I was on the phone with, he is one of the people in the = "doom and gloom" Wall St. Journal article.=20 There will be a High Output formulation based on some of our old = favorites, and a lower output formulation based on a very old favorite.=20 YES. FOR REAL. THIS IS IN MOTION, AND THEY WILL BE MAKING TAPE WITHIN = THE NEXT THREE MONTHS!!!!!!=20 This company should be supported. Obviously this was a wake up call.=20 Tell anyone with a tape machine. The tape will be BETTER quality than = what we have been dealing with lately. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.12 - Release Date: 1/14/2005 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:05:24 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another country heard In a message dated 1/16/05 11:14:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, jmmallon@joescafe.com writes: > Maybe because analog recording is a continuous transcription of voltages, > but digital requires a translation of those voltages to a language that is > discreteness-based, and that translation is always an approximation at > best Would the differences between analog and digital recording be similar to the differences between analog and digital photography? I don't particularly like digital photography, though the resolution on the expensive models is incredible, it just isn't warm to me, and I don't like not having a negative, and depending on zeros and ones for my stored photos? No thankee. Digitally scanning a film-based picture is fine, but I want that "paper trail," if you will. I give pictures I've taken out as Christmas gifts (framed...I'm not a cheap bastard), and I got a good shot of a '65 Pontiac LeMans grille for my brother (for him I take pics of interesting looking old GM cars since he's affiliated with GM, which he hangs in his office) and he asked me how I got the shot, which he really liked, and I said, "Dad's old Petri 35 mm from the early '60s with 400 speed black and white film (though I cheated and didn't use real b&w film for this shot...I used C-41...it would have been much better with the shadings you get from the real stuff, but I was experimenting with this type of film)." Could this shot have been duplicated with three-billion megapixel digital and some software? I don't think so. It would have come out looking too clean and perfect, and the effect I got from the sun and shade at the time of day I took the picture wouldn't have come across the way I wanted in the digital medium. It scares me to go to my local photo shop and find that the film cameras, film and accessories have been marginalized like an English as a second language, learning disabled, physically challenged fifth grader. I asked about how much of their current business was digital and the clerk said, "About eighty-five percent." I'd like for the two mediums to coexist, but it isn't looking like that's going to happen. Yikes. - --Mark np: Trembling Blue Stars HER HANDWRITING ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:31:41 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] The Back Page Phil Sheridan's Back Page in the new issue of Magnet is hilarious. It's a month-by-month breakdown of the year in music for 2005: April New on satellite radio: The Lo-Fi Network uses chunks of metal floating in geosynchronous orbit to faithfully reproduce the the tape hiss from BEE THOUSAND and SEBADOH III on your $2000.00 speakers. Or they could just get it from China. - --Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:02:36 -0500 From: Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another country heard LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: >It scares me to go to my local photo shop and find that the film cameras, >film and accessories have been marginalized like an English as a second language, >learning disabled, physically challenged fifth grader. > You'll feel even more marginalized if you do the kind of old-school darkroom work I do, using "outmoded" papers and chemistry that I have to special order from NYC and pay through the nose for even at a discount. I only use RC papers for proofs for the most part, and final prints on double weight Ilford fiber base paper. I prefer its tones to Kodak and Agfa papers, but I use Kodak chemistry with it because I don't seem to get along with Ilford chemistry so well. But single weight RC papers and rapid chemistry are the norm. Despite what anyone says, you just can't do the kind of hand-coloring on RC papers, even with spray on coatings, that you can do on FB paper. RC papers have gotten better looking and more archivally stable over the years, but they are just a different animal from FB. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:32:17 -0800 From: Tim Walters Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another country heard When letterpress was the only printing method, the mark of a master printer was that he left as little physical impression on the paper as possible. The ink was just supposed to "kiss" the paper. When offset printing was invented, suddenly this was no longer an issue, as it left no impression at all. While some printers embraced the change, many instead switched their rhetoric, rhapsodizing about the three-dimensional, tactile quality of letterpress. Most letterpress printers now print very heavily, so that you can easily see the impression made by the metal. Virtually the same thing happened with analog tape. Manufacturers and recording engineers used to pride themselves on accurate recordings, but when digital recording came along and offered far greater accuracy with little effort, the rhetoric changed. Distortion and noise are now sold as "warmth" and "depth", and recording engineers go out of their way to court tape saturation, instead of avoiding it. The specific color offered by analog tape is still appropriate and flattering for some types of signal (e.g. rock drums), but personally I prefer a neutral recorder, which I can color at will. Recording to 2" tape used to make me tear my hair out, because I just wanted something that sounded like what I put into it. All that said, I could probably list twenty factors that are more important to the sound of a record than whether analog or digital recording was used. Both are capable of excellent results (as Bradley's CD proves on the analog side, and, say, VESPERTINE proves on the digital side). The analog/digital divide is just a lot easier to fetishize and argue about than things that are actually important, like room treatment, microphone placement, and high-quality monitoring. On Jan 16, 2005, at 11:05 AM, LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > Would the differences between analog and digital recording be similar > to the > differences between analog and digital photography? Not really. Digital audio recording is theoretically perfect, due to the Nyquist theorem--a discrete representation, rather than an approximation. Of course, real-world devices never achieve this perfection, but a state-of-the-art 96k/24-bit digital system is surprisingly close, and far more accurate than any analog tape recorder. Digital photography, on the other hand, is an approximation, and one which currently is inferior to film in resolution and tonal range, although that may change sooner rather than later. I still use a film camera, but I plan to get a digital camera soon. The worst pictures are the ones you don't take, and the convenience of a small digital camera means that I would take a lot more pictures. Since the destination is my web site ( -- I recently put some up that I'm quite proud of), the resolution isn't really an issue. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 19:18:12 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: [loud-fans] Pinataland Don't know if any y'all caught this yesterday monring but there was a nice piece on Morning Edition which interviewd Paula Carino's husband Dave Wexler and Doug Stone about their first Pinataland album. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4286267&sourceCode=RSS Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:46:58 -0500 From: Cardinal007 Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Photography/Analog Geakery On Sunday, January 16, 2005, at 05:02 PM, Jenny Grover wrote: > LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > >> It scares me to go to my local photo shop and find that the film >> cameras, film and accessories have been marginalized like an English >> as a second language, learning disabled, physically challenged fifth >> grader. > > > You'll feel even more marginalized if you do the kind of old-school > darkroom work I do, using "outmoded" papers and chemistry that I have > to special order from NYC and pay through the nose for even at a > discount. I only use RC papers for proofs for the most part, and > final prints on double weight Ilford fiber base paper. I prefer its > tones to Kodak and Agfa papers, but I use Kodak chemistry with it > because I don't seem to get along with Ilford chemistry so well. But > single weight RC papers and rapid chemistry are the norm. Despite > what anyone says, you just can't do the kind of hand-coloring on RC > papers, even with spray on coatings, that you can do on FB paper. RC > papers have gotten better looking and more archivally stable over the > years, but they are just a different animal from FB. > > Jen > > I feel kinda sick; reading this was like stumbling across porno somewhere and saying "wow, THAT catches my attention!" As a fellow FB user [the MegaWash world], I commend you for sticking with "old school old school." And I agree with your Ilford paper/Kodak chemistry combo. For those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, and who don't care, just imagine -- in your lifetime -- the excitement of finding out that someone is recording rock and roll on analog gear. That will soon be a rare, apparently silly, pursuit. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 22:43:08 -0800 From: Tim Walters Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Photography/Analog Geakery On Jan 16, 2005, at 9:46 PM, Cardinal007 wrote: > As a fellow FB user [the MegaWash world], I commend you for sticking > with "old school old school." And I agree with your Ilford > paper/Kodak chemistry combo. Silver-based printing is for sissies. Real men make their own paper and coat it with gum bichromate. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 02:27:44 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Photography/Analog Geekery (Letter Man was here) In a message dated 1/17/05 2:07:19 AM Eastern Standard Time, walters@doubtfulpalace.com writes: > Silver-based printing is for sissies. Real men make their own paper and > coat it with gum bichromate. > Only on this list. I love it. Like nowhere else.... - --Mark, whose favorite camera out of 6 is actually a Jazz Jellies 110 ($4.99 at Family Dollar complete with AA battery and roll of film), but not for any technical reason...it's because its translucent and blue and compact and minimalist...not having any PECKER delusions, (damn, I leave myself wide open repeatedly) I just like kitschy stuff np Bright Eyes FEVERS AND MIRRORS ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V5 #16 ******************************