I have always adhered to the belief that because sound is analog, it should be recorded, stored, played back and heard as such. It is not meant to be digital, either in form or function, and I am glad to see that there has been a not-so recent resurgence in the vinyl album market as people begin to realize the shortcomings of digital music (or the advantages, if you do it right).

However, a couple of years ago, I went into a Maryland studio with my bandmates to record our latest opus, and was looking forward to what is always a soul-cleansing experience – creation. Taking a song that came from nothing and going through the recording process to create something tangible and permanent is one of the joys of my life. I never get tired of being in the studio, ever.

We had worked with our producer many times before over the last twenty years, from his humble beginnings with a small mixer to his current status as a world-renowned engineer and faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute. Throughout those years we used many forms of storage for the recordings. We recorded to ADAT, SVHS (the latter dependent on the former and vice versa), even regular old cassette, all sorts of media that was considered the best at the time. Regardless, even though some like ADAT will claim they’re digital, the medium is not; it’s still magnetic tape.