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BUSINESS TENNESSEE MAGAZINE – Endless Analog Across the State

Thursday, January 1st, 2009 12:00 am

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By Kyle Swenson

Found in Translation

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A new technology tries to recapture the warmth of analog in digital recording

It’s one of the music industry’s fiercest debates: digital or analog?

In the face of the recording world’s ever-growing need for speed, most artists and engineers have abandoned traditional tape machines for the easy production of digital recording, exchanging the classic warm analog sound for the flat feel of computer-based production.

But if one Nashville producer has his way, all that will change.

This summer, area musician and producer Chris Estes and his company Endless Analog unveiled the Closed Loop Analog Signal Processor (CLASP) system, a combination of hardware and software that allows users to digitally record with analog tape machines, bridging the gap between the much-loved sound of the classic technology and the convenience of 21st-century production.

“It’s going to become the new standard,” Estes says. “Some people are still having a hard time wrapping their heads around it because it’s the opposite of what everyone knows and is taught.”

A former musician and current producer, Estes first began to toy with the idea of wedding advanced technology to analog when he became fed up with the poor quality of digital sound. Knowing that many audiotape companies were nervous about the decline in analog recording, Estes shopped his ideas around to major manufacturers, hoping one would team with him and cover research and development costs. Although the companies were enthusiastic, they chose not to commit funds to spend on Estes’ idea.

Instead, Estes and his wife Amy decided to pursue the idea on their own. “We’ve spent the past several years in the music industry, and we’ve been investing our time and our money and our talents in other people,” Estes says. “We said we were going to invest in ourselves for once.”

Financing the research himself, Estes spent more than two years developing the CLASP system. The technology records using analog, but simultaneously transfers the recording in real time into a digital machine, where the track can be quickly altered or tweaked.

When Estes debuted his technology this summer at a local meeting of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) at Ocean Way Studios, it was immediately apparent CLASP could create a sizeable buzz. “Here in Nashville, it was standing room only,” Estes says. “We had to break it into two different demonstrations just to fit people in, and we received standing ovations.”

The industry excitement over CLASP is only growing. At an appearance at this year’s AES Convention in San Francisco, Estes came face to face with recording industry legends such as Chuck Ainlay and Alan Parsons, both of whom were interested in purchasing a system.

“It’s really the best of both worlds,” says Mike Poston, a Nashville sound engineer who has worked with producers and artists such as Ainlay and Mark Knopfler. “Digital can’t really duplicate the sound of analog tape, and CLASP gets rid of the negatives that we had with analog. It won’t be for everyone, but I think it will extend the life of analog.”

The retail price for the system is around $9,000 and can be built to each client’s specifications. Currently, the company sells the products themselves, but Estes is working to partner with various audio companies that will offer the system as well.

“This isn’t really something you sell at the local music store. It’s one of those things where a customer has specific needs, and they call me up and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this type of tape machine,’” Estes says. “So we build a unit specifically for that client.”

Currently working with only his wife and one other employee, Estes says he plans to grow the business as much as is called for by incoming orders. And if the industry’s initial reaction is any indication, the CLASP system may revolutionize how music sounds.

“We project that we will be selling a lot of these things,” Estes says. “There’s a lot of movement right now to change the standard, and this will do that.”


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Endless Analog - Digital Controlled Analog Tape Recording