> it's the lifeless,stiff, ear-scratching bright sound that is the problem..
It's possible to make a digital track sound convincingly analog in any decent software package. Soft saturation on the EQ, tape compression, add a little hiss ... nobody will know the difference. Record an analog track to a computer at a sufficient bitrate and it still sounds analog. The set of acoustic characteristics responsible for the old-school flavor are degradations (in the technical sense) which can be applied procedurally in a digital production environment. But I think that the over-use of such techniques is, more often than not, a little tacky. It's like printing a digital painting on canvas to try to make it look like an oil painting. It's difficult to make good, forward-facing art if you're constantly ashamed of the tools you were using. Techno's godfathers were *proud* of the synthetic nature of their instruments. They didn't try to make their strings and basslines sound real. Techno, for me, is about putting the soul of the future in the listener's face. It's about bangin' the robo-beat with whatever you can get your hands on. I draw much of my inspriation from the compositions and feelings of the old-school, not the recording gear and cabling thereof. - bp
