percentage of analogue vs digital capture by pros recording live classical music?

[atonality]

what percentage of audio engineers recording live classical music
performances use analogue audio capture, and how many use digital capture?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

what percentage of audio engineers recording live classical music
performances use analogue audio capture, and how many use digital capture?

Interesting question. I use both, and either could be used as a backup to the other. It really IMO highly depends on the release format, however I have heard that many engineers are recording, editing, and mixing in high quality analog, and transferring to digital. Then there are others who use high quality digital, and stay in the same bit rate and sample rate all the way through post. Every engineer has their process, and as far as I know no poll has ever been conducted so a conclusion could be reached on this question.

[atonality]

Interesting question. I use both, and either could be used as a backup to the other. It really IMO highly depends on the release format, however I have heard that many engineers are recording, editing, and mixing in high quality analog, and transferring to digital. Then there are others who use high quality digital, and stay in the same bit rate and sample rate all the way through post. Every engineer has their process, and as far as I know no poll has ever been conducted so a conclusion could be reached on this question.

thanks, Sir Terrence. i am mainly a writer and photograher, although i do love my Denon receiver and B&W speakers, the choice of which was based upon doing research on audioreview.com :)

the reason i asked is because digital technology seems to have gotten off the ground in audio about 20 years earlier than it did in still photography. so, i thought the current best practice among audio recording engineers might be a clue as to where pro-level photography is headed. it's not just a matter of debating for debating's sake. decisions about expensive investments in equipment, workflow, marketing, etc, hang in the balance.

the reason i specified "classical" is because the issue is particularly relevant to wedding photography, where there is more of a focus on tradition for its own sake, and where, unlike most commerical work, some clients (especailly high-end ones) have very specific requirements about the process, not just the final product.

i'm not surprised to hear that the answer in audio recording is: either or both. as of now, it's the same with photography. however, the future increasingly seems to favor all-digital workflow, except for the kind of client who would insist on tube amps and pre-amps, vinyl recordings, turntables, etc, if they were audiophiles. in other words, one particular segment of the high end.

thanks again,

guy ("tone deaf") catelli

[Woochifer]

thanks, Sir Terrence. i am mainly a writer and photograher, although i do love my Denon receiver and B&W speakers, the choice of which was based upon doing research on audioreview.com :)

the reason i asked is because digital technology seems to have gotten off the ground in audio about 20 years earlier than it did in still photography. so, i thought the current best practice among audio recording engineers might be a clue as to where pro-level photography is headed. it's not just a matter of debating for debating's sake. decisions about expensive investments in equipment, workflow, marketing, etc, hang in the balance.

the reason i specified "classical" is because the issue is particularly relevant to wedding photography, where there is more of a focus on tradition for its own sake, and where, unlike most commerical work, some clients (especailly high-end ones) have very specific requirements about the process, not just the final product.

i'm not surprised to hear that the answer in audio recording is: either or both. as of now, it's the same with photography. however, the future increasingly seems to favor all-digital workflow, except for the kind of client who would insist on tube amps and pre-amps, vinyl recordings, turntables, etc, if they were audiophiles. in other words, one particular segment of the high end.

thanks again,

guy ("tone deaf") catelli

I got married a couple of years ago, and the debate among wedding photographers was just stirring up at that point. I know that some of the photographers we called up were still transitioning from medium format over to 35mm. Since we did not plan on doing a lot of posed portrait shots, and preferred more of a "journalistic" style, the photographers that we short-listed all used 35mm, but most of them had recently started dabbling with digital SLRs.

The photographer that we chose wound up using three 35mm cameras and one digital SLR. The huge advantage of the digital SLR was that when we reviewed the proofs with the photographer a couple of weeks later, he gave us a CD with all of the digital images on it. We posted the photos onto Shutterfly and e-mailed the link to the wedding attendees, and sent copies of the CD to family members, so they could make their own prints. It was quick and everybody was enjoying the wedding photos while the event was still fresh.

Contrastly, it took us several months to pick out the film images that we wanted to enlarge and make prints of. Most of our friends still haven't seen the film images from our wedding because they're in photo albums that we can't readily share with people who live far away.

For enlargements, the image quality of the 35mm photos was very apparent compared to the digital images. But, apparently our photographer is very much a digital convert, as I heard that within a year after our wedding, he had gone completely digital with his wedding photography. Apparently, in just that time, the performance with the digital SLRs took a huge step forward, and he felt the timing was right to go digital. I think as with digital audio, the question becomes at what point does the digital process begin to approach the quality of more cumbersome traditional approaches.

It looks like most photographers will still use a mix of technologies for a while. I've read that a lot of the "bridezilla" types who scrutinize every last detail in their wedding plans insist on going with medium format for everything. A couple of friends of ours (and the bride in that case was not a bridezilla) got married a couple of weeks after we did, and they went with a photographer that still used medium format exclusively. They got some great looking portraits, but the action photos at the reception did not turn out very well (for one thing, those cameras looked very clunky).

[Pyrrho]

what percentage of audio engineers recording live classical music
performances use analogue audio capture, and how many use digital capture?

Judging from what is available as a finished product in stores, it seems that digital is by far the most commonly used for recording live classical music by professionals.

[noddin0ff]

On the subject of digital photo prints, all the photo labs I've ever asked say that the print resolution is about 300dpi. To me that seems just barely adequate. I'd like to see 600dpi. Photos look good but they could do with just a little more. Even what I assume to be high end, art oriented shops (I had a large format print done on a CSI LightJet 5900) are 300 dpi. Will print resolutions go up in the future? Or is the paper somehow limiting?