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Neil Young on analog vs. digital


Jeff Wexler

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My father did a short video with Neil Young during the Teatro Session rehearsals with his band. This is a clip from that video where Neil talks about analog sound, digital sound, and a few other interesting topics regarding music in his head, where it comes from, where it goes: "you hear the music before it gets here...  the words generally come along with it but arrive a little later". His rap on analog vs. digital is pretty far out there, doesn't diminish his incredible creativity musically and it is uniquely Neil Young for sure.

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He once told me my speaker was wired out of phase....  I laughed.... then out came a little tool that when plugged into a speaker, either makes the cone go out if phase is correct, or go in if out of phase..  he watched, shook his head and said, "I could of sworn it was out of phase"... we both laughed..  It was for the song,  "This notes for you.."

 Funny guy....  I love his music...always have..

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That was a great video.  Two highly intuitive geniuses trying to put into words how art works, valiantly, and failing in an interesting way.  Interesting to me that even in the highly structured recording studio environment with all that vintage and bespoke outboard analog beef they are still about trying to catch the muse off guard...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nice video. I thought that Neil's "critique" of digital was actually rather constrained and I could almost accept it. At least he didn't bore us with "theories" about missing parts in the audio due to "stairsteps" or the need for ultrahigh sample-rates. I thought the universe analogy makes sense not scientifically but on an intuitive level. And being mindful of the fact that you might as well digitize at the point of analog capture (like the CLASP system) is a welcome surprise too for a guy who has spewed some pretty nonsensical stuff over the years. I always admired him as an artist though, one of the best. Thanks for posting.

CLASP-CONNECTION-DIAGRAM1.png

On ‎4‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 5:08 PM, afewmoreyears said:

He once told me my speaker was wired out of phase....  I laughed.... then out came a little tool that when plugged into a speaker, either makes the cone go out if phase is correct, or go in if out of phase..  he watched, shook his head and said, "I could of sworn it was out of phase"... we both laughed..  It was for the song,  "This notes for you.."

 Funny guy....  I love his music...always have..

He does stuff like that, like claiming that the stage-power voltage is not exactly what it should be (he says he can hear it in the way his "59 Fender tweed Deluxe amp distorts), he might even venture a guess as to by how much it's off. usually nobody challenges his assertions, so good for you.

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