When did recording studios switch to digital recording from tape?

I have some mid-'90s CDs with a SPARS code of DAD: digital recording, analog mixing, digital mastering. An odd rarity. Most descriptions of what the SPARS codes mean don't even include DAD.

 

Agreed with digital tape. A temperamental medium, and error prone. And not unusual for a tape made on one machine, not to play on another. VHS was not as robust as Beta or U-Matic on tracking stability from machine to machine. That was when these machines were brand new. And also bear in mind, the SVHS tape used, for ADAT develops issues with age. Agreed. Not very robust, not archival, and no new parts or heads, or transport parts necessary to keep them operational.

 

There were digital audio workstations in the middle to late 1980's, but much more limited in what they could do, and storage space, and computing power more limited then. And much more expensive too.

 

I believe it was at the point when the labels realized just how much they could p*ss off the traditionalists...

 

As an aside, what's the deal with McCartney and chairs on album covers?

 

Bunch of lazy old farts....

 

Late 80s was when a lot of albums were recorded digitally and mixed on an SSL console to ADAT or other Digital Multitrack. Mid 90's unfortunately is when you couldn't escape digital... Early 2000s In The Box completely digital became the norm... unfortunately.

 

Not even on cassette
But why 'Unfortunately'? I have no issues with the recording's of the 2000's (listen to some Delerium albums). It's mastering trends that became intolerable.

 

Well, ITB recording made it easy for anyone to become a “recording engineer” and many recordings suffer because of it.

 

I'll give you that....

 

Early digital formats were often on some kind of tape. Corporations backed up their computer data to tape as well during the 80s.

 

The first digital recording available to consumers that I can recall was the Telarc LP of Robert Shaw and the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra performing Stravinsky's Firebird Suite in 1978. It was recorded digitally on tape, and marketed as an audiophile recording. The recording process was described in detail in the materials accompanying the record.

I have the LP, but I haven't listened to it in a long time. My recollection is that it sounded pretty good.

 

Bela Fleck And The Flecktones recorded their third album, UFO TOFU, in this manner. They performed all of the songs live to digital multi-track and then mixed to analog tape for added warmth before mastering back to digital. Unfortunately, the band had started to succumb to the volume wars as the CD of this album has some digital overs and lacks the dynamics of the band's first two releases. It's not brick-walled by any means, but it could have been so much better.

 

Classical labels started recording to digital very early - I remember Denon's PCM series recordings - recorded digitally, released on vinyl... Also my first Beethoven's 9th:

Ludwig Van Beethoven / Bernard Haitink / Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam* - Symphony No. 9

from 1980.

 

I think it might be true for digital also.

 

My studio keeps 2 around in working order for exactly that purpose. Used to keep some tascams but upkeep was far too costly.

 

Any thoughts or opinions on JVC's XRCD mastering process? I've picked up a few CDs produced by this process and am blown away at the quality of the recording.

 

Digalog refers not to the mastering but means the cassette duplicators used as their input a digital copy of the album [from a hard drive]. This means the cassette 'saved' one generational loss in the duplicating process. The previous/conventional duplication method used an analog copy of the master, so a] there's a one generation loss when the prerecorded cassette is made and b] the analog submaster wears out as they keep running the duplicator.

Esssentially, a digalog prerecorded cassette sounds as good as if you recorded it at home off of a CD. Digalog cassettes are the best sounding prerecorded cassettes ever made. In that era [last 90s/early 2000s], nearly all of the Digalog also had Dolby B noise reduction, and often HX PRO, which delivered improved high frequency performance. So the best of the best.

 

This UK paper label initial issue cassette is the best sounding cassette I've ever heard.

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 

Good info thanks.
As the titles I've seen using Digalog have all been digital recording's that's what I always figured it meant

 

Most digital recording systems used professional videotape like Sony three-quarter U-Matic format because it had the bandwidth to record the digital signal. The tape was readily available, inexpensive and reliable(for the most part). When I worked in television news, I used U-Matic videotape in both the full-size 1-hour length cartridges and the smaller EFP(electronic field production) 20-minute case. I can tell you can see dropouts in the videotape after 5 passes or the deck shows head clog. I guess that's where error-correction becomes important.

 

Have you not seen this or are not familiar with Techmoan's channel?

 

Watching it now Eric, thanks

 

Most stuff from the mid-'90s sounds incredible compared to either the '80s or the crap pumped out today. By the mid-'90s a lot of the unfortunate EQ and processing trends of the '80s were out-of-vogue and digital recording reached a high-fidelity peak we hadn't seen since the late '70s and acts like Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles and Steely Dan. More importantly, with digital recording those results weren't confined to the finest studios and engineers on the planet - good digital recording was available all over the place, even in some artists' home studios. Smooth, uncompressed, lightly processed, clear, even warm in some instances (or at least, certainly never harsh or brittle). I think of the '90s as the second golden age of high-fi for pop, after the mid-'70s thru early '80s.

Then the effing loudness wars started and everything was ruined. Now most recordings sound like ass.