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Sound City and the Analog vs Digital Debate Like many of you, I recently watched the Sound City Documentary Dave Grohl put out. It’s a given that I found it entertaining, afterall its overflowing with good Rock n Roll! I’ve also heard the film discussed on many various talk shows, interviews, and podcasts as well as reviews. Most of the discussions focus on one of two story arcs. The first arc is the story of the Neve board Dave bought from Sound City when they closed. In this arc much of the Sound City sound is attributed to this unique Neve console. Dave Grohl goes as far as to say that he wouldn’t be where he is today if it weren’t for that board. The discussion during Grohl’s appearance on the Marc Maron podcast certainly centered around this story. The second story people are quick to latch on to is the analog vs digital debate. A large chunk of the documentary revolves around big bad Pro Tools coming along and ruining both Sound City and the quality of modern music. Sound City was an analog studio. Period. Everyone who recorded there tracked to tape. Most of the artists featured in the documentary were tracking live as well. These great artists are then compared to those tracking everything separately in Pro Tools before editing the crap out of it to creat an artificial performance. ...

April 26, 2013 · 6 min · dschaaff

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The idea of separation as a tool is the antithesis of rock and roll, which is a bunch of guys in a room making a sound and just capturing it. It’s the sound they make together, not separated. This mythical bullshit about stereo and high tech and Dolby, it’s just totally against the whole grain of what music should be. Keith Richards

February 18, 2012 · 1 min · dschaaff