Recording to a digital format has it's pros and cons.
The big pros are:
- Ease of editing and the number of available tracks. You can cut and past passages of music together much easier than in the past as there is no splicing of tape involved. The number of tracks is virtually unlimited so you can craft songs with many different instruments.
- Recording interface is very visual. You can see the tracks which helps with identifying problems.
- Relatively inexpensive to buy the gear and start making recordings.
- Easy to make copies and distribute material directly. Cuts out the need for a record label.
Now the bad:
- Auto-tune- UGH, how I HATE auto-tune. A singer can go in and be completely off key and the software can pitch correct the voice. Sounds artificial and awful!!!! This why you will never, ever see any American Idol winner or pop-tart (think Britney Spears) sing live in concert. Their vocal tracks are almost always pre-recorded and they are just lip syncing when you see them perform "live".
- Pro-Tools (the industry standard software) makes things too easy. Musicians can't play on the 1? Send in the beat doctor!! Singer can't sing? Turn on auto-tune (see above)! Bass part sounds like crap? Pick out the two notes he played correctly and we can copy / paste it through the whole song! This makes for lazy musicians who will be in a world of hurt when they try to play live.
- Sound Quality- It's possible to get good sound quality with digital tools. You do lose warmth and the recordings don't really "breathe". Hard to put into words. Your ears will tell you though. Digital tracks, which are already compressed, get compressed even further into an MP3 or M4A (iTunes format) you lose even more warmth and some things get squeezed out all together. For example, I've converted CD's to iTunes format and have had the songs lose entire ambient noise and whole guitar tracks. The casual listener may not notice but musicians and audiophiles will.
- Lack of proper mastering. A lot of people feel you don't need to master digital tracks and it's becoming a lost art.
These are just my opinions and just the tip of the iceberg.
I've recorded on Pro-Tools and loved the ease of recording, mixing and editing. However, we had a producer that made sure we could all play our parts and that our singer was in key. There was no "good enough". If a part sucked, he made us do it over again (again and again and again). He was a task master and we were better players because of it. That's not to say we didn't edit pieces of solos or vocals together. We did. But you still have to have a solid foundation.
Poor sound quality of digital tracks is part of the reason we are seeing a min-revivial of the vinyl format. Yeah, vinyl has issues (scratching, records wear out, etc.). However, there is nothing better sounding than a well recorded / mixed vinyl recording. Once you do side by side comparison of the same material on vinyl and MP3 or MP4A you'll realize how sterile sounding digital tracks are.
Warm sounds are good sounds. This why I prefer tube guitar amplifiers to solid-state guitar amplifiers. Yeah, the solid state stuff is quiet and you get a good clean sound but they don't pack the punch of a tube amp.
Just my $.02.......
