Music Producers Guild Event June 2005 video feature.

The MPG held an event at London's British Grove Studios to compare analoge with digital recording. Three digital contenders battled against the heavyweight 16 track 2 inch Studer A800. Watch this video feature.

You can't just accept what other people tell you is the best format, so many people have opinions and so many articles are written that it's not easy to know which is best without hearing for yourself. To help clear up the analoge v digital debate, the MPG held a very interesting comparison of four recording formats. The Pro Tools, Nuendo and Radar digital systems slugged it out with their arch enemy, the analoge Studer A800 running on the 16 track block that is legend in engineer circles.

The MPG set up this event at Briish Grove bringing 3 top session musicians to record on the four formats. The first thing noted was that the levels required by analoge machines was too much for the digital machines so a little tweeking was needed. A few people observed that to make the most of the analogue machine it should have been Dolby SR at 15 ips but in this case with was non Dolby at 30 ips.

We won't say any more, you need to watch the video to find out how it went. It runs for under 15 minutes but requires a broadband connection and QuickTime 7.0, you can go here to get it if you don't have it.

Many thanks to all of the people that were involved, MPG, Pip Williams, Tony Platt, Hayden Bendall and all of the other key people too numerous to mention - err, we forgot to take their names! Special thanks to the chaps of British Grove, the kind owner, Dave Stewart and Dave Harries.

This comparison session was not totally scientific and we are totally neutral regards the competing formats, none of whom advertise with us!

Feature produced June 2005