Butch Vig, Foo Fighters producer and talking to Dave Grohl about recording their latest album, Wasting Light:

And then he said, ‘Cool, well, here’s another thing: I want to do it on tape, 24-track tape. I don’t want to use any computers.’ And I said, ‘Look, I totally understand this, [but] it’s going to be a lot of work, because you guys have got to play really good.’ Because you can fix anything with computers, Auto-Tune everything until it becomes perfect, and he said, ‘I want the record to sound rawer and somewhat imperfect. As good as we play, that’s how good the record will sound.’

Let’s break his statement down a bit. Wasting Light was recorded in analog because apparently a) tape sounds better and b) digital will let them be lazy in their playing. People who like analog records typically argue that they have greater dynamic range, more frequencies captured, and a “warmer” sound. Alternately, but some times additionally, they argue that digital music sounds flat and synthesized, because it truly is easy to fix performance problems to be 100% perfect, and musicians, no matter how good they are, are not 100% perfect.

Here’s what a normal analog record looks like, “Dream On” by Aerosmith:

Here’s “Rope”, off of Wasting Light:

Let me get this out of the way. If your record has been distorted and crushed to death in mastering and looks like that, it’s not just digital, but bad digital. Doesn’t matter how it started or how good your intentions were, the analog goodness has been stripped right out of it. If you’re going to advertise that you recorded in analog, finish it right, or stop talking about it.

Ahem.

My main problem with Vig’s statement is the implication that if they recorded in digital, they would automatically have to fix things. I don’t understand this. Is it digital’s fault if you’re a bad musician or producer? No — it’s your fault for falling back on technology to do your work for you.

In fact, if you don’t want technology to do your work for you, and you want it to sound “raw”, why record it in the luxury of 24 tracks of audio? Doesn’t a 24-track machine allow you to make every instrument sound perfect, with the luxury of overdubbing and replacing parts at will? Why not use, say, two tracks, the way they did it in the fifties and sixties? Wouldn’t two tracks of audio be really difficult to perfect and make it next-to-impossible to fix things afterwards and be way cooler than using 24?

Of course not, and it’s a silly suggestion. But it’s not at all different than what the Foo Fighters — and many, many other groups — believe. This new technology will let us do [quick and lazy fix] so let’s use vintage technology that won’t let us do that.”

Recording technology has always enabled ways for us to be just a little bit lazier, and the latest development will always be simultaneously embraced and rebelled against by the next generation of recording romantics. You are doing yourself a disservice by limiting your options, and it’s not making your record sound any better.

Good producers are supposed to get great performances out of their musicians, encourage boundaries, and figure out when certain recording styles are effective for the material at hand. Butch Vig is a very experienced producer. It should be his job, not the computer’s, to tell the Foo Fighters when their performances suck and when they’re good enough to keep.

There’s nothing wrong with using analog over digital. But the only one who decides on Auto-Tune is you.