steve wrote:

DaveiZDave wrote:RADAR records directly to a Hard Drive. This is the equivelant of a Roll of 2" Tape with the following noteable differences:

...

- Information on a Hard Drive remains intact exactly as recorded except in the event of a drive failure whereas Tape degenerates every time you play it. Slight abrasion of the oxide passing over the tape head removes particles from the polyester backing with each pass. There is no way to avoid this. Exercising the tape as it simply travels the tape path between reels stresses the physical bonding of the chemical formulation to the backing and weakens it to a point where it can eventually result in audio dropouts resulting from excessive loss of magnetic material. Repeated use of any magnetic recording tape causes the medium to degenerate first in it's ability to reproduce "highs" which results in recordings sounding duller than originally captured. This phenomenon also occurrs when tapes are stored for many years while the chemical material slowly breaks down. Further to this is the fact that there are many different tape formulations and each one will result in different audio characteristics so there is less consistency than when using a digital recording medium.


I hope you find this information helpful.

Hooey.

I find this "information" to be completely contrary to my direct experience. I have never had a reel of tape deteriorate noticeably during use, and I have been able to play, record on and make money from the release of master tapes recorded more than 20 or more years ago. I have never seen a recording lost because the multitrack tape "failed" in some way: Never. Not once. Over a thousand records under my belt, and I have never had a problem with the multitrack tape that caused a loss of a session or recording.

The only significant storage problem with analog tape is binder stickiness, which can be remedied easily and repeatedly, and doesn't entail a loss of audio.

The "problems" you describe are theoretical issues with no basis in practical reality -- like suggesting that we all walk in "giant steps," in case an earthquake should open cracks in the earth in our path. We could step over them then you see. Hello?

In contrast, I have direct experience of digital data loss ruining a recording and losing accumulated work, and I have witnessed digital formats disappear outright within the span of a couple of years, making their projects irretrievable orphans.

Look forward with me -- fifteen years even: What does one do with an obsolete hard drive full of data from an expired platform, which cannot be easily addressed by any "modern" machine?

Even today, what would I do if someone came into my studio with a 9-track tape of Soundstream data? Or a Betamax with DBX Digital audio? Or a 3M Digital master, or an X850 tape, or Prodigi or -- or -- or...

In contrast, I can play back any magnetically recorded analog audio from the last 70 years or so with minimal effort, and the recording I just made today can be pulled off the shelf in 20 years, strung-up on a machine and played with no fear or fuss.

I haven't entered into this until now because I don't want this enlightening discussion to degenerate into tit-for-tat, but you have suggested in your post that the RADAR is just like a tape machine, only better because it doesn't have a tape. Even granting your point that the RADAR sounds "better" than analog (a Chrismas Day-level generosity for the sake of argument on my part), then its principle weakness is the weakness of all digital systems: There is no master tape.

Tell the recording school crowd and other neophytes whatever you think they'll swallow, but for those of us up here at the front of the boat, the view (both fore and aft) is pretty clear: Digital formats are not permanent, digital systems (and the computers and operating systems and file formats and data storage devices and ... and... and...) are all transitory and tend to be incompatable over time, and digital storage media do not have the long-term proven reliability of analog ones.

Unless you use paper punch cards, because those should last as long as an analog master, barring termites.

Everybody says RADAR sounds great. I'm sure it does. Congratulations. You should use that as your pitch. It's probably better than Protools. Use that. You have managed to keep the platform afloat in one form or another for ten (!) years. Congratulations. In digital years (like dog years) that's almost forever.

But please don't pretend that there are archival or reliability drawbacks to the use of analog tape, or that digital storage and platform stability can be depended-on, because there are decades of evidence that make you look foolish.

best,
-steve albini

Mister_Tog wrote:So... did the recent fires at Universal change anyone's opinion in the old tape versus digital archive discussion?

Mister_Tog wrote:After reading about this, I think having multiple copies of masters in *.WAV in different locations may be the best bet.

Isabelle Gall wrote:

Mister_Tog wrote:So... did the recent fires at Universal change anyone's opinion in the old tape versus digital archive discussion?

No.

Mister_Tog wrote:After reading about this, I think having multiple copies of masters in *.WAV in different locations may be the best bet.

I don't think you can store a physical object, such as an audio master, on a *.WAV. I'm pretty sure that the computer would catch fire under the circumstances in a similar manner to any other playback device. Unless your argument is that something can't catch fire if it 'exists' entirely in the digital ether? If so, isn't a shame that pretty much everything else other than your *.WAV file should be so unfortunate as to not escape the dancing flames?

I use RADAR daily for various reasons, but hope to buy a new reel to reel soon to master onto and store finished mixes/masters.

Mister_Tog wrote:You do have a point, but you can easily make several exact copies of whatever it is you are storing the files on and store them in multiple locations with minimal climate control concerns. With tape, you can only have one truly first generation copy.

Isabelle Gall wrote:

Mister_Tog wrote:So... did the recent fires at Universal change anyone's opinion in the old tape versus digital archive discussion?

No.

Mister_Tog wrote:After reading about this, I think having multiple copies of masters in *.WAV in different locations may be the best bet.

I don't think you can store a physical object, such as an audio master, on a *.WAV. I'm pretty sure that the computer would catch fire under the circumstances in a similar manner to any other playback device. Unless your argument is that something can't catch fire if it 'exists' entirely in the digital ether? If so, isn't a shame that pretty much everything else other than your *.WAV file should be so unfortunate as to not escape the dancing flames?

I use RADAR daily for various reasons, but hope to buy a new reel to reel soon to master onto and store finished mixes/masters.