Of course they did.  The had engineers and producers who knew how to use them.

Can't argue with that yoropal!

yorolpal
Of course they did.  The had engineers and producers who knew how to use them.

Bingo.

Donald Fagan's "The Nightfly," one of the first all-digital recordings (1982), done on a 3M in 16-bits, is still considered one of the best sounding albums of all time and is used as a reference by audio engineers. Just sayin'.

And it does sound great.

It's still one of my four reference albums to check out new monitors. I miss Roger Nichols.

I always like the sound of nightfly. What do they mean by all digital- no outboard gear whatsoever? All leads plugged into a souncard?

I'm always surprised at how often I Google something and the result I'm looking for was posted on this very forum by one of our own. Here's Bitflipper with some very nice Nightfly information from 2011:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...tflyquot-m2334122.aspx

backwoods
I always like the sound of nightfly. What do they mean by all digital- no outboard gear whatsoever? All leads plugged into a souncard?

I doubt anyone is being that literal when they say all digital.  In the case of this article they were referring to the point once the files were recorded without the aid of outboard analog gear or processors. Other than softsynths and synths that have digital output), any recorded music has to be converted from analog to digital at some point.  maybe one day when we all have dataports built into our brains we will be able to sing digitally.

As someone said earlier, a very interesting thread. We still use an analog board at our church for recording (an Allen and Health GL2200). The setup has two effects patched in, reverb and chorus and patched back into the main mix. It then goes to a stereo compressor, followed by a 31-band EQ and then onto a CD. Everything is recorded in real time.
 
What I have found is that the analog recording allows you to get away with stuff that you simply can't get away with in the digital realm. Gain is the main culprit here, as when I go over 0 db on a digital board it is clip city, but that is not a problem with the analog board. The other thing is that everything is recorded at once and exported to a 2-track 'stereo' CD. So the process is quicker (as someone alluded to earlier), but there are no do-overs. Forget to unmute a channel on a guitar solo and your stuck - you can't get it back. You also seem to be 'chasing' stuff at times. Digital onto multiple tracks and you can fix to your hearts content, but it will take considerably longer. Multiple tracks on tape and you loose quality each time you redo it, no loss when in digital.
 
In the end I think each has its positives and negatives. The key is to find what works for you. And as Yorolpal so rightly pointed out, in the end its not the gear but the gear-head and the talent that really matters. I tell my guys we have better equipment than the Beatles had when they recorded Abbey Road. If you don't get a good mix, don't blame the equipment!