Quote from: GEWALTMONOPOL on January 21, 2014, 10:39:34 PM
The downside is a severe loss of low end. I'll continue using it but not exclusively. I'm not amp junkie. No analog snob either. And I never understood the moaning over line in. All are useful tools in the arsenal of sonics.
Of course, when someone needs something what amplified sound can't produce, it would be foolish to not use method that allows such thing. Like utmost bass frequency with clarity. Not just almost random rumble of speaker.
But certainly moaning over line in is simply because for a lot of recordings, it appears to be result of laziness most of all. I mean, that someone think downloading software synth application and using some plugin distortion (or driving signal via pedal to recorder) would create something that could be compared to means what required not only much higher amount of effort, but includes much greater amount of variables.
You know, plugging in korg ms-10 to recorder. It may be fine. Plugging it into speaker and capturing sound of room, includes dozens of elements what make the sound unique. Amplifier type. Microphone type. Amplifier volume. Microphone distance and angle to speaker. Depending on distance, how room acoustics react on sound. Natural echoes, resonance, etc.
Of course all sorts of variation can be generated by adding effects. But this is the crucial thing: If one likes to hear sound that appears loud, regardless of volume you play it on stereos, I think that it most often can be achieved by capturing loud situation.
Signal that comes from some gadget, though line to recorder, may be distorted, may be thick and heavy, but very often doesn't sound
LOUD. It will be loud if you play it loud, but something what was recording of loud situation, where even electronics have physical appearance, will sound loud even if you listen at low volume.
I have in recent months done both. 100% line-in recordings, 100% amplifier recordings. And mixtures of these. Analogue, digital, line and overdubbed. All these have different benefits. True amplified sound what really happens in some physical space, can't be really imitated with distortion and reverb. Many vocal sounds of modern power electronics appear often mathematical. One steady digital delay, artificial reverb (Often guilty for this myself too.. heh). What appears like glued on top, instead of REALLY blending in. When properly amplified, even the very same effects are starting to blend into mix of sounds.
I think using amps is not another way to be "more filthy", but attempt to have more interesting sounds. It's like difference in recording real guitars in rock'n'roll or recording line-in electric guitar and then driving it through amps later in studio (or worst, just some distortion plugin). You miss the interaction of instrument and amplifier. How sustain behaves, how slowly emerging feedback effect the tone or harmony of sound. Even in case when sound is pretty clean and pure.
If one would want to make loud noise, then I think best method is to make... ehm.. loud noise! If one wants to keep it smooth, extremely deep low frequencies, "cinematic" with clean stereo bass sound, very high fidelity quiet sounds, etc etc. Then certainly amps may be wrong thing. (Instead tube-pre amp may be thing that works out well.)
I personally feel that there is lack of physically LOUD noise. Something that is not just crackling pedals or tapeloops distorted by 4-tracker gain (nothing wrong with these), but things caught in ear annihilating physical experience. And most of all that someone had ability to capture such moment. Often loud sessions recorded badly, will sound thin distant racket.
