For my second research blog, I decided to research the difference between Analog and Digital Music. I chose to research this topic because I have always wondered the true difference between the two and want to develop my own opinion on which I think is better or "more real" based on these facts. And I found these hard facts that separate Analog and Digital sound from each other.
Analog music represents the actual sound waves generated by those of the artists and musicians in the recording studio. It is an actual imprint of the sound that is being made. Though occasionally records are based on digital recordings converted back to analog. This happens more today with artists releasing records on vinyl for the fad. Any who, the sound is recorded on vinyl in grooves or on cassette as magnetic impulses. On a vinyl, the sound tends to be better at the beginning of the record opposed to the end because the smaller circumference of the disk can impact the needle's ability to follow the groove. Over time due to wear and tear and friction, both cassettes and vinyls loose their playing quality. Also, if you try to copy analog music, every time you copy it it will loose quality until eventually it no longer sounds anything like the original composition. This is called a generation loss. Both literally and metaphorically, the copy is less than the original, and each copy, even more so.
On the other hand, digital music is not a continuous recording and is merely a copy of analog music. The sound is captured using "samples," generally thousands of times per second. The music is recorded in bits of information. The music files are usually ended up compressed, shrinking them to be able to fit the medium for which they are intended. This can impact playback. However, a type of compression called "loseless" compression is suppose to stop this from being an issue. Even with this in mind, the original recording is even less real then that of an analog recording.
Both analog and digital recordings are less than the original because you are literally listening to a copy of the original in each sense. However, I believe that the closest you can get to the real thing is analog, because it is a physical impression of the original music.
Despite this or whatever you find your stance is on whether analog or digital recordings of music are better, both are still made from something made into something else through technology. there is so much to each process; musicians transferring their finger or breathe movements to an instrument which transfers that to a sound we hear which then is transferred through technology of some sort into a recording so we can have some technology transfer these physical impressions or bits again into a sound we can hear. It is all so exciting and its crazy to learn how much goes into something we simply just plug in and turn on as we're walking to class.
A little addition but this is a crazy digital software to map out vinyls physical markings of sound!