Steve Albini - just watched the vid. WTF??

[logancircle]

Sorry, shouldn't even joke like that.

[jca83]

Sorry, shouldn't even joke like that.

that's right you shouldn't. i was about to hit you with a reel of 2".

[kcrusher]

This is assuming that some other method of digital storage is invented and accepted that is incompatible with older versions, thus eventually rendering them unusable (for instance - sound designer II files will not necessarily be readable in the future..).

???

The format of SDII files is well-documented, on paper, and there's no reason a (sophomore) programmer of the future wouldn't be able to write a program on whatever the current OS is to read them.

Leigh

I was just speaking hypothetically - not that I was really saying that it's really going to happen. Sorry if I didn't make that clear - it was merely conjecture.

[OM15.2]

I respect Steve Albini but yeah I think he's spreading a misnomer on this point.

Others have accurately pointed out in this thread that digital is a method, not a medium. Really the 0101011110's potentially have a much greater chance of being universally readable into the future and therefore copiable and therefore 'permanate'

Tape is beautiful and probably is the best medium for recording. That's what steve does and it rocks, but as for future storeage I think hes wrong.

[JohnDavisNYC]

digital copies don't always sound the same, though. i had a long discussion with a very experienced and respected mastering engineer about digital media and copies and sound quality, and he said that two CDs that have identical 'data' can sound different. and while computer engineers and programmers say that's not possible, it is, because some people can hear it... he explained it in a way that related not to the data, but the way in which it was written... something about how data can be identical in content, but very different in the order in which that data is written and that that affects the playback or something. i'm butchering it. i don't know... i haven't heard it first hand, but some one who has better ears than all of us has, so i trust him.

anyway, digital copies are not always perfect. i think albini is completely right about analog being a better long term storage medium. what happens if your hard drive gets wet? gone. dropped? gone. in 5 years it's going to be very very difficult to find a computer with a SCSI port, let alone 25 years. anyone got a 8inch floppy drive so i can get my Fairlight series II samples off of my disk library?

i'm all digital (well, 90% digital) but i must say, steve is right. if i had the budget, i would make 2" tape backups of all my digital music sessions and then erase the hard drives. digital is transitory in nature. the tape would sound better, anyway. another point that i liked about longevity of analog, is that there remains the possiblity of superior playback and audio extraction in the future, better reproduction than is possible now. those 16bit 44.1 files will always be 16 bit 44.1.... there is no addition resolution possible without interpolating new valuesm which is like the audio version of a gaussian blur in photoshop.

i'm blabbering.

john

oh, and the argument that there is documentation to write software to translate out of date formats.... same is true for analog. don't have a 3 track machine to play back those Kind of Blue sessions? make one. Sony has the specs. plenty of places will build custom headstacks, it's just expensive... but so is hiring a programmer to write a custom format translation program for you.

[HoneyBear]

I came to engineering from a programming background. I must say the digital platform (or protocol if you prefer) does have some serious problems. If you shelve an IDE drive for longer than a year and a half there is a chance that infomation will start dropping. This type of drive needs to be run from time to time in order to function properly. I have a feeling that some of the major studios have rooms of firewire drives as long-term backups for their clients. If these drives are not powered up or transfered for a couple of years there may be some law suits down the road.

Other problems include writing on CDs and DVDs with Sharpies (something I've seen alot). This will actually destroy the information over time (a long time but still - be careful).

The main problem with digital is that it doesn't degrade (sometimes an advantage) - it just disappears.

[@?,*???&?]

This is what he says in the video:

"i don't use digital recording, but not because i'm opposed to it. i don't use digital recording because it's inappropriate for the work that i do. i do permanent recording of records that are intended to last forever. they are the history of the band that i'm working with at the moment and it is vitally important to them. i owe it to them to have that record be available to them, at very least to them and, hopefully to the rest of the world, forever. the only realistic way to do that is by recording to analog tape. "

Am I missing something here? Is he REALLY implying that 'analog is forever' and digital isn't??

Ok, I understand that digital formats change and digital media does not have as long a shelf life, but you can make perfect copies of digital media and it's impervious to magnetic fields (at least cd's and dvd's are..), but if that analog tape starts to shed or is affected by a magnetic field - it's GONE! Not to mention you can't make copies without degradation.

Comments?

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Digital recording is ultimately irresponsible, but considering I sign off of all responsibility with regard to the permanency of the recording, I could give a shit what format it is recorded on. I've had this discussion with many big name guys and we all come to the same conclusion. Charge maximum amounts of money to do the work and do it in whatever format is required to get the best result. If the band can't tell the difference sonically, why should we care?

[@?,*???&?]

But I do think that it is a bit overkill to record to tape for a project that likely will only ever be traded between friends in the mp3 format...lol

[jack's perforated eardrum]

Besides, Walter Sear says it all sounds like shit anyway, so who cares?

[imaginary playmate]

I await the day when we can accept the albiet anti-preservationist argument that not every every piece of dreck ever recorded needs to be cataloged, - at least not in perpetuity.

But if save you must, then I recommend an on-air broadcast of your works immediately following every recording session. The resulting radio waves will continue to travel out over the universe long after the human race has expired. Should a future alien or time traveler want to listen to your band's (or your client's) demo, a well placed receiver in the Subaru Depth Field (13 billion light years away) should do the trick of reproducing the acquired content for playback on whatever the preferred playback medium is at the time. If by chance, humans do still exist, our extra-terrestrial audio preservationists can simply broadcast the radio waves back to us.

For a small multi-billion dollar fee I will happily provide this service for any currently interested parties.

Alternately, if you embed your audio into digitized porno jpegs and post those files online, I guarantee you that those files will last forever.


Archive problem solved. Anything else I can help you guys with?

[@?,*???&?]

Fantastic post!

[3db@1K]

I have DATs from two monthes ago that are f#@ked and wont play..I have had Hard drives that won't spin... drives that had data on them yesterday and are not here today.... just had a dvd sent in today with a protools session I should be mixing now....but it wont work on any laptop or desktop at the studio ... wont even come up on the desktop ( that is 4 computers new macs )other dvd's work fine... I have had AIT backup tapes not work before...I have had 3348 tapes that have so many digital eras on them you can not here the tracks that seem to be there... I will stop the list I assure you it goes on ....

I do not even get upset anymore.... If people insist on working like this...fine... they are not my recordings....i perfer they would not... to each their own...

On the other hand much like Steve said in his MTSU video ..I have played reels of analog tape from many years ago on many different formats(2, 4, 8, 16, 24 track) ,..really old ones I bake for a few hours they play fine... I have even had reels come in that have been in an old RV for years that unfortunely had a leak and they all had water damage... box destroyed and track sheets water marked and smeared... baked them spooled them to new unwrapped flanges and they played just fine a sounded great....


Just my experience you can draw your own conclusions... I know how I feel...

enjoy the disposable or make a recording for ever.....

[kcrusher]

digital copies don't always sound the same, though. i had a long discussion with a very experienced and respected mastering engineer about digital media and copies and sound quality, and he said that two CDs that have identical 'data' can sound different. and while computer engineers and programmers say that's not possible, it is, because some people can hear it... he explained it in a way that related not to the data, but the way in which it was written... something about how data can be identical in content, but very different in the order in which that data is written and that that affects the playback or something. i'm butchering it. i don't know... i haven't heard it first hand, but some one who has better ears than all of us has, so i trust him.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but that info is completely, utterly wrong. Digital copies are always exact (assuming you're not doing any kind of intentional alteration or that the medium for copying does not introduce errors). The difference that you or your friend are hearing is due to convertor quality, not with any difference in the actual digital information itself.

anyway, digital copies are not always perfect. i think albini is completely right about analog being a better long term storage medium. what happens if your hard drive gets wet? gone. dropped? gone. in 5 years it's going to be very very difficult to find a computer with a SCSI port, let alone 25 years. anyone got a 8inch floppy drive so i can get my Fairlight series II samples off of my disk library?

i'm all digital (well, 90% digital) but i must say, steve is right. if i had the budget, i would make 2" tape backups of all my digital music sessions and then erase the hard drives. digital is transitory in nature. the tape would sound better, anyway. another point that i liked about longevity of analog, is that there remains the possiblity of superior playback and audio extraction in the future, better reproduction than is possible now. those 16bit 44.1 files will always be 16 bit 44.1.... there is no addition resolution possible without interpolating new valuesm which is like the audio version of a gaussian blur in photoshop.

I think you missed the point - with digital you can make exact copies, while analog has degradation every time you make a copy. Your hard drive gets wet - sure, it's gone, but you have backups, right? How do you make a backup of an original analog tape? put it thru a mixer? that introduces noise and generation loss. Get your analog tape anywhere near a magnetic field and *poof*, it's just as gone as your wet hard drive AND the backup is second generation, meaning it's not going to sound as good.

The other thing is that you can always transfer your data to a new format when one is introduced, so it's going to be easier to remain 'compatible' compared to analog, which can only play back on it's original device. Imagine 200 years in the future - that original tape will be long gone, while my digital copy has been transferred from cd to dvd to solid state chips to holographic storage to whatever they come up with next. every copy is exactly the same.

oh, and the argument that there is documentation to write software to translate out of date formats.... same is true for analog. don't have a 3 track machine to play back those Kind of Blue sessions? make one. Sony has the specs. plenty of places will build custom headstacks, it's just expensive... but so is hiring a programmer to write a custom format translation program for you.

That's a big assumption - the assumption being that the manufacturing devices to make those headstacks and all the other components will still be available. It's MUCH more difficult to create a hardware device than it is for a programmer to create software, at least when related to what we're talking about here.

[3db@1K]

How do you make a backup of an original analog tape?





follow me here you put outputs of your tape machine A to the input of another tape machine B....put your master on machine A and a new reel on machine B and play machine A as you record on machine B... this becomes your safety a generation down but it will always play....

[bigtoe]

Not to put too fine a point on this, but that info is completely, utterly wrong. Digital copies are always exact (assuming you're not doing any kind of intentional alteration or that the medium for copying does not introduce errors). The difference that you or your friend are hearing is due to convertor quality, not with any difference in the actual digital information itself.

some egghead (an endearing term) correct me if i'm wrong...i've always been under the impression that, in general, this is a myth or a misconception. digital has errors. you can't get rid of them. digital tries to self-correct by guessing what was intended...but it doesn't always hit the mark...the more copies yo make...the further away you get from what was there to begin with...kind of like mcdonald's food...you have to wonder what "strawberry" is going to taste like in a generation or two... oh and not only that...once it's far enough away from what it originally was ... it won't even play...not just degraded...but just a 'no go.'

if you've ever made back-up copies of 1/4" or 1/2 inch tape - you'll know that the degradation is negligible at best...in 92 you'd roll a couple edit reels off the master tape and use them without worry...

Mike

edit - whoa i am a terrible speller...
edit 2 strawberry