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Re:Pause, We Can Go Back by anigbrowl on Sunday February 05, 2017 @02:51PM (#13574187)
Music for playback is one thing. If you make music, analog and digital are worlds apart. Digital can do great things, but the one thing it can't do is fail gracefully. It's too consistent; because it's always perfectly accurate, it's never yours. Take two analog devices that came off the production line together; over time, they will end up sounding different from each other.

This is what musicians like. It's the individuality and texture of things that appeal to artists as much as the overarching form; that's why people still put paint on canvas with brushes or other tools despite the vast possibilities offered by graphics software.

Re:Pause, We Can Go Back by ReidZB on Sunday February 05, 2017 @06:41PM (#13575432)
I am very skeptical of your argument. Musicians like that their carefully-planned tracks are warped & distorted in unexpected ways by analog playback devices - as opposed to digital distribution, where the listener hears precisely what the musician intended each time and every time?

Even if I agreed with that notion, it still isn't an argument against digital distribution per se. Digitally, we can add (in software) distortion that is similar to that you'd encounter with vinyl. I have some digitally produced tracks that are done this way, actually: even end-to-end digital, the tracks sound as though they are coming off a vinyl record. The aesthetic is maintained and played back exactly as the artist intended.

Some folks even introduce distortion after the conversion back to analog, e.g. with "warm sounding" tube amps.

Re:Pause, We Can Go Back by anigbrowl on Monday February 06, 2017 @03:39PM (#13583636)
That's not the argument I'm making.