Digital and Analogue

Analogue adds noise and saturation, digital adds quantisation and clock error. The method differs.

Related

Bit DepthDitherContemporary

The problem

Analogue recording stores sound as magnetisation on tape; digital recording stores it as a stream of samples. Both change the sound, each in its own way: one adds noise and saturation, the other quantisation and clock error.

Signal chain

The analogue chain is microphone, preamp, tape machine. The digital chain replaces the tape machine with a converter and a file. Tape compresses transients, grows hiss over time and blurs with every copy; a digital copy stays bit-for-bit identical.

Placement and settings

Keep analogue peaks 3 to 6 dB below the saturation point, and digital peaks between -12 and -6 dBFS. Record at 24 bits and leave headroom for the soft passages instead of fixing them with a fader. If you want tape colour, record clean digitally first and pass the signal through tape afterwards.

What to listen for

Compare two recordings of one performance: behind the soft tails, the analogue version has hiss, the digital one has even silence. Listen to transients too; tape rounds the drum attack slightly, while digital keeps the original edge.

Common misconceptions

• Digital is the original sound → sampling and quantisation are a rewrite as well.
• Analogue is always warmer → warmth comes from saturation and high-frequency loss, not the medium.
• More bits sound more analogue → bit depth only sets the noise floor.

Sources

• Watkinson, The Art of Digital Audio, conversion and storage chapters
• AES Convention paper on tape saturation and digital capture

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.