Opinion(s) required...

[Hollowcell]

Originally Posted by MonkeyMan

Liam Howlett from the Prodigy is the best example I can give - after having a modest personal studio and producing some of the most influential and best selling dance music of the 90's, his studio went into overdrive on getting kit. In his own words he totally lost the plot and his output was killed due to overdosing on too much kit and not getting the best out of it. He was only saved when a learned studio engineer told him to get back to basics. So he binned his kit - bought a laptop and a copy of Reason and never looked back.

I have to back up Timo in his answer to this. I'm a huge Howlett fan, and there is no doubt that FOTL is the best produced album he has released.

I do think there is a need for better quality conversion, specially when recording accoustic/real instruments, but the 'spec emphisis' is getting out of control with dance music.

There is a reason that software manufactures are trying to obtain that still elusive old school sound. For example Roland with it's D-50 Vcard even emulates the old DA conversion for it's appeal. Some software samplers even have options to mimick 12bit too.

Now I'm not saying that having shitty sound card converters is a good thing. I'm just saying there are certain characturistics of the older, "shity" gear which is appealing.