Something’s appearing more and more. Too many times not to write about it. For whatever reason, it seems most everything I was told for years, keeps being the opposite of what I experience. Since birth I was told stuff like, #1 Your mind slows with age. #2 Digital is faster than analog. #3 New is always better.

#1: Though it’s true your brain does get mushy at the end of your body’s life span, I’ve found myself saying a lot “damn, I wish I could think like this when I was younger. Wish I knew all this stuff when I was younger. Wish I had this kind of patience when I was younger”. It's kinda seems like as you age, you trade body stats for mental stats. Body gets crappier, mind gets better. I don't know.

#2: If any of you studied electronics in collage, you probably know, analog electronics use straight electricity, which moves at the speed of light. When you introduce any digital, there’s processors. They too use electricity BUT because of how processors work physically, they take time to, well, process. Anyone who’s experienced lag, knows this phenomenon exactly. Analog tech very rarely slows the flow of electricity and not in the way digital processors do. When you flip a switch on an all analog synth, the response is literally as fast as the speed of light. Where as, if you flip a switch on a digital, the processor has to do calculations. Whether it’s 0.0001 seconds or 1 whole second, every thing the digital does, takes time. Much more time in comparison to the speed of light. This is why, pure analog systems usually have unbeatable response time.

#3: Ok, so, there are some obvious things that are better if new but a shockingly large amount are NOT. I keep dealing with very new technologies and quite old ones and 9 times out of 10, the old outshine the new. Same with construction techniques, build quality, even interface design. My parent’s analog synth is older than I am, it still works. The new digital synth I bought this year (and returned) couldn’t work properly straight out of the box. Even new contruction methods applied to old tech makes the old tech suffer. 3 times I bought a behringer model D. First came with bad tuning. Next came with not good tuning and an envelope issue. 3rd came ok but then a part failed within a year. Which brings me to malfunctions. When analog gear malfunctions, you can often still use it (the model D still worked, just not well). Maybe the performance isn’t as good but it still “works”. When digital malfunctions, it’s all over. Game over man! 99.9% of the time, there is NO using it what so ever.

I wouldn’t ever mention these things but I run into this stuff over and over. I've literally gone through countless pieces of “newer better faster digital” gear. The only stuff still standing, still working, performing reliably, is the old school stuff, made with old school construction techniques. Amps, speakers, synths, heaters, my flippin washing machine even. It’s always the same story. The same cycle of discovery. Most everything I was told, isn’t proving true. Only thing off the top of my head unarguably better new and digital, is editing. Even THAT seems to be heading backwards though, since the last update of logic pro X, wrecked the editing interface, so it's MUCH slower to edit waves than in logic 9. wtf apple.

#thoughts: I really am at a loss. Was the world just trolling me all these years? Lol. It sure seems that way. God I wish I had known better years ago. All the stuff I was told was old junk, was actually a gold mine. At least I finally have a mono synth that’s legitimate old school (studio electronics). Every time I use it, I’m shocked at how much faster the whole process is, compared to my digital gear. I always think, aw man I want to make a new patch but damn, analog, that’ll probably take hours. Nope, amazing patch, done in 5 minutes, refined in another 5. Then, as if the trolls are mocking me, the digital end of recording the sound, barfs some technical difficulties or something at me, eating up an hour. It’s so backwards. @.@; lol