ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION 
VIEWED AS AN ALTERATION 
OF ORIGINAL SOUND DOCUMENTS

These brief notes necessarily require a few preliminary remarks: the first is to acknowledge the importance of sound (audio and audiovisual) documents as sources, an idea I have upheld for years, having worked for so long in this field. Obviously, this involves accepting the extension of the concept of “source” to non-written documents (which should be duly acknowledged, since the idea of reproduction – photography, recording, and all subsequent derivations – has become part our daily lives). Photography and recording allow for the unlimited reproduction of hundreds or thousands of “copies”. My field of research is music, therefore I will concentrate on recording (by this term I mean all the different methods for recording sound, and vision with sound, as well as all supports used for the circulation of audio and audiovisual reproductions).
Unlimited reproduction. What of?
This calls for another preliminary remark, concerning performing arts: music, theater, dance, and other art-forms having the same basic characteristic, which is that – in order to circulate – they require one or more interpreters who are able to decode an author’s text (be it written or orally transmitted). Said text does not “play” autonomously, in the case of music, nor does it “dance” or “act” by itself. True enough, nowadays there are multimedia works which play, act or dance (or do all three together) “by themselves”, and thus do not require a performer or an interpreter, but it is also true that such multimedia works do not allow for “live” performances (for practical reasons: their existence is the outcome of a complex technical procedure which cannot be reproduced in a theater or concert hall). I will therefore not take them into consideration for the moment, and return to my preliminary remarks.
Music is a performing art requiring one or more interpreters in order to be conveyed to those who do not master the codes which are essential to decipher its texts. Sound documents are consequently constituted by the recording of a musical (audio) or theatrical (audiovisual) performance.
Therefore, a possible reproduction does not involve an opera’s text, but its performance. The (sound or audiovisual) recording materializes into an object (cylinder, disc, tape, wire, etc.), so that the original sound document is constituted by one particular material object which can be reproduced ad infinitum, and which I will call “matrix” (though the term is normally used only for the originals from which records are made, I cannot think of another which would so exhaustively define an original sound document in every possible case). However, in order to obtain an infinite number of reproductions, it is evident that one cannot use the sole “matrix”, because in time it would wear out and eventually be destroyed, and the original would disappear. It becomes necessary to make “pilot-copies” of the original “matrix”, which will in turn act as originals for subsequent reproductions. Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that a similar case is posed by a text, be it manuscript or type-written: nobody would ever propose to send these directly to the printer’s.
My reasoning intentionally leaves out the problems posed by works composed directly on a computer keyboard so as to be reproduced, by means of the Web, directly by a “matrix” which – if it needs to be reproduced – must be stored, with all the data which characterizes it, in a “memory” of sorts, be it a hard or floppy disk, or any other technical support. I will intentionally omit discussing such works because I’m firmly convinced that the expansion of the Internet has profoundly changed the relationship between text, original, reproduction, and circulation. I’ll merely remark that a composition conceived on a computer keyboard, and not “saved” in a memory of sorts – at the present stage in technology – for all practical purposes does not exist, because it cannot be reproduced or recovered (a good example is digital photography: if it does not undergo the above-described process, it merely results into a paper copy, which itself becomes an “original” that cannot be reproduced directly, but only as a reprint, using a medium which is different than the one that created it).
My assumption sets off from analog-to-digital conversion, so it regards only non-digital originals; thus it is time to get back to my line of reasoning. An “original” sound document is, always and uniquely, the live recording of a musical (audio) or theatrical (video) performance. And the sole original is contained in the sound object concretely produced during a performance. It can be a cylinder, disk, tape, even film (it has been used to record sound), or any other support contrived by human ingenuity before the era of digital recording (which should, in fact, be called “numerical recording”, so as to define it literally). An original sound document can be produced by means of mechanic (acoustic) or electric recording (after the appearance of microphones), or by analog monophonic, stereophonic, quadriphonic recording on magnetic wire, tape or film, as well as by stereophonic digital recording (on tape or disc). Each of these recording methods (be it audio, or audiovisual) has specific characteristics which none of the others – even if technically more advanced – can repeat with precision. Theoretically, no reproduction can be considered such unless it is obtained by copying the original “matrix” with the use of the same recording method and material. One characteristic all pre-digital recordings have in common – which makes a great difference – lies in the fact that, in general, they are global recordings of sound (which they reproduce in variable percentages), whereas digital recordings disintegrate sound into an “infinite” series of numbers.
Granted that the “original” sound document is constituted by a specific material object, created in the specific moment in which a performance (audio or audiovisual) is reproduced, how should the document be circulated (also for the purpose of its subsequent “scientific” study) if it was created using methods and materials which have become obsolete and unavailable, and if it has become illegible with accessible means (even in museums)?
An “original” sound document is always unique, and we are all aware of the caution which normally surrounds any direct form of contact with unique paper documents, be they handwritten or printed. Fortunately, a literary text can be transposed from its original manuscript to its final printed form without any substantial changes, such as might alter the text itself and are not inherent to its original arrangement, purpose or pertinence. But what about a sound document? The elements at stake are so many, and so different among them, all of them inherent to the “text” of the document itself – which is not the composition but its performance (not any performance, but one specific, unique performance) – that a transcription is practically impossible. One should work directly on the original, which would consequently be transformed into something else and would no longer be the reproduction of that particular performance.
I have already mentioned that one or more “secondary” matrixes are drawn directly from the “original” sound document, using the same methods and materials as the original, in order to cater for the “infinite” reproductions which allow for its circulation. So long as the same methods and materials are commonly used, there are no difficulties. But what about when they become obsolete? Or when the “original” sound document is irreparably damaged? This is where “secondary” matrixes come into play. They will originate “adespota” sound documents, if we borrow the term from a different context. And they should be treated in the same fashion as the lost originals. But this is still not a solution. How will they circulate? Cylinders no longer exist, nor do many other methods of reproduction. However, so long as documents have been produced analogically, there is a subsequent method which can be used instead, if one is honest enough not to want to “enhance” something which should be untouchable, and if another analog method is used. In fact, analog recording poses some limitations but it also has qualitative advantages, not all of which have increased with the use of digital systems.
Analog-to-digital conversion of any sound document is equivalent to altering the original from its very foundations, in its very “philosophy of reproduction”. Primarily, it is necessary to pose the problem of whether sound should be captured globally – though such globality will necessarily be “unfinished” (or “imperfect”) – or by subdividing it, though such a subdivision will, in turn, inevitably be “more than perfect”, and therefore even further removed from the performance reproduced by the original document.  
A brief historical overview of recording shows that the two fundamental changes in recording methods for the purpose of reproduction are connected to, firstly, the introduction of electricity (and the use of microphones, in the mid-Twenties of the 20th century) and, secondly, the use of electronic technology (numeric recording, which came into use between the late Seventies and the early Eighties of the 20th century).
Consequently, serious problems in converting original sound documents are posed by “acoustic (or mechanical)-to-electric”, as well as “electric-to electronic” conversions. Both acoustic and electric recordings are analog by nature: they capture the entire range of sounds produced at a specific time in a specific venue. Obviously, acoustic recording has the capacity to reproduce a limited amount of sounds as compared to electric recording which – on account of high fidelity and such like – has progressively increased the quantity of sounds being reproduced to a considerable degree, since the beginning of the Eighties. However, for the purpose of acoustic-to-electric conversion one can safely state that “more includes less”, so long as no technical “improvements” are implemented (which has unfortunately happened time and again).
Before proceeding, it may be useful to mention that in nature there is no such thing as “simple” or “pure” sound; a sound can only be complex, as it is constituted by one fundamental note and all the harmonics it naturally produces, including those which are above or below the range of human perception. Moreover, in nature sound is perceived in its ambiance and, depending on the venue (but, also, in the same place at different times), it is perceived differently. The degree of variability is sometimes so infinitesimal as to not be perceptible to listeners, but that is not the point: it is different.
Numeric or digital recording is based on a type of sound which goes beyond nature: sound is created by rationally assembling a theoretically infinite quantity of numbers, each of which represents an infinitesimal segment of the sound being produced. All notes are “pure”, deprived of their harmonics. Obviously, numbers can be created for harmonics as well, but those which are imperceptible to human hearing are very rarely included. I’d like to point out an element which is considered undeniable in asserting the “superiority” of numeric over analog, which is that numeric recording does not allow “noise” to be recorded. But it is important to point out that one such “noise” is that pertaining to the ambiance, which characterizes every sound (or group of sounds) in its specific diversity.
As a result, electronics brought to light a type of sound which differs from natural sound. All electronically produced music (multimedia or not) can only be reproduced by means of numeric recordings (no analog recording could possibly reproduce all of its characteristics, precisely because they are basically “unnatural”).
However, can an electronic recording “faithfully” reproduce a live performance, whose peculiarity lies in its being constituted by natural sounds? The spontaneous reply is negative. Nevertheless, it would be theoretically possible if numeric recording were perfected to the point of reproducing sounds, harmonics (both perceptible and imperceptible), and the “noise” of the performance ambiance. The problem remains of the moment in which these sounds were produced, which cannot but differ. Not to speak of the cost of this procedure, which would increase to the point of making non-digital-to digital conversion an extremely unprofitable venture.
Digital recording fans go to the point of denying the existence of this problem, on grounds that the superiority of numeric recording lies precisely in its not reproducing noise of any kind, including that which renders the sound of a performance (be it in a hall or in the open air) alive and “vital”. In fact, “sound technicians” always check the results of a recording wearing headphones which “exclude” noise of any kind, and this habit probably results in an altered perception regarding their conception of listening. For technicians, “perfect” sound is produced by excluding any “noise”, and the result is not natural but artificial; I identify it as “digital sound” and, as I said earlier, it sounds “more than perfect”.
A similar mentality has become widespread outside recording studios, so much so that the prevailing tendency is to consider digital sound natural, and natural sound artificial, besides the latter being considered “impossible to listen to” and “unattractive”. A case in point is an anecdote told by Sergio Segalini, currently artistic director of Venice’s “La Fenice” Theater, and one of the world’s leading experts in voices, both live and reproduced in sound documents. The story goes that during reharsals for the recording of a Mozart opera, the conductor asked singers to deliver unnatural (“digital”) sounds as these were more suitable for recording purposes, thus jeopardizing the performers’ vocal well-being! This anecdote demonstrates to what degree digital reproduction has altered the perception of sound and consequently of music, especially in the younger generations, who are unfamiliar with natural sound and – when exposed to it – are inclined to find it unpleasant. On the other hand, one could hardly expect them to think differently, considering that the television, movies, records, and even the concerts they attend (which are always massively amplified) only transmit digital sounds. Moreover, Segalini’s story goes to show that the habit of using digital sound has been introduced even in the realm of music education, as a type of sound to be produced artificially with natural means (especially in higher-pitched instruments such as violins, or sopranos in the case of voices), objectively causing the impoverishment and deterioration of said voices, which wear out more rapidly due to the elimination of messa di voce and legato techniques, and causing irreparable damage in instrumental performance practice.
Thus, with the exception of electronic music and multimedia musical objects, the numeric recording of live a performance is in itself an alteration. It is doubtful whether the recording of a “digitally” conceived live performance could be considered altered. But I personally feel this is a small consolation.
Now for the belief postulated in the title of this paper. What takes place with analog-to-digital conversion, be it done live or in a studio? What happens is that the original is inevitably altered. Not only because very rarely are digital conversions made by means of a numeric recording which takes into consideration those harmonics which are imperceptible to human hearing (I repeat: they are essential building-blocks in the production of a complex sound) as well as “ambiance noise” (which helps to define the “quality” of sound), but because – notably in the case of live concert or theatrical performance recordings – a number of adjustments are made (among others: emendation, restoration, deletion, integration) which do not belong to the original sound document and which not only alter it, but falsify it. On the other hand, supporters of the superiority of numeric over analog claim that one of the advantages offered by the former lies in its allowing much more room for “manipulation”. The original sound document – record, wire, or tape which first recorded the performance as it was taking place in a studio or hall – runs the greatest of risks. Firstly, because in most cases it is private property, which impedes (or severely restricts) its public safeguard; this does not allow us to find out whether a particular sound document corresponds to the original as it was first made (with all its background or accidental “noise”), or if it was manipulated and thus falsified. Secondly, because even in those rare cases when sound documents are public property, the fixation with “enhancements”, or making the final product “more presentable”, is such that the original is exposed to the danger of manipulation and falsification, no more no less than if it were private property.
I wish to conclude with a warning: even the most minute alteration of an original sound document does not go in the direction of saving it, but rather destroys it, by making it different from its original self. Also, any form of conversion into digital (whichever the support may be) of a sound document originally created in analog necessarily entails manipulation, and consequently alteration, thus destroying those intrinsic characteristics and peculiarities which make it unique, authentic and reliable.
Carlo Marinelli
IASA honorary member
S.ta Cecilia’s Academician