school me on the difference between analog and digital...

[nmancusi10]

so i just got a carbon copy, which is my first analog pedal, and when i opened up the back the back to install the 9v, it sure looked distinctly digital to a layperson such as myself, what with all the microchips and capacitors and doohickeys (and no, i wasn't expecting to see gears and cranks...) So could someone explain the difference? thanks

[slyjoe]

Chips can be analog or digital or both. Basically, digital effects "sample" your signal with an analog to digital converter (ADC), and operate on the 1's and 0's of the digital signal. They then convert it back to analog through a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) and send it to the output. There may be analog processing before the ADC or after the DAC.

Analog effects don't do the AD or DA conversion; their alteration of the signal is done with resistors, capacitors, and transistors. These items may be all on a chip though, which is why you may have thought if you have chips, it's digital.

[nmancusi10]

perfect answer, thanks brother

[B.C.]

Yes, I just want to echo the fact that chips inside a pedal does not automatically scream digital. For example, your standard Ibanez tube screamer may have a few chips. These are operational amplifiers which are strictly analog components and appear more often than not.

[niftydog]

If the chips you see have less than, say, 16 legs each, it's a pretty sure bet it's analogue. If you need a microscope to distinguish the pins on a chip from one another, it's a pretty sure bet it's digital!

[EADG mx]

About $350.

[excane]

^ +1

[Swift713]

Anywhere from 700 ms to about 40 minutes.

[JanusZarate]

As far as sound goes, the line between digital and analog is becoming more and more blurry.

Generally, digital can simply do more. For example, there are only a select few analog delays which can approach or even exceed 1 second worth of delay time. But digital delay pedals have no problem with creating effects with huge delay times. Of course, sound is a different story. Some analog effects can sound "warmer" than their digital counterparts, but that's not always the case (some digital delay pedals can faithfully emulate many of the traits of analog delay pedals). There are other differences, too, such as how analog delay pedal knobs behave and warp your delay sound when playing in real time, while digital ones produce an rougher, "staggered" result. Analog delay pedals often have fairly low headroom, allowing for easy feedback; meanwhile, digital delay pedals have much more headroom for cleaner, clearer repeats. Again, these are generalizations, because some analog delay pedals can be surprisingly clean, and some digital delay pedals can emulate analog delay sounds and behaviors.

The biggest controversy comes in digital modeling (i.e., emulating analog effects, amps, cabinets, etc. via software). The general belief is that modeling doesn't sound as good as the real thing. While that may be true among cheaper products, you'd be quite surprised at just how hard it is to tell the difference between the real thing and a high-quality modeler.

Now... your Carbon Copy is a perfect example of everything that people love "old-school" styled analog delays for. If you get a chance, compare it to a Boss DD-6 (a fairly standard and popular digital delay pedal), and your ears will easily hear the differences. But remember that the DD-6 is not representative of all digital delay pedals - it's just one of those that frequently comes to mind when we think of the "typical" digital delay sound.