Damon Krukowski - The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World

This book is made possible with support from Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Foundation.

2017 by Damon Krukowski

All rights reserved.

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I Cant Live Without My Radio: Words and Music by Rick Rubin and James Todd Smith. Copyright 1985 Universal Music Corp., American Def Tunes, Inc., and LL Cool J Music. All Rights for American Def Tunes, Inc. Administered by Universal Music Corp. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2017

Distributed by Perseus Distribution

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Krukowski, Damon.

Title: The new analog: listening and reconnecting in a digital world / Damon Krukowski.

Description: New York: The New Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016045846 | ISBN 9781620971987 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Music--Psychological aspects. | Musical perception. | Sound--Recording and reproducing--Psychological aspects.

Classification: LCC ML3830 .K756 2017 | DDC 781.1/1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045846

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Book design and composition by Lovedog Studio

This book was set in Sabon MT

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A project supported by the

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The inn we are directed to seems to us at first sight to be the dirtiest we have ever seen, but after a while it is not at all so exaggeratedly bad. It is dirt which is just there, thats all, and about which no more is said; dirt which will never change any more, which has made itself at home, which in a certain sense makes life more tangible, more earthly; dirt out of which our host hurries forth, proud towards himself, humble towards us... Who, one must ask, could still have anything on his mind against this dirt?

Kafka, The Aeroplanes at Brescia

CONTENTS

Table of Contents

THANK YOU FOR READING this analog book. It requires no additional hardware, uses no power, and is 100 percent recyclable.

You will find that it is possible to read, or not read, any of this books pages in any sequence. While its pages have been numbered sequentially to assist in navigation, there is no reason to consult these numbers if you do not wish. Should you like to highlight a passage, you will find that you can mark the page with most any implement at handeven a fingernail will do. The paper of this book is also soft enough to be folded, torn, even shredded if that gives you satisfaction, without special tools.

You are free to share this book, resell it, or donate it to charity.

The author and publisher of this book do not have any information about you; they do not even know that you have a copy of this book unless they sent it to you personally. And if they didsend it to you personally, that isyou can always pretend to have read the book without having done so. You can also deny having read it, should that prove expedient. Its your business, really.

Welcome to the world of analog books!

Moore Meets Murphy

The oft-cited Moores Law refers to the rapid development of integrated circuits since the 1960sand therefore to computers and digital equipment generallywhich follow a pattern of doubling in power and capacity every eighteen months.

But theres an overlooked corollary to this, which we might call Murphys Moores Law: if aspects of a given technology functioned better before the introduction of integrated circuits, they must be getting worse at the same fantastic rate. Twice as bad, every eighteen months...

Consider the typography of this book. In 1965, when Gordon Moore first formulated his observations about the rapid development of solid-state electronics, books were set in hot-metal type; that is, their words were cast into lead, resulting in crisp, detailed impressions on paper. Whats more, the technology for hot-metal typography had at that point been refined by so many generations of designers and typesetters that even an inexpensive, commercially produced book like this would bear many marks of typographic excellence accumulated over time.

A few years laterwhile Moore was extending his law of growth to personal wealth by cofounding the semiconductor manufacturer Intelelectronics began to make phototypesetting more cost-efficient than hot metal. Phototypesetting (or cold type) was by comparison prone to distortion and breaks in letter forms, and limited in its ability to use the full range of delicate typefaces that had been designed over centuries for lead. But since it utilized electronics, the cost of cold type went down while its capacity rapidly increased, just as Moore observed. Over the centuries, hot-metal innovations had accrued at a speed somewhat closer to the flow of molten lead.

This is where Murphy comes in. Since cold type was in many respects lower in quality than what preceded it, increasing its availability could only lead to more and more bad typography. Which is exactly what happened. Today, any of us with a computer has the means to typeset, thanks to Moore. But only some are skilled at it, and as a result we are surrounded by a massive amount of typography without a minimum of professional standards. (Living with a graphic designer has made me acutely aware of this; public signage that fails to use smart quotes is among her btes noires.) Meanwhile, not only the commercial hot-metal typehouses but also their phototypestting successors have closed out of neglectmachines junked, the chain of skilled human expertise broken. The refined technology of hot-metal typography is limited now to artisanal, specialty usesa letterpress invitation to the retirement party for an Intel executive, say, but never an ordinary book like this.

Murphys Moores Law can apply equally well to a fast-moving, twentieth-century electronic medium like sound recording, as to a much older and more stable art like typography. In 1965, when even users manuals were still set in hot-metal type, producer George Martin and his audio engineers at EMI Studios on Abbey Road were eagerly embracing any and every new electronic device for recording the most popular band in the world, the Beatles; as was their trans-Atlantic rival in recording mastery, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.