Asklemmy

Something weird with guitarist is that we want that bad fuzzy sound from low tech analog amplifiers. With today tech we can have high fidelity amps (even analog). However, we want some distorsion/grain ideally the same as on violonistes have an obsession for century old varnish, electric guitarists are obsessed by vintage electronic. To be fair all the issues from early electronic are what made the electric guitar sound cool.

Then another factor is that for a while, digital effect were pretty bad, and still have that reputation, they also look less cool than analog

Analog connections are very universal. You don't need to deal with handshakes between devices, sample rate differences, clock systems etc. because each device receives and outputs analog signal via mostly the same 1/4" jacks and plugs.

While a digital signal chain would have overall latency benefits and fewer A/D/A conversions, it just doesn't matter that much with modern hardware.

Generally these days the run from stage to mixing desk is digital.

What you want to avoid is too many conversions. At some point the signal is analog, like strings or vocal cords vibrating. Ideally you'll only have one conversion to digital- say, the stage box you plug the mic into. From there it's digital through foldback desk, front of house mixing desk, effects, recording, etc all the way up to and including amplifiers, which will convert back to high power analog to drive the speakers.

Having a bunch of other conversions in there - eg guitar pickup to digital, back to analog for the amplifier stage, digital to the desk, analog out to digital amps, all introduce latency and quality degradation.

You already said the right answer. It's the latency.

Sound is analogue. Both when it's created and when it's played back. Transforming it to digital takes time. It makes sense to avoid that transformation in the signal chain for as long as possible before the "interface", to avoid doing it more than once.

When seeing a band play live, you might be able to appreciate the fact that they're technically forming one electric analogue circuit..

Also appreciate that vinyl records and tape can be made without ever being digital. I think it's pretty wild that we can even take a sound, put it on a record and play it back, thereby transferring data without it being digital. The whole process is much more interesting.

Imagine someone hitting a drum so hard that it makes a microphone membrane move, which makes an electric current, that pushes a needle into a record making a dent deep enough that your record player can feel it on the needle and create an electric signal to move your speaker membrane.

It might take some time to do, but when your ears hear that soundwave its basically the same motion that the drummer did originally. It has not been converted to a digital representation of what happened and back. It is the physical "shadow" of what actually happened.

I think it's kinda cool. I make digital music myself and while it has other cool stuff, I'll never bad mouth analogue.