First full digital recordings (using digital mixing desks).

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by EddieVanHalen, Jul 18, 2011.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Absolutely right. I can remember many, many automated or partially-automated consoles going back to 1978-1979. Once timecode became widespread, the number of automated options went up dramatically, especially with the 1980s-vintage Neve and SSL boards. I remember how excited everybody was with Neve's "Flying Faders," where you could actually see the faders move up and down during the mix.

    Don't forget Denon's 1972 digital recorder, or Tom Stockham's Soundstream recorder, which I think was also out before 3M's machine. The Soundstream was only 37kHz/16-bits, yet I can remember people being blown away by it at the time, just because of its lack of noise and wow & flutter. The 3M digital was 32 track, but cost significantly more money.

    More in this 2007 Forum thread.

    Yes, I think that changed everything -- just the concept of mixing "in the box." I think there are some good aspects of using analog technology for certain things, but I also believe digital can sound good if you have good people engineering.

    You should start a new thread elsewhere -- I'm fascinated with the concept of Prosoniq Isolate and SonicWorx, and I'm hoping it could help create good-sounding stereo remixes of old mono masters, or better-sounding stereo mixes of unbalanced 2-track tapes.
     
  2. Pibroch

    Pibroch Active Member

    Location:
    Dayton, OH
    What about Nile Rodgers - B-Movie Matinee? Sure sounds full-digital.
     
  3. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    The point here is not how it sounds, but how was recorded. The soundtrack for Star Trek The Motion Picture is the "most digital sounding" recording I've ever listened to, and sure it was or a live digital recording (though in the 20th Anniversary CD it's stated somwhere to have been remixed, which I doubt as sound would be like night and day next to the original release) or a digital multi-track recording, converted to analog to be mixed down on an analog mixing desk and then converted back to digital to capture the stereo mix from the desk on a stereo digital recorder.
     
  4. Pibroch

    Pibroch Active Member

    Location:
    Dayton, OH
    I'm aware of that. It was a derisive comment.
     
  5. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    Sorry, EddieVanHalen, but I don't know details any more than the other posts here, but I do seem to recall mention of Phil Ramone doing an all digital recording of the type you describe. It may have been a Broadway cast album, but I'm murky on any details. Can't remember if this was 90's or 2000's, but I think it was on a Sony Oxford digital console. Nowadays, one can even have an ADC in the microphone itself, but I don't know who used that exclusively first. You might see if you can find something on www.mixonline.com. I seem to recall that Ramone article being in an old Mix magazine. Good luck.
     
  6. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    A little history of digital boards and tape from www.mixonline.com

    The first large-scale digital console—the Neve DSP—appeared in 1982, but it wasn't until a decade later that Capricorn, Neve's commercial digital console, arrived. Yet analog showed no signs of letting go, whether it was 1984's TAC Scorpion (only $6,000!), Neve's 1986 mega-hit V Series or Harrison's Series 10/12, with digital-controlled automation of all functions. The digitally controlled analog concept also found lasting success in the 1988 Euphonix Crescendo.

    Everything changed in 1995, with Yamaha's compact 02R digital 8-bus, offering 40 inputs on remix, along with moving faders, instantaneous reset, dynamics on every channel and onboard effects processors—all for $10,000. Meanwhile, the onscreen power of DAWs and the increasing popularity of mixing "in the box" drove the need for combination console/workstation controllers, from smaller Yamaha boards to SSL's large-format Duality. The market wasn't unnoticed by Digidesign, which began a long-term controller development project in the late 1990s, leading to its ProControl, Control 24, and eventually ICON and VENUE products. Today, the market is wide open, with consoles both small and large—analog, digital, DAW controllers and hybrids with any/all of the above.

    DIGITAL TAPE
    In 1977, analog multitracks were well-established, with 2-inch decks from Ampex, MCI, Otari, Scully, Stephens, Studer and 3M and smaller-format machines from Fostex, Tascam, Otari and Dokorder. A year later, 3M showed its $115,000 digital machine that recorded 32 tracks (16-bit/50kHz) on 1-inch tape at 45 ips. Mitsubishi countered with its own 32-track PD (ProDigi) format shared by Otari. And with Sony’s DASH (Digital Audio Stationary Head) ½-inch 24-track standard supported by Matsushita, MCI, Studer and Tascam, the format wars were off and running. The arguments over the “best” format were short-lived, but the DASH standard emerged as the winner, helped mainly by the development of the $240,000+ dual-density DASH decks that recorded 48 tracks on that same ½-inch tape and could also play sessions from their digital 24-track cousins.

    Neither the PD nor DASH 2-track machines gained much ground, with most studios finding that mixing to analog 2-track offered sonic advantages over the all-digital pathway. What did catch the attention of pros was 1987’s consumer DAT digital tape format. It was convenient and fairly inexpensive, but was embroiled in years of RIAA attempts to legislate copy-code circuits to prevent home CD taping. Years later, consumer DAT decks (equipped with SCMS—Serial Copy Management System) arrived, but by then, DAT failed as a home format, with the net effect of SCMS making it difficult for bands using home digital equipment to create back-up copies of their own works.
     
  7. D Schnozzman

    D Schnozzman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Don't have the book with me at the moment to check, but I seem to recall that Greg Milner claimed in Perfecting Sound Forever that the first hit record made with a DAW was 'Livin' La Vida Loca' by Ricky Martin.
     
  8. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    George Benson's Give Me The Night says it was recorded on the Soundstream system.

    ABBA's The Visitors says "Digitally recorded and mixed at Polar Music Studios, Stockholm." Don't know what machine they used, but heaven knows they had enough money for something custom built by that point.

    Wasn't Flim and the BBs (Tricycle? supposed to be a first digital recording? Sounds like it-huge dynamic range, yet brittle or something, kinda like those early Erich Kunzel Telarc titles.
     
  9. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    Not the first but one of the first according to Wikipedia is Sting's Nothing Like The Sun. If all straight digital recordings could sound this good I'd be in completely. This album sounds incredible.
     
  10. Pibroch

    Pibroch Active Member

    Location:
    Dayton, OH
    Wow. I read this and thought it was too new to be the first hit record recorded on a DAW. So I fired up good old Wikipedia:

    I knew I hated Ricky Martin.

    Surely there had to be an older hit that was recorded purely digitally??
     
  11. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I have heard this too, that the Brothers in Arms CD was the first full digitally recording...released May 1985 on CD
     
  12. D Schnozzman

    D Schnozzman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I am fairly sure it was mixed using an analog desk, though.

    I assume some of the early Synclavier or Fairlight recordings might qualify - Frank Zappa's Perfect Stranger maybe? Stevie Wonder? Or were those things still mixed the old-fashioned way.
     
  13. newstarter11

    newstarter11 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    i thought "tusk" was analog recorded but digtally mixed and mastered, considering the problems with the drum high-ends being worn out after multiple overdubs during "rumours". "tusk" sounds much crisper, and i suppose the digital mixing allowed lindsey buckingham to be more adventurous with the mixes without fearing sound degrading.

    about abba's "the visitors"- from may 1981 (after 3 songs were finished in march 1981) they got a 3m digital 32 track digital recorder and 4-track mixdown in 16 bit. but i think they had the same old mixing board. and in any case, the tracks recorded between september-november 1981 were converted back to analog and to digital since they sounded too different to the analog-recorded tracks from march 1981.
     
  14. weirdo12

    weirdo12 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Steve Earle's Guitar Town. My recollection of an interview with him in a recent Stereophile is that he regreted nothing could be done with it because its completely digital. No, thats not it. He just states that its DDD.

    I would have said Bop Til You Drop but it may have been coverted to analog for mixing and mastering.
     
  15. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    I have Vigil Fox "The Digital Fox, Volumes 1 & 2" on CD. Released by Bainbridge Records. The cover states "The first digital recordings made in the United States". I don't know if that means there were no analog steps between the recording and the CD. And the qualifier that it is the first in the United States means it probably wasn't the first in the world.

    I'd have to dig into my storage to find the CD and the liner notes to see what more was said about the recording process, if anything. Discogs mentions it was recorded in 1977 and released on CD in 1983.
     
  16. That CD was recorded directly to a 2-track Soundstream Digital converter from a single stereo microphone by legendary audio engineer Bert Whyte. The same stereo microphone feed was also sent to an LP cutting lathe for a direct-to-disc pressing run by Crystal Clear Records. Both were landmarks in US classical music recording history!
    :wave:
     
  17. ferdinandhudson

    ferdinandhudson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Skåne
    It really isn't. They had already starting recording "Slipping Through My Fingers", "When All is Said and Done" and "Two For the Price of One" in March 1981 before the digital 32-track tape recorder had been installed. The rest of the songs where however recorded on that.

    Additinally, when they played them back the difference between the analogue and digital recordings where so noticable that Michael B. Tretow took the already (digitally) mixed tracks and transferred them to analogue and back to digital. So, in the end, The Visitors isn't the DDD experience people might think it is.
     
  18. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    I see the OP is asking about the first all digital recording irrespective of music type. All replies are about rock/pop releases. The first all digital recordings are well before CD's. 'Bop Till You Drop' is certainly the first all digital rock album but I'm sure it was preceeded by a number of Classical music releases. We need someone with knowledge in that area to post some suggestions here. Wickipedia lists "Flim and the BB's" (S80-DLR-102) as the first all digital in 1978 before pressing to vinyl and BTYD as first popular music all digital in 1979. This has nothing to do with DDD v ADD CD's. Talking about the recording not the listening media.
     
  19. ferdinandhudson

    ferdinandhudson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Skåne
    I don't believe Living Eyes is a digital recording. The innersleeve states: "Recorded on MCI's JH-556 console & two JH24/24 recorders with JH-45 synchronizers". The only info I can find is that the JH-24 is an analogue recorder.
     
  20. D Schnozzman

    D Schnozzman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Just so we're clear, here's the OP's OP. My emphasis added.
    I think this would rule out most classical recordings, since they would have been recorded direct to two-track digital.

    It would likely rule out a lot of early DDD pop/rock recordings that went through an analog desk between the digital multis and the digital master.

    Feel free to chime in here if I'm totally wrong (as has been known to happen).
     
  21. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I don't think so, Madonna's Like A Virgin was also (as stated on the linear notes) "fanatically recorded digitally from start to finish on Sony equipment". It was tracked to a Sony PCM 3324 and mixed down to 14 bit if I recall correctly.
     
  22. No Static

    No Static Gain Rider

    Location:
    Heart of Dixie
    I had mentioned Flim and the BBs upthread yesterday and I'm looking at my copy of "Tricycle" right now. It was recorded in 1982 "direct to digital by Tom Jung using the Mitubishi X-80 digital recorder at A&R Studios." Maybe this information can eliminate this title from the competition.

    :)

    Still sounds clean and brittle. But I've always loved "Lunch Hour Wedding March".
     
  23. newstarter11

    newstarter11 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    yeah, "living eyes" doesn't sound very digital. at least the digital tracks off "the visitors" from the same year, esp "head over heels" SOUND digital (though not as digital as the chess soundtrack from 1984).

    "like a virgin" ended up at 14 bit?!? damn i thought it was 16 bit! what about other digitally mastered lps like "tusk", heart's "greatest hits/live"? are they 14 or 16 bit? the 3m digital recorder abba used from may 1981-august 1982 was a 12+4 bit apparently.
     
  24. Bellagio

    Bellagio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern England
    Apparently a Sony F1 two track was used for the 12-bit mix.
     
  25. BeeJayDeeJay

    BeeJayDeeJay Disque Jockey

    Nope, Security was recorded analog and mixed digitally. The info on the booklets and sleeves was a misprint.
     
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