Analog vs Digital Recording Options

[abbie]

I am relatively new to multitrack recording. Apart from having recorded a few pieces on my iMac, I have been recently transferring to my Mac some recordings I did 10 years ago on my 4 track portastudio for the purpose of 're-mastering'. I was struck by the relative richness of these old recordings to my more recent ones and was wondering whether I stumbled into the old analog vs digital problem. If so, does a product like T-Rack-S solve the problem or do I simply need to learn how to better use the EQ and VST plug-ins on my multitrack software?

[Synthetic]

A lot of pros are using tape to record on initially these days because if you record on a good analog tape deck... you can saturate the sound more and add warmth. Then they are taking the recordings from tape and transferring to digital and then performing editing and mixing all in digital domain.

It really depends on your tastes in sound and what you want to achieve. I use T-racks as a final mastering point for my tracks because I like using the compression and limiter to boost tracks a little for hotter sound and using the EQ... you can take a little of digital harshness out of a track but I don't think it is the same as recording to tape as far as sound quality goes.