From: bohdan.kiszczuk@rose.com (bohdan kiszczuk)
Subject: igital Is A Huge Rip
Organization: Rose Media Inc, Toronto, Ontario.
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:11:41 GMT
X-Gated-By: Usenet <==> RoseMail Gateway (v1.2)


Date Entered: 04-15-92 13:12


E > From: elliott@ncrcol.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Elliott New)

E > Subject: "Digital Is A Huge Rip-Off" (Neil Young)

E > Did anyone see the guest editorial in Guitar Player (May, 1992)?
E > Neil Young spoke his mind about digital music (CDs).  It was
E > very uninformed...   Here are some highlights....        
E > 
E >            
E >                  "Digital is a Huge Rip-Off" by Neil Young
E >                     (from Guitar Player, May '92, p.14)
E > 
E > 
E >    Digital, CDs - I hate them.  Digital is a disaster.  This is the darkest age
E >    of musical sound. ... Digital is a huge rip-off. It's completely premature 
E >    and completely wrong.  It's a farce.
E > 
E >    Digital has to be taken three or four levels higher.  Sampling rates have to 
E >    quadruple - at least - to get to where analog was.  And digital music has
E >    a very limited therapeutic effect, if any, whereas real music has an incredible 
E >    effect for the calming of nerves.  Any therapeutic application of sound HAS
E >    to be analog, or it won't get results.  You can search around, but the sound
E >    isn't there.
E > 
E >    Let me use a window aas an illustration.  When you look thru the glass, imagine
E >    that's sound out there.  And then look out thru the screen.  See all the little
E >    squares in the screen?  If you get right up on them, all different kinds of colors
E >    come thru the screen holes.  Well, that has to be averaged out to only one color
E >    per hole for digital.  That's all you get, the dominant one.
E > 
E >    They've got sampling enough now so that when you 1st start listening, you say,
E >    "Hey, that's music."  But your brain and your heart are *starved* for a challenge.
E >    There's no challenge, there's no possibilities, there's no imagination.  You're
E >    hearing a simulated music.  Your brain is capable of taking on an incredible
E >    amount of information....  
E >   
E >    That's why these records have got to be remastered from the *analog* originals
E >    every time there's an improvement..... technology is just not there for that
E >    kind of sampling rate.  It's a real shame, because music is not being captured.
E >    It's an insult to the brain & heart & feelings to have to listen to this and
E >    think it's music.
E > 
E >    I've been making records for 26 years, working in the studio... and I'm telling
E >    you:  From the early '80s up till now and probably for another 10 to 15 years
E >    is the darkest time for recorded music ever.  We'll come out the other end and
E >    it'll be okay, but we'll look bak and go, "Wow, that was the digital age.  I
E >    wonder what it really sounded like?  They were so carried away that they didn't
E >    really record it.  They just made digital records of it."  That's what people will
E >    say - MARK MY WORDS.
E > 
E > 
E > Neil, what a guy!   Can you believe this stuff?  Maybe it was really meant for the 
E > April Fool's issue.
E > 

                I agree with Neil 100%.
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