When Did Recording Go Digital?

Without a doubt, CD is much cheaper to produce.

 

Fascinating recollections Doug

Expect more questions about these sessions in the near future......

 

Can someone tell us about the early digital recordings that used 50kHz sampling rate?

Unless my memory is failing there were some classical recordings that used this in the early 70s......

 

The 50 kHz equipment was the aforementioned Soundstream system. These used Honeywell data recorders to store the recordings.

AFAIK the first uses of DSP to attempt to restore vintage program material came in 1976, released on the RCA album CARUSO--A LEGENDARY PERFORMER. Computer modelling of the idiosyncrasies of acoustic recording horns, diaphragms and styli, sampled from actual recording horns and other devices, was used to determine what was (more or less) the 'pure' sound and what was distortion caused by the idiosyncrasies, on each of the titles selected for the album. With this data, engineers digitally processed the recordings so as to remove as much of these distortions as was possible.

And the final digital masters were all recorded on the Soundstream equipment. The old album had an informative booklet about the process, with pictures of much of the gear used. (The only one I recognised was the Dynaco PAS 3X valve preamp!)

 

Try these, amongst the earliest, and all now available on SACD:

Saint-Saëns: Symphony 3; Encores à la française
Michael Murray, organ; The Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, conductor.
Telarc SACD-60634

Holst: Suites 1 & 2 for Military Band
Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks
Sousa: Stars and Stripes Forever, Marches, Fanfares; others
Cleveland Symphonic Winds; Frederick Fennell, conductor.
Telarc SACD-60639

Barber: Adagio for Strings
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Pachelbel: Kanon; others
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, conductor.
Telarc SACD-60641

Interestingly these recordings, all made on the Soundstream system at 50 kHz, do sound a bit more revealing on SACD than on their original CD release.

The 3M multitrack recorder used to record "Bop Till You Drop" also used a 50 kHz sampling rate. It recorded 32 tracks on 1 inch tape at 45ips.

Then just to complicate matters, Mitsubishi introduced the X-880 which recorded 32 tracks on one inch tape using a 50.4 kHz sampling rate. 50.4 is 44.1 multiplied by 8/7 - supposedly this was intended to be a "professional" equivalent to the proposed "consumer" 44.1 kHz sampling rate. Not suprisingly it didn't catch on

When Sony introduced its first digital multitrack, the 3324, in 1981, the sampling rate offered was 48 kHz - which (as we all know) soon became the industry norm.

Trivia note: The 44.1 kHz rate was based on PAL television broadcast standards - in this case the line frequency (15.625 kHz) multiplied by the number of active lines (558) divided by the total number of lines (625) multiplied by the number of samples per line (3): 15.625 x 588/625 x 3 = 44.1 kHz. I wrote a long post in Visual Arts a few months ago about this and other oddities of early digital recording.

 

Interesting post.

Thanks for that bit of info! I don't quite understand why they would do that, but it's nice to know where the number came from.

Does anybody remember anything about the original liner notes to Peter Gabriel - Security mentioning that it was the 1st completely digitally recorded album, or something along those lines? Obviously it wasn't. I have the remaster and the SACD now and I can't find anything about that mentioned in the new liner notes. Maybe it was just one of the 1st, and the record label exaggerated a little?

 

There are some stereo SACDs available from the dmp label that were originally recorded on a different model Mitsubishi, the X-80. For example, Flim and the BB's - "Tricycle". The X-80 was a 2 track machine. From www.dmprecords.com

 

Herb Alpert's "Rise" album was recorded on a 3M 32-track digital machine during the spring of 1979. The album was released in August of that year, shortly after Ry Cooder's "Bop Til You Drop".

 

This page claims Denon had an LP recorded digitally out in 1972:

http://www.usa.denon.com/1615.asp

I know I have a couple of 1970s Denon LPs that claim PCM recording in a box somewhere, but don't know if the one cited on that page is among them.

 

Liner notes for Hotter than July say: "My engineer and I would like to thank the Sony Corporation for their creation of the Professional Digital Audio System which helped us reach the technological dream that once only existed in our minds"

I don't see a similar note on Secret Life of Plants.

 

A&M Studios had one on loan when Herb Alpert recorded his "Rise" album on it (which was released in 1979). All but the track "1980" were recorded on the 3M, then mixed down to two-channel analog.

 

What Jeff said. (That's what I get for replying w/o reading the whole thread.)

 

To cut a long story short, some of the early digital systems recorded to tape in the same way as a video recorder, with the heads moving instead of remaining stationary. So it was easier to use sampling rates that were actually be derived from the characteristics of video recording.

Perhaps they meant it was the first album to be digitally recorded AND digitally mixed ... although I'm not even sure about that!

 

That's ok Rood! I've been known to jump the gun occasionally myself. Just ask Grant!

 

Stephen Stills recorded two songs at the Record Plant on February 7, 1979. He was trying out the new "3M Digital Audio Mastering" equipment. I have seen it written that Stills was the first two "record digitally". I always thought that might not be true.

 

As on "Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants" they probably also used the Sony PCM-1600 digital tape machine. That is a 16 bit 2-track U Matic(uses tapes like a VCR) tape deck. That means what probably happened was that the album was recorded on a 24-track analog machine, then mixed to the digital 1600 deck. Sony didn't introduce the PCM-3324, it's first digital multitrack recorder until 1981 almost a year after "Hotter Than July's" release, though Stevie was one of the first musicians to own one.

 

They could have also copied some (or all) 32 analog tracks to a 3M digital multitrack deck, and then mixed down to a 4-track 3M digital recorder, which was part of that whole 3M digital deck. Maybe recorded any overdubs digitally as well. We know Secret Life was at least mostly if not entirely recorded analog, because Doug was there for the recording.

Or maybe they mixed down to the 3M 4-track recorder from the 32-track analog tape.

 

Plenty of examples of experimental digital recordings... during the development process of digital, the installation of studios, and artists wanting to see what it was about so you can talk about 1972 to 1980 in that sense. When did digital become the workaday medium of the recording industry? Not just the Stevie Wonders, Joe Jacksons and Donald Fagens deciding to try it out. I'd say that the dividing line year would be 1987. that's when Peter Asher produced 10000 Maniacs in all digital .. a small unknown band with a major producer fully committing to the technology. Also Lou Reed mixing analogue and digital and critically listening to the results for New York in 1988... Tracy Chapman's record in 1989 and the way Nashville went ALL digital in the late 80s. So I'd say post 1986 or 1987 when the record industry decided digital was a serious workaday product and not just a premium process for top shelf artists.

 

Well now, when CD's first hit the scene, audio consumers had "digital fever". The higher the digital chain of command (DDD) the better, and the lower (AAD) was generally considered (or at least widely perceived) worse. ADD was in the middle, and the next best thing to DDD. Sigue Sigue Sputnik were ahead of their time when they released their debut album in 1986, all digital. Barry Manilow was also a "digital trailblazer" recording his breakthrough album "2AM Paradise Café" all digital from beginning to end (DDD) all the way back in 1984 !!!!

 

Now see, that was one of the huge contentions when CD was released: it was common knowledge that CD's cost less than a record to make, and yet they were selling for twice the price of a vinyl LP. There was an unspoken promise of CD's coming down in price over time (something which - generally speaking - never actually happened).

 

Then, of course, you had the very, very rare anomalies: Releases that were tagged "DAD" - Digitally recorded, but mixed analogue !!

 

PCM and sample rate theory was developed by the telegraph companies in the 30s
The BBC was using it for FM links in the 70s and Dennon/Decca/Soundstream pioneered classical recording
3M and Mitsubishi the first multitracks.
CD prices were horribly high in the 80s, the cost of the new kit and the implementation was eye watering
Now vinyl price is sky high and cds cheap as chips.
Did anybody imagine the CD -R becoming so eponymous,or the home computer and sharing so available ?

 

I like your post but I wouldn't say vinyl prices are "sky high" in the present. I've been perusing old Billboard issues and in the 1960s LPs cost between $25 and 40, if you adjust for inflation. I wouldn't call that cheap. I think many people are misremembering because the actual prices were something like $2.98, but in fact LPs are cheaper now.

 

Inflation calculators can be interesting. Here's one: http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

I remember those early CD prices from the 80's in the $25-30 range, and they were indeed high ($60-70 in 2014 dollars). Most popular LPs were around $10 in the mid-80's, which is the equivalent of $27 in 2014 dollars so actually vinyl is about the same price now as it was then (except for premium audiophile releases) and those $10 CDs I see at the local HMv or Walmart are dirt cheap, the equivalent of about $4.50 in 1985, so a little less than half the price of LPs back then.

 

Recorded 1979: