Re: [ARSCLIST] Libraries disposing of records

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> As to preferences for recording media, you'll note that the classical 
> crews who were looking for output=input switched quickly to digital. 
> The pop/rock recordists missed the distortions and the unique 
> limiting curves of analog tape and other vintage equipment and have 
> continued to use it as an effect (in my opinion).
> 
Speaking as a (sometime) performing musician, I can personally vouch
for the above! I use a vacuum-tube amplifier for my harmonica, because
I'm trying to recreate the vintage sound of low-fidelity "dispatcher"
microphones fed into inexpensive tube amps turned up WAY too high!

There is a long and complicated technical explanation for this,
involving transient response and the variety of harmonics that make
up the distortion in different types of amplifying circuitry...but,
to make it simple, an overdriven solid-state amp has an edgy, nasty
sound that is hard to listen to...while overdriven-tube distortion
is pleasant, or at least acceptable, to hear.

In fact, I think this phenomenon has a lot to do with the "warm"
sound of vacuum-tube gear...a distortion-free amplifier is all but
unknown, and tube amps distort more acceptably than do solid-state...

Steven C. Barr