Again, this is along the same lines of no matter HOW HARD you try to make a transistor amp "sound like" a Fender Twin tube amp... it still doesn't, and it never will. The transistor amp (and digital effects) may be "cleaner", it may come with 352 variations that can make it sound "like" any amp ever produced, BUT it's still not a Fender tube amp.
At what point does digital look better than film?
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
Story time re: digital vs. analog:
Few years ago I did a little woodwind work in the studio for a punk band called Downtown Brown at the Tempermill Studio in Detroit, one of the zillions of ancient small Detroit studios. In the booth was a mixing board the size of a pool table, encased in mahogany, with dozens of giant sliders. It was hooked up to this gigantic 16 track tape deck the size of a '70s console TV. But these were just furniture, a table for the MacBook running ProTools resting atop them. No one knew how to use the board and the tape deck. Sad.
I heard the Black Keys talking about recording their album Brothers. They had wanted to use of the great historic American studios and settled on Muscle Shoals. Upon arrival they discovered all the original equipment had been removed and replaced with ProTools. One of them quipped "Why did travel all this way? We can record like that at home."
Few years ago I did a little woodwind work in the studio for a punk band called Downtown Brown at the Tempermill Studio in Detroit, one of the zillions of ancient small Detroit studios. In the booth was a mixing board the size of a pool table, encased in mahogany, with dozens of giant sliders. It was hooked up to this gigantic 16 track tape deck the size of a '70s console TV. But these were just furniture, a table for the MacBook running ProTools resting atop them. No one knew how to use the board and the tape deck. Sad.
I heard the Black Keys talking about recording their album Brothers. They had wanted to use of the great historic American studios and settled on Muscle Shoals. Upon arrival they discovered all the original equipment had been removed and replaced with ProTools. One of them quipped "Why did travel all this way? We can record like that at home."
Korn's album Remember Who You Are was recorded on analog, to get back to the same sound they had back when they started, when there were no protools.
But, in all honesty, I can't tell a difference. The music is awesome but so was the stuff they used protools on. The same would go for filmmaking.
But, in all honesty, I can't tell a difference. The music is awesome but so was the stuff they used protools on. The same would go for filmmaking.
Unfortunately, this statement typifies the complete ignorance of many bands in how a recording is made! It's like saying, why bother spending $100m on a research and development centre for a Formula 1 car, when I can just stick a Ferrari engine in my Ford Explorer at home!
Sure, they can record like that at home, provided they spend many hundreds of thousands constructing a studio with the same acoustics, purchase an extensive mic collection and employ experienced, top class personnel to use it all.
To use a more appropriate analogy, let's say you turned up on set of a film directed by Spielberg, with a top Hollywood cast and crew and then noticed that instead of 35mm film he was shooting on a RED and Michael Kahn was editing with Final Cut Pro. How ignorant of filmmaking would you have to be to say "Why did I travel all this way? We can make a film like that at home"? Honestly, unless they were joking, bands like the Black Keys need a good slapping to teach them that if you are going to make comments about recording or recording studios, you actually need to know something about recordings or recording studios if you want to avoid sounding like bunch of morons!
G
To be honest, I can't really tell the difference any more - could you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_digital
Yeah, digital looked "TV" and crappy 5 years back, but now - especially with digital TVs - and with all the after effects, I not only can't tell the difference, but don't care.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_digital
Yeah, digital looked "TV" and crappy 5 years back, but now - especially with digital TVs - and with all the after effects, I not only can't tell the difference, but don't care.
I can generally tell, just as I could tell you exactly which shots in Captain America were shot on a 5D if I watched it with you projected at 2k. There's a difference and generally if you know what you're looking for, you can tell.
But a general audience can't, and that's the whole point - people should stop worrying about what camera they have and worry about the artistry in front of and behind the camera.
One thing I did find myself caught out by is the slight grain they added to The Newsroom. I was convinced they were shooting on 35mm, but turns out it was Alexa with a bit of 35mm grain. As Deakins says, add grain to Alexa footage and put it up against 35mm and you'd be pretty damn hard-pressed to pick the difference.
Personally, I'll miss the texture of film - not in terms of how it feels (though I do enjoy loading
) but moreso in how it looks. I also think it really brings everyone together and generally makes everyone take the production that much more seriously.That said, I'm pretty happy working with Alexa, though I'd like to shoot more 35mm before it becomes a thing of the past.
Wow, I didn't know that some of those films were on that list.... Yeah, I can't tell a difference anymore, it's definitely fair to say that digital cameras used to be worse, but have finally caught up.