What's the Verdict on Using Laptops for Remote Multitrack Recording?

[Paul[_13_]]

I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
remote
recording live bands.

But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
certain reasons.

Perhaps times have changed?

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/27/2011 3:47 PM, Paul wrote:
>
> I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
> remote recording live bands.
>
> But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
> certain reasons.

There's a lot of wisdom to that advice. It's not about the
power of the computer - that part is easy these days, but
rather than laptops are what they are and there's not much
room for upgrading or swapping parts if something doesn't
work right. If you'll be recording bands, you're probably
interested in multitrack recording, which means a
multi-channel audio interface for the computer, which, at
this point, means Firewire or USB2.

Most of the hardware you can get for that is limited to 8
mic/line input channels unless you get a mixer along with it
(you may or may not have one now) like a Mackie 1640i or
PreSonus StudioLive. Some 8-channel I/O boxes can be
cascaded with others from the same manufacturer in the same
family or can be expanded with something like an 8-channel
mic preamp with ADAT optical output.

Some of the things you're likely to run into are
incompatibility between the computer's Firewire port and the
audio device, incompatibility between the hardware's driver
and the operating system, and general (and not necessarily
obvious) tweaking of the computer to eliminate crackles,
stutters, and crashes. There are no guarantees that
everything will work smoothly the first time, and/or every
time. Whatever you buy, the manufacturers, guaranteed, have
never tested exactly that setup. And you're the system
engineer and troubleshooter.

These things can, and do work, but you need to be sure that
you have the reliability, which means doing a lot of testing
before you start doing work for anything but your own
amusement. At least make sure that your new computer has an
ExpressCard slot so you can get an external Firewire
adapter, and that it has enough USB ports so you can connect
an external disk drive if you desire. It's not usually
necessary nowadays - you can probably record successfully on
the computer's internal drive, but if you'll be working on
your recordings on a different computer, just being able to
move the drive from one to the other is handy. Don't bother
to look for a computer with a Firewire port. Better to not
have a bad one to get in the way.

Understand, too, that computers "progress" much faster than
audio hardware. Lots of stuff that works under Windows XP or
Mac OS 10.5 or so doesn't work at all, or as well, under the
most recent versions of those operating systems. Again, you
can't be sure until you try.

If you're clever, you might consider, rather than getting a
laptop, assembling standard components (unless you're
looking at a Mac) in a rack mount case. You can make a rig
that's only a little less portable than a laptop, use as big
a monitor as you want with it, and exchange parts easily if
you have, say, a Firewire incompatibility or need to add
more memory, or a larger (or second) internal disk drive.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Paul > wrote:
>
> I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
>remote
>recording live bands.
>
> But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
>certain reasons.
>
> Perhaps times have changed?

What are the consequences of failure?

If there is a dropout, will you:

1. Have to use a performance from a different day?

2. Not notice it?

3. Lose the contract?

4. Lose the contract and pay a substantial fee?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Wed 2011-Jul-27 16:44, Scott Dorsey writes:
>> I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
>>remote
>>recording live bands.

>> But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
>>certain reasons.
>> Perhaps times have changed?

> What are the consequences of failure?

A question he needs to answer. IF other than

> If there is a dropout, will you:

> 1. Have to use a performance from a different day?

> 2. Not notice it?

IF #1 then use your laptop. WIth #2, good luck with that!

> 3. Lose the contract?

IF that one, then go with something more reliable, a
dedicated solution.

> 4. Lose the contract and pay a substantial fee?

if #4 use a stand alone system and a backup!


Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Meindert Sprang]

"Soundhaspriority" > wrote in message
...
> They can work flawless, flakily, or not at all.
>
> Google for user experience. Failing that, the only way to ensure
reliability
> is to try the particular setup, and pound on it for hours.

I don't think that would be a good idea. People tend to make a lot of noise
about things that *don't* work and much less about things that do work.

Meindert

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/28/2011 5:42 PM, Soundhaspriority wrote:
> They can work flawless, flakily, or not at all.
> Google for user experience.

And there you'll find all of the above. It's really of no
use unless there's a unique, common problem with a
particular computer, and that's more likely to be something
fundamental, not a quirk with audio software or hardware.

> the only way to
> ensure reliability is to try the particular setup, and pound
> on it for hours.

Yup.

> I have never actually lost a take. But experienced concert
> recordists, such as John Atkinson with his Stereophile
> label, record with multiple redundancy spread across
> different computers.

Experienced concert recorders such as Mike Rivers leave the
computers at home and take dedicated recorders. Not only is
it less to carry and less trouble to set up, but there's
also less you can do to screw them up.

> Unless you are in the big money league, laptop recording
> could work very well for you -- provided you pound the hell
> out of the setup.

Even if you're in the big money league, laptop recording can
work very well. The SADiE LRX2 is an excellent USB-based
recording interface, but it costs quite a bit more than your
MOTU or M-Audio or Mackie box. It also runs with dedicated
software, which goes a long way toward making a robust system.

> Latency issues are statistical in nature.

Latency is usually of no concern for remote recording unless
you're trying to simultaneously do live sound reinforcement
with the same equipment.

> Once "flawless" is obtained,
> there is no further gain in "quality" with a fast machine.

That's important to recognize. But many people insist on
doing everything on a single computer, either for perceived
budget issues, space issues, or the occasional actual need
for mixing in the field. For mixing, particularly when using
processing plug-ins, a more powerful computer becomes important.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Paul[_13_]]

On Jul 27, 7:43*pm,
(Richard Webb) wrote:
> On Wed 2011-Jul-27 16:44, Scott Dorsey writes:
>
> >> * * I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
> >>remote
> >>recording live bands.
> >> * * But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
> >>certain reasons.
> >> * * Perhaps times have changed?
> > What are the consequences of failure?
>
> A question he needs to answer. *IF other than
>
> > If there is a dropout, will you:
> > 1. Have to use a performance from a different day?
> > 2. Not notice it?
>
> IF #1 then use your laptop. *WIth #2, *good luck with that!
>
> > 3. Lose the contract?
>
> IF that one, then go with something more reliable, a
> dedicated solution.
>
> > 4. Lose the contract and pay a substantial fee?
>
> if #4 use a stand alone system and a backup!
>
> Regards,
> * * * * * *Richard

Not for contract, but wouldn't mind making a few bucks
recording some local bands. Rigorous testing sounds like
a good idea.....

[Paul[_13_]]

On Jul 27, 1:24*pm, Mike Rivers > wrote:
> On 7/27/2011 3:47 PM, Paul wrote:
>
>
>
> > * * * I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
> > remote recording live bands.
>
> > * * * But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
> > certain reasons.
>
> There's a lot of wisdom to that advice. It's not about the
> power of the computer - that part is easy these days, but
> rather than laptops are what they are and there's not much
> room for upgrading or swapping parts if something doesn't
> work right. If you'll be recording bands, you're probably
> interested in multitrack recording, which means a
> multi-channel audio interface for the computer, which, at
> this point, means Firewire or USB2.
>
> Most of the hardware you can get for that is limited to 8
> mic/line input channels unless you get a mixer along with it
> (you may or may not have one now) like a Mackie 1640i or
> PreSonus StudioLive. Some 8-channel I/O boxes can be
> cascaded with others from the same manufacturer in the same
> family or can be expanded with something like an 8-channel
> mic preamp with ADAT optical output.
>
> Some of the things you're likely to run into are
> incompatibility between the computer's Firewire port and the
> audio device, incompatibility between the hardware's driver
> and the operating system, and general (and not necessarily
> obvious) tweaking of the computer to eliminate crackles,
> stutters, and crashes. There are no guarantees that
> everything will work smoothly the first time, and/or every
> time. Whatever you buy, the manufacturers, guaranteed, have
> never tested exactly that setup. And you're the system
> engineer and troubleshooter.
>
> These things can, and do work, but you need to be sure that
> you have the reliability, which means doing a lot of testing
> before you start doing work for anything but your own
> amusement. At least make sure that your new computer has an
> ExpressCard slot so you can get an external Firewire
> adapter, and that it has enough USB ports so you can connect
> an external disk drive if you desire. It's not usually
> necessary nowadays - you can probably record successfully on
> the computer's internal drive, but if you'll be working on
> your recordings on a different computer, just being able to
> move the drive from one to the other is handy. Don't bother
> to look for a computer with a Firewire port. Better to not
> have a bad one to get in the way.
>
> Understand, too, that computers "progress" much faster than
> audio hardware. Lots of stuff that works under Windows XP or
> Mac OS 10.5 or so doesn't work at all, or as well, under the
> most recent versions of those operating systems. Again, you
> can't be sure until you try.
>
> If you're clever, you might consider, rather than getting a
> laptop, assembling standard components (unless you're
> looking at a Mac) in a rack mount case. You can make a rig
> that's only a little less portable than a laptop, use as big
> a monitor as you want with it, and exchange parts easily if
> you have, say, a Firewire incompatibility or need to add
> more memory, or a larger (or second) internal disk drive.
>

Thanks for your response. I have the Tascam US-1641, which
boasts 14 simultaneous inputs (16 if you include optical input), which
should be enough for my needs. It uses USB 2.0.

You mention "general tweaking of the computer to eliminate crackles,
stutters, and crashes". Well, with Cubase LE4, I have digital
skipping with my desktop computer as well! I'm gonna have to
do some research, to see if it's a tweaking issue, because supposedly
a Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 2.5Gigs RAM should be good enough.

[Scott Dorsey]

Paul > wrote:
>
> Not for contract, but wouldn't mind making a few bucks
>recording some local bands. Rigorous testing sounds like
>a good idea.....

The recorder itself is cheap. There's no reason not to use a standalone and
a backup.

The converters are even cheap these days.

It's the preamps, splitters, cables, and microphones that are so expensive.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Eric Toline[_2_]]

On Jul 27, 3:47*pm, Paul > wrote:
> * * *I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
> remote
> recording live bands.
>
> * * *But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
> certain reasons.
>
> * * *Perhaps times have changed?

Don't know if this will help but look up "boom recorder" by vosgames.


Eric

[Paul[_13_]]

On Jul 29, 3:46*am, Mike Rivers > wrote:
> On 7/28/2011 5:42 PM, Soundhaspriority wrote:
>
> > They can work flawless, flakily, or not at all.
> > Google for user experience.
>
> And there you'll find all of the above. *It's really of no
> use unless there's a unique, common problem with a
> particular computer, and that's more likely to be something
> fundamental, not a quirk with audio software or hardware.
>
> *> the only way to
>
> > ensure reliability is to try the particular setup, and pound
> > on it for hours.
>
> Yup.
>
> > I have never actually lost a take. But experienced concert
> > recordists, such as John Atkinson with his Stereophile
> > label, record with multiple redundancy spread across
> > different computers.
>
> Experienced concert recorders such as Mike Rivers leave the
> computers at home and take dedicated recorders. Not only is
> it less to carry and less trouble to set up, but there's
> also less you can do to screw them up.
>
> > Unless you are in the big money league, laptop recording
> > could work very well for you -- provided you pound the hell
> > out of the setup.
>
> Even if you're in the big money league, laptop recording can
> work very well. The SADiE LRX2 is an excellent USB-based
> recording interface, but it costs quite a bit more than your
> MOTU or M-Audio or Mackie box. It also runs with dedicated
> software, which goes a long way toward making a robust system.
>
> > Latency issues are statistical in nature.
>
> Latency is usually of no concern for remote recording unless
> you're trying to simultaneously do live sound reinforcement
> with the same equipment.
>
> > Once "flawless" is obtained,
> > there is no further gain in "quality" with a fast machine.
>
> That's important to recognize. But many people insist on
> doing everything on a single computer, either for perceived
> budget issues, space issues, or the occasional actual need
> for mixing in the field. For mixing, particularly when using
> processing plug-ins, a more powerful computer becomes important.
>

That Sadie product looks like the ultimate remote multi-track
laptop recorder. Too bad I'm poor, and only have the Tascam US-1641,
which has 14 simultaneous inputs (16 if you include optical input),
which
should be enough for my needs. It uses USB 2.0.

It looks like I should just get the most powerful laptop
I can afford, try Reaper with the US-1641, and test the
hell out of everything....

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/29/2011 10:32 AM, Paul wrote:

> You mention "general tweaking of the computer to eliminate crackles,
> stutters, and crashes". Well, with Cubase LE4, I have digital
> skipping with my desktop computer as well! I'm gonna have to
> do some research, to see if it's a tweaking issue, because supposedly
> a Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 2.5Gigs RAM should be good enough.

This kind of tweaking mostly means finding things running on
your computer that are constantly checking to see if they
have anything to do, and turn them off. Turn off your
networking. That will get rid of one constant interrupter
and will make you feel more comfortable about turning off
your virus scanner, another continuous interrupter. Screen
saver, too.

Look up DPC Checker.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Webb > wrote:
>
>But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>board is, quick dirty and cheap.

Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
the insert cabling. You still need to add some ambient mikes and some
spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding. And you don't get good
monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet room
somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2011-Jul-29 10:39, Scott Dorsey writes:

>> Not for contract, but wouldn't mind making a few bucks
>>recording some local bands. Rigorous testing sounds like
>>a good idea.....

> The recorder itself is cheap. There's no reason not to use a
> standalone and a backup.

RIght, and that backup can be your laptop, or the laptop
with a standalone if money's tight, since you might already
have the laptop.

> The converters are even cheap these days.

INdeed this is true.

> It's the preamps, splitters, cables, and microphones that are so
> expensive. --scott

THIs is true. IF the truck rolls running a backup recorder
24 tracks worth is easy enough done, my 24 track feed is
already designed for it.

But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
board is, quick dirty and cheap.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[[email protected]]

LEs writes:
>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the
>>cost of the insert cabling.
>It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>1/4"TRS would be even better.
YEs it does, and I"ve done that, when I was running foh as
well.

<snip>
>> And you don't get good
>> monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet
>>room somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...

>True. What I've been able to do in the past was
>arrange short soundchecks to verify that what's
>there is useable. it's just a compromise inherent that
>that process, though. There's always EQ in
>post - or even redubs.

WHen those are available. AS I said elsewhere, there are
lots of folks doing that, fairly low cost too. I like to
work with some separation though, which means even if I
don't take the truck I want my long snakes and a split. A
couple of nearfield monitors and a power amp will do for
monitoring along with the phones, I can even use those short
sound checks better.

I've done it without, but then I was working sound regularly
for the band I was recording, same system, and sometimes
even same rooms, just different occasion.

GOing in cold to the performers and the venue both though I
like my options open with the split, snakes and some
isolation, as much as I can get <g>.



Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Richard > wrote:
>>
>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>
> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
> the insert cabling.

It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
1/4"TRS would be even better.

I'd be surprised if more than 8 channels was ever needed. If it is,
then fewer spots and ambients.

> You still need to add some ambient mikes and some
> spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding.

Right - more on the snake means less of those.

> And you don't get good
> monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet room
> somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...
> --scott
>

True. What I've been able to do in the past was
arrange short soundchecks to verify that what's
there is useable. it's just a compromise inherent that
that process, though. There's always EQ in
post - or even redubs.

--
Les Cargill

[Frank Stearns]

Les Cargill > writes:

>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Richard > wrote:
>>>
>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>>
>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
>> the insert cabling.

>It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>1/4"TRS would be even better.

Er, well, not quite, if we're talking getting the signal from *inserts* (single jack
with unbalanced signal flow-through from T to S), you MUST have TRS on the FOH
console side -- otherwise, with TS, you short their signal path to ground at the
insert jack. Not sure they'd be overly happy with that.

Now, if you're talking direct outs, you're probably okay with TS-TS -- assuming the
console Dir outs are buffered. And, ideally, the D.O.s are pre fader, pre eq. Good
luck with all that. (Wait till you ask them to go inside and cut the trace or solder
the jumper that gets the D.O. to pre-everything. Ha!)

Ideally, if you're using the insert jack, put a little jumper between the T and S
lugs on your plugs that go to the insert points; TS on your recorder end is fine.

With that little "Y" right in the plug, there's an immediate signal flow-through at
the insert jack; makes the PA guys a little more secure with you plugging stuff into
their system. Unbalanced, yes, so keep the jumpers very short to your system. If you
induce hum or RF into their system with this loop, you can bet your plugs will be
flying out of their console at near light speed.

All this assumes high levels of trust.... I have established this with a few PA
companies in town on those rare occasions when I'm taking additional channels not
covered by the splitter, but it took a while and some dress rehearsals to convince
them that yes, my system was polite and well-mannered when talking to theirs...

If you own both the FOH and the recorder, you're ahead of the game, but you still
want to keep it clean and not shoot yourself in the foot.

Good luck with it,

Frank
Mobile Audio
--

[[email protected]]

On 2011-07-29 said:
<snip>
>>It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>>1/4"TRS would be even better.
>Er, well, not quite, if we're talking getting the signal from
>*inserts* (single jack
>with unbalanced signal flow-through from T to S), you MUST have TRS
>on the FOH console side -- otherwise, with TS, you short their
>signal path to ground at the
>insert jack. Not sure they'd be overly happy with that.
>Now, if you're talking direct outs, you're probably okay with TS-TS
>-- assuming the
>console Dir outs are buffered. And, ideally, the D.O.s are pre
>fader, pre eq. Good
>luck with all that. (Wait till you ask them to go inside and cut
>the trace or solder
>the jumper that gets the D.O. to pre-everything. Ha!)

INdeed, and a lot of these bargain basement consoles don't
even offer direct outs.

>Ideally, if you're using the insert jack, put a little jumper
>between the T and S
>lugs on your plugs that go to the insert points; TS on your
>recorder end is fine.
>With that little "Y" right in the plug, there's an immediate signal
>flow-through at
>the insert jack; makes the PA guys a little more secure with you
>plugging stuff into
>their system. Unbalanced, yes, so keep the jumpers very short to
>your system. If you
>induce hum or RF into their system with this loop, you can bet your
>plugs will be
>flying out of their console at near light speed.
>All this assumes high levels of trust.... I have established this
>with a few PA
>companies in town on those rare occasions when I'm taking
>additional channels not
>covered by the splitter, but it took a while and some dress
>rehearsals to convince
>them that yes, my system was polite and well-mannered when talking
>to theirs...

Unless Paul is in the situation where he owns the pa as
well, or is known to the folks who do there's probably going
to be a bit of resistance to him just plugging in. I know
back in my sr days if I didn't know you I really didn't want
to take a chance.

wHat you choose to use as your recording machine is only
part of the equation here. Scott and Frank are giving you
the straight dope here Paul.





Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/29/2011 9:36 PM, Les Cargill wrote:

Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you
>> price the cost of
>> the insert cabling.

> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A
> 1/4"TS to
> 1/4"TRS would be even better.

Yes, customized on the TRS end with the tip and ring tied
together so it can go all the way into the Insert jack and
complete the signal path. Or were you thinking of a jumpred
TRS-TRS snke with a resistor built into the Insert end to
provide a balanced source, if you guessed the output
impedance of the Insert Output correctly?

But what do you do if you find that the Insert jack is
already occupied with a plug to a piece of outboard gear?
Then you'd need a "tap" cable. If I did more of this work,
I'd make up a patchbay with a row of normaled jacks for the
send and return, with a recording output for each channel,
maybe even with a switch for each recording output to select
whether it comes before or after the outboard processor.

Trouble with a rig like that, or any rig for that matter, if
you're not providing the PA yourself, is getting the
confidence of the house engineer that whatever you're
connecting to his system won't cause a problem for him. He's
the one the audience stares at if a channel goes down or
something starts humming. You're invisible.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/29/2011 10:21 PM, Frank Stearns wrote:

> Er, well, not quite, if we're talking getting the signal from *inserts* (single jack
> with unbalanced signal flow-through from T to S), you MUST have TRS on the FOH
> console side -- otherwise, with TS, you short their signal path to ground at the
> insert jack. Not sure they'd be overly happy with that.

There's the "half way in" trick where the tip of your TS
plug connects to the ring contact of the Insert jack without
breaking the normal connection. That used to work pretty
well when mixers used real Soundcraft panel mounted jacks,
but these new (mostly Chinese) board mounted jacks don't
grip the plug very snugly and you can get an intermittent
contact. I never liked that idea but it's common enough so
that it's entered netlore and you'll find it in just about
any mixer manual.

> Ideally, if you're using the insert jack, put a little jumper between the T and S
> lugs on your plugs that go to the insert points; TS on your recorder end is fine.

I think you mean tip and ring.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, > wrote:
>
>INdeed, and a lot of these bargain basement consoles don't
>even offer direct outs.

Postfader direct outs are the most insidious things ever.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2011-Jul-29 19:25, Scott Dorsey writes:
I wrote:

>>But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>board is, quick dirty and cheap.

> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost
> of the insert cabling. You still need to add some ambient mikes and
> some spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding. And you don't get
> good monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet
> room somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...
> --scott

YOu and I know this. Does he? I see a lot of lowballers
don't even do that these days, and they work for cheap.
MEmphis area has half a dozen I know of.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Frank Stearns]

Mike Rivers > writes:

>On 7/29/2011 10:21 PM, Frank Stearns wrote:

>> Er, well, not quite, if we're talking getting the signal from *inserts* (single jack
>> with unbalanced signal flow-through from T to S), you MUST have TRS on the FOH
>> console side -- otherwise, with TS, you short their signal path to ground at the
>> insert jack. Not sure they'd be overly happy with that.

>There's the "half way in" trick where the tip of your TS
>plug connects to the ring contact of the Insert jack without
>breaking the normal connection. That used to work pretty
>well when mixers used real Soundcraft panel mounted jacks,
>but these new (mostly Chinese) board mounted jacks don't
>grip the plug very snugly and you can get an intermittent
>contact. I never liked that idea but it's common enough so
>that it's entered netlore and you'll find it in just about
>any mixer manual.

I'm with you. The "half plug" thing always gave me the heebee jeebees. The first
time I ran into that several years back after the cheaper consoles starting showing
up all over, I said "no way" and made up some of those T-R "Y" on a TRS; with a TS
on the other end.

>> Ideally, if you're using the insert jack, put a little jumper between the T and S
>> lugs on your plugs that go to the insert points; TS on your recorder end is fine.

>I think you mean tip and ring.

D'oh!!! You are so right. T-R/Tip-Ring. Tip-ring. Must be past my bed time.

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[Frank Stearns]

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

>In article >, > wrote:
>>
>>INdeed, and a lot of these bargain basement consoles don't
>>even offer direct outs.

>Postfader direct outs are the most insidious things ever.

So very true. How on earth did that become something of a standard, let alone in
any given console line?

Frank
Mobile Audio
--

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Frank Stearns wrote:
> Les > writes:
>
>> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Richard > wrote:
>>>>
>>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>>>
>>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
>>> the insert cabling.
>
>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>> 1/4"TRS would be even better.
>
> Er, well, not quite, if we're talking getting the signal from *inserts* (single jack
> with unbalanced signal flow-through from T to S), you MUST have TRS on the FOH
> console side -- otherwise, with TS, you short their signal path to ground at the
> insert jack. Not sure they'd be overly happy with that.
>

You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
tip of the TRS insert jack.

Inserts are normally closed, anyway - you're "tee"ing that connection.

I've never run into gear where that would be a problem. We're
mainly talking Mackie bar band PA class gear - ultra low
budget ( and frequently for no charge ).

> Now, if you're talking direct outs, you're probably okay with TS-TS -- assuming the
> console Dir outs are buffered. And, ideally, the D.O.s are pre fader, pre eq. Good
> luck with all that. (Wait till you ask them to go inside and cut the trace or solder
> the jumper that gets the D.O. to pre-everything. Ha!)
>
> Ideally, if you're using the insert jack, put a little jumper between the T and S
> lugs on your plugs that go to the insert points; TS on your recorder end is fine.
>

Ideally.

> With that little "Y" right in the plug, there's an immediate signal flow-through at
> the insert jack; makes the PA guys a little more secure with you plugging stuff into
> their system. Unbalanced, yes, so keep the jumpers very short to your system. If you
> induce hum or RF into their system with this loop, you can bet your plugs will be
> flying out of their console at near light speed.
>
> All this assumes high levels of trust....

Absolutely.

> I have established this with a few PA
> companies in town on those rare occasions when I'm taking additional channels not
> covered by the splitter, but it took a while and some dress rehearsals to convince
> them that yes, my system was polite and well-mannered when talking to theirs...
>

If I was doing bigger systems, I'd have a real splitter. As it is,
these were normally bands I knew personally, and there was no need for
any formality.

> If you own both the FOH and the recorder, you're ahead of the game, but you still
> want to keep it clean and not shoot yourself in the foot.
>
> Good luck with it,
>
> Frank
> Mobile Audio

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 7/29/2011 9:36 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>
> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you
>>> price the cost of
>>> the insert cabling.
>
>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A
>> 1/4"TS to
>> 1/4"TRS would be even better.
>
> Yes, customized on the TRS end with the tip and ring tied together so it
> can go all the way into the Insert jack and complete the signal path. Or
> were you thinking of a jumpred TRS-TRS snke with a resistor built into
> the Insert end to provide a balanced source, if you guessed the output
> impedance of the Insert Output correctly?
>
> But what do you do if you find that the Insert jack is already occupied
> with a plug to a piece of outboard gear? Then you'd need a "tap" cable.

I would probably not use it, then. I have never seen an insert
actually used in anger. I'd figure something else out. I
usually carried a mic preamp or two, which could be used to
"wye" a critical mic into the recorder.

But hey, I once did an entire "album" using nothing but the
bassist's vocal mic as the only "overhead" because the snake wasn't
big enough to provide another. Of course there were four tom
mics... each more useless than the next.

Came out pretty good, really. I say "album" - I doubt any of them
ever went beyond the free CDR phase. Nowadays, they'd use a
camera or H4.

> If I did more of this work, I'd make up a patchbay with a row of
> normaled jacks for the send and return, with a recording output for each
> channel, maybe even with a switch for each recording output to select
> whether it comes before or after the outboard processor.
>
> Trouble with a rig like that, or any rig for that matter, if you're not
> providing the PA yourself, is getting the confidence of the house
> engineer that whatever you're connecting to his system won't cause a
> problem for him.

Yep. Wasn't a problem in the limited cases I actually did this, though.
I phoned the FOH guy ( if there even was one ) and we went over
the details.

> He's the one the audience stares at if a channel goes
> down or something starts humming. You're invisible.
>
>

I never caused an outage. If they didn't want to risk it,
I didn't do the thing. If the contacts had been sloppy on a
strip insert, I wouldn't have plugged there - used something else (
like an aux send ). You can tell when you're setting up.
Most of those insert jacks had never been used.

--
Les Cargill

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>
> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
> the insert cabling.

Make your own, not expensive at all.


>You still need to add some ambient mikes and some
> spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding.

Frankly I find overuse of audience noise annoying anyway. The only real
problems arise if there are guitar amps etc. that are not miked.


> And you don't get good
> monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet room
> somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...

If you have no control over what comes out of the mixer inserts, why do you
need quiet monitoring anyway?

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Les Cargill" > wrote in message
...
>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>>
>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
>> the insert cabling.
>
> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine.

NOT if it's a single TRS insert, plugging a T/S plug into a TRS insert is
going to ground the return side of an insert. If you have seperate
send/return sockets or direct outs instead you're OK.


>A 1/4"TS to 1/4"TRS would be even better.

Nope, better to short Tip and Ring at the mixer end IF you are using single
unbalanced TRS inserts like most small mixers.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Frank Stearns" > wrote in message
>>Postfader direct outs are the most insidious things ever.
>
> So very true. How on earth did that become something of a standard, let
> alone in
> any given console line?

Well IF you are ONLY using the mixer for recording, they are fine. Obviously
for use in a home studio set up, NOT for recording FOH multitrack.

Trevor.

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
>
>>You still need to add some ambient mikes and some
>> spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding.
>
>Frankly I find overuse of audience noise annoying anyway. The only real
>problems arise if there are guitar amps etc. that are not miked.

I personally like some room sound. Not audience noise, but actual reverb
from the room.

And in small club jobs, there is always a whole lot of backline that
isn't in the PA. Often when stuff IS in the PA, the mikes are not in
an optimal place for recording or they are really dreadful mikes.

>> And you don't get good
>> monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet room
>> somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...
>
>If you have no control over what comes out of the mixer inserts, why do you
>need quiet monitoring anyway?

Because you will find a hum, or P-popping, or a snare rattle, or something
else that isn't evident in the loud and bad PA sound in the hall but is
painfully evident in the recording.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/30/2011 1:12 AM, Les Cargill wrote:

> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the
> best.
> Inserts are normally closed, anyway - you're "tee"ing that
> connection.

> I've never run into gear where that would be a problem. We're
> mainly talking Mackie bar band PA class gear - ultra low
> budget ( and frequently for no charge ).

I have several Mackie mixers and only with the oldest and
newest ones are the "half in" connections even vaguely
secure. A plug in any 1/4" jack on the Onyx 1220 on my
workbench is only secure when it's all the way in. I think
the hole in those is slightly oversize and the shaft of the
plug wobbles around.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/29/2011 11:25 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> Postfader direct outs are the most insidious things ever.

I agree, but you'd be surprised at how many people complain
about pre-fader direct outputs. I guess they don't really
want to bother actually mixing the tracks that they capture
from a live show.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>>You still need to add some ambient mikes and some
>>> spot mikes that the PA guys won't be adding.
>>
>>Frankly I find overuse of audience noise annoying anyway. The only real
>>problems arise if there are guitar amps etc. that are not miked.
>
> I personally like some room sound. Not audience noise, but actual reverb
> from the room.

I might bother it was it possible to get room ambience without annoying
audience noise. And if the room ambience was actually worthwhile.


> And in small club jobs, there is always a whole lot of backline that
> isn't in the PA. Often when stuff IS in the PA, the mikes are not in
> an optimal place for recording or they are really dreadful mikes.

So put your mics there too.


>>If you have no control over what comes out of the mixer inserts, why do
>>you
>>need quiet monitoring anyway?
>
> Because you will find a hum, or P-popping, or a snare rattle, or something
> else that isn't evident in the loud and bad PA sound in the hall but is
> painfully evident in the recording.

And if someone else is running the FOH sound and mixer, what are YOU gong to
do about it anyway? Of course I would always run a spectrum analyser to make
sure I'm not introducing hum/noise etc. and warn the FOH sound guy if HE is.

IF you are running both the FOH sound AND recording, everything is much
easier IME.

Trevor.

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
>
>> And in small club jobs, there is always a whole lot of backline that
>> isn't in the PA. Often when stuff IS in the PA, the mikes are not in
>> an optimal place for recording or they are really dreadful mikes.
>
>So put your mics there too.

I do. Consequently, I wind up running a lot more channels out to the
truck than are going into the PA console.

If you are dependent on using the preamps on the PA console, it's still
possible to do this with the assistance of the PA operator, just using
a block of channel strips that he isn't using for the main mix, but
this can require some politics.

>>>If you have no control over what comes out of the mixer inserts, why do
>>>you
>>>need quiet monitoring anyway?
>>
>> Because you will find a hum, or P-popping, or a snare rattle, or something
>> else that isn't evident in the loud and bad PA sound in the hall but is
>> painfully evident in the recording.
>
>And if someone else is running the FOH sound and mixer, what are YOU gong to
>do about it anyway? Of course I would always run a spectrum analyser to make
>sure I'm not introducing hum/noise etc. and warn the FOH sound guy if HE is.

If someone else is running the FOH sound, he's working with me to get a job
done. If he's not working with me to get a job done, I might just go up
and talk to the drummer or add another mike of my own taped to the PA
vocal mike. It's much, much easier when everyone is on the same team, though.

>IF you are running both the FOH sound AND recording, everything is much
>easier IME.

If you have eight hands and two heads, sure. Frankly, it's hard enough to
worry about just one mix at a time.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[hank alrich]

Les Cargill > wrote:

> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
> why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
> tip of the TRS insert jack.

I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
sleeve makes contact with the jack. This makes insertion quick and
accurate and helps to stabilize the connection physically.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Les Cargill" > wrote in message
...
> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Richard > wrote:
>>>
>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>>
>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
>> the insert cabling.

24 channels of even really cheap stuff stops being cheap.

> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
> 1/4"TRS would be even better.

I generally make my own cabling of this kind.

> I'd be surprised if more than 8 channels was ever needed. If it is,
> then fewer spots and ambients.

Depends on the room and the music. There is only one way to get anything
like good sound out of our echo chamber/church sanctuary and that is careful
close micing.

Choir - 4 mics, 2 of which are a coincident pair
Electronic instruments - 4 direct boxes
Piano - 1 mic
Violins - 2 mics
Cello or Cellos - 1 mic
Flutes - 1 mic
Viola - 1 mic
Trumpet - no mic, depend on spill of which there is plenty
Trombone - as above, player isn't so good so if he gets a little lost...
French horn - 1 mic
Bassoon - 1 mic
Lead vocal - 1 wireless mic

Pared down as much as I can - 17 channels. Interesting, over the past 4
years the number of instruments has gone up and the number of mics has gone
down..

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Jul-30 07:18, Scott Dorsey writes:
<snip>

>>Frankly I find overuse of audience noise annoying anyway. The only real
>>problems arise if there are guitar amps etc. that are not miked.

> I personally like some room sound. Not audience noise, but actual
> reverb from the room.

INdeed, gives some life and all those other cliches, which
are true nonetheless.

> And in small club jobs, there is always a whole lot of backline that
> isn't in the PA. Often when stuff IS in the PA, the mikes are not
> in an optimal place for recording or they are really dreadful mikes.

THis is true also.

>>> And you don't get good
>>> monitoring... not without running much longer cables to a quiet room
>>> somewhere, and that means balancing the insert lines...

>>If you have no control over what comes out of the mixer inserts, why do you
>>need quiet monitoring anyway?

> Because you will find a hum, or P-popping, or a snare rattle, or
> something else that isn't evident in the loud and bad PA sound in
> the hall but is painfully evident in the recording.

THis is true, and I really like to avoid the loud and bad as much as possible. But there are a lot of plug in the
inserts and take whatever you get from foh guys out there,
and they're charging to do this. I don't know how they can
guarantee their work, but they are. I don't know how you
can assure the client you'll get anything usable that way.
But then, the clients who pay them don't know any better.

IT's an alright approach if you're on tour, have your own
sound person, and multiple shots at getting something good,
but otherwise I'd shoot for much better reliability.


Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Trevor wrote:
> "Les > wrote in message
> ...
>>>> But, I'd bet dollars to donuts Scott that he's planning on
>>>> just grabbing signals off the inserts of whatever the foh
>>>> board is, quick dirty and cheap.
>>>
>>> Even that turns out to be not all that cheap when you price the cost of
>>> the insert cabling.
>>
>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine.
>
> NOT if it's a single TRS insert, plugging a T/S plug into a TRS insert is
> going to ground the return side of an insert. If you have seperate
> send/return sockets or direct outs instead you're OK.
>

It's been said elsethread, but you half-click the 1/4" TS so that
it makes contact with both the tip and ring.

>
>> A 1/4"TS to 1/4"TRS would be even better.
>
> Nope, better to short Tip and Ring at the mixer end

That's a lot easier with a TS to TRS snake than it is
with a TS to TS.

> IF you are using single
> unbalanced TRS inserts like most small mixers.
>
> Trevor.
>
>

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Richard Webb wrote:
> On Sat 2011-Jul-30 07:18, Scott Dorsey writes:
<snip>
>
> THis is true, and I really like to avoid the loud and bad as much as possible.
> But there are a lot of plug in the
> inserts and take whatever you get from foh guys out there,
> and they're charging to do this.

When I was doing it, I wasn't charging much if anything.

> I don't know how they can
> guarantee their work, but they are. I don't know how you
> can assure the client you'll get anything usable that way.

You can't. Look - the idea is for that to be a "guerilla"
recording. Part of that is adapting the recording
process to what's going on rather than the other way 'round.

It works just fine.

> But then, the clients who pay them don't know any better.
>
> IT's an alright approach if you're on tour, have your own
> sound person, and multiple shots at getting something good,
> but otherwise I'd shoot for much better reliability.
>

Reliability was much more of a trade item than it
would be for you. You're doing this for a living - I
wasn't.

The people I always did it for were aware of the risks,
ran their own sound and really just wanted either
clips for the Web, CDs for their own or some such. If
it didn't work for some reason ( usually environmental
issues ), we'd redo it if they wanted, or I was able to
filter out the ugly in post.

It was all weekend warrior stuff. Weekend warriors
have more trouble getting everybody scheduled than
anything else. They would also be more likely
to be intimidated by the studio experience. They
also had limited budget. These are people who probably
would not have recorded at all otherwise.

It wasn't very *professional*, but it was very
production :) That approach has since been made
obsolete by the advent of the H4 and Youtube
video.

And I stand by the results, even though you might get
hash from the ice machine now and again.

>
> Regards,
> Richard
> --
> | Remove .my.foot for email
> | via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
> | Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

--
Les Cargill

[[email protected]]

LEs writes:
>> But there are a lot of plug in the
>> inserts and take whatever you get from foh guys out there,
>> and they're charging to do this.
>When I was doing it, I wasn't charging much if anything.
>> I don't know how they can
>> guarantee their work, but they are. I don't know how you
>> can assure the client you'll get anything usable that way.
>You can't. Look - the idea is for that to be a "guerilla"
>recording. Part of that is adapting the recording
>process to what's going on rather than the other way 'round.
>It works just fine.
>> But then, the clients who pay them don't know any better.
>> IT's an alright approach if you're on tour, have your own
>> sound person, and multiple shots at getting something good,
>> but otherwise I'd shoot for much better reliability.
>Reliability was much more of a trade item than it
>would be for you. You're doing this for a living - I
>wasn't.
>The people I always did it for were aware of the risks,
>ran their own sound and really just wanted either
>clips for the Web, CDs for their own or some such. If
>it didn't work for some reason ( usually environmental
>issues ), we'd redo it if they wanted, or I was able to
>filter out the ugly in post.

That can work for you, and does for many. wHen I did that
sort of thing I was usually running foh too, and again it
was take what we could get. IT can work, but you need to
plan your work, and work your plan as much as possible.

I steered a church to a buddy of mine that does this kind of
thing, and got a bit of a piece of the action. That's best
I could do for 'em in that environment.
HE needs the dough and the percentage doesn't hurt me any.



Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/30/2011 11:00 AM, hank alrich wrote:

> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> sleeve makes contact with the jack.

That's clever. You have to cut the sleeve to just the right
length so that the ring contact of the jack is on the end
part of the V in the plug so that it's pulling the plug in,
but before the plug is in far enough so that the ring
contact is centered over the notch and often not bottoming
in there.

You can custom-fit them for your own mixer, but the length
might be different by a millimeter or so for different jacks.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

wrote:
> LEs writes:
> >> But there are a lot of plug in the
> >> inserts and take whatever you get from foh guys out there,
> >> and they're charging to do this.
> >When I was doing it, I wasn't charging much if anything.
> >> I don't know how they can
> >> guarantee their work, but they are. I don't know how you
> >> can assure the client you'll get anything usable that way.
> >You can't. Look - the idea is for that to be a "guerilla"
> >recording. Part of that is adapting the recording
> >process to what's going on rather than the other way 'round.
> >It works just fine.
> >> But then, the clients who pay them don't know any better.
> >> IT's an alright approach if you're on tour, have your own
> >> sound person, and multiple shots at getting something good,
> >> but otherwise I'd shoot for much better reliability.
> >Reliability was much more of a trade item than it
> >would be for you. You're doing this for a living - I
> >wasn't.
> >The people I always did it for were aware of the risks,
> >ran their own sound and really just wanted either
> >clips for the Web, CDs for their own or some such. If
> >it didn't work for some reason ( usually environmental
> >issues ), we'd redo it if they wanted, or I was able to
> >filter out the ugly in post.
>
> That can work for you, and does for many. wHen I did that
> sort of thing I was usually running foh too, and again it
> was take what we could get. IT can work, but you need to
> plan your work, and work your plan as much as possible.
>
> I steered a church to a buddy of mine that does this kind of
> thing, and got a bit of a piece of the action. That's best
> I could do for 'em in that environment.
> HE needs the dough and the percentage doesn't hurt me any.
>
>

I was kicking the tires on this as a business model ( with
the intent of adding gear as need be to improve the obvious
limitations of the way I was doing things ) and I concluded
that people would rather spend 3x the money to buy stuff and DIY
than pay even a modest amount to have it done. They would not
*execute* on that premise - they never finished anything - but
that didn't matter.


>
> Richard webb,
>
> replace anything before at with elspider
> ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com
>
>
>

--
Les Cargill

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Jul-30 12:48, Arny Krueger writes:
> 24 channels of even really cheap stuff stops being cheap.

YEp, that it does.

>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>> 1/4"TRS would be even better.

> I generally make my own cabling of this kind.

The best policy, you know what you've got that way. Proper
strain relief, tested, etc. etc.

>> I'd be surprised if more than 8 channels was ever needed. If it is,
>> then fewer spots and ambients.

> Depends on the room and the music. There is only one way to get
> anything like good sound out of our echo chamber/church sanctuary
> and that is careful close micing.

OR just careful placement <g>.
<snip>
> Pared down as much as I can - 17 channels. Interesting, over the
> past 4 years the number of instruments has gone up and the number
> of mics has gone down..

YEp, you know what you need to get the sound. I note 17
channels. That many actual tracks individually captured or
are you submixing elements during capture?




Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> On 7/30/2011 11:00 AM, hank alrich wrote:
>
> > I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> > to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> > sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> > sleeve makes contact with the jack.
>
> That's clever.

It's the blind pig finds an acorn theory in practice.

> You have to cut the sleeve to just the right
> length so that the ring contact of the jack is on the end
> part of the V in the plug so that it's pulling the plug in,
> but before the plug is in far enough so that the ring
> contact is centered over the notch and often not bottoming
> in there.
>
> You can custom-fit them for your own mixer, but the length
> might be different by a millimeter or so for different jacks.

Yep, though the ones I used worked with various Mackies and my old
Soundcraft 200.

(BTW, the Soundcraft is now approx 25 years old and is till working, now
down in Texas.)

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Les Cargill > wrote:

> I was kicking the tires on this as a business model ( with
> the intent of adding gear as need be to improve the obvious
> limitations of the way I was doing things ) and I concluded
> that people would rather spend 3x the money to buy stuff and DIY
> than pay even a modest amount to have it done. They would not
> *execute* on that premise - they never finished anything - but
> that didn't matter.

They bought a lot of stuff and built the production equivalent of a
guillotine.

Hey, saved a bunch of egg crates from the dump.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Les Cargill > wrote:

> hank alrich wrote:
> > Les > wrote:
> >
> >> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
> >> why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
> >> tip of the TRS insert jack.
> >
> > I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> > to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> > sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> > sleeve makes contact with the jack. This makes insertion quick and
> > accurate and helps to stabilize the connection physically.
> >
>
>
> That's going in the tips file... . :)

Cool. I sometimes play for tips.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

hank alrich wrote:
> Les > wrote:
>
>> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
>> why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
>> tip of the TRS insert jack.
>
> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> sleeve makes contact with the jack. This makes insertion quick and
> accurate and helps to stabilize the connection physically.
>


That's going in the tips file... . :)

--
Les Cargill

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Jul-30 18:12, Les Cargill writes:
>> >Reliability was much more of a trade item than it
>> >would be for you. You're doing this for a living - I
>> >wasn't.
><snip>
>> That can work for you, and does for many. wHen I did that
>> sort of thing I was usually running foh too, and again it
>> was take what we could get. IT can work, but you need to
>> plan your work, and work your plan as much as possible.

>> I steered a church to a buddy of mine that does this kind of
>> thing, and got a bit of a piece of the action. That's best
>> I could do for 'em in that environment.
>> HE needs the dough and the percentage doesn't hurt me any.

> I was kicking the tires on this as a business model ( with
> the intent of adding gear as need be to improve the obvious
> limitations of the way I was doing things ) and I concluded
> that people would rather spend 3x the money to buy stuff and DIY
> than pay even a modest amount to have it done. They would not
> *execute* on that premise - they never finished anything - but that
> didn't matter.

THis is as I find it also. I'm shooting for higher end,
either broadcast or those wanting a get it this time get it
right recording. THis church came to me kicking tires, I
told them I'd charge them a fee to consult with their
leadership and their sound guy about how to do a recording
they could then sell as a fundraiser. tHey didn't like
truck price. I told 'em I'd knock the fee off the truck
price for the consultation. I looked around, no good
isolation in another room to be had, so I steered a buddy to them, and that's how I actually get paid on that one. A
couple hours consultation, a buddy of mine gets the job,
they can take it to one of the local studios with a good
control room and a daw for mixing then on to mastering if
they choose. IT's all praise band stuff, and the only
things I do where I can't get isolation are fully acoustic
and then I attend rehearsals a couple of times and we tweak
the setup ahead of time.

FUnny but the tire kickers who would really rather diy call
me, I offer them a consultation at a reasonable price and
about ten percent seem to take me up on that. tHose are
probably the ones that even though they're going to go the
diy route are really serious about getting something
finished and out there.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[[email protected]]

LEs writes:
>hank alrich wrote:
>> Les > wrote:
>>> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best.
>>>That's why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact
>>>with the ring and tip of the TRS insert jack.
>> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling
>>cables cut to a length that allows the plug to go only so far
>>into the jack. The sleeves slip over the plug, preventing
>>insertion past the pont where the sleeve makes contact with the
>>jack. This makes insertion quick and accurate and helps to
>stabilize the connection physically. >
>That's going in the tips file... . :)

IT sure did here! Thanks Hank.




Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Richard Webb" > wrote in
message ...
> On Sat 2011-Jul-30 12:48, Arny Krueger writes:
>> 24 channels of even really cheap stuff stops being cheap.
>
> YEp, that it does.
>
>>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
>>> 1/4"TRS would be even better.
>
>> I generally make my own cabling of this kind.
>
> The best policy, you know what you've got that way. Proper
> strain relief, tested, etc. etc.

>>> I'd be surprised if more than 8 channels was ever needed. If it is,
>>> then fewer spots and ambients.

>> Depends on the room and the music. There is only one way to get
>> anything like good sound out of our echo chamber/church sanctuary
>> and that is careful close micing.

> OR just careful placement <g>.
> <snip>

One can only play that approach so far.

>> Pared down as much as I can - 17 channels. Interesting, over the
>> past 4 years the number of instruments has gone up and the number
>> of mics has gone down..

> YEp, you know what you need to get the sound. I note 17
> channels. That many actual tracks individually captured or
> are you submixing elements during capture?

None.

No surprise, the recording mix is vastly different from the live sound mix,
and keeping the latter going is as much as I can do during the performance.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
> Les Cargill > wrote:
>
>> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
>> why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
>> tip of the TRS insert jack.
>
> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> sleeve makes contact with the jack. This makes insertion quick and
> accurate and helps to stabilize the connection physically.

You should learn to solder, Hank. ;-)

[hank alrich]

Arny Krueger > wrote:

> "hank alrich" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Les Cargill > wrote:
> >
> >> You push the TS jacks in at "half-click" and hope for the best. That's
> >> why TRS is better. It puts the tip of a TS in contact with the ring and
> >> tip of the TRS insert jack.
> >
> > I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> > to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> > sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> > sleeve makes contact with the jack. This makes insertion quick and
> > accurate and helps to stabilize the connection physically.
>
> You should learn to solder, Hank. ;-)

<G!> Yeah, I can solder, but this was quick, effective, and used stuff
that would ordinarily have been tossed.

I was surprised how well it worked.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Arny Krueger > wrote:

> "Richard Webb" > wrote in
> message ...
> > On Sat 2011-Jul-30 12:48, Arny Krueger writes:
> >> 24 channels of even really cheap stuff stops being cheap.
> >
> > YEp, that it does.
> >
> >>> It's not that bad. Any 1/4"-1/4" TS snake works fine. A 1/4"TS to
> >>> 1/4"TRS would be even better.
> >
> >> I generally make my own cabling of this kind.
> >
> > The best policy, you know what you've got that way. Proper
> > strain relief, tested, etc. etc.
>
> >>> I'd be surprised if more than 8 channels was ever needed. If it is,
> >>> then fewer spots and ambients.
>
> >> Depends on the room and the music. There is only one way to get
> >> anything like good sound out of our echo chamber/church sanctuary
> >> and that is careful close micing.
>
> > OR just careful placement <g>.
> > <snip>
>
> One can only play that approach so far.
>
> >> Pared down as much as I can - 17 channels. Interesting, over the
> >> past 4 years the number of instruments has gone up and the number
> >> of mics has gone down..
>
> > YEp, you know what you need to get the sound. I note 17
> > channels. That many actual tracks individually captured or
> > are you submixing elements during capture?
>
> None.
>
> No surprise, the recording mix is vastly different from the live sound mix,
> and keeping the latter going is as much as I can do during the performance.

If I find a problem when pulling from someone else's FOH setup via
inserts or directs it is almost always that they haven't left enough
headroom to get a delicious signal through the chain.

This was driven home recently not in a recording situation but at a live
performance where a very good sound operator who had been mixing Shaidri
and me in a particular venue had to be out of town for another gig. He
was replaced by a genuinely world-class operator. From the first sound
out of the monitors I could tell we had better sound. When I examined
the difference at the console it was all about the input sensitivty
settings. The first guy didn't push into clipping but the trim was
visually at about 1 o'clock. Trims for the second guy were at about 11
o'clock.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[[email protected]]

On 2011-07-31 (hankalrich) said:
<big snip>

>> > are you submixing elements during capture?
>> None.
>> No surprise, the recording mix is vastly different from the live
>>sound mix, and keeping the latter going is as much as I can do
>during the performance.
>If I find a problem when pulling from someone else's FOH setup via
>inserts or directs it is almost always that they haven't left enough
>headroom to get a delicious signal through the chain.
>This was driven home recently not in a recording situation but at a
>live performance where a very good sound operator who had been
>mixing Shaidri and me in a particular venue had to be out of town
>for another gig. He was replaced by a genuinely world-class
>operator. From the first sound out of the monitors I could tell we
>had better sound. When I examined the difference at the console it
>was all about the input sensitivty settings. The first guy didn't
>push into clipping but the trim was visually at about 1 o'clock.
>Trims for the second guy were at about 11 o'clock.

Uh huh! That's why I don't like pulling from inserts when
I"m not operating foh. IT's about headroom, *all* through
the chain. THose other stages can play do makeup gain if
they have to, but it's about considering what's going to
happen from the channel trims onward. IT's partially due to
being a blind op, but I've always been conservative with
setting gain structure because I might not have enough
tactile or audible vu to watch everything as closely as an
op would who's flying by the light bars or meters. I go for
a little headroom throughout while minimizing noise. I want
to pull my signals from as close to the source as possible
for a good recording. THis means a bit of isolation from
the performance, either in my remote truck control room or
another room somewhere. THis means I"m not the cheapest guy
you'll find, and I probably don't work as much as some other
folks might, but that's what it's about.


Regards,



Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>IF you are running both the FOH sound AND recording, everything is much
>>easier IME.
>
> If you have eight hands and two heads, sure. Frankly, it's hard enough to
> worry about just one mix at a time.

Not for me, I can't imagine why I would want to mix the recording real time
whilst also mixing FOH. The whole point of my recording multi-channel is so
I can re-mix later at my leasure. Of couse a FOH output is also recorded
seperately for reference and as backup.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> On 7/30/2011 11:00 AM, hank alrich wrote:
>
>> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
>> to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
>> sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
>> sleeve makes contact with the jack.
>
> That's clever. You have to cut the sleeve to just the right length so that
> the ring contact of the jack is on the end part of the V in the plug so
> that it's pulling the plug in, but before the plug is in far enough so
> that the ring contact is centered over the notch and often not bottoming
> in there.
>
> You can custom-fit them for your own mixer, but the length might be
> different by a millimeter or so for different jacks.


Right, and all that just to save making up a few dedicated leads that only
require fairly inexpensive T/S and TRS plugs anyway. I can't see the point
in risking it myself.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Les Cargill" > wrote in message
...
> It's been said elsethread, but you half-click the 1/4" TS so that
> it makes contact with both the tip and ring.

Right, never wanted to do that on the grounds that it may pop out and I get
no recording, or worse still, it pops all the way in and the channel goes
missing from FOH as well! All it takes is a little knock, although I do
admit the second more dire possibility can be eliminated by using plastic
sleeving. Something I never bothered with since TS, TRS plugs and single
core cable aren't all that expensive IMO.
The people really doing it on the cheap are usually just recording stereo
out from the mixer "rec out" phono sockets, and don't have multi-channel
recording interfaces anyway.

Trevor.

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
> ...
> > On 7/30/2011 11:00 AM, hank alrich wrote:
> >
> >> I use pieces of insulation jacket left over from assembling cables cut
> >> to a length that allows the plug to go only so far into the jack. The
> >> sleeves slip over the plug, preventing insertion past the pont where the
> >> sleeve makes contact with the jack.
> >
> > That's clever. You have to cut the sleeve to just the right length so that
> > the ring contact of the jack is on the end part of the V in the plug so
> > that it's pulling the plug in, but before the plug is in far enough so
> > that the ring contact is centered over the notch and often not bottoming
> > in there.
> >
> > You can custom-fit them for your own mixer, but the length might be
> > different by a millimeter or so for different jacks.
>
>
> Right, and all that just to save making up a few dedicated leads that only
> require fairly inexpensive T/S and TRS plugs anyway. I can't see the point
> in risking it myself.
>
> Trevor.

The approach took less than five minutes and the cost was zero. I know
how to solder, have plenty of well-built cables. This worked perfectly
multiple times, period. If someone comes crashing into the FOH board all
bets are off regardless of connectors.

When something works repeatedly free beats fairly inexpensive,
especially considering relative invested time.

Nowadays I'm generally taking direct outs via lovely cutom cables I
built of Mogami and Neutriks to feed the 2882_DSP. Since there's no free
lunch the new point of fragility is the Firewire cable.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "Les Cargill" > wrote in message
> ...
> > It's been said elsethread, but you half-click the 1/4" TS so that
> > it makes contact with both the tip and ring.
>
> Right, never wanted to do that on the grounds that it may pop out and I get
> no recording, or worse still, it pops all the way in and the channel goes
> missing from FOH as well! All it takes is a little knock, although I do
> admit the second more dire possibility can be eliminated by using plastic
> sleeving. Something I never bothered with since TS, TRS plugs and single
> core cable aren't all that expensive IMO.

The sleeve thing worked fine every time for me. It stabilized the
connection such that a little jiggle didn't hassle the connection.
Return on investment was phenomenal.

Then remove the sleeve and I have the orignial cable in hand.

> The people really doing it on the cheap are usually just recording stereo
> out from the mixer "rec out" phono sockets, and don't have multi-channel
> recording interfaces anyway.

This was to feed the DA88.


--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/31/2011 4:00 PM, wrote:

> IT's partially due to
> being a blind op, but I've always been conservative with
> setting gain structure because I might not have enough
> tactile or audible vu to watch everything as closely as an
> op would who's flying by the light bars or meters. I go for
> a little headroom throughout while minimizing noise.

Sometimes, not looking at the meters is an advantage. People
seem to get worried when the meter only goes to mid scale
and don't seem to notice that it's already loud enough. Or
they don't know that they can adjust the input sensitivity
of the power amplifiers or input and output levels at the
crossover or in-line equalizers.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/1/2011 2:40 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I can't imagine why I would want to mix the recording real time
> whilst also mixing FOH. The whole point of my recording multi-channel is so
> I can re-mix later at my leasure.

And the reason why I want to mix the recording while the
show is going on is because it's rare that the performance
is worth the time to mix it from the multitrack. It might be
worth doing for your own shows, but I don't usually have
clients who are willing to pay for multitrack mixdown time,
and I rarely get paid enough for the live gig to cover some
multitrack mixing afterward.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/1/2011 2:44 AM, Trevor wrote:

> Right, and all that just to save making up a few dedicated leads that only
> require fairly inexpensive T/S and TRS plugs anyway. I can't see the point
> in risking it myself.

Well, you can have only so many cables before it becomes
overwhelming. I had a DB25-TRS snake that I modified by
tying the tip and ring together so I could use it with mixer
insert jacks, then forgot to look at the label and spent
half an hour trying to figure out what was wrong when I
tried to use it to get a few balanced TRS outputs over to a
DB25 input.

Radio Shack has a 1/4" stereo-to-mono adapter that does the
job, #274-1520. I don't like to put the strain of an extra
couple of inches of stiff adapter on to a jack, but heck,
most of the time it's on someone else's mixer anyway. <g>


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Trevor wrote:
> "Les > wrote in message
> ...
>> It's been said elsethread, but you half-click the 1/4" TS so that
>> it makes contact with both the tip and ring.
>
> Right, never wanted to do that on the grounds that it may pop out and I get
> no recording, or worse still, it pops all the way in and the channel goes
> missing from FOH as well!

You can't say *in general* what will happen ( all inserts are
not created equal ) but from what I saw, unless somebody bumped
the thing, it wasn't likely.

The group here seems to be circling back to the perceived unreliability
of that connection. I won't disagree - it's not defensible in talking
about it, but the risk is probably lower than you'd think.

> All it takes is a little knock, although I do
> admit the second more dire possibility can be eliminated by using plastic
> sleeving. Something I never bothered with since TS, TRS plugs and single
> core cable aren't all that expensive IMO.

No, they are not. I reserved that effort for when it
became more of a serious thing - which never happened. The
last thing I need is another batch o' cables that don't get
used frequently.

The experiments were "are people even interested in live recordings of
these bands" and "how low a profile can I have for recording."
The answers were "no - if it cuts into their beer money" and "very."

They (mostly) didn't want to fool with it.

The next step would have been to set up a deal with the guy
who runs a local studio/rehearsal space and tighten up all the
loose elements. He'd rather use his studio space, though - his
perception is that his flow is based on utilization of that.

> The people really doing it on the cheap are usually just recording stereo
> out from the mixer "rec out" phono sockets, and don't have multi-channel
> recording interfaces anyway.
>

Right - and once the H4 class of handheld recorders became the norm,
it didn't much matter.

> Trevor.
>
>

--
Les Cargill

[hank alrich]

Les Cargill > wrote:

> Trevor wrote:
> > "Les > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> It's been said elsethread, but you half-click the 1/4" TS so that
> >> it makes contact with both the tip and ring.
> >
> > Right, never wanted to do that on the grounds that it may pop out and I get
> > no recording, or worse still, it pops all the way in and the channel goes
> > missing from FOH as well!
>
> You can't say *in general* what will happen ( all inserts are
> not created equal ) but from what I saw, unless somebody bumped
> the thing, it wasn't likely.

I think it's far more secure than the Firewire connection I use now
while fine cables feed the interface. Even given my own opinion there,
I've not yet lost a recording due to a Firewire interruption.

> The group here seems to be circling back to the perceived unreliability
> of that connection. I won't disagree - it's not defensible in talking
> about it, but the risk is probably lower than you'd think.
>
> > All it takes is a little knock, although I do
> > admit the second more dire possibility can be eliminated by using plastic
> > sleeving. Something I never bothered with since TS, TRS plugs and single
> > core cable aren't all that expensive IMO.
>
> No, they are not. I reserved that effort for when it
> became more of a serious thing - which never happened. The
> last thing I need is another batch o' cables that don't get
> used frequently.
>
> The experiments were "are people even interested in live recordings of
> these bands" and "how low a profile can I have for recording."
> The answers were "no - if it cuts into their beer money" and "very."
>
> They (mostly) didn't want to fool with it.
>
> The next step would have been to set up a deal with the guy
> who runs a local studio/rehearsal space and tighten up all the
> loose elements. He'd rather use his studio space, though - his
> perception is that his flow is based on utilization of that.
>
> > The people really doing it on the cheap are usually just recording stereo
> > out from the mixer "rec out" phono sockets, and don't have multi-channel
> > recording interfaces anyway.
> >
>
> Right - and once the H4 class of handheld recorders became the norm,
> it didn't much matter.

Right. I often snag an FOH mix via the H2. I really should make a with
built-in pads, but I generally find some two channel output available
and an operator who understands what I mean about leaving tons of
headroom going into the Zoom.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/2/2011 1:25 AM, hank alrich wrote:

> Right. I often snag an FOH mix via the H2. I really should make a with
> built-in pads, but I generally find some two channel output available
> and an operator who understands what I mean about leaving tons of
> headroom going into the Zoom.

Time to trade it in for an H2n (already!). It has a real
record level control, just like I told them it needed. They
finally caught on with the H4n.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Mon 2011-Aug-01 09:45, Mike Rivers writes:
>> IT's partially due to
>> being a blind op, but I've always been conservative with
>> setting gain structure because I might not have enough
>> tactile or audible vu to watch everything as closely as an
>> op would who's flying by the light bars or meters. I go for
>> a little headroom throughout while minimizing noise.

> Sometimes, not looking at the meters is an advantage. People seem
> to get worried when the meter only goes to mid scale
> and don't seem to notice that it's already loud enough. Or
> they don't know that they can adjust the input sensitivity
> of the power amplifiers or input and output levels at the
> crossover or in-line equalizers.

IF they don't know that much they don't need to be fooling
with the audio. That's why all those adjustments are there.

Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
>> Right, and all that just to save making up a few dedicated leads that
>> only
>> require fairly inexpensive T/S and TRS plugs anyway. I can't see the
>> point
>> in risking it myself.
>
> The approach took less than five minutes and the cost was zero. I know
> how to solder, have plenty of well-built cables. This worked perfectly
> multiple times, period.

Fine, I just worry about they time they don't, but you get to make your own
choices.


> When something works repeatedly free beats fairly inexpensive,
> especially considering relative invested time.

Sure something can work repeatedly until the day it doesn't. The question is
whether you care about the fact it is guaranteed to be less reliable. How
much so, and whether YOU care is a choice only you can make for your
circumstances.
I know what I choose though.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> I can't imagine why I would want to mix the recording real time
>> whilst also mixing FOH. The whole point of my recording multi-channel is
>> so
>> I can re-mix later at my leasure.
>
> And the reason why I want to mix the recording while the show is going on
> is because it's rare that the performance is worth the time to mix it from
> the multitrack. It might be worth doing for your own shows, but I don't
> usually have clients who are willing to pay for multitrack mixdown time,
> and I rarely get paid enough for the live gig to cover some multitrack
> mixing afterward.

Right, for those cases I simply provide an unedited 2 track mix from the rec
out phono sockets on the mixer. Then IF they want higher quality I can go
back to my multi-track recording and remix/edit it at their expense.
*IF* I can't justify doing it later, I can't possibly see how I could
justify having someone do it in a "quiet room" as originally suggested, at
the gig???

Trevor.

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "hank alrich" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> Right, and all that just to save making up a few dedicated leads that
> >> only
> >> require fairly inexpensive T/S and TRS plugs anyway. I can't see the
> >> point
> >> in risking it myself.
> >
> > The approach took less than five minutes and the cost was zero. I know
> > how to solder, have plenty of well-built cables. This worked perfectly
> > multiple times, period.
>
> Fine, I just worry about they time they don't, but you get to make your own
> choices.
>
>
> > When something works repeatedly free beats fairly inexpensive,
> > especially considering relative invested time.
>
> Sure something can work repeatedly until the day it doesn't. The question is
> whether you care about the fact it is guaranteed to be less reliable. How
> much so, and whether YOU care is a choice only you can make for your
> circumstances.
> I know what I choose though.
>
> Trevor.

Once upon a time I chose to buy a brand new 1" Studer. All this computer
**** is piddly in comparison. OTOH, it's much easier to move around even
if the Studer was a VUT model.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
> Once upon a time I chose to buy a brand new 1" Studer. All this computer
> **** is piddly in comparison. OTOH, it's much easier to move around even
> if the Studer was a VUT model.

Right, a few cables are MINIMAL cost in comparison.
And isn't it wonderful that a cheap computer/interface combo can provide
better performance than the Studer, whilst being much easier to cary around,
and far cheaper to run than buying 1" tapes!!! :-)
I sure wish I had the current level of digital recording 30 years ago and
never bought Revox, Otari, Uher and Tascam tape machines, and mountains of
tape. :-(

Trevor.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/3/2011 12:44 AM, Trevor wrote:

> Right, for those cases I simply provide an unedited 2 track mix from the rec
> out phono sockets on the mixer. Then IF they want higher quality I can go
> back to my multi-track recording and remix/edit it at their expense.

But this means you're doing the multitrack recording anyway,
"on spec." That's OK if you want to take the equipment and
can get the feeds (much easier if you're doing the live
sound support, of course), and don't mind storing the data
until you either get the job to mix it, find the time to mix
it for your own enjoyment, or decide you'll never use it and
dump it (or store it).

> *IF* I can't justify doing it later, I can't possibly see how I could
> justify having someone do it in a "quiet room" as originally suggested, at
> the gig???

That's a different story. If you can get a quiet room to set
up, and you have the gear, you can do a separate live mix
for the recording. That almost always works better than
taking the PA mix, particularly when there are electric
instruments on stage that don't need much or any support
from the PA system.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "hank alrich" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Once upon a time I chose to buy a brand new 1" Studer. All this computer
> > **** is piddly in comparison. OTOH, it's much easier to move around even
> > if the Studer was a VUT model.
>
> Right, a few cables are MINIMAL cost in comparison.
> And isn't it wonderful that a cheap computer/interface combo can provide
> better performance than the Studer, whilst being much easier to cary around,
> and far cheaper to run than buying 1" tapes!!! :-)
> I sure wish I had the current level of digital recording 30 years ago and
> never bought Revox, Otari, Uher and Tascam tape machines, and mountains of
> tape. :-(
>
> Trevor.

I dunno. We just mastered a product from tapes mixed in 1979. Beyond
decent storage no effort or expense was incurred keeping the tapes
usable. I doubt that the hard drives I mix to now will play well in
thirty years if all the attention they get is decent storage.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> Right, for those cases I simply provide an unedited 2 track mix from the
>> rec
>> out phono sockets on the mixer. Then IF they want higher quality I can go
>> back to my multi-track recording and remix/edit it at their expense.
>
> But this means you're doing the multitrack recording anyway, "on spec."
> That's OK if you want to take the equipment and can get the feeds (much
> easier if you're doing the live sound support, of course), and don't mind
> storing the data until you either get the job to mix it, find the time to
> mix it for your own enjoyment, or decide you'll never use it and dump it
> (or store it).

Right, I always record when I'm doing FOH, it only takes me a few more
minutes to set up, I use the computer for a spectrum analyser anyway, and
storage is no longer a real issue given the cost of hard disks now. I also
store to DVD/s for backup.


>> *IF* I can't justify doing it later, I can't possibly see how I could
>> justify having someone do it in a "quiet room" as originally suggested,
>> at
>> the gig???
>
> That's a different story.

Nope, it's the one I was responding to.

>If you can get a quiet room to set up, and you have the gear, you can do a
>separate live mix for the recording.

Well I could in many venues, but then I'd need another person. I'd rather do
it later myself.

>That almost always works better than taking the PA mix,

Right, the whole point of my recording multi-track as well as FOH mix.

>particularly when there are electric instruments on stage that don't need
>much or any support from the PA system.

Not for me. I simply add mics to any instrument amps, drums etc for
recording, even if I don't need to add it to FOH. I like having the abilty
to push that fader up in FOH if I need to anyway, especially for solo's. I
only ever record concerts where I'm not doing FOH when the artist brings
their own regular mix engineer and I'm doing the rest of the setup.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
>> And isn't it wonderful that a cheap computer/interface combo can provide
>> better performance than the Studer, whilst being much easier to cary
>> around,
>> and far cheaper to run than buying 1" tapes!!! :-)
>> I sure wish I had the current level of digital recording 30 years ago and
>> never bought Revox, Otari, Uher and Tascam tape machines, and mountains
>> of
>> tape. :-(
>
> I dunno. We just mastered a product from tapes mixed in 1979. Beyond
> decent storage no effort or expense was incurred keeping the tapes
> usable. I doubt that the hard drives I mix to now will play well in
> thirty years if all the attention they get is decent storage.

Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even consider
the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
you), and still have a LOT of change left over!
(Not to mention a lot more storage space :-)

For that I am very grateful!

Trevor.

[david correia]

In article >,
"Trevor" > wrote:

>
> "hank alrich" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> And isn't it wonderful that a cheap computer/interface combo can provide
> >> better performance than the Studer, whilst being much easier to cary
> >> around,
> >> and far cheaper to run than buying 1" tapes!!! :-)
> >> I sure wish I had the current level of digital recording 30 years ago and
> >> never bought Revox, Otari, Uher and Tascam tape machines, and mountains
> >> of
> >> tape. :-(
> >
> > I dunno. We just mastered a product from tapes mixed in 1979. Beyond
> > decent storage no effort or expense was incurred keeping the tapes
> > usable. I doubt that the hard drives I mix to now will play well in
> > thirty years if all the attention they get is decent storage.
>
> Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even consider
> the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
> to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
> files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
> you), and still have a LOT of change left over!
> (Not to mention a lot more storage space :-)
>
> For that I am very grateful!
>
> Trevor.



What you fail to note is that Hank's tape was never copied. It's
original. And it's still doing it's job.

Of course spinning hard drives won't be found in people's houses in
2041. They'll likely be viewed in much the same way as Hank's 1" machine
is today. You'll be copying over multiple storage formats just to be
able to play a note.

And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
open PT 5.31 multitrack data? And how about all those iLok protected
plugins? I bet Autotune will still exist ;> In fact there will be a
Michael Jackson & a Frank Sinatra plug in. How would you like John
Lennon or Sandy Denny singing background vocals for you? Yessss.

I wonder what technology is gonna be like in 30 years. I likely won't be
around to see it, tho. If you go back to 1981 & take a look, it's quite
a revolution that has taken place. Too bad humans haven't really changed
much. We is still pretty dumbos.




David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[Trevor]

"david correia" > wrote in message
...
> What you fail to note is that Hank's tape was never copied. It's
> original. And it's still doing it's job.

Nope, I noticed that alright. I also noticed how many tapes from the
seventies and eighties haven't survived. I also noted how much the Studer
cost and how much the tape cost. I think I spelled that all out very clearly
if you care to re-read what I wrote.


> Of course spinning hard drives won't be found in people's houses in
> 2041.

Who cares now that we can make *infinite* IDENTICAL data copies, on whatever
media is yet to be invented, whenever we need to, something you CANNOT do
with analog tape!!!!


>They'll likely be viewed in much the same way as Hank's 1" machine
> is today. You'll be copying over multiple storage formats just to be
> able to play a note.

I wonder how many analog tapes and tape players will have survived by 2041??
ALL archive libraries are busy transferring material to DIGITAL so it can be
archived without further loss for as long as deemed worthwhile, on as many
copies as necessary, in as many locations as desireable. NONE of which can
be done with original analog formats. One fire and the original is gone
forever! And any analog back-ups are of lesser quality.


> And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
> open PT 5.31 multitrack data?

I surely think that ALL digital audio formats are sufficiently simple
structure that the DATA can be transferred without loss, and any new program
necessary to convert formats to whatever is required at any future date,
will take a competent programmer no more than a few hours. Maybe that
doesn't include you, but I know I can.


>And how about all those iLok protected
> plugins?


You seem to have a problem discriminating programs from data. NO live
recording I have ever made relies on plugin's to recover the data, does
yours? If so, simply re-render each track now while you still can.


>I bet Autotune will still exist ;> In fact there will be a
> Michael Jackson & a Frank Sinatra plug in. How would you like John
> Lennon or Sandy Denny singing background vocals for you? Yessss.

Not sure what that has to do with the topic under discussion?


> I wonder what technology is gonna be like in 30 years. I likely won't be
> around to see it, tho. If you go back to 1981 & take a look, it's quite
> a revolution that has taken place.

Well that was my point, I for one am glad it is no longer necessary to buy
1" Studer tape machines at HUGE expense to get decent multi-track
recordings.


>Too bad humans haven't really changed
> much. We is still pretty dumbos.

So true for many.

Trevor.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/3/2011 11:49 PM, Trevor wrote:

> I always record when I'm doing FOH, it only takes me a few more
> minutes to set up, I use the computer for a spectrum analyser anyway, and
> storage is no longer a real issue given the cost of hard disks now. I also
> store to DVD/s for backup.

To me, that's a lot of work and expense that I'm not getting
paid for. If it was a group that I particularly liked and I
wanted to keep a recording for my personal listening
enjoyment, I might do that, but not "always."

I usually bring a stand-alone spectrum analyzer though
usually I only use it as an SPL meter.

>> If you can get a quiet room to set up, and you have the gear, you can do a
>> separate live mix for the recording.
>
> Well I could in many venues, but then I'd need another person. I'd rather do
> it later myself.

Sure, you can do that if you have to do both jobs yourself.
Your primary responsibility, of course, is to the audience,
so you need to pay full attention to that. I find that this
takes enough concentration so that I have zero time to pay
attention to a recording. The advantage of having someone
else work the recording setup, even if it's multitrack that
will be mixed later. That way you can hear problems that
might be fixable which don't affect the live sound and avoid
bringing back useless or troublesome tracks. But if your
recording is just on the basis of "maybe I can use it" then
you do whatever makes sense for you.

I'm not arguing that keeping the recording and sound
reinforcement totally independent is the only way to do it,
that's how people who have to be sure to do a first rate job
at both tasks do it.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/4/2011 2:05 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I also noticed how many tapes from the
> seventies and eighties haven't survived. I also noted how much the Studer
> cost and how much the tape cost. I think I spelled that all out very clearly
> if you care to re-read what I wrote.

Tapes from the 70s and 80s that haven't survived usually
didn't survive because the owners didn't think they were
worth saving. Record companies used to throw away or re-use
master tapes all the time back then.

The recorder and tape was already paid for and there was no
cost after the recording was made. No time to copy to
another medium, no cost for another medium, no worry about
the project file format no longer working on a 30 year newer
version of the program, no need to worry that a 30 year old
program that you saved along with the tape will run on a
modern computer.

Tape can be physically damaged, but so can hard drives and
optical disks. Tape does have some fidelity loss over time,
but unless the oxide falls off (and this has indeed
happened) the tape can still be played many, many years
after it was recorded. People don't tell us about hard
drives that won't play because they're not old enough yet.
But wait another ten years and you'll start hearing stories.

> Who cares now that we can make *infinite* IDENTICAL data copies, on whatever
> media is yet to be invented, whenever we need to, something you CANNOT do
> with analog tape!!!!

I care, because it's one more thing I have to do for which
I'm not getting paid. Hey, if your time is free, how about
painting my house?

> I wonder how many analog tapes and tape players will have survived by 2041??

We have a pretty good track record so far.

> ALL archive libraries are busy transferring material to DIGITAL so it can be
> archived without further loss for as long as deemed worthwhile

Tha'ts archive libraries. It's their JOB, and people working
there get paid to do those transfers. Since their job is
also to be able to play anything that they have in storage,
it's more cost effective for them to store digital copies in
a single standard format and maintain the media than it is
to store multiple analog formats and maintain the equipment
to play them. What you do with your own personal archive is
up to you. How you pay for it is also up to you.

>> And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
>> open PT 5.31 multitrack data?

> I surely think that ALL digital audio formats are sufficiently simple
> structure that the DATA can be transferred without loss, and any new program
> necessary to convert formats to whatever is required at any future date,
> will take a competent programmer no more than a few hours.

The universal format currently is broadcast wave files,
mostly 24-bit, mostly at 96 kHz sample rate. This preserves
the audio content, but if you have a set of multitrack files
which resulted in a final production, saving just the audio
data doesn't save edits, processing, or the mix. This is
what's standing in the way of moving a project from, say, a
Pro Tools studio to a Nuendo studio, to a Logic studio, to a
Reaper studio. A revived production created from nothing but
the original WAV files will be a new mix and won't be
identical to what originally was issued from those files.
That's not what an archive does.

> You seem to have a problem discriminating programs from data. NO live
> recording I have ever made relies on plugin's to recover the data, does
> yours? If so, simply re-render each track now while you still can.

This is one way of making an archive version that's more
universal. But still, you can't accurately re-create a mix
without the file that instructs the DSP what do do when, and
without the DSP (the right DAW program) to do it.

> Well that was my point, I for one am glad it is no longer necessary to buy
> 1" Studer tape machines at HUGE expense to get decent multi-track
> recordings.

That's no, This was then. If there was a clear advantage to
using analog tape, then they'd still be making analog tape
decks. Sure, the world is changing. We get some things
better and some things worse out of it. The upside is lower
cost and (if you spend enough money) better first generation
fidelity. The downside is how difficult it can be to play an
obsolete format, and how quickly a format becomes obsolete.
We've had 2" 24 track recordings for 40 years and it's not
dead yet.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>
>Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even consider
>the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
>to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
>files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
>you), and still have a LOT of change left over!

Right, but no one does. That's the problem.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Anahata]

On Thu, 04 Aug 2011 07:31:22 -0400, Mike Rivers wrote:

> The universal format currently is broadcast wave files, mostly 24-bit,
> mostly at 96 kHz sample rate. This preserves the audio content, but if
> you have a set of multitrack files which resulted in a final production,
> saving just the audio data doesn't save edits, processing, or the mix.

If you're arguing for analog storage, you can't save mixing and
processing info with that either. Saving a copy of the mix alongside the
multitracks is the nearest you can get with digital or analogue, except
that with digital there's some chance that if you also store the mix
information there *might* still be software in the future that can read
it.

--
Anahata
--/-- http://www.treewind.co.uk
+44 (0)1638 720444

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> I always record when I'm doing FOH, it only takes me a few more
>> minutes to set up, I use the computer for a spectrum analyser anyway, and
>> storage is no longer a real issue given the cost of hard disks now. I
>> also
>> store to DVD/s for backup.
>
> To me, that's a lot of work and expense that I'm not getting paid for. If
> it was a group that I particularly liked and I wanted to keep a recording
> for my personal listening enjoyment, I might do that, but not "always."

I don't find it difficult, and I never know what I'll need, so I just keep
it all. Most of it I want to keep for myself anyway, although I don't bother
remixing and editing all of it.


> Sure, you can do that if you have to do both jobs yourself. Your primary
> responsibility, of course, is to the audience, so you need to pay full
> attention to that.

Right.

> I find that this takes enough concentration so that I have zero time to
> pay attention to a recording.

That's why I don't. It can all be done later, as long as I set things up
properly.


>The advantage of having someone else work the recording setup, even if it's
>multitrack that will be mixed later. That way you can hear problems that
>might be fixable which don't affect the live sound and avoid bringing back
>useless or troublesome tracks. But if your recording is just on the basis
>of "maybe I can use it" then you do whatever makes sense for you.

Exactly. And it's a live recording after all not a studio session. But IF
the FOH sound is fine, there won't be any "useless tracks" unless I have
stuffed up the initial recorder set up. I've possibly done that once in a
few hundred recordings. And had the computer play up once many years ago. So
all in all I've been very happy with what I've got for the time and money
spent.


> I'm not arguing that keeping the recording and sound reinforcement totally
> independent is the only way to do it, that's how people who have to be
> sure to do a first rate job at both tasks do it.

I don't disagree at all. I would too if I was being paid for a mission
critical recording. That's not what I am usually paid for however. It's just
an added possibility later.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> Tapes from the 70s and 80s that haven't survived usually didn't survive
> because the owners didn't think they were worth saving. Record companies
> used to throw away or re-use master tapes all the time back then.

Right, that's the high cost of tape and storage I mentioned. I was also
thinking of all the problem tapes which baking may or may not partially
"fix".

> The recorder and tape was already paid for

Not so, I know people who never really "paid" for their recorders out of
profits, and tape was a real big expense too if you wanted to archive it.

>and there was no cost after the recording was made.

As long as you had no need for proper storage of tapes, or even not so
proper storage costs money. You can store recordings on todays hard drives,
complete with back-ups in about 1% of the space.

>No time to copy to another medium,

Rubish, tape backups HAD to be done in real time, digital files take a few
seconds per program hour!
Oh you mean you didn't bother with tape back-ups because it was too
difficult and too expensive, and reduced quality. I count that as a BAD
thing!


>no cost for another medium, no worry about the project file format no
>longer working on a 30 year newer version of the program, no need to worry
>that a 30 year old program that you saved along with the tape will run on a
>modern computer.

No you just have to worry if the tape has survived, and how nuch it is going
to cost to repair that Studer, and IF you can possibly justify the expense
now you hardly ever use it! :-(
As I said, any fool can write a program to convert digital data without
loss. I can even copy files from 5_1/4" 360kB floppies with less problem
than analog tapes of the same age.


> Tape can be physically damaged, but so can hard drives and optical disks.

Right, but digital data can be infinitely copied without loss, not so analog
tapes.


>Tape does have some fidelity loss over time, but unless the oxide falls off
>(and this has indeed happened)

Right!

>the tape can still be played many, many years after it was recorded. People
>don't tell us about hard drives that won't play because they're not old
>enough yet. But wait another ten years and you'll start hearing stories.

Sure they are old enough, I have hard drives over 30YO, but I sure as hell
don't use them for file storage any longer! Unlike analog tape I don't have
to!


>> Who cares now that we can make *infinite* IDENTICAL data copies, on
>> whatever
>> media is yet to be invented, whenever we need to, something you CANNOT do
>> with analog tape!!!!
>
> I care, because it's one more thing I have to do for which I'm not getting
> paid.

So you are saying you DO get paid to buy buy a new Studer and/or pay for
repairs whenever necessary, pay for climate controlled tape storage, and
paid to transcribe them to digital to be remastered?
And paid to realign the heads of course, hell I spent just as nuch time
fixing tape machines than I've ever spent tranferring digital files and
fixing computers.
Or are you really saying that it doesn't really matter whether you have
analog or digital storage problems, because YOU are simply not interested in
archiving anyway?


>> I wonder how many analog tapes and tape players will have survived by
>> 2041??
>
> We have a pretty good track record so far.

I'm glad you think so, but the same can be said for digital for those who
actually know what they are doing. I've used both, and there's NO way I'm
going back to analog recording!
I wonder how many people will be able to play 1" or 2"" tapes in 2041 even
IF they survive anyway?


>> ALL archive libraries are busy transferring material to DIGITAL so it can
>> be
>> archived without further loss for as long as deemed worthwhile
>
> Tha'ts archive libraries. It's their JOB, and people working there get
> paid to do those transfers.

So your work is not worth keeping? Well then you have NO problem. How the
hell could you afford to pay for a Studer 1" tape machine as was suggested
though. I would have thought digital was FAR better for anybody not
interested in archiving as well as those who are!


>Since their job is also to be able to play anything that they have in
>storage, it's more cost effective for them to store digital copies in a
>single standard format and maintain the media than it is to store multiple
>analog formats and maintain the equipment to play them.

Right, AND lossless "multiple analog formats" are not possible. Every copy
suffers some loss. And maintaining analog equipment to play tape is another
expense you can't afford.


>What you do with your own personal archive is up to you. How you pay for it
>is also up to you.

Exactly, as is how you pay for a Studer tape recorder and tape. IF you do
use it your gonna need repairs sooner or later, even IF you already own it
and have already paid for it from your profits.


> The universal format currently is broadcast wave files, mostly 24-bit,
> mostly at 96 kHz sample rate. This preserves the audio content, but if you
> have a set of multitrack files which resulted in a final production,
> saving just the audio data doesn't save edits, processing, or the mix.

Right, you need to save the final mix/edit as well, that's hardly an issue
these days.


>This is what's standing in the way of moving a project from, say, a Pro
>Tools studio to a Nuendo studio, to a Logic studio, to a Reaper studio. A
>revived production created from nothing but the original WAV files will be
>a new mix and won't be identical to what originally was issued from those
>files. That's not what an archive does.

A final digital mix is no different than a final analog mix, except that it
is far cheaper to save any intermediate digital mixes IF you want, with no
generational loss as with your analog mixes.
You really haven't though this through have you?


>> You seem to have a problem discriminating programs from data. NO live
>> recording I have ever made relies on plugin's to recover the data, does
>> yours? If so, simply re-render each track now while you still can.
>
> This is one way of making an archive version that's more universal. But
> still, you can't accurately re-create a mix without the file that
> instructs the DSP what do do when, and without the DSP (the right DAW
> program) to do it.

No need since you can save as many as you like. But really what gets used 30
years down the track is the final mix, OR the original tracks are
remixed/re-edited from scratch because someone thinks they can do better.
Your whole argument does NOT provide ANY benefit from having analog tape as
the original source in any case.


> That's no, This was then. If there was a clear advantage to using analog
> tape, then they'd still be making analog tape decks.

Right, what is your argument again?


>The downside is how difficult it can be to play an obsolete format, and how
>quickly a format becomes obsolete.

Nope, no digital RECORDING *format* has become untranscribable, and unlike
analog recordings, digital tracks can be transferred quickly with no loss
whenever necessary. I would bet my house that digital sound files are still
able to be transcribed without loss, long after all analog tapes and players
have become useless.


> We've had 2" 24 track recordings for 40 years and it's not dead yet.

It's certainly pretty close! Not that I could ever afford one, 24 tracks of
HIGHER quality digital is easily within my reach now however! :-)
And I have 30 YO digital recordings that I'll bet money are usable long
after all my analog tapes are unplayable anyway.

But hey, keep using that Studer and buying more tape if that's what you
really prefer. It won't affect me in the slightest, or millons of others
either :-)

Trevor.

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "david correia" > wrote in message
> ...
> > What you fail to note is that Hank's tape was never copied. It's
> > original. And it's still doing it's job.
>
> Nope, I noticed that alright. I also noticed how many tapes from the
> seventies and eighties haven't survived.

I've had to bake some Ampex, but not any of the Agfa, which is what we
used once it showed up at our door for demo. Baking brought the tapes
back and I don't think it took the equivalent time as would keeping all
the data on evolving digital storage media accessible.

Money is one thing I might get more of; time is not.

> I also noted how much the Studer
> cost and how much the tape cost. I think I spelled that all out very clearly
> if you care to re-read what I wrote.

The Studer paid for itself within a reasonable period of time and
remianed a viable tool for over thirty years. It still works nicely for
the man who bought it to add to his stash of analog machines to play
analog source material for conversion to modern formats.

I probably won't live long enough to find out if the actual cost of the
digital audio tools and data storage elements actually prove to be
cheaper. Hollywood has been reeling <heh> at the cost of keeping digital
media viable.

> > Of course spinning hard drives won't be found in people's houses in
> > 2041.
>
> Who cares now that we can make *infinite* IDENTICAL data copies, on whatever
> media is yet to be invented, whenever we need to, something you CANNOT do
> with analog tape!!!!

I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.

> >They'll likely be viewed in much the same way as Hank's 1" machine
> > is today. You'll be copying over multiple storage formats just to be
> > able to play a note.
>
> I wonder how many analog tapes and tape players will have survived by 2041??
> ALL archive libraries are busy transferring material to DIGITAL so it can be
> archived without further loss for as long as deemed worthwhile, on as many
> copies as necessary, in as many locations as desireable. NONE of which can
> be done with original analog formats. One fire and the original is gone
> forever! And any analog back-ups are of lesser quality.

> > And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
> > open PT 5.31 multitrack data?
>
> I surely think that ALL digital audio formats are sufficiently simple
> structure that the DATA can be transferred without loss, and any new program
> necessary to convert formats to whatever is required at any future date,
> will take a competent programmer no more than a few hours. Maybe that
> doesn't include you, but I know I can.
>
>
> >And how about all those iLok protected
> > plugins?
>
>
> You seem to have a problem discriminating programs from data. NO live
> recording I have ever made relies on plugin's to recover the data, does
> yours? If so, simply re-render each track now while you still can.
>
>
> >I bet Autotune will still exist ;> In fact there will be a
> > Michael Jackson & a Frank Sinatra plug in. How would you like John
> > Lennon or Sandy Denny singing background vocals for you? Yessss.
>
> Not sure what that has to do with the topic under discussion?
>
>
> > I wonder what technology is gonna be like in 30 years. I likely won't be
> > around to see it, tho. If you go back to 1981 & take a look, it's quite
> > a revolution that has taken place.
>
> Well that was my point, I for one am glad it is no longer necessary to buy
> 1" Studer tape machines at HUGE expense to get decent multi-track
> recordings.
>
>
> >Too bad humans haven't really changed
> > much. We is still pretty dumbos.
>
> So true for many.
>
> Trevor.


--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> On 8/4/2011 2:05 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
> > I also noticed how many tapes from the
> > seventies and eighties haven't survived. I also noted how much the Studer
> > cost and how much the tape cost. I think I spelled that all out very clearly
> > if you care to re-read what I wrote.
>
> Tapes from the 70s and 80s that haven't survived usually
> didn't survive because the owners didn't think they were
> worth saving. Record companies used to throw away or re-use
> master tapes all the time back then.
>
> The recorder and tape was already paid for and there was no
> cost after the recording was made. No time to copy to
> another medium, no cost for another medium, no worry about
> the project file format no longer working on a 30 year newer
> version of the program, no need to worry that a 30 year old
> program that you saved along with the tape will run on a
> modern computer.
>
> Tape can be physically damaged, but so can hard drives and
> optical disks. Tape does have some fidelity loss over time,
> but unless the oxide falls off (and this has indeed
> happened) the tape can still be played many, many years
> after it was recorded. People don't tell us about hard
> drives that won't play because they're not old enough yet.
> But wait another ten years and you'll start hearing stories.
>
> > Who cares now that we can make *infinite* IDENTICAL data copies, on whatever
> > media is yet to be invented, whenever we need to, something you CANNOT do
> > with analog tape!!!!
>
> I care, because it's one more thing I have to do for which
> I'm not getting paid. Hey, if your time is free, how about
> painting my house?
>
> > I wonder how many analog tapes and tape players will have survived by 2041??
>
> We have a pretty good track record so far.

Scott Dorsey, for instance, has playable tapes from way back before the
master I mentioned. My oldest tapes are from the mid-'60's and they
still play.

> > ALL archive libraries are busy transferring material to DIGITAL so it can be
> > archived without further loss for as long as deemed worthwhile
>
> Tha'ts archive libraries. It's their JOB, and people working
> there get paid to do those transfers. Since their job is
> also to be able to play anything that they have in storage,
> it's more cost effective for them to store digital copies in
> a single standard format and maintain the media than it is
> to store multiple analog formats and maintain the equipment
> to play them. What you do with your own personal archive is
> up to you. How you pay for it is also up to you.
>
> >> And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
> >> open PT 5.31 multitrack data?
>
> > I surely think that ALL digital audio formats are sufficiently simple
> > structure that the DATA can be transferred without loss, and any new program
> > necessary to convert formats to whatever is required at any future date,
> > will take a competent programmer no more than a few hours.
>
> The universal format currently is broadcast wave files,
> mostly 24-bit, mostly at 96 kHz sample rate. This preserves
> the audio content, but if you have a set of multitrack files
> which resulted in a final production, saving just the audio
> data doesn't save edits, processing, or the mix. This is
> what's standing in the way of moving a project from, say, a
> Pro Tools studio to a Nuendo studio, to a Logic studio, to a
> Reaper studio. A revived production created from nothing but
> the original WAV files will be a new mix and won't be
> identical to what originally was issued from those files.
> That's not what an archive does.
>
> > You seem to have a problem discriminating programs from data. NO live
> > recording I have ever made relies on plugin's to recover the data, does
> > yours? If so, simply re-render each track now while you still can.
>
> This is one way of making an archive version that's more
> universal. But still, you can't accurately re-create a mix
> without the file that instructs the DSP what do do when, and
> without the DSP (the right DAW program) to do it.
>
> > Well that was my point, I for one am glad it is no longer necessary to buy
> > 1" Studer tape machines at HUGE expense to get decent multi-track
> > recordings.
>
> That's no, This was then. If there was a clear advantage to
> using analog tape, then they'd still be making analog tape
> decks. Sure, the world is changing. We get some things
> better and some things worse out of it. The upside is lower
> cost and (if you spend enough money) better first generation
> fidelity. The downside is how difficult it can be to play an
> obsolete format, and how quickly a format becomes obsolete.
> We've had 2" 24 track recordings for 40 years and it's not
> dead yet.


--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even
>>consider
>>the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
>>to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
>>files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
>>you), and still have a LOT of change left over!
>
> Right, but no one does. That's the problem.

Some DO, probably FAR more than keep their tapes in climate controlled
storage, along with a tape machine (and spares) to play them on.
IF you have no need for archiving then you don't care either way. Those that
actually DO archiving prefer digital.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
> I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
> hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.

Right, so it makes no difference what you record on then, but the ONLY
reason AFAIC to use a Studer for new recordings is if you already own it,
reuse tapes, and actually prefer the analog distortions. So tell me do YOU
still record everything to analog tape, or is your agument really
superfluous?

Trevor.

[[email protected]]

On 2011-08-04 (ScottDorsey) said:
>Trevor > wrote:
>>Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not
>>even consider the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage
>>for tape if you expect to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it
>>that long) you could transfer files to a new hard drive every year
>>(and even pay someone to do it for you), and still have a LOT of
>change left over!
>Right, but no one does. That's the problem.

Indeed it is, as well as the fact that a lot of stuff that
is recorded wouldn't have been back in the day, unless
you're intent on doing so.
Example: BAck in the '80's I recorded everything, band
rehearsals, just jamming, to cheapo cassette if nothing
else. IF we were going for something keeper then we put a
reel on the REvox.
THen there's that other bear in the woods, I think somebody
on the pro-audio list used to use this as part of his sig
file. I've got to paraphrase as I can't remember the exact
verbiage, but he said that the main problem with storage
technology was the ability to lose larger and larger amounts
of data at one fell swoop.
Which is why, to do it right you've got to have some
redundancy built in, and this means meticulous
recordkeeping. Professional archivists are paid for this
level of diligence, but most folks don't understand the need
for it.




Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>>Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even
>>>consider
>>>the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
>>>to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
>>>files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
>>>you), and still have a LOT of change left over!
>>
>> Right, but no one does. That's the problem.
>
>Some DO, probably FAR more than keep their tapes in climate controlled
>storage, along with a tape machine (and spares) to play them on.
>IF you have no need for archiving then you don't care either way. Those that
>actually DO archiving prefer digital.

You might want to check the LoC guidelines before you make that last
statement....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
>> I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
>> hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.
>
>Right, so it makes no difference what you record on then, but the ONLY
>reason AFAIC to use a Studer for new recordings is if you already own it,
>reuse tapes, and actually prefer the analog distortions. So tell me do YOU
>still record everything to analog tape, or is your agument really
>superfluous?

I still record most stuff to analogue tape myself, but I'm in the minority.

Still, you will see a lot of studios recording on digital systems but making
safety copies on 2". You'll also still see a lot of record contracts that
require a 2" safety to be provided. It's expensive, but so is data loss.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On 4 Aug 2011 15:09:04 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

>Trevor > wrote:
>>"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
>>> I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
>>> hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.
>>
>>Right, so it makes no difference what you record on then, but the ONLY
>>reason AFAIC to use a Studer for new recordings is if you already own it,
>>reuse tapes, and actually prefer the analog distortions. So tell me do YOU
>>still record everything to analog tape, or is your agument really
>>superfluous?
>
>I still record most stuff to analogue tape myself, but I'm in the minority.
>
>Still, you will see a lot of studios recording on digital systems but making
>safety copies on 2". You'll also still see a lot of record contracts that
>require a 2" safety to be provided. It's expensive, but so is data loss.
>--scott

A good idea. The tape is obviously not as good as digital, but you
really have to make a special effort to entirely lose your work from
analogue tape. With digital recording a relatively trivial data error
can spell ruin.

d

[alex]

Il 27/07/2011 21.47, Paul ha scritto:
>
> I'm thinking of getting a multi-core laptop for Cubase LE4, for
> remote
> recording live bands.
>
> But I've heard people not recommending laptops for this job for
> certain reasons.
>
> Perhaps times have changed?

laptops works fine nowadays but in my opinion the hardware solution like
alesis hd24 is still better because the computer platform adds a big
complexity to the simple task of recording and this, sometimes, can lead
to problems.
Let's imagine your laptop decide to upadate the antivirus database while
recording, or it try to install an automatic upgrade.
Ok you can configure the laptop to do nothing unless you specifically
ask to do, but the complexity is huge and is easy to forget something.
Then, the laptop solution is phisychally weaker because you need an
audio device plugged to the electricity outlet, then connected to the
computer that is connected to the electrical source too. basically more
potential sources of problems are there.

keep in mind that a HD24 (24 tracks 44100/24 bits) is priced around
$1500 right now and this is much less than any 24 trks computer based
solution available.

alex

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/4/2011 8:50 AM, anahata wrote:

> If you're arguing for analog storage, you can't save mixing and
> processing info with that either. Saving a copy of the mix alongside the
> multitracks is the nearest you can get with digital or analogue, except
> that with digital there's some chance that if you also store the mix
> information there *might* still be software in the future that can read
> it.

You're correct of course. I'm not arguing "for" analog
storage, I'm only saying that if that's what you have, it
will probably last as long as you need it. There's no
compelling reason to copy it to digital media other than to
have another copy (which is never a bad idea). But you'll
probably need to refresh that digital copy more often than
you'll have to refresh the analog original.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/4/2011 10:19 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I was also
> thinking of all the problem tapes which baking may or may not partially
> "fix".

Baking isn't the only solution and what it fixes isn't the
only problem that can occur with tape. Sometimes it makes
the problem worse. It's true that some tapes can't be played
normally. If you have one, you need to decide how badly you
want to play it. There are specialists in the field who can
probably play it where you can't. If it's worth $1000 to
hear your great grandmother sing again, you can.

>> The recorder and tape was already paid for
>
> Not so, I know people who never really "paid" for their recorders out of
> profits, and tape was a real big expense too if you wanted to archive it.

Well, I know people who have hundreds of dollars, maybe even
a couple of thousand, tied up in a digital recording system
that they've never paid for either. But in the day when you
needed a real analog tape recorder to be a real recording
studio in a real business, most business plans assured that
the recorder would be paid for in a reasonable amount of
time. And the clients pay for the tape. It's their choice
what to do with it after they've finished the initial
project. Of course there are all kinds of businesses that
fail because they couldn't make it pay.

>> and there was no cost after the recording was made.
>
> As long as you had no need for proper storage of tapes, or even not so
> proper storage costs money. You can store recordings on todays hard drives,
> complete with back-ups in about 1% of the space.

Why should I (in the recording business) store tapes or
drives at all, for projects that have been completed? That's
for the client to do. If the client wants me to store his
project, I'm inclined to charge for it. Nothing comes for
free, but with digital, there seems to be that perception.

> Rubish, tape backups HAD to be done in real time, digital files take a few
> seconds per program hour!

Certainly not a few seconds per program hour. Maybe if it's
a stereo MP3 file. If it's all the garbage you've saved for
a 147 track project, maybe half an hour once you get things
set up. The point is that you have to do it, and it takes
time to get started. Unless of course you're an archive
facility and you're doing this all the time.

> Oh you mean you didn't bother with tape back-ups because it was too
> difficult and too expensive, and reduced quality. I count that as a BAD
> thing!

I would always suggest making a safety copy of the mix
before sending the master off to be pressed. The client
usually agreed, and paid for it. No problems.

> As I said, any fool can write a program to convert digital data without
> loss.

Not me.

> Sure they are old enough, I have hard drives over 30YO, but I sure as hell
> don't use them for file storage any longer!

Why not? Because you no longer have anything to connect them
to, I'll bet. What are you going to do if you actually need
them?

> So you are saying you DO get paid to buy buy a new Studer and/or pay for
> repairs whenever necessary, pay for climate controlled tape storage, and
> paid to transcribe them to digital to be remastered?

At one time I did (though it was an Ampex, not a Studer),
all of that except the climate controlled storage and I paid
for repairs with my time and the cost of parts. You probably
do the same when your computers need repair.

Maybe you were born too late to ever know the time when
people actually paid to have other people record them.
Studios were the place where there were people who knew how
to operate and maintain the equipment, they invested in the
equipment, and they charged for their services. Today, you
can still find paid recording studios, and that's the place
where you find the analog recorders available for those who
want to use them in their projects. But most people record
themselves in a spare bedroom for a tiny investment in
equipment and no cost for labor (unless you consider that
you could be making $150/hour writing software instead of
recording for free). So what you keep, what you throw away,
and in what form is entirely a personal decision.

> Or are you really saying that it doesn't really matter whether you have
> analog or digital storage problems, because YOU are simply not interested in
> archiving anyway?

I'm not an archivist.

> I wonder how many people will be able to play 1" or 2"" tapes in 2041 even
> IF they survive anyway?

Does it matter? As long as there are enough that's all there
needs to be. How many people will be able to open a Pro
Tools version 4 project in 2041? Or even in 2011?

> So your work is not worth keeping?

Most of it, no, not for me. I do most of my recording
digitally today, but I delete a lot more than what I save,
and what I save is almost always in an easily playable
format like a CD. If I don't care to listen to it, I don't
see any reason to save it. Now if I make a recording for
someone else, it's his or her choice if, how, and for how
long they store it. But storage isn't my job. I record.

> How the
> hell could you afford to pay for a Studer 1" tape machine

By keeping fairly busy and charging people $50/hour. How
much do you charge for recoridng?

> Right, AND lossless "multiple analog formats" are not possible. Every copy
> suffers some loss.

People talk about the loss of making multiple generations of
analog but every multitrack analog recording is at least
third generation by the time it gets pressed. And so what if
there's a little loss? Who cares? I care more about having a
disk on the shelf that I forgot to copy to a new format and
now I can't play it at all. Or I have to rebuild the hard
drive that I take off the shelf because it's time to re-copy
it, find that it doesn't work, and hope I can recover what's
on it.


> A final digital mix is no different than a final analog mix, except that it
> is far cheaper to save any intermediate digital mixes IF you want, with no
> generational loss as with your analog mixes.
> You really haven't though this through have you?

I've thought it through, and I finish a project and then
it's done. What happens to it in 30 years is someone else's
problem. If I recorded it digitally, I'll be happy to hand
over the drives to the client (as long as he's paid for the
media). I can give him documentation as to what he has and
advise him about storage and archiving, but it's not my
problem. It's not my job. I don't do this.

> But really what gets used 30
> years down the track is the final mix, OR the original tracks are
> remixed/re-edited from scratch because someone thinks they can do better.

So just to be sure, you'd better save everything. But
sometimes you want to re-create the original mix and just to
it with better equipment.

> Your whole argument does NOT provide ANY benefit from having analog tape as
> the original source in any case.

I was never arguing that it was better. I was only
commenting that if I have an analog tape, I don't feel
compelled to go out of my way to make a digital copy of it
until I need it.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/4/2011 10:23 AM, Trevor wrote:

> IF you have no need for archiving then you don't care either way. Those that
> actually DO archiving prefer digital.

Do you have an actual need for archiving? What is it? Or do
you just feel that you should do it, so you do because it
isn't much of an inconvenience?


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/4/2011 12:35 PM, wrote:
> I think somebody
> on the pro-audio list used to use this as part of his sig
> file. I've got to paraphrase as I can't remember the exact
> verbiage, but he said that the main problem with storage
> technology was the ability to lose larger and larger amounts
> of data at one fell swoop.

That was me, and the quote is:

"Understanding storage technology is not difficult. It is an
ongoing process whereby larger and larger amounts of
information can be lost by smaller and smaller mishaps."

I can't remember where I put that one.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Thu 2011-Aug-04 16:37, Mike Rivers writes:

> On 8/4/2011 12:35 PM, wrote:
>> I think somebody
>> on the pro-audio list used to use this as part of his sig
>> file. I've got to paraphrase as I can't remember the exact
>> verbiage, but he said that the main problem with storage
>> technology was the ability to lose larger and larger amounts
>> of data at one fell swoop.

> That was me, and the quote is:

> "Understanding storage technology is not difficult. It is an
> ongoing process whereby larger and larger amounts of
> information can be lost by smaller and smaller mishaps."

YEp, that's the one! <hmmm> I didn't think you were seeing my albisani posts there for awhile <g>.

LIke you I capture it. What the client does with it after
that is his/her/its problem. Until they burned I had mixes
and recording done on a REvox a77 that still played good, I
think I had to bake some 456 myself, and had spent some time moving some of it to dat and was migrating it to cd-r with a masterlink when Katrina took it all.


Thanks for the memory refresher.

Regards,
Richard
.... Amazing how much tape is on a 10" reel when it's not.
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[david correia]

In article >,
"Trevor" > wrote:

>
> "david correia" > wrote in message
> ...
> > What you fail to note is that Hank's tape was never copied. It's
> > original. And it's still doing it's job.
>
> Nope, I noticed that alright. I also noticed how many tapes from the
> seventies and eighties haven't survived.



I haven't, and I have been transferring from analog tape professionally
for clients since 1981. I cannot think of one time where the tape hasn't
"survived". Plenty of the players on them haven't ;> And that's included
masters stored in unheated attics here in the Northeast that for years
would bake in the summer and get really cold in the winter.

The hairiest tapes I had to deal with were some Sony 601 masters that
used video tape. I had to use a couple different vcr's & keep my fingers
crossed. And of course, this was digital, not analog, recording. Finding
a 601 wasn't hard.

About 5 years ago a guy came in with a no name mono cassette he'd
recorded from the fields in Vietnam, ramblings sent home to his mom &
family. To my surprise, that sucker played back perfectly.


> > And do you think Pro Tools 19 or whatever takes its place will still
> > open PT 5.31 multitrack data?
>
> I surely think that ALL digital audio formats are sufficiently simple
> structure that the DATA can be transferred without loss, and any new program
> necessary to convert formats to whatever is required at any future date,
> will take a competent programmer no more than a few hours. Maybe that
> doesn't include you, but I know I can.


Look inside a typical PT audio files folder. It contains hundreds &
hundreds of little pieces of audio. You would never be able to put
Humpty together again. It already happens to people today.

Nor you would ever know which pieces from the many lead vocal takes were
the right ones.

Once I was finally comfortable with the sound of PT - PT HD - within a
year I sold my 2" and never looked back. I love how I can screw with
stuff inside PT. I have three 1/4" tape machines I expect to sell this
year. I ain't in love with them. But I do not believe it will be simple
to open a PT 5.31 session in 2041.

I had many 8 second System snippets of my then little kids recorded with
that cheezy disc microphone that Apple shipped with early Macs. They'd
have a blast horsing around and broke probably 8 of those cheap mics.
And I was unable to get that wierd data format to play on any Mac today.
I had to dust off an ancient Mac to get them.





David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[Adrian Tuddenham[_2_]]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> On 8/4/2011 10:19 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
> > I was also
> > thinking of all the problem tapes which baking may or may not partially
> > "fix".
>
> Baking isn't the only solution and what it fixes isn't the
> only problem that can occur with tape. Sometimes it makes
> the problem worse. It's true that some tapes can't be played
> normally. If you have one, you need to decide how badly you
> want to play it. There are specialists in the field who can
> probably play it where you can't. If it's worth $1000 to
> hear your great grandmother sing again, you can.

For mild cases, I have found that cleaning the tape with Isopropyl
alcohol and then keeping it damp whilst playing it will allow it to run
through without sticking to the heads.

Keep the windows open and a fire extinguisher handy.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/4/2011 1:32 PM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/4/2011 10:19 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
>> I was also
>> thinking of all the problem tapes which baking may or may not partially
>> "fix".
>
> Baking isn't the only solution and what it fixes isn't the only problem
> that can occur with tape. Sometimes it makes the problem worse. It's
> true that some tapes can't be played normally. If you have one, you need
> to decide how badly you want to play it. There are specialists in the
> field who can probably play it where you can't. If it's worth $1000 to
> hear your great grandmother sing again, you can.
>
>>> The recorder and tape was already paid for
>>
>> Not so, I know people who never really "paid" for their recorders out of
>> profits, and tape was a real big expense too if you wanted to archive it.
>
> Well, I know people who have hundreds of dollars, maybe even a couple of
> thousand, tied up in a digital recording system that they've never paid
> for either. But in the day when you needed a real analog tape recorder
> to be a real recording studio in a real business, most business plans
> assured that the recorder would be paid for in a reasonable amount of
> time. And the clients pay for the tape. It's their choice what to do
> with it after they've finished the initial project. Of course there are
> all kinds of businesses that fail because they couldn't make it pay.
>
>>> and there was no cost after the recording was made.
>>
>> As long as you had no need for proper storage of tapes, or even not so
>> proper storage costs money. You can store recordings on todays hard
>> drives,
>> complete with back-ups in about 1% of the space.
>
> Why should I (in the recording business) store tapes or drives at all,
> for projects that have been completed? That's for the client to do. If
> the client wants me to store his project, I'm inclined to charge for it.
> Nothing comes for free, but with digital, there seems to be that
> perception.
>
>> Rubish, tape backups HAD to be done in real time, digital files take a
>> few
>> seconds per program hour!
>
> Certainly not a few seconds per program hour. Maybe if it's a stereo MP3
> file. If it's all the garbage you've saved for a 147 track project,
> maybe half an hour once you get things set up. The point is that you
> have to do it, and it takes time to get started. Unless of course you're
> an archive facility and you're doing this all the time.
>
>> Oh you mean you didn't bother with tape back-ups because it was too
>> difficult and too expensive, and reduced quality. I count that as a BAD
>> thing!
>
> I would always suggest making a safety copy of the mix before sending
> the master off to be pressed. The client usually agreed, and paid for
> it. No problems.
>
>> As I said, any fool can write a program to convert digital data without
>> loss.
>
> Not me.
>
>> Sure they are old enough, I have hard drives over 30YO, but I sure as
>> hell
>> don't use them for file storage any longer!
>
> Why not? Because you no longer have anything to connect them to, I'll
> bet. What are you going to do if you actually need them?
>
>> So you are saying you DO get paid to buy buy a new Studer and/or pay for
>> repairs whenever necessary, pay for climate controlled tape storage, and
>> paid to transcribe them to digital to be remastered?
>
> At one time I did (though it was an Ampex, not a Studer), all of that
> except the climate controlled storage and I paid for repairs with my
> time and the cost of parts. You probably do the same when your computers
> need repair.
>
> Maybe you were born too late to ever know the time when people actually
> paid to have other people record them. Studios were the place where
> there were people who knew how to operate and maintain the equipment,
> they invested in the equipment, and they charged for their services.
> Today, you can still find paid recording studios, and that's the place
> where you find the analog recorders available for those who want to use
> them in their projects. But most people record themselves in a spare
> bedroom for a tiny investment in equipment and no cost for labor (unless
> you consider that you could be making $150/hour writing software instead
> of recording for free). So what you keep, what you throw away, and in
> what form is entirely a personal decision.
>
>> Or are you really saying that it doesn't really matter whether you have
>> analog or digital storage problems, because YOU are simply not
>> interested in
>> archiving anyway?
>
> I'm not an archivist.
>
>> I wonder how many people will be able to play 1" or 2"" tapes in 2041
>> even
>> IF they survive anyway?
>
> Does it matter? As long as there are enough that's all there needs to
> be. How many people will be able to open a Pro Tools version 4 project
> in 2041? Or even in 2011?
>

I am able to open a Photoshop CS3 file into an old Photoshop
5.0 LE application, which is circa 1998. There is a warning
when you fist open it up, that some of the data will be discarded,
but the file works fine once opened. I assume the discarded data
was extra functionally in CS3, that the older version doesn't
know what to do with.

Programmers try to utilize backwards compatibility as
much as they can. Anyone really serious about saving mix, pan, and
eq information is going to re-open their version of Protools in
the next, latest version, and re-save under the new version. There
shouldn't be a problem doing this, and at any rate, as someone
else mentioned, someone else is likely gonna re-mix the music
anyways, so the raw audio data is the most important info anyways.

Hard drives have a usable life expectancy of about 5 years
or so, so anyone who is serious about archiving their data is
gonna transfer everything to a new drive(s). Technology moves
fast, and SATA will likely make IDE extinct, but in the meantime,
there is plenty of time to make transfers.

Everything is going digital, there is no doubt.


>> So your work is not worth keeping?
>
> Most of it, no, not for me. I do most of my recording digitally today,
> but I delete a lot more than what I save, and what I save is almost
> always in an easily playable format like a CD. If I don't care to listen
> to it, I don't see any reason to save it. Now if I make a recording for
> someone else, it's his or her choice if, how, and for how long they
> store it. But storage isn't my job. I record.
>
> > How the
>> hell could you afford to pay for a Studer 1" tape machine
>
> By keeping fairly busy and charging people $50/hour. How much do you
> charge for recoridng?
>
>> Right, AND lossless "multiple analog formats" are not possible. Every
>> copy
>> suffers some loss.
>
> People talk about the loss of making multiple generations of analog but
> every multitrack analog recording is at least third generation by the
> time it gets pressed. And so what if there's a little loss? Who cares? I
> care more about having a disk on the shelf that I forgot to copy to a
> new format and now I can't play it at all. Or I have to rebuild the hard
> drive that I take off the shelf because it's time to re-copy it, find
> that it doesn't work, and hope I can recover what's on it.
>
>
>> A final digital mix is no different than a final analog mix, except
>> that it
>> is far cheaper to save any intermediate digital mixes IF you want,
>> with no
>> generational loss as with your analog mixes.
>> You really haven't though this through have you?
>
> I've thought it through, and I finish a project and then it's done. What
> happens to it in 30 years is someone else's problem. If I recorded it
> digitally, I'll be happy to hand over the drives to the client (as long
> as he's paid for the media). I can give him documentation as to what he
> has and advise him about storage and archiving, but it's not my problem.
> It's not my job. I don't do this.
>
>> But really what gets used 30
>> years down the track is the final mix, OR the original tracks are
>> remixed/re-edited from scratch because someone thinks they can do better.
>
> So just to be sure, you'd better save everything. But sometimes you want
> to re-create the original mix and just to it with better equipment.
>
>> Your whole argument does NOT provide ANY benefit from having analog
>> tape as
>> the original source in any case.
>
> I was never arguing that it was better. I was only commenting that if I
> have an analog tape, I don't feel compelled to go out of my way to make
> a digital copy of it until I need it.
>
>
>

[Scott Dorsey]

david correia > wrote:
>
>I had many 8 second System snippets of my then little kids recorded with
>that cheezy disc microphone that Apple shipped with early Macs. They'd
>have a blast horsing around and broke probably 8 of those cheap mics.
>And I was unable to get that wierd data format to play on any Mac today.
>I had to dust off an ancient Mac to get them.

Those things were actually designed by a big-name acoustical designer
that Apple hired. It's been a long time since Apple has done that, though.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>
> I am able to open a Photoshop CS3 file into an old Photoshop
>5.0 LE application, which is circa 1998. There is a warning
>when you fist open it up, that some of the data will be discarded,
>but the file works fine once opened. I assume the discarded data
>was extra functionally in CS3, that the older version doesn't
>know what to do with.

Try and open up a Word 5 file sometime.

> Programmers try to utilize backwards compatibility as
>much as they can. Anyone really serious about saving mix, pan, and
>eq information is going to re-open their version of Protools in
>the next, latest version, and re-save under the new version. There
>shouldn't be a problem doing this, and at any rate, as someone
>else mentioned, someone else is likely gonna re-mix the music
>anyways, so the raw audio data is the most important info anyways.

Unfortunately you can't always do this. Already we are running into issues
these days with people bringing in old projects from ancient versions of
Protools.

I am a big fan of backward compatibility and I am a great enemy of feature
bloat, but unfortunately the friendly people at Avid do not contact me when
they do product research.

The ONLY way we get effective and true backward compatibility is by having
published interchange standards and by demanding vendors follow them. Right
now we DO have Broadcast Wave and that's a big deal, but it's only part of
the whole suite of media format standards that we need to have.

> Hard drives have a usable life expectancy of about 5 years
>or so, so anyone who is serious about archiving their data is
>gonna transfer everything to a new drive(s). Technology moves
>fast, and SATA will likely make IDE extinct, but in the meantime,
>there is plenty of time to make transfers.

Right, the problem is that often data winds up in the hands of people who
don't care about it for a long time. I spend a large amount of my time dealing
with media that have been stored in someone's basement or attic for years
"because nobody cares about that old music anymore."

> Everything is going digital, there is no doubt.

Yes, and this is a good thing. I am very happy that everything is going
digital, what I am not happy about is that people are neglecting very
critical parts of the media life cycle in the process.

I'm one of the folks who wind up having to deal with those problems when
they get neglected. The good news is that it's surprisingly profitable.
The bad news is that it's surprisingly expensive.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "hank alrich" > wrote in message
> ...
> > I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
> > hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.
>
> Right, so it makes no difference what you record on then, but the ONLY
> reason AFAIC to use a Studer for new recordings is if you already own it,
> reuse tapes, and actually prefer the analog distortions. So tell me do YOU
> still record everything to analog tape, or is your agument really
> superfluous?
>
> Trevor.

Tell me, do you just like to argue until you're purple in the face or do
you have something relevant to contribute?

Reading is fundamental. The answer to your questions are already
contained in the thread, which from a casual comment I made about wire
connecting to a Studer, you have dragged into a morass of bull**** about
what you think. At some point nobody gives a **** what you think, not
that there's anything wrong with what you're thinking.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Trevor > wrote:

> "Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
> ...
> >>Given the cost of a 1" Studer and the cost of tape, (let's not even
> >>consider
> >>the cost of temperature/humidity controlled storage for tape if you expect
> >>to use it in 30 years, many didn't make it that long) you could transfer
> >>files to a new hard drive every year (and even pay someone to do it for
> >>you), and still have a LOT of change left over!
> >
> > Right, but no one does. That's the problem.
>
> Some DO, probably FAR more than keep their tapes in climate controlled
> storage, along with a tape machine (and spares) to play them on.
> IF you have no need for archiving then you don't care either way. Those that
> actually DO archiving prefer digital.
>
> Trevor.

I'e kept the tapes, am still using them to generate product, and have
the stereo machine to which most of the masters were mixed. If/when I
want to move the mutlis to the digital realm I'll hand them off to Steve
Puntolillo for that.

We still need for a few decades to pass before we start praising the
incontrovertible durability of digital storage. I will retain the analog
tapes even if they get transferred to a "modern" storage system.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Scott Dorsey]

hank alrich > wrote:
>
>We still need for a few decades to pass before we start praising the
>incontrovertible durability of digital storage. I will retain the analog
>tapes even if they get transferred to a "modern" storage system.

And of course we have all the digital tape formats which have the tape issues
and the digital issues combined.

I have a good friend with a bunch of 32-track 3M digital tapes. As far as
any of can figure, there are no machines to play them back at all... they
are very different than standard DASH or Mitsubishi formats. And nobody
made analogue safeties.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> Why should I (in the recording business) store tapes or
> drives at all, for projects that have been completed? That's
> for the client to do. If the client wants me to store his
> project, I'm inclined to charge for it. Nothing comes for
> free, but with digital, there seems to be that perception.

We've been having Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Digital Audio in Austin do
our mastering. Terra Nova provides an archive service for a modest fee,
and we purchase that service. Our own "backups" are on CDR or DVDR
media, and I'll xfer those to my own HD's.

In fact, some of Jerry's customers, among the most serious about keeping
viable versions of their work, will have him record the final master to
stereo analog tape, too.

I am more interested now in making music than in running an archive.
Keeping decent care of analog tapes has proven, in my life, to be a very
practical method of archiving.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Paul > wrote:

> Hard drives have a usable life expectancy of about 5 years
> or so, so anyone who is serious about archiving their data is
> gonna transfer everything to a new drive(s). Technology moves
> fast, and SATA will likely make IDE extinct, but in the meantime,
> there is plenty of time to make transfers.

At my age there probably isn't plenty of time for anything. So I make
choices about how I spend my time, and beyond ruotine backup of my
computer and a few drives, I'm not an archivist. I am a musician and
producer again, and much less a recordist and mixer.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> On 8/4/2011 12:35 PM, wrote:
> > I think somebody
> > on the pro-audio list used to use this as part of his sig
> > file. I've got to paraphrase as I can't remember the exact
> > verbiage, but he said that the main problem with storage
> > technology was the ability to lose larger and larger amounts
> > of data at one fell swoop.
>
> That was me, and the quote is:
>
> "Understanding storage technology is not difficult. It is an
> ongoing process whereby larger and larger amounts of
> information can be lost by smaller and smaller mishaps."

Beautifully stated, Mike.

> I can't remember where I put that one.

I think it's lodged in a bright corner of your mind.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2011-Aug-05 10:49, hank alrich writes:
> I've kept the tapes, am still using them to generate product, and
> have the stereo machine to which most of the masters were mixed.
> If/when I want to move the mutlis to the digital realm I'll hand
> them off to Steve Puntolillo for that.

Indeed, let somebody with the tools etc. do that work. YOu
can conentrate your efforts on creating new product <g>.

> We still need for a few decades to pass before we start praising the
> incontrovertible durability of digital storage. I will retain the
> analog tapes even if they get transferred to a "modern" storage
> system.

INdeed, I wasn't throwing out the two track masters I was
transferring to digital before Katrina either. I was even
planning on finding somebody with 4 track and dbx decode to
handle some old 4 track stuff I had in storage, that was
possibly going to need to be baked first, since a lot of it
was 456 and Scotch 226. NEver got around to it.

The long term viability of any storage format is a hotly
debated topic in many forums these days. WAs just a pretty
good thread a couple months back on the pro-audio list
regarding those issues. HOwever, I don't think the op was
as interested in the storage and archival battle as he was
the basics of getting a good recording system going for the
field. Like a lot of relative newbies he has more concern
for what he's going to store it on than the chain to it,
which is where Hank, Scott, Mike and I were taking him.


Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/5/2011 9:48 AM, Paul wrote:

> I am able to open a Photoshop CS3 file into an old Photoshop
> 5.0 LE application,

> Programmers try to utilize backwards compatibility as
> much as they can.

But we're not talking about Photoshop. I don't have anything
that will make sense of a Wordstar file. I used that a lot
until about 1990. I have a lot of Wordstar files on floppy
disks, fortunately none that I've had to open.

> Anyone really serious about saving mix,
> pan, and
> eq information is going to re-open their version of Protools in
> the next, latest version, and re-save under the new version.

That's assuming they have the next version. But suppose
they've abandoned Pro Tools and used Nuendo for 5 years. And
the 'next version' trick doesn't always work. Lots of Sonic
users were pretty upset when they upgraded one day and files
that they worked on the day before wouldn't open. Sonic did
come to their rescue, but that's a lot of mastering work
that didn't get out for a few days.

> someone else is likely gonna re-mix the music
> anyways, so the raw audio data is the most important info
> anyways.

Sure, there are times when you'll replace the drums and add
a rap part and such, but other times you want to start out
with the mix that the band and producer heard when they made
the record and just clean up some things.

> Hard drives have a usable life expectancy of about 5 years
> or so, so anyone who is serious about archiving their data is
> gonna transfer everything to a new drive(s).

I don't know about your 5 year estimate. I've had many
drives in service for more than 5 years. I replace them when
I need more space and don't want to fool with external drives.

> SATA will likely make IDE extinct, but in the
> meantime,
> there is plenty of time to make transfers.

Yeah, but you have to do it. You can't just do the logical
thing of putting the drive in storage and hook it up if you
need it again. You can do that with paper. Tape has a
history of 50 years or more where you can do that,
phonograph records go back 100 years. And I'll bet that in
20 years, it'll be easier to find an analog tape deck than a
computer with an IDE interface and BIOS that will recognize
a 30 year old drive.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2011-Aug-05 12:06, hank alrich writes:
<snip>
> We've been having Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Digital Audio in Austin
> do our mastering. Terra Nova provides an archive service for a
> modest fee, and we purchase that service.
<snip>

> In fact, some of Jerry's customers, among the most serious about
> keeping viable versions of their work, will have him record the
> final master to stereo analog tape, too.

I can understand why.

> I am more interested now in making music than in running an archive.
> Keeping decent care of analog tapes has proven, in my life, to be a
> very practical method of archiving.

INdeed, and I think a lot of the sort of clients I want will grow to understand this even more and more, and why another
2" machine will eventually go in the remote truck when I can afford to acquire one. YEs digital has many advantages, but long term archival which can be reliably gotten at decades
down the road is still in the future. AS I commented
earlier in this thread, I still had some reels of 1/4 inch
four track I'd have liked toe revisit someday for possible
gems, if nothing else to rediscover a creation I'd
forgotten. I'd love to be able to sell my clients their
hard disk from their performance as well as the 2" analog as well.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Keoki]

My two cents... laptops have 2 years shorter average life cycle than
desktop computers. (3 years vs 5, generally). Especially laptops sold
at mega-chains where every dollar saved on quality parts and
workmanship counts.

If you are taking costly computer gear to a new business venture which
doesn't offer a whole lot of income in the first place (you are just
trying to break into the market, competing on price, right?) it's a
question if the cost will be recouped before computer gear starts to
fail. Not that I'd want to discourage anyone's business aspirations,
but I think a high-tech + low income business idea is probably much
less fruitful startup concept than a low-tech + high income start of
any other permutation of the two.

Sure, there was a dot-com bubble era when two guys with a laptop sold
for millions mere business ideas about online pet grooming and celery
inventory, but those times are probably over. These days the focus
isn't "starting a service with a laptop" as "starting a service people
really want and will pay well" - its laptop requirement or lack of
requirement being incidental. So the gist of the question really ought
to be what's *your*, not the laptops' strength.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/5/2011 3:22 PM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/5/2011 9:48 AM, Paul wrote:
>
>> I am able to open a Photoshop CS3 file into an old Photoshop
>> 5.0 LE application,
>
>> Programmers try to utilize backwards compatibility as
>> much as they can.
>
> But we're not talking about Photoshop. I don't have anything that will
> make sense of a Wordstar file. I used that a lot until about 1990. I
> have a lot of Wordstar files on floppy disks, fortunately none that I've
> had to open.
>

Apparently, there are still ways to convert those files to open
in Microsoft Word:


http://www.google.com/search?q=wordstar+file+converter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a


>> Anyone really serious about saving mix,
>> pan, and
>> eq information is going to re-open their version of Protools in
>> the next, latest version, and re-save under the new version.
>
> That's assuming they have the next version. But suppose they've
> abandoned Pro Tools and used Nuendo for 5 years. And the 'next version'
> trick doesn't always work. Lots of Sonic users were pretty upset when
> they upgraded one day and files that they worked on the day before
> wouldn't open. Sonic did come to their rescue, but that's a lot of
> mastering work that didn't get out for a few days.
>

Protools appears reasonably backwards compatible, i.e., older
version files will open in the next upgraded version.

If someone were serious about keeping their files up
to date, it can be done.


>> someone else is likely gonna re-mix the music
>> anyways, so the raw audio data is the most important info
>> anyways.
>
> Sure, there are times when you'll replace the drums and add a rap part
> and such, but other times you want to start out with the mix that the
> band and producer heard when they made the record and just clean up some
> things.
>

Not if the CD has already gone to press, and everyone has
the first version. People mostly re-master, but not re-mix.
If they re-mix, they'll likely want the raw audio data.


>> Hard drives have a usable life expectancy of about 5 years
>> or so, so anyone who is serious about archiving their data is
>> gonna transfer everything to a new drive(s).
>
> I don't know about your 5 year estimate. I've had many drives in service
> for more than 5 years. I replace them when I need more space and don't
> want to fool with external drives.
>

I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if
you don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you
ought to replace them after 5-7 years or so.


>> SATA will likely make IDE extinct, but in the
>> meantime,
>> there is plenty of time to make transfers.
>
> Yeah, but you have to do it. You can't just do the logical thing of
> putting the drive in storage and hook it up if you need it again. You
> can do that with paper. Tape has a history of 50 years or more where you
> can do that, phonograph records go back 100 years. And I'll bet that in
> 20 years, it'll be easier to find an analog tape deck than a computer
> with an IDE interface and BIOS that will recognize a 30 year old drive.
>

I doubt that. Especially since we are talking about the Studer
tape machine, and not just any tape deck. Old computers are still
around, and will stay around. I know, because I have some of them.

IDE interfaces aren't going to disappear overnight! There are
plenty of computers like mine, that have both SATA and IDE and USB
interfaces, and with the advent of the external USB portable drive,
it's a piece of cake to back things up.

Yes, you have to work a bit at archiving anything, but in the
digital world, that means upgrading to newer and better storage media.
So if you do it properly, you'll never have a 30 year old drive...you'll
have transfered a PERFECT COPY of everything, and tossed it in the trash
a long time ago.

I still have records, but I don't play them anymore. I still
use my cassette player occasionally, but only on the tapes that
still play well, which is becoming fewer and fewer...

[Trevor]

"alex" > wrote in message
...
> laptops works fine nowadays but in my opinion the hardware solution like
> alesis hd24 is still better because the computer platform adds a big
> complexity to the simple task of recording and this, sometimes, can lead
> to problems.
> Let's imagine your laptop decide to upadate the antivirus database while
> recording, or it try to install an automatic upgrade.

Let's imagine you know what you are doing and *at least* disable automatic
updates, and anything else that may start or take over the computer
uninvited! But since you are comparing to dedicated devices, one simply
disables ALL network access, ALL background tasks, and ALL antivirus
programs etc, IF you want a fair comparison.


> Ok you can configure the laptop to do nothing unless you specifically ask
> to do, but the complexity is huge

For you maybe, many others have no problem.


> keep in mind that a HD24 (24 tracks 44100/24 bits) is priced around $1500
> right now and this is much less than any 24 trks computer based solution
> available.

No it's not, and it's not as versatile. But it is obviously an option that
should be considered when making your own choices based on your own
requirements and you own level of competence.

Trevor.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>> That's assuming they have the next version. But suppose they've
>> abandoned Pro Tools and used Nuendo for 5 years. And the 'next version'
>> trick doesn't always work. Lots of Sonic users were pretty upset when
>> they upgraded one day and files that they worked on the day before
>> wouldn't open. Sonic did come to their rescue, but that's a lot of
>> mastering work that didn't get out for a few days.
>
> Protools appears reasonably backwards compatible, i.e., older
>version files will open in the next upgraded version.

It sort of kind of works, most of the time. You can open in the next
upgraded version usually, but not two versions later. It's a whole lot
better than the whole godawful FCP fiasco, but it's still not something
I would want to rely on. Export to a standard format.

> If someone were serious about keeping their files up
>to date, it can be done.

If someone would export to a standard format that doesn't change, it would
be fine. But people don't.

And then people wander in with old media asking to read them.

>> Yeah, but you have to do it. You can't just do the logical thing of
>> putting the drive in storage and hook it up if you need it again. You
>> can do that with paper. Tape has a history of 50 years or more where you
>> can do that, phonograph records go back 100 years. And I'll bet that in
>> 20 years, it'll be easier to find an analog tape deck than a computer
>> with an IDE interface and BIOS that will recognize a 30 year old drive.
>
> I doubt that. Especially since we are talking about the Studer
>tape machine, and not just any tape deck. Old computers are still
>around, and will stay around. I know, because I have some of them.

The Studer has a standard format. It's a published standard, you can
download the track layout and equalization specs from the AES website.

Because it is standard, you can take that 2" 24-track tape and walk into
damn near any high end studio in the country and play it back. The format
is standardized, it does not change.

The same is the case for broadcast wav exports.

But it is NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT the case for Pro Tools workfiles.

> Yes, you have to work a bit at archiving anything, but in the
>digital world, that means upgrading to newer and better storage media.
>So if you do it properly, you'll never have a 30 year old drive...you'll
>have transfered a PERFECT COPY of everything, and tossed it in the trash
>a long time ago.

Yes, but people need to actually do this. Not only that, but they need to
continue to keep something that can read those files if they are using
proprietary and poorly-documented formats. It has been my experience in
dealing with old media that people do not do these things very well.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Webb > wrote:
>down the road is still in the future. AS I commented
>earlier in this thread, I still had some reels of 1/4 inch
>four track I'd have liked toe revisit someday for possible
>gems, if nothing else to rediscover a creation I'd
>forgotten.

I have an ATR-104 with a 1/4" headstack (actually a Nortronics head
in a homebrew mounting) and can play those things. dbx decoder somewhere
in the closet. Bring the truck and I'll give you a feed or I can dub
to dtrs....
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Trevor]

"Don Pearce" > wrote in message
...
> The tape is obviously not as good as digital, but you
> really have to make a special effort to entirely lose your work from
> analogue tape.


If only it were so. I know far too many older musicians who now decide to
put out a compilation CD, and find some of their old material lost by the
record companies. An old cassette dub is hardly a good substitute when
trying to release a commercial CD, and yet it is done :-(

>With digital recording a relatively trivial data error can spell ruin.

And multiple *identical* backups kept by so many people involved now, means
it is FAR more unlikely to be lost forever.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> You're correct of course. I'm not arguing "for" analog storage, I'm only
> saying that if that's what you have, it will probably last as long as you
> need it. There's no compelling reason to copy it to digital media other
> than to have another copy (which is never a bad idea). But you'll probably
> need to refresh that digital copy more often than you'll have to refresh
> the analog original.

Which is just as well since it's impossible to copy analog without
successive loss, as it is with digital!

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> Baking isn't the only solution and what it fixes isn't the only problem
> that can occur with tape.

EXACTLY!

> Why should I (in the recording business) store tapes or drives at all, for
> projects that have been completed? That's for the client to do. If the
> client wants me to store his project, I'm inclined to charge for it.

Right, but how many record companies *insisted* on keeping the original
recordings, and then failed to look after them properly? Too many IME.


>> Rubish, tape backups HAD to be done in real time, digital files take a
>> few
>> seconds per program hour!
>
> Certainly not a few seconds per program hour. Maybe if it's a stereo MP3
> file. If it's all the garbage you've saved for a 147 track project, maybe
> half an hour once you get things set up.

Who keeps 147 tracks of analog? It's simply a straw man. You CAN keep 147
tracks of digital if you wish however, but it would take FAR more than half
an hour to copy to analog of course! :-)


>> As I said, any fool can write a program to convert digital data without
>> loss.
>
> Not me.

Fortunately there are plenty who can. It's NOT hard for those with any
programming ability.


>> Sure they are old enough, I have hard drives over 30YO, but I sure as
>> hell
>> don't use them for file storage any longer!
>
> Why not? Because you no longer have anything to connect them to, I'll bet.

You'd LOSE that bet :-) I can still access an ST406/512 drive when
necessary, (and ESDI and SCSI) and 5.25" floppies etc :-)


>What are you going to do if you actually need them?

Why would I? All data has been copied to bigger,cheaper new drives, *without
loss*.


> At one time I did (though it was an Ampex, not a Studer), all of that
> except the climate controlled storage and I paid for repairs with my time
> and the cost of parts. You probably do the same when your computers need
> repair.

Right, thankfully it's not in the same league as replacing 2" heads on a
Studer!!!


> Maybe you were born too late to ever know the time when people actually
> paid to have other people record them.

I wish! :-)

> Studios were the place where there were people who knew how to operate and
> maintain the equipment, they invested in the equipment, and they charged
> for their services. Today, you can still find paid recording studios, and
> that's the place where you find the analog recorders available for those
> who want to use them in their projects.

Yep, tucked in a corner, only by a few, for the even fewer artists who still
want to record that way. Most of the studio's here (and I'm not talking
bedroom studio's) record maybe 99% to digital, even IF they still have a
tape machine.


>> I wonder how many people will be able to play 1" or 2"" tapes in 2041
>> even
>> IF they survive anyway?
>
> Does it matter? As long as there are enough that's all there needs to be.
> How many people will be able to open a Pro Tools version 4 project in
> 2041? Or even in 2011?

As with YOUR statement, ENOUGH. And far easier for anyone to do so if they
find it necessary to justify some small effort.


> People talk about the loss of making multiple generations of analog but
> every multitrack analog recording is at least third generation by the time
> it gets pressed.

Right, I always considered that a BAD thing, and a problem which digital
solved.


>And so what if there's a little loss? Who cares?

REALLY!
Not everyone was happy with cassette or MP3 either, I know many are, but
some of us do prefer HiFi!


> I've thought it through, and I finish a project and then it's done. What
> happens to it in 30 years is someone else's problem. If I recorded it
> digitally, I'll be happy to hand over the drives to the client (as long as
> he's paid for the media). I can give him documentation as to what he has
> and advise him about storage and archiving, but it's not my problem. It's
> not my job. I don't do this.

Right, and the VAST majority of your clients will be happier for you to hand
over digital recordings these days that they can use, than 2" tapes bet! I
even know some artists who when confronted with 2" tapes the record
companies no longer wished to store, threw them out because they had no use
for them, no way to play them, and no space to store them. They still have
CD's and digital copies of the final product of course, but the original
tracking is now lost.


> So just to be sure, you'd better save everything. But sometimes you want
> to re-create the original mix and just to it with better equipment.

Which is certainly possible IF there is reason to justify whatever expense
is necessary. Analog OR digital. With digital however it is no longer
necessary to go back to the original tracking tapes in a quest to get better
quality instead of from the 3rd or 4th generation mix tape, as is done with
many CD transfers from analog. IF what you want is the same as the original
mix, THAT is what you now use.


>> Your whole argument does NOT provide ANY benefit from having analog tape
>> as
>> the original source in any case.
>
> I was never arguing that it was better. I was only commenting that if I
> have an analog tape, I don't feel compelled to go out of my way to make a
> digital copy of it until I need it.

Wel that is NOT how it appeared to read! If what you said was IN YOUR
OPINION what YOU already own WORKED FOR YOU, then I sure as hell would NOT
bother to argue with that!

OTOH the persistant argument presented that analog tape is somehow a better
archive source, is definitely debateable.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> But we're not talking about Photoshop. I don't have anything that will
> make sense of a Wordstar file. I used that a lot until about 1990. I have
> a lot of Wordstar files on floppy disks, fortunately none that I've had to
> open.

Right, or you'd find all the ascii data is still there (providing you can
read the disk) And since Wordstar had such limited formatting anything
you've lost will be fairly trivial.


>> Anyone really serious about saving mix,
>> pan, and
>> eq information is going to re-open their version of Protools in
>> the next, latest version, and re-save under the new version.

OR they simply save rendered wave files instead, or as well.


> Sure, there are times when you'll replace the drums and add a rap part and
> such, but other times you want to start out with the mix that the band and
> producer heard when they made the record and just clean up some things.

Right, with analog the desire is always there to "clean" things up.

> I don't know about your 5 year estimate. I've had many drives in service
> for more than 5 years.

Yep, they can last from < 1 day to 30+ years IME.


> Yeah, but you have to do it.

Yep, archiving takes time and effort no matter what you use!

>You can't just do the logical thing of putting the drive in storage and
>hook it up if you need it again. You can do that with paper.

Nope, many paper scrolls are now dust. Even chiseled rocks do not last
forever!


>Tape has a history of 50 years or more where you can do that,

And many that didn't. Still 50 years is a miniscule time frame to many
archivists.


> phonograph records go back 100 years. And I'll bet that in 20 years, it'll
> be easier to find an analog tape deck than a computer with an IDE
> interface and BIOS that will recognize a 30 year old drive.

I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the original
master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Paul" > wrote in message
...
> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
> replace them after 5-7 years or so.

NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!


> I still have records, but I don't play them anymore.

I only play them to copy to digital these days if they are not already
available on CD. (or if the CD is really bad, since all my vinyl is mint)
Likewise my R2R machines don't get much use either these days except for the
occasional digital copy.


>I still
> use my cassette player occasionally, but only on the tapes that
> still play well, which is becoming fewer and fewer...

I haven't used my cassette machine in so long I'd have to spend too much
time servicing it to even bother. I turned away a couple of requests to
transfer cassettes rather than worry about it.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> Do you have an actual need for archiving? What is it? Or do you just feel
> that you should do it, so you do because it isn't much of an
> inconvenience?

Exactly, I don't like to lose what I have done, and don't find it that
difficult.
Tape is not the ultimate solution anyway, I can no longer play the 8 track
cartridges I still have, nor the Phillips N1502 video tapes I still have. I
doubt there are too many places that can transfer the latter, if there was
something actually worth the effort :-)
(there are some clips I would still like to have, but just not worth the
effort)
My digital recordings are fine however.

Trevor.

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2011 23:21:12 -0700, david correia wrote
(in article >):

> Once I was finally comfortable with the sound of PT - PT HD - within a
> year I sold my 2" and never looked back. I love how I can screw with
> stuff inside PT. I have three 1/4" tape machines I expect to sell this
> year. I ain't in love with them. But I do not believe it will be simple
> to open a PT 5.31 session in 2041.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

The Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has a pretty good document on how to
backup digital music files, stems, and sessions so that they can be
reassembled years from now:

http://www.grammy.org/files/pages/DeliveryRecommendations.pdf

The bottom line is that you need to print every individual track with all the
inserts and without all the inserts and effects, with the final edits, and
several copies of the final mix. No doubt, the original session decisions
probably won't work, though the WAV files could be loaded in a new computer
and remixed.

I agree with you: even opening up a Pro Tools 9 file in 2041 is gonna be
tough. Heck, try to open up a 1984 Wordstar file *today* with a modern
computer and see how far you get -- and that's less than 30 years old.

--MFW

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 18:05:55 -0700, Paul wrote
(in article >):

> Apparently, there are still ways to convert those files to open
> in Microsoft Word:
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

From a 5-1/4" disk? You tell me how to read a 5-1/4" DOS disk under
Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Mac OSX.

Even if the file format is compatible in some way, finding a machine to
retrieve the media is really the hard part. I just had a case where I had to
deal with a Windows 95 computer project for a friend, and because of the lack
of USB, we wound up just emailing the files, chunk by chunk, to another
computer. That was the only easy way to get them off the machine (and from
5-1/4" disks).

So far, I've been unable to find a company that currently makes a 5-1/4"
diskette drive with a USB cable. (Like I'll need one again in the next
decade...)

--MFW

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 20:09:27 -0700, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article >):

> Because it is standard, you can take that 2" 24-track tape and walk into
> damn near any high end studio in the country and play it back. The format
> is standardized, it does not change.
>
> The same is the case for broadcast wav exports.
>
> But it is NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT the case for Pro Tools workfiles.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

The best answer to that is... "it depends." If you have access to all the
original plug-ins, and have several varieties of Pro Tools on a system, and a
compatible iLok, you actually might get it to work.

I recently opened up a whole bunch of 2001 and 2002 Pro Tools sessions of
mine under PT8, and actually, everything came up fine. I was lucky -- I had
a minimum of plug-ins, and the mix was fairly straightforward. But I would
hate to see what would happen if I had, say, 120-track sessions with 4 or 5
plug-ins on each channel strip.

BTW, when was the last time you used Pro Tools, Scott? I'm telling you,
retrieving an old Pro Tools session doesn't necessarily have to be the
nightmare you make it out to be. I'll put it this way, it's not as difficult
as, say, trying to play back a 40-track Stephens analog 2" tape.

--MFW

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 23:54:31 -0700, Trevor wrote
(in article >):

> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the original
> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

Is this before or after the bomb drops (and/or the apes take over)?

You assume we'll still have power. At the rate the economy is going, I
dunno...

But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old 78RPM
records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't play.
And there are 35mm analog tapes from the 1950s and 1960s that have
disintegrated so badly, they're almost impossible to play. It's really a
crapshoot.

A big advantage of analog is that you can still machine head stacks,
cannibalize preamps, find motors, and put tape machines back together. If
the analog media survives, or if you can bake it or otherwise clean it up,
chances are you can play it back.

But a hard drive in ten years (or 20 or 30)... that's a tough proposition.
CDs will probably play, provided you can find a DVD/CD-ROM player. But look
at Apple, who's now starting to discontinue disk drives in their Mac Minis
and MacBook Airs. In five years, there's a good chance they won't be
shipping Macs with DVD-ROM players. Apple no longer sells software on
DVD-ROMs; it's download-only (for the most part).

I think this trend will continue, and all physical media -- books, magazines,
newspapers, music, movies, TV shows, and photographs -- are going to be
replaced with digital data, all through downloads. Buying, copying, or
keeping disk-based copies is going to be increasingly difficult.

It's not a trend I like, either, but I think it's the reality. When stores
like Tower Records, Virgin Music, Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Borders
collapse, it's a sure sign that things are changing.

--MFW

[John Williamson]

Marc Wielage wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 18:05:55 -0700, Paul wrote
> (in article >):
>
>> Apparently, there are still ways to convert those files to open
>> in Microsoft Word:
>> ------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> From a 5-1/4" disk? You tell me how to read a 5-1/4" DOS disk under
> Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Mac OSX.
>
> Even if the file format is compatible in some way, finding a machine to
> retrieve the media is really the hard part. I just had a case where I had to
> deal with a Windows 95 computer project for a friend, and because of the lack
> of USB, we wound up just emailing the files, chunk by chunk, to another
> computer. That was the only easy way to get them off the machine (and from
> 5-1/4" disks).
>
> So far, I've been unable to find a company that currently makes a 5-1/4"
> diskette drive with a USB cable. (Like I'll need one again in the next
> decade...)
>
I have a machine running XP with a 5.25" drive in it that still works,
and is shared across the network. It will read and write 1.2Meg
diskettes, and read, but not write to, 360Kbyte diskettes.

I also have a Wordstar compatible word processor which will run in a
virtual machine, and will save either plaintext or its own flavour of
file. I've probaly got one somewhere that will open Wordstar and save it
as .rtf.

My compatibility problems come mainly with video files, and I must have
approaching fifty codecs installed. Mostly lossy encoding too, so
generation loss is back with a vengeance. The current crop of HD
camcorders save a variation on H264, which compresses each frame, then
uses keyframe encoding. Almost like having the only possible output from
your sound gear as a low bitrate mp3.

Getting back to the original topic, I use either a laptop or a dedictaed
recorder for location work, depending on the space available. Only four
channels normally, on a USB connection.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>
> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>

The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
the average.


>
>> I still have records, but I don't play them anymore.
>
> I only play them to copy to digital these days if they are not already
> available on CD. (or if the CD is really bad, since all my vinyl is mint)
> Likewise my R2R machines don't get much use either these days except for the
> occasional digital copy.
>
>
>> I still
>> use my cassette player occasionally, but only on the tapes that
>> still play well, which is becoming fewer and fewer...
>
> I haven't used my cassette machine in so long I'd have to spend too much
> time servicing it to even bother. I turned away a couple of requests to
> transfer cassettes rather than worry about it.
>
> Trevor.
>
>

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 1:01 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 23:54:31 -0700, Trevor wrote
> (in >):
>
>> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
>> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
>> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the original
>> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
>> ------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> Is this before or after the bomb drops (and/or the apes take over)?
>
> You assume we'll still have power. At the rate the economy is going, I
> dunno...
>
> But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
> still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old 78RPM
> records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't play.
> And there are 35mm analog tapes from the 1950s and 1960s that have
> disintegrated so badly, they're almost impossible to play. It's really a
> crapshoot.
>
> A big advantage of analog is that you can still machine head stacks,
> cannibalize preamps, find motors, and put tape machines back together. If
> the analog media survives, or if you can bake it or otherwise clean it up,
> chances are you can play it back.
>
> But a hard drive in ten years (or 20 or 30)... that's a tough proposition.


Again, if one is serious about archiving digital data, they
will back up to the latest storage media every 5-7 years or so.
So you should never end up with a HD that is too ancient.

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 -0700, Paul > wrote:

>On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
>> > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>>
>> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
>> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
>> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
>> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>>
>
> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>the average.

Quite the reverse really. The typical failure curve is called the
bathtub - for good reasons. Initial failures are high as the poorly
manufactured units are weeded out. The curve then falls to essentially
zero for a long (one hopes) time. Finally the end-of-life rise happens
as bearings dry out and wear causes things to start mis-aligning.

The hard drive industry designed SMART as a method of monitoring
drives and predicting failures, but it has proven in practice to be
virtually useless, apart from at the extreme end of life when it may
just warn you your drive is about to turn up its toes.

Google have carried out probably the biggest study of hard drives and
their longevity. What they found is hardly intuitive - namely, run
them hot. They last longer. There is a Google publication on the
subject.

d

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 09:21:33 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 -0700, Paul > wrote:
>
>>On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
>>> > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>>>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>>>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>>>
>>> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
>>> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
>>> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
>>> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>>>
>>
>> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>>will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>>most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>>and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>>certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>>later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>>the average.
>
>Quite the reverse really. The typical failure curve is called the
>bathtub - for good reasons. Initial failures are high as the poorly
>manufactured units are weeded out. The curve then falls to essentially
>zero for a long (one hopes) time. Finally the end-of-life rise happens
>as bearings dry out and wear causes things to start mis-aligning.
>
>The hard drive industry designed SMART as a method of monitoring
>drives and predicting failures, but it has proven in practice to be
>virtually useless, apart from at the extreme end of life when it may
>just warn you your drive is about to turn up its toes.
>
>Google have carried out probably the biggest study of hard drives and
>their longevity. What they found is hardly intuitive - namely, run
>them hot. They last longer. There is a Google publication on the
>subject.
>
>d

One thing to add. Run Scandisk and be aware what the result means. A
drive that shows an error is 39 times as likely to fail within the
next 60 days as one that shows no errors. If Scandisk returns an error
- any error - replace the drive immediately.

d

[Trevor]

"david correia" > wrote in message
...
> Look inside a typical PT audio files folder. It contains hundreds &
> hundreds of little pieces of audio. You would never be able to put
> Humpty together again. It already happens to people today.

As I said, AUDIO formats. Silly them if they didn't also render it as
standard audio files for backup! But would they have kept it all on tape
anyway?

> Nor you would ever know which pieces from the many lead vocal takes were
> the right ones.

"right ones"? IF you want the final mix, that is what you use. IF you want
the original tracks there are no "right" or wrong ones. When I started 8
tracks were new, and everything not required was dumped as the session
progressed. I still can't see the point in keeping 147 tracks (or stubs) as
was mentioned, for archival purposes. Once you can't use them any longer,
you probably will never need them anyway, and *not* having kept them on tape
is just the same as not being able to access the digital data!


> Once I was finally comfortable with the sound of PT - PT HD - within a
> year I sold my 2" and never looked back. I love how I can screw with
> stuff inside PT. I have three 1/4" tape machines I expect to sell this
> year. I ain't in love with them.

Me either.

>But I do not believe it will be simple
> to open a PT 5.31 session in 2041.

Nor do I even want to try. That's for the suckers who can't be bothered to
do it properly now. But even they will probably still have the final mix,
and that's all they probably want or need years down the track.


> I had many 8 second System snippets of my then little kids recorded with
> that cheezy disc microphone that Apple shipped with early Macs. They'd
> have a blast horsing around and broke probably 8 of those cheap mics.
> And I was unable to get that wierd data format to play on any Mac today.
> I had to dust off an ancient Mac to get them.

One thing I have always hated about Apple is their prefernce for proprietry
systems that get changed on a regular basis. A smart person keeps a standard
format for archival purposes.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message
...
> Tell me, do you just like to argue until you're purple in the face or do
> you have something relevant to contribute?

Maybe YOU should be asking yourself that. I'M not the one now admitting that
tape is not a panacea to all data storage problems, which is ALL I said all
along. That OTHERS have argued till THEY are blue in the face, and back
tracking more and more, without anything to contribute ON TOPIC to this
thread, is NOT down to ME.


> Reading is fundamental. The answer to your questions are already
> contained in the thread, which from a casual comment I made about wire
> connecting to a Studer, you have dragged into a morass of bull**** about
> what you think. At some point nobody gives a **** what you think,

And frankly I don't give a **** what you think, since obviously YOU can't
comprehend what I have said in REPLY to OTHER peoples opinions, and the fact
that I am entitled to argue my opininion just as much as they are entitled
to theirs.

Trevor.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/4/2011 12:13 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On 4 Aug 2011 15:09:04 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>
>> > wrote:
>>> "hank > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> I care. I'd rather work on new stuff than have to spend all my time or
>>>> hire an assistant to keep up with this ephemeral storage technology.
>>>
>>> Right, so it makes no difference what you record on then, but the ONLY
>>> reason AFAIC to use a Studer for new recordings is if you already own it,
>>> reuse tapes, and actually prefer the analog distortions. So tell me do YOU
>>> still record everything to analog tape, or is your agument really
>>> superfluous?
>>
>> I still record most stuff to analogue tape myself, but I'm in the minority.
>>
>> Still, you will see a lot of studios recording on digital systems but making
>> safety copies on 2". You'll also still see a lot of record contracts that
>> require a 2" safety to be provided. It's expensive, but so is data loss.
>> --scott
>
> A good idea. The tape is obviously not as good as digital, but you
> really have to make a special effort to entirely lose your work from
> analogue tape. With digital recording a relatively trivial data error
> can spell ruin.
>

Boy, you guys talk from experience. This stuff happens
to the little home studios as well.

I did my first CD on the humble VS-840, which wasn't a
bad little box actually, and I was happy with the sound quality
and end result. But there was one song, where I lost ALL my
data, due to some weird digital glitch (it was NOT because I
accidentally pressed "erase"!), and the entire 100 Meg Zip
disk went bad, and had to be reformatted. Luckily for me,
my older model Ford Escort could only play cassettes, so for me to
do a car mix check, I had to make mixes on cassette. Thanks
be to God, I was able to re-digitalize my cassette mix, and
continue working. It turned out decent, and no one really
noticed the difference.

So it doesn't surprise me the big studios do this too.

Gains can be a Loss. With the convenience of perfect
digital replication, comes the added volatility of buggy
software and lost data.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/5/2011 10:26 PM, Trevor wrote:

> Let's imagine you know what you are doing and *at least* disable automatic
> updates, and anything else that may start or take over the computer
> uninvited! But since you are comparing to dedicated devices, one simply
> disables ALL network access, ALL background tasks, and ALL antivirus
> programs etc, IF you want a fair comparison.

"Most" people don't know how to do this. "Google" isn't a
simple enough answer. If computers came as a blank slate and
you had to install and enable all of those things, you'd
learn what they're called and could decide on a case by case
basis what to install and run. But that's not how "most"
people buy computers.

If you buy a dedicated piece of hardware for a specific
purpose, like a stand-alone recorder or music production
workstation, it won't have things that you need to disable
in order to make it work.

>> keep in mind that a HD24 (24 tracks 44100/24 bits) is priced around $1500
>> right now and this is much less than any 24 trks computer based solution
>> available.
>
> No it's not, and it's not as versatile.

Agreed that it's not as versatile - it has no mixing
features at all. But where can you buy 24 channels of
respectable quality analog and digital I/O for that price?
Particularly one with no haywire, no worries about trying to
get three separate 8-channel units to work together on the
same computer?

The reason why that argument works much of the time is that
the proverbial "most people" don't need 24 input and output
channels and are perfectly happy with eight, or even two.




--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 1:45 AM, Trevor wrote:

> Which is just as well since it's impossible to copy analog without
> successive loss, as it is with digital!

You keep making the same argument to every point, which
doesn't apply in every case. If I have an analog tape, I
don't make a copy of the copy of the copy every two or five
year like you'd do with digital recording. If I wanted a
safety copy on a fresh reel of tape for some reason (maybe
the old one got damaged in the flood, for example) I'd make
the copy from the original.

Now there are people who will tell you that an analog
recording degrades with every pass, and to them I'd say
"Digital is good for you. Go forth and prosper." But if I
have an analog tape, I'll keep it, I'll do my best without
being absurd to keep it from physical harm, and if it gets
damaged in a fire or flood, it's no worse than if your hard
drive gets damaged in a fire or a flood.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 2:31 AM, Trevor wrote:

>> Why should I (in the recording business) store tapes or drives at all, for
>> projects that have been completed? That's for the client to do. If the
>> client wants me to store his project, I'm inclined to charge for it.
>
> Right, but how many record companies *insisted* on keeping the original
> recordings, and then failed to look after them properly? Too many IME.

That's their business, not yours. If you want to preserve
material that's been issued by a record company, you can
save your phonograph records or CDs, or copy them to your
own hard drives.

> Who keeps 147 tracks of analog?

Probably nobody, but there are many projects that use
multiple slave reels and have several hundred reels in the
whole project. Those who keep them are those who can afford it.

Today's digital music hobbyists tend to want to save
everything because they can't decide when their project is
finished and what they might need. Professional producers
typically will "flatten" tracks, that is, save tracks with
all their edits, but usually not with effect "printed." That
makes both storage and retrieval easier if necessary in the
future. But they may have (and save) alternate arrangements
and lyrics because they can. Then they also have to save
good notes because 30 years later there won't be anyone
around to remember what all that crap is.

> You'd LOSE that bet :-) I can still access an ST406/512 drive when
> necessary, (and ESDI and SCSI) and 5.25" floppies etc :-)

Please send me your actual contact information. I may have
need of your services. You should go into business with this
if you aren't already doing it. But if you just have a bunch
of old computer junk in your basement that you can cobble
together on demand, you'll probably not get too much
business from the folks with the serious money. Nice of you
to do it out of the goodness of your heart, though.
> Most of the studio's here (and I'm not talking
> bedroom studio's) record maybe 99% to digital, even IF they still have a
> tape machine.

No argument there. And projects that start as digital can
certainly be kept as digital. Some people may choose to also
make an analog safety copy just in case they can't find you
when they need to play a project from one of those obsolete
disk drives for which they don't have a copy on current
media. But it's not for everyone.

The point, and you seem to conveniently keep forgetting
this, is that all of this discussion started when Hank said
he HAD a 30 year old analog tape that was the only copy of
the project, and that he was able to use it successfully to
issue the material. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

>>> I wonder how many people will be able to play 1" or 2"" tapes in 2041

>> Does it matter? As long as there are enough that's all there needs to be.
>> How many people will be able to open a Pro Tools version 4 project in
>> 2041? Or even in 2011?

> As with YOUR statement, ENOUGH. And far easier for anyone to do so if they
> find it necessary to justify some small effort.

Ah, but there will be a LOT MORE old Pro Tools projects than
old analog multitrack projects for the simple reason that
from the moment that Pro Tools came on the market there were
more Pro Tools systems than 2" analog recorders. I think I
remember reading somewhere that there were only about 1500
2" 24-track recorders made. Can you imagine a world with
only 1500 Pro Tools systems? How much less bad music there
would be! ;)


> Right, and the VAST majority of your clients will be happier for you to hand
> over digital recordings these days that they can use, than 2" tapes bet!

This is a decision that we can make at the time. It depends
on how we agreed to pay for tape, how much the client can
store, and what he thinks he'll use it for in the future. I
suspect that you're correct. If we did a project on analog
tape and kept it to 24 tracks so multiple reels and machines
weren't necessary to mix it, or if it was a hybrid project,
that they'd take a digital backup. But for nearly all of the
album projects that I did when I was using a 2" recorder the
client took the tapes when the project was finished. For
demos, the client didn't care about the multitrack
recordings unless it was a pre-production thing and tracks
might end up on a finished project. Like everything else,
the universal cop-out answer of "it depends" applies here.
Your customers, if you have any, are different from my
customers.

> even know some artists who when confronted with 2" tapes the record
> companies no longer wished to store, threw them out because they had no use
> for them, no way to play them, and no space to store them. They still have
> CD's and digital copies of the final product of course, but the original
> tracking is now lost.

Is this really such a bad thing? What could possibly better
represent the artist at the time he made the recording than
a finished mix of what he recorded at that time? And why
try to make that into something now that he didn't do then?
If he's still alive and playing, why not just make a new
recording? Even a new recording of a song that he recorded
30 years ago?

Not everything is valuable. True, it's easier to postpone
those "throw away" decisions if what you'd throw away is
smaller than a cigar box, not smaller than a clothes closet.

> Wel that is NOT how it appeared to read!

Reading is FUNdamental. Imagination is good, too.

> OTOH the persistant argument presented that analog tape is somehow a better
> archive source, is definitely debateable.

So let's debate it and quit pounding the table. Go find some
data. What's the percentage of projects originally recorded
on digital media 30 years ago have been re-issued from
digital media? Compare that to the percentage of projects
recorded 30 years ago on analog media that have been re-issued.

Project that 30 years in the future and you'll probably not
be able to find any projects other than esoterics that were
recorded on analog tape, so that will be then end of this
debate. Right now we're in the transition period. But 30
years ago, analog was still king and digital was in its
infancy.

I think that digital media is a perfectly good means of
storage for an archive because it's their job to keep up
with technology. They maintained analog machines when that's
what they needed in order to retrieve content from the
archive, and they'll maintain digital equipment and media if
that's how they're doing their archiving. But the Library of
Congress is different from Trevor's Basement. Or even Mike's
tape closet.




--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 2:54 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the original
> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!

That's kind of a loaded bet. Today, most common households
don't have a record player so they can't play a vinyl
record. But they can buy a turntable today if they want one.
I'll bet that in 30 years, you won't be able to buy a CD
player. Heck, you can't buy one now, except maybe for a
portable. Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD player, and,
I guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward
compatibility continue for 30 years? I don't think so.
You'll have to find a preservationist who still has working
CD drives.

And do you think it will be any easier to repair a CD drive
30 years from now than it will to repair an analog tape deck
30 years from now? Until the paper crumbles, I'll still
have the service manuals for my Ampex and Otari machines
(or, hopefully whoever gets those machines from my estate
will get the manuals as well).

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 2:54 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
> play a standard vinyl record today.

Oh, and have you never seen a CD peel apart, even a pressed
one? And I'm sure you know about the foibles of CD-Rs.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 3:48 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:

> From a 5-1/4" disk? You tell me how to read a 5-1/4" DOS disk under
> Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Mac OSX.

This is why you keep a computer with that kind of drive,
with a CPU capable of running DOS 6 or Windows 3.1. Just
like guys like Richard Hess and Steve Puntolillo keep a
variety of analog tape decks on the ready, and why the
Library of Congress in has a warehouse the size of a small
airplane hangar with a huge collection of old and new
recording and playback equipment. Some of it works. Some of
it doesn't. But if they get in a format that they can't play
and have the machine to play it in that warehouse, they'll
dig it out, fix it up, and play the recording. They do film
and video archiving there, too so there's gear for that as
well.

They don't get to every oddball format that comes in
immediately (though it depends on how it gets to them and
why a copy is needed), but the get to it eventually.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>Tape is not the ultimate solution anyway, I can no longer play the 8 track
>cartridges I still have, nor the Phillips N1502 video tapes I still have. I
>doubt there are too many places that can transfer the latter, if there was
>something actually worth the effort :-)
>(there are some clips I would still like to have, but just not worth the
>effort)
>My digital recordings are fine however.

Clearly you don't have any 3M digital tapes then, or any early Olympus
u-law files....
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Marc Wielage > wrote:
>
>BTW, when was the last time you used Pro Tools, Scott? I'm telling you,
>retrieving an old Pro Tools session doesn't necessarily have to be the
>nightmare you make it out to be. I'll put it this way, it's not as difficult
>as, say, trying to play back a 40-track Stephens analog 2" tape.

Sometimes it's a nightmare, sometimes it's not a nightmare. I have had good
and bad experiences, but it only takes one bad experience to ruin your whole
outlook.

The 40-track Stephens format is another good example of a proprietary
format. Stay away from weird proprietary formats, they are more trouble
than they are worth whether they are digital or analogue.

I'm okay with digital, I'm okay with analogue. I'm not okay with locked
down nonstandard undocumented proprietary formats.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>
> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>the average.

Actually, no. Disk drives tend to have a bathtub curve rather than a
normal distribution. Lots of failures up front, then a long period of
few failures, then they all start going bad at once (assuming they have
been treated the same way).

Shelf time and running time both figure into longevity, but differently.

There are some good studies on drive longevity with drives running; the
most cited one is a Usenix presentation given by some folks at Google
who did a very good job of things. There is much less out there on
drives with varying amounts of shelf time.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
> Again, if one is serious about archiving digital data, they
>will back up to the latest storage media every 5-7 years or so.
>So you should never end up with a HD that is too ancient.

People _aren't_ serious about it, though. That's the problem. And then
we have to deal with the consequences.

The question is how well things work when people are _not_ careful about
proper archiving, because unfortunately this is the normal state of affairs.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 2:21 AM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 -0700, > wrote:
>
>> On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
>>> > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>>>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>>>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>>>
>>> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
>>> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
>>> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
>>> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>>>
>>
>> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>> will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>> most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>> and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>> certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>> later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>> the average.
>
> Quite the reverse really. The typical failure curve is called the
> bathtub - for good reasons. Initial failures are high as the poorly
> manufactured units are weeded out. The curve then falls to essentially
> zero for a long (one hopes) time. Finally the end-of-life rise happens
> as bearings dry out and wear causes things to start mis-aligning.
>

I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
certainly lasted longer than 5 years.

Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
be the normal distribution probability curve.

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2011-Aug-05 23:17, Scott Dorsey writes:
>>down the road is still in the future. AS I commented
>>earlier in this thread, I still had some reels of 1/4 inch
>>four track I'd have liked toe revisit someday for possible
>>gems, if nothing else to rediscover a creation I'd
>>forgotten.

> I have an ATR-104 with a 1/4" headstack (actually a Nortronics head
> in a homebrew mounting) and can play those things. dbx decoder
> somewhere in the closet. Bring the truck and I'll give you a feed
> or I can dub to dtrs....
> --scott

WIsh I could. MY after Katrina fire took care of them for
me <grumble>.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/6/2011 2:54 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
>> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
>> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
>> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the
>> original
>> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
>
> That's kind of a loaded bet. Today, most common households don't have a
> record player so they can't play a vinyl record. But they can buy a
> turntable today if they want one. I'll bet that in 30 years, you won't
> be able to buy a CD player. Heck, you can't buy one now, except maybe
> for a portable. Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD player, and, I
> guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward compatibility continue
> for 30 years? I don't think so.

Why? it won't cost anything except footprint on somebody's ASIC or FPGA.

Completely abandoning all rotating optical media will require
a leap of faith in online media on the part of license-holders
well above what they have now. Ever notice what's *not* on
streaming on Netflix? Most stuff. It's pretty much for sale
only, unless you pay for DVD delivery.

Bit rot is a whole lot bigger challenge than that.

> You'll have to find a preservationist
> who still has working CD drives.
>


Depends on how computer games work out. Or the "Maker" movement. Five
years ago, I would have agreed with you.

> And do you think it will be any easier to repair a CD drive 30 years
> from now than it will to repair an analog tape deck 30 years from now?
> Until the paper crumbles, I'll still have the service manuals for my
> Ampex and Otari machines (or, hopefully whoever gets those machines from
> my estate will get the manuals as well).
>

--
Les Cargill

[david correia]

In article >,
"Trevor" > wrote:

>
> "david correia" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Look inside a typical PT audio files folder. It contains hundreds &
> > hundreds of little pieces of audio. You would never be able to put
> > Humpty together again. It already happens to people today.
>
> As I said, AUDIO formats. Silly them if they didn't also render it as
> standard audio files for backup! But would they have kept it all on tape
> anyway?
>
> > Nor you would ever know which pieces from the many lead vocal takes were
> > the right ones.
>
> "right ones"? IF you want the final mix, that is what you use. IF you want
> the original tracks there are no "right" or wrong ones. When I started 8
> tracks were new, and everything not required was dumped as the session
> progressed. I still can't see the point in keeping 147 tracks (or stubs) as
> was mentioned, for archival purposes. Once you can't use them any longer,
> you probably will never need them anyway, and *not* having kept them on tape
> is just the same as not being able to access the digital data!



When 98% of folks are done mixing a PT session, they are done. They
don't "render" tracks.

This discussion was about what can go wrong in 30 or 40 years to a
digital multitrack master. I say plenty of ****, you disagree. OK.


As for saving all 147 tracks, I save the whole tamale. It's imo a real
advantage of PT over 2" - you can go back and the hear stuff you didn't
choose on the spot. Which occasionally can be very helpful. On 2" I'd
often have only 1 or 2 tracks for the lead vocal.

Which brings up a skill that used to be SO important for an engineer -
punching. I have a great skill that today only enables me to digitally
edit quickly. Folks used to be so impressed watching the engineer punch
in and out. Cuz mofo, you are really are irretrievably wiping stuff on
the fly. And doing it for hours and hours and hours and hours.

And punching had 2 variables - when you went in and where you went out.
I could even punch in in the middle of held notes on my mtr-90's. That
was Autotune back then: sing the song better while I concentrate on the
punch. You got to rest your brain for a moment when you hit rewind. You
really had to be on the ball. In particular for very hairy punches.



David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Aug-06 07:15, Mike Rivers writes:
> "Most" people don't know how to do this. "Google" isn't a
> simple enough answer. If computers came as a blank slate and you
> had to install and enable all of those things, you'd
> learn what they're called and could decide on a case by case basis
> what to install and run. But that's not how "most"
> people buy computers.

Would agree with that. The trouble is these are do
everything boxes as sold by the manufacturers to JOe
AVerage. Therefore we also have to protect MR. Average from himself, because he might be too braindead not to follow the link to the malware site, etc, but he's not an audio pro,
nor is he a systems pro, so he doesn't understand either
world enough to protect himself or maximize the performance
of his do everything tool for his intended purpose.

<snip>

>>> keep in mind that a HD24 (24 tracks 44100/24 bits) is priced around $1500
>>> right now and this is much less than any 24 trks computer based solution
>>> available.
>> No it's not, and it's not as versatile.

> Agreed that it's not as versatile - it has no mixing
> features at all. But where can you buy 24 channels of
> respectable quality analog and digital I/O for that price?
> Particularly one with no haywire, no worries about trying to get
> three separate 8-channel units to work together on the
> same computer?

True, but some of us don't want "mixing" and 100 plug-ins,
etc. We want to capture audio data, reliably, every time,
arm tracks, hit record. Wtf do I need with mixing in the
box from the field? IF I'm listening to a mix on site it's
mixing sources just to hear it as a whole, and switching
around among the various inputs listening for any problems.
Mixing in the box isn't something i desire in that
application, simple and reliable are my watchwords. ONce
the client gets it he will take it somewhere that it might
be mixed in the box, not my problem, not my lookout.

My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file
format, and another step needed to render broadcast wav for
the client. YEs Mark over in EUrope has done an excellent
job with hd24tools, but my next recorder will be the JOeco
(spelling) just for that reason. I find the extra rendering step a pita.

> The reason why that argument works much of the time is that the
> proverbial "most people" don't need 24 input and output channels
> and are perfectly happy with eight, or even two.

True, but even if I'm only recording two, I want to make
sure my levels are copacetic, and hit record.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Mike Rivers]

> Mike Rivers wrote:
>> Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD
>> player, and, I
>> guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward
>> compatibility continue
>> for 30 years? I don't think so.

On 8/6/2011 2:04 PM, Les Cargill wrote:

> Why? it won't cost anything except footprint on somebody's
> ASIC or FPGA.

Why? Because things just work that way. Why don't some
5-1/4" floppy disk drives not play 360 KB disks, only 1.4 MB
ones? Why do some tape drives only play certain file formats
even though the physical track/head layouts are the same?

When the player manufacturers decide that nobody plays CDs
any more, they'll leave that capability out of their
players. It's going to save programming time for the ASIC or
FPGA, and that saves them money.

Besides, it complicates the internal workings. When I put a
CD in my CD player, it starts playing in just a couple of
seconds. When I put the same CD in my DVD player, it takes
much longer to start playing because the player has to
figure out if it's a CD or a DVD, if it's playing PCM audio,
an MP3 file, a WMV or some other computer video file, a
still photo. Consumers won't put up with that forever and if
the manufacturers can advertise "instant play" they will.

> Completely abandoning all rotating optical media will require
> a leap of faith in online media on the part of license-holders
> well above what they have now. Ever notice what's *not* on
> streaming on Netflix?

Well, no, because I don't subscribe to Netflix. But I think
the next generation's media will come from "above" rather
than on physical format. Heck, people can't wait to replace
their spinning hard drives with solid state drives. Not to
say that optical drives become completely unavailable next
year, but I'm sure they'll be phased out. Ford recently
announced that the new Focus models won't have a CD player,
but instead will have a USB host port to play MP3 files
(probably WAV files, too. I didn't bother to ask my friendly
Ford dealer).

Now, for my own convenience, I like that concept a whole
lot. I wish airplanes were equipped like that. Maybe some
are already, in First Class. When I'm taking a trip where
I'll be doing some open road driving in a rental car, I
always take along a stick of traveling music since most new
rentals I've had in the past year or so have such a player
built in. But for home and studio use, I want to be be able
to play my choice of media, new or old. It's why I have a
reel to reel and cassette deck in my living room as well as
the CD/DVD player and turntable.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 12:07 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> The question is how well things work when people are _not_ careful about
> proper archiving, because unfortunately this is the normal state of affairs.

And the bottom line is that they work pretty well, which is
why people aren't as dedicated to archival storage as the
stalwarts here think they should be. If you're willing to
take a risk and don't do stupid things like format the wrong
drive, your material will probably be available when you
want it as long as it's on a medium that you can still
connect to something and read. I think that's going to be
the biggest problem for the proverbial "most people" as time
goes on.

Remember "Time Shards."

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 09:32:06 -0700, Paul > wrote:

>On 8/6/2011 2:21 AM, Don Pearce wrote:
>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 -0700, > wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
>>>> > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>>>>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>>>>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>>>>
>>>> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
>>>> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
>>>> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
>>>> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>>>>
>>>
>>> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>>> will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>>> most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>>> and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>>> certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>>> later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>>> the average.
>>
>> Quite the reverse really. The typical failure curve is called the
>> bathtub - for good reasons. Initial failures are high as the poorly
>> manufactured units are weeded out. The curve then falls to essentially
>> zero for a long (one hopes) time. Finally the end-of-life rise happens
>> as bearings dry out and wear causes things to start mis-aligning.
>>
>
> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>
If you choose to exclude data that doesn't fit your model, you can
"prove" anything you like.

> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>be the normal distribution probability curve.
>

Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
tail is far more likely.

d

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 3:02 PM, Richard Webb wrote:


> We want to capture audio data, reliably, every time,
> arm tracks, hit record. Wtf do I need with mixing in the
> box from the field?

That's just what the HD24 and other similar boxes do. I do
enjoy the editing features of my Mackie HDR24/96 because I
think it's easier to use than any DAW editor I've tried, but
I'll allow a certain amount of tolerance here because I
haven't really spent a lot of time trying to learn to do in
a DAW what I can already do quickly on the HDR. But that box
won't last forever.

PreSonus supplies a program called Capture with their
Firewire mixers that's designed to just that - capture, one
track per mixer input, what goes into the mixer. It's simple
and easy to use (you can arm all tracks and start the
"transport" running with a single button) and it doesn't
take much in the way of computer resources. But, darn it, it
has a few bugs, and like any other primarily hardware
manufacturer, they're slow in fixing them. For example a
useful feature beyond simple capture that the program offers
is the ability to drop markers on the fly so you can
identify the start of songs or other events. But it didn't
work right (or maybe didn't work at all) until maybe 18
months after the program was introduced.

Was the HD24 or the HDR24/96 or the Radar bug-free from the
get-go? Nope. But at least they're stable and predictable,
and their behavior doesn't change unless you do the only
thing you can do with them, which is install a new version
of the software.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 2:35 PM, david correia wrote:

> Which brings up a skill that used to be SO important for an engineer -
> punching. I have a great skill that today only enables me to digitally
> edit quickly. Folks used to be so impressed watching the engineer punch
> in and out.Cuz mofo, you are really are irretrievably wiping stuff on
> the fly.

I do punch-ins with my Mackie HDR24/96 because it saves me
editing time. The edit is already done once we're satisfied
with the punch. The advantage over tape is the Undo button.
If the punch wasn't better than the original, the original
is still there.

If I record the "punch" on a new track, I have to do
something with it before we move on. Otherwise people will
wonder "Didn't we re-record that part already?"



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 12:13 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 09:32:06 -0700, > wrote:
>
>> On 8/6/2011 2:21 AM, Don Pearce wrote:
>>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 -0700, > wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 8/6/2011 12:07 AM, Trevor wrote:
>>>>> > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> I have drives that are more than 5 years in service too, but if you
>>>>>> don't want to ever deal with a hard drive going bad on you, you ought to
>>>>>> replace them after 5-7 years or so.
>>>>>
>>>>> NOT if you have a proper back-up regime. I was still using a 20YO drive
>>>>> daily until last year, the one I'm currently using at the moment is over 10
>>>>> years old. Neither has given any trouble. Others have lasted less than a
>>>>> month, so thinking that you have 5-7 years is asking for trouble!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
>>>> will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
>>>> most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
>>>> and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
>>>> certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
>>>> later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
>>>> the average.
>>>
>>> Quite the reverse really. The typical failure curve is called the
>>> bathtub - for good reasons. Initial failures are high as the poorly
>>> manufactured units are weeded out. The curve then falls to essentially
>>> zero for a long (one hopes) time. Finally the end-of-life rise happens
>>> as bearings dry out and wear causes things to start mis-aligning.
>>>
>>
>> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>> it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>> had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>> that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>> caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>> certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>>
> If you choose to exclude data that doesn't fit your model, you can
> "prove" anything you like.
>
>> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>> should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>> be the normal distribution probability curve.
>>
>
> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
> tail is far more likely.
>


Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
brand would be out of business quick.

No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
average and standard deviation.

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:53:52 -0700, Les Cargill
> wrote:

>Don Pearce wrote:
><snip>
>>
>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>> tail is far more likely.
>>
>> d
>
>These folks:
>http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bianca/fast07.pdf
>
>see a Wiebull distribution in the numerology.
>
>There is apparently surprisingly little data on the
>subject. Maybe it was all on a drive that failed...

They certainly present the bathtub curve. I'd say they are a bit short
of data for real end-of-life analysis though.

d

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, Paul > wrote:

>>
>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>> tail is far more likely.
>>
>
>
> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>brand would be out of business quick.
>

How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
either, hours more like.

> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>average and standard deviation.
>

You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
the shape of the curve.

d

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 1:03 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, > wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>> new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>> brand would be out of business quick.
>>
>
> How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
> factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
> either, hours more like.
>

That's what I said, that the consumer doesn't see these
early failures, and they shouldn't, or they go to another brand.

And according to the paper that Les posted, the early
failures of the bathtub curve are within the first YEAR. I don't see
that many failures in the first year of the NEW hard drives I have
seen.


>> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>> average and standard deviation.
>>
>
> You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
> average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
> the shape of the curve.
>

And you do? Where is your data? If you wanna compare
apples to apples, you have to test in the same many that
the average consumer uses the drive, which can vary widely.

The shape of the curve is gonna vary widely, depending
on the design of the drive, it's robustness, etc....good
luck trying to find an equation that fits every model.

[John Williamson]

Paul wrote:
> No one really has good data on this (HD failure modes), as the testing conditions
> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
> average and standard deviation.
>
Google are possibly the largest single user and buyer of hard drives in
the world, and have published their failure statistics. Many failures in
the first few weeks of use, then a long plateau with very few failures
per week, then a *lot* of failures at about the same age, for the same
model of drive. They use *millions* of hard drives. Typical bathtub curve.

The Wayback machine, who archive as much of the web as they can afford
to, seem to have a similar profile. They buy hundreds, if not thousands,
of drives per month.

http://wayback.archive.org/web/

I buy a couple of drives per year,and find that if they last a month,
which about 5 per cent haven't, they'll normally last five years or so.
Then they *will* fail without warning at some point not too much later.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:12:46 -0700, Paul > wrote:

>On 8/6/2011 1:03 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, > wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>>> new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>>> brand would be out of business quick.
>>>
>>
>> How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
>> factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
>> either, hours more like.
>>
>
> That's what I said, that the consumer doesn't see these
>early failures, and they shouldn't, or they go to another brand.
>
> And according to the paper that Les posted, the early
>failures of the bathtub curve are within the first YEAR. I don't see
>that many failures in the first year of the NEW hard drives I have
>seen.
>
>
>>> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>>> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>>> average and standard deviation.
>>>
>>
>> You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
>> average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
>> the shape of the curve.
>>
>
> And you do? Where is your data? If you wanna compare
>apples to apples, you have to test in the same many that
>the average consumer uses the drive, which can vary widely.
>

You were the one claiming to know the shape of the curve.

> The shape of the curve is gonna vary widely, depending
>on the design of the drive, it's robustness, etc....good
>luck trying to find an equation that fits every model.

Er - it was you claiming to have the equation that fitted; the normal
distribution, remember? Look, let's finish this here. I won't argue
with someone who simply reverses his position and pretends he said
this all along when he finds out he is wrong.

d

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 6:14 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>
>>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>>> Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD
>>>> player, and, I
>>>> guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward
>>>> compatibility continue
>>>> for 30 years? I don't think so.
>>
>> On 8/6/2011 2:04 PM, Les Cargill wrote:

> That is quite literally a non-sequiteur (does not follow).
> The machines
> that do those things have gone obsolete;

That's precisely my point about CD players. They haven't
gone obsolete yet, but they will.

> The analogy here is that all spinning
> optical media
> would have to go obsolete for there to be no more CD playback.

Not at all. Only the desire for a sufficient number of
people to want to play CDs. We still have technology to
build 5-1/4" floppy drives and odd format tape drives, but
when the original manufacturers go out of business and (or
perhaps because) there's little consumer demand, there's no
incentive to pick up the slack. The folks (Mike Spitz, John
French, and a couple of other associates) were all fired up
to build 1/2" and 2" analog tape decks half a dozen or so
years ago, but they couldn't afford it for the few that they
could sell. So there goes another source for new machines.

> SFIAK, you can still buy USB floppy drives - for now. I have
> one.

Me, too, but it's a 3-1/2" drive, not a 5-1/4". I think I
still have a 360 KB floppy drive in the closet here. One of
these days when I have a computer case open, I should plug
it in and see if the BIOS knows what to do with it.

> think I have used it exactly once - to cull through the
> stack 'o
> floppies that I will never use again.

Yeah, me, too, like people who buy a turntable (usually a
USB turntable since they don't know enough to use a preamp
and a sound card and set the record level properly) and go
an a rampage digitizing their records, and then don't listen
to them again (either the records or the digital files).
But, yeah, they're "preserved" until the hard drive goes
into the landfill, working or not.

> I at least have no idea what the long times to read optical
> media means on a desktop or laptop computer. For all I know,
> it's
> a host O/S problem or simply "well, it's always been that way."

I wasn't talking about playing an optical disk on a
computer. I have only old, slow computers, so I expect that
to thrash around for a while. I was talking about my CD and
DVD players that I have in the living room, not the
computers in the studio or office.

> For all I know, one could make a drive CD-only or DVD only
> with soft switches from the host computer, if that improves
> performance and is desired. But they'll still want the thing
> to be one-size-fits-all.

But they're going to do their darnedest (both the
manufacturers and the consumers) to make just one size. And
then eventually that "size" will change to another size and
we'll be back into the cycle.

>> Heck, people can't wait to replace their spinning hard drives
>> with solid state drives.

> True. But they're not distributing anything on them .

There really isn't the need. I recall that not too long ago,
at least one company distributed their sample libraries on
a hard drive because DVD-ROM wasn't available or common yet
and it would have taken too many CDs to be manageable.

I used to get paper press releases when I went to NAMM and
AES shows. Then I got floppy disks (both sizes), then CDs or
DVDs. Now I get USB thumb drives. I have a whole bowl full
of 'em because I can recycle them. But you know what? They
aren't as effective (to the exhibitors) with me as paper,
because I have to stick the drive in the computer to see
what's there and whether there's any info that I want to use
in my show report. On paper, I can summarize it quickly, and
if I want to use a photo, then I can go to the USB drive or,
just as quickly (because I'd have to locate the thumb drive)
the manufactuer's web site.

> A 1/8" jack has been a feature for a long time. Teh kidz
> don't do
> CDs anymore.

I really wish my car had one, but it's a 1993. Not that
long, at least not on my make and model. But I still carry
my MP3 player on trips. I used to carry the cassette
adapter, too, but since most new cars (and rental cars are
rarely more than one or two model years old) don't have
cassette players, that adapter stays in my car. I do,
however, now carry a cable to connect the MP3 player to an
audio input jack if there's one, and no USB port.

The pile of stuff that I carry when I travel continues to
get bigger and bigger, not smaller.

> Uh, bring an mp3 player? JetBlue has a generic headphone out
> if you want to watch the screen in front of you.

Oh, I've been flying with an MP3 player for quite a few
years now, since I could get a 2 GB one for $15. Before
that, I traveled with my Nomad Jukebox 3 (20 GB hard drive)
and before that, a CD player and a bunch of disks. And
cassettes before that.

> I haven't had a reel-to-reel since 1994, and my cassette
> deck is MIA.

Guess you've been keeping your archive up to date, eh? <g>

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 1:46 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:12:46 -0700, > wrote:
>
>> On 8/6/2011 1:03 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, > wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>>>> new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>>>> brand would be out of business quick.
>>>>
>>>
>>> How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
>>> factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
>>> either, hours more like.
>>>
>>
>> That's what I said, that the consumer doesn't see these
>> early failures, and they shouldn't, or they go to another brand.
>>
>> And according to the paper that Les posted, the early
>> failures of the bathtub curve are within the first YEAR. I don't see
>> that many failures in the first year of the NEW hard drives I have
>> seen.
>>
>>
>>>> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>>>> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>>>> average and standard deviation.
>>>>
>>>
>>> You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
>>> average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
>>> the shape of the curve.
>>>
>>
>> And you do? Where is your data? If you wanna compare
>> apples to apples, you have to test in the same many that
>> the average consumer uses the drive, which can vary widely.
>>
>
> You were the one claiming to know the shape of the curve.
>

Very, very roughly.


>> The shape of the curve is gonna vary widely, depending
>> on the design of the drive, it's robustness, etc....good
>> luck trying to find an equation that fits every model.
>
> Er - it was you claiming to have the equation that fitted; the normal
> distribution, remember? Look, let's finish this here. I won't argue
> with someone who simply reverses his position and pretends he said
> this all along when he finds out he is wrong.
>

I won't argue with someone who thinks they know
what I meant.

And it's you who are wrong. The consumer doesn't
see a strict bathtub curve as you have said. Most
infant mortalities are weeded out during factory
burn-in.

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:02:51 -0700, Paul > wrote:

>On 8/6/2011 1:46 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:12:46 -0700, > wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/6/2011 1:03 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>>>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>>>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>>>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>>>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>>>>> new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>>>>> brand would be out of business quick.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
>>>> factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
>>>> either, hours more like.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That's what I said, that the consumer doesn't see these
>>> early failures, and they shouldn't, or they go to another brand.
>>>
>>> And according to the paper that Les posted, the early
>>> failures of the bathtub curve are within the first YEAR. I don't see
>>> that many failures in the first year of the NEW hard drives I have
>>> seen.
>>>
>>>
>>>>> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>>>>> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>>>>> average and standard deviation.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
>>>> average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
>>>> the shape of the curve.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And you do? Where is your data? If you wanna compare
>>> apples to apples, you have to test in the same many that
>>> the average consumer uses the drive, which can vary widely.
>>>
>>
>> You were the one claiming to know the shape of the curve.
>>
>
> Very, very roughly.
>
>
>>> The shape of the curve is gonna vary widely, depending
>>> on the design of the drive, it's robustness, etc....good
>>> luck trying to find an equation that fits every model.
>>
>> Er - it was you claiming to have the equation that fitted; the normal
>> distribution, remember? Look, let's finish this here. I won't argue
>> with someone who simply reverses his position and pretends he said
>> this all along when he finds out he is wrong.
>>
>
> I won't argue with someone who thinks they know
>what I meant.
>
> And it's you who are wrong. The consumer doesn't
>see a strict bathtub curve as you have said. Most
>infant mortalities are weeded out during factory
>burn-in.
>
I love it - is this also one of your techniques for" winning"? Simply
lie about what I wrote, then write exactly what I wrote and pretend
the words are yours? I don't think I like you very much.

d

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Aug-06 12:07, Scott Dorsey writes:
>> Again, if one is serious about archiving digital data, they
>>will back up to the latest storage media every 5-7 years or so.
>>So you should never end up with a HD that is too ancient.

> People _aren't_ serious about it, though. That's the problem. And
> then we have to deal with the consequences.

That's right, and we're not talking about Mom's Glen MIller
collection on 78 which if your copy isn't restorable then
somebody else has already done a good restoration of MR.
Miller's orchestra. We're talking a one off that might have been thrown in the box in the back of the closet or in the
basement or attic on that road to hell called good
intentions. I still had a couple of projects on 1" 8
track too that I'd recorded back in the early '80's with a
band that no longer existed. Until my after Katrina fire I
still had them, in a box, which moved with me all over the
country, from one storage place to another, some better
climate controlled than others. THe chances of me actually
using them for anything were slight, but I might have wanted to. WEre they high on my priority list? NO, they weren't,
that band didn't exist anymore. I'd had a hand in writing
some of the material however. MORe important to me were my
1/4 inch 4 tracks, because all of them I still had were of
my own material. But, let's say that one of my associates
from the band that did the 1" 8 track projects contacted me
years later and told me that his brother-in-law (yes
brothers-in-law in the band) was dead, and he wanted me to
mix down a couple of his faves from that thing and would pay me well? SHould I be able to find a 1" 8, probably iffy I
could have done the work.

But, 1" 8 track is not 2" 16 or 24, which was very common,
which is why it's still out there and there are machines
maintained.

> The question is how well things work when people are _not_ careful
> about proper archiving, because unfortunately this is the normal
> state of affairs.

My poinht as well. DO you think whilst migrating that media forward I would have even thought about those two reels of
1" 8 track in that box in my storage unit? Picture that as
spinning digital media which languishes for 30 years in a
box in a garage <g>.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[John Williamson]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> Me, too, but it's a 3-1/2" drive, not a 5-1/4". I think I still have a
> 360 KB floppy drive in the closet here. One of these days when I have a
> computer case open, I should plug it in and see if the BIOS knows what
> to do with it.
>
The BIOS will, as long as there's a PCI or ISA slot for a floppy drive
interface or a floppy drive interface on the motherboard. 1.2Mbyte 5.25"
floppy drives will read from, but not write to, 360KByte and 180KByte
diskettes. With the right driver, you will be able to read *any* 5.25"
or 3.5" diskette with the right drive. (This may not apply to Apples)

Windows 7 and all versions of Linux can handle them. To install a RAID
driver, a floppy was almost essential last time I tried it.

>>> Heck, people can't wait to replace their spinning hard drives
>>> with solid state drives.
>
>> True. But they're not distributing anything on them .
>
Yet. Some stuff is being distributed on USB thumb drive players,
especially Audio books. Play it, then either recycle the drive or it
goes to landfill. The cost to the consumer is about 50% more than a CD
of the same audio book.

I've seen a couple of sample libraries on HD, too.

>> A 1/8" jack has been a feature for a long time. Teh kidz
>> don't do CDs anymore.
> <Snip>
>
Nor do I, apart from using them as masters and feed material for the mp3
(and .wav, for when I want good quality) player. I'm well on the high
side of 50.

> The pile of stuff that I carry when I travel continues to get bigger and
> bigger, not smaller.
>
For me, the pile got a whole lot smaller when the mp3 player was
invented. A cigarette packet sized player replaced a briefcase full of
minidiscs. It's crept back up since, though I can do a *lot* more with
what I carry now.

The microphones, speakers and mixers don't seem to have shrunk much,
though. :-(

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Don Pearce wrote:
<snip>
>
> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
> tail is far more likely.
>
> d

These folks:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bianca/fast07.pdf

see a Wiebull distribution in the numerology.

There is apparently surprisingly little data on the
subject. Maybe it was all on a drive that failed...

--
Les Cargill

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/6/2011 2:23 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:02:51 -0700, > wrote:
>
>> On 8/6/2011 1:46 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:12:46 -0700, > wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 8/6/2011 1:03 PM, Don Pearce wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:53:33 -0700, > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>>>>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>>>>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>>>>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>>>>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Huge amounts of failures in the first months of life for brand
>>>>>> new hard drives is NOT the norm. If it were, that particular
>>>>>> brand would be out of business quick.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How do you know? Those early failures will not make it out of the
>>>>> factory door - they happen on the burn-in rig. They won't take months
>>>>> either, hours more like.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's what I said, that the consumer doesn't see these
>>>> early failures, and they shouldn't, or they go to another brand.
>>>>
>>>> And according to the paper that Les posted, the early
>>>> failures of the bathtub curve are within the first YEAR. I don't see
>>>> that many failures in the first year of the NEW hard drives I have
>>>> seen.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> No one really has good data on this, as the testing conditions
>>>>>> are too varied, but it's roughly gonna follow a bell curve, with an
>>>>>> average and standard deviation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You have nothing to support that assertion. Any data set has an
>>>>> average (mean) and a standard deviation - that tells you nothing about
>>>>> the shape of the curve.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And you do? Where is your data? If you wanna compare
>>>> apples to apples, you have to test in the same many that
>>>> the average consumer uses the drive, which can vary widely.
>>>>
>>>
>>> You were the one claiming to know the shape of the curve.
>>>
>>
>> Very, very roughly.
>>
>>
>>>> The shape of the curve is gonna vary widely, depending
>>>> on the design of the drive, it's robustness, etc....good
>>>> luck trying to find an equation that fits every model.
>>>
>>> Er - it was you claiming to have the equation that fitted; the normal
>>> distribution, remember? Look, let's finish this here. I won't argue
>>> with someone who simply reverses his position and pretends he said
>>> this all along when he finds out he is wrong.
>>>
>>
>> I won't argue with someone who thinks they know
>> what I meant.
>>
>> And it's you who are wrong. The consumer doesn't
>> see a strict bathtub curve as you have said. Most
>> infant mortalities are weeded out during factory
>> burn-in.
>>
> I love it - is this also one of your techniques for" winning"? Simply
> lie about what I wrote, then write exactly what I wrote and pretend
> the words are yours? I don't think I like you very much.
>

Where did I write what you wrote?

You are clearly deluded...

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
>
>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>> Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD
>>> player, and, I
>>> guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward
>>> compatibility continue
>>> for 30 years? I don't think so.
>
> On 8/6/2011 2:04 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>
>> Why? it won't cost anything except footprint on somebody's
>> ASIC or FPGA.
>
> Why? Because things just work that way. Why don't some 5-1/4" floppy
> disk drives not play 360 KB disks, only 1.4 MB ones? Why do some tape
> drives only play certain file formats even though the physical
> track/head layouts are the same?
>


That is quite literally a non-sequiteur (does not follow). The machines
that do those things have gone obsolete; the tooling is gone, the
companies smashed. The analogy here is that all spinning optical media
would have to go obsolete for there to be no more CD playback.

SFIAK, you can still buy USB floppy drives - for now. I have one. I
think I have used it exactly once - to cull through the stack 'o
floppies that I will never use again. 360 KB? Dunno - those are
long gone.

> When the player manufacturers decide that nobody plays CDs any more,
> they'll leave that capability out of their players. It's going to save
> programming time for the ASIC or FPGA, and that saves them money.
>

It's a solved problem. The chunk of FPGA or ASIC that does the
formatting is done. The NRE is minimal or zero.

> Besides, it complicates the internal workings.

No, it really doesn't. You're thinking like a pro again :), not
a consumer.

> When I put a CD in my CD
> player, it starts playing in just a couple of seconds. When I put the
> same CD in my DVD player, it takes much longer to start playing because
> the player has to figure out if it's a CD or a DVD, if it's playing PCM
> audio, an MP3 file, a WMV or some other computer video file, a still
> photo. Consumers won't put up with that forever and if the manufacturers
> can advertise "instant play" they will.
>

I at least have no idea what the long times to read optical
media means on a desktop or laptop computer. For all I know, it's
a host O/S problem or simply "well, it's always been that way."

For all I know, one could make a drive CD-only or DVD only
with soft switches from the host computer, if that improves
performance and is desired. But they'll still want the thing
to be one-size-fits-all.

>> Completely abandoning all rotating optical media will require
>> a leap of faith in online media on the part of license-holders
>> well above what they have now. Ever notice what's *not* on
>> streaming on Netflix?
>
> Well, no, because I don't subscribe to Netflix. But I think the next
> generation's media will come from "above" rather than on physical
> format.

Yeah, I think we have miles to go before that happens.

> Heck, people can't wait to replace their spinning hard drives
> with solid state drives.

True. But they're not distributing anything on them . that's just
more "they don't put carburetors on cars anymore" tweaking, unless
it's driven by real requirements. Win7 boots here in about a minute,
no SSD.

> Not to say that optical drives become
> completely unavailable next year, but I'm sure they'll be phased out.
> Ford recently announced that the new Focus models won't have a CD
> player, but instead will have a USB host port to play MP3 files
> (probably WAV files, too. I didn't bother to ask my friendly Ford dealer).
>

A 1/8" jack has been a feature for a long time. Teh kidz don't do
CDs anymore. I salvaged my youngest's collection when she moved
off to grad school.

She does not own any rotating optical media apparatus at all. But
she's never owned a cassette deck, either ( just a kids oriented
battery recorder for her Wee Sing And Play tapes when she was much
younger ).

> Now, for my own convenience, I like that concept a whole lot. I wish
> airplanes were equipped like that. Maybe some are already, in First
> Class.

Uh, bring an mp3 player? JetBlue has a generic headphone out if you want
to watch the screen in front of you.

> When I'm taking a trip where I'll be doing some open road driving
> in a rental car, I always take along a stick of traveling music since
> most new rentals I've had in the past year or so have such a player
> built in. But for home and studio use, I want to be be able to play my
> choice of media, new or old. It's why I have a reel to reel and cassette
> deck in my living room as well as the CD/DVD player and turntable.
>
>

I haven't had a reel-to-reel since 1994, and my cassette deck is MIA.

--
Les Cargill

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>
> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>certainly lasted longer than 5 years.

That sure sounds like a bathtub curve to me.

Now, get a thousand drives and tell me what you see. Then ten thousand.

> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>be the normal distribution probability curve.

Nope, it's not. Read the nifty booklet from Seagate or talk to anyone
with a big RAID array.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Neil Gould]

Paul wrote:
>
> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
> it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
> had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
> that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
> caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
> certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>
> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
> should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
> be the normal distribution probability curve.
>
Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true in my
case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year after about 2 - 3
months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to run drives for 3 months
prior to their distribution to the market, because those events are an
anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard drives. Applying that curve to HD
failures came from somewhere, didn't it?

--
Neil

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sat 2011-Aug-06 14:35, david correia writes:
> As for saving all 147 tracks, I save the whole tamale. It's imo a
> real advantage of PT over 2" - you can go back and the hear stuff
> you didn't choose on the spot. Which occasionally can be very
> helpful. On 2" I'd often have only 1 or 2 tracks for the lead
> vocal.

YEs, that's one of the real advantages of working digitally. All those comp tracks and such.

> Which brings up a skill that used to be SO important for an engineer
> - punching. I have a great skill that today only enables me to
> digitally edit quickly. Folks used to be so impressed watching the
> engineer punch in and out. Cuz mofo, you are really are
> irretrievably wiping stuff on the fly. And doing it for hours and
> hours and hours and hours.

Been there done that. The punch is a lost art. DOne enough of them too, counting beats, etc. and then to make sure that the level was such that one couldn't hear the pinch in. NOw you just do a bunch of tracks and comp together that vocal
or solo.

> And punching had 2 variables - when you went in and where you went
> out. I could even punch in in the middle of held notes on my
> mtr-90's. That was Autotune back then: sing the song better while I
> concentrate on the punch. You got to rest your brain for a moment
> when you hit rewind. You really had to be on the ball. In
> particular for very hairy punches.

YEs, as I said, done it, and also had to be very careful
about level and tone. That's why we had assistants note the position of all controls on the console, what mic, where
positioned, and on and on and on. THE real fun was trying
to do a punch that would blend with the original performance at a later date.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Don Pearce wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:53:52 -0700, Les Cargill
> > wrote:
>
>> Don Pearce wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> Well, that initial failure mode is there whether you get to see it or
>>> not. That is what makes it a bathtub curve. Obviously the final
>>> failure will also be a curve, but I see no reason to believe it will
>>> have a normal distribution. An asymmetric curve with a long higside
>>> tail is far more likely.
>>>
>>> d
>>
>> These folks:
>> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bianca/fast07.pdf
>>
>> see a Wiebull distribution in the numerology.
>>
>> There is apparently surprisingly little data on the
>> subject. Maybe it was all on a drive that failed...
>
> They certainly present the bathtub curve.


I believe they split the bathtub curve out as bimodal - which probably
makes sense. I'd expect a variation on an exponential distribution for
end of life.

> I'd say they are a bit short
> of data for real end-of-life analysis though.
>

They say that, too. Nobody keeps that data much.


> d


--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/6/2011 6:14 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mike Rivers wrote:
>>>>> Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD
>>>>> player, and, I
>>>>> guess, on a BluRay player but will that backward
>>>>> compatibility continue
>>>>> for 30 years? I don't think so.
>>>
>>> On 8/6/2011 2:04 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>
>> That is quite literally a non-sequiteur (does not follow).
>> The machines
>> that do those things have gone obsolete;
>
> That's precisely my point about CD players. They haven't gone obsolete
> yet, but they will.
>

*CD only* - yes. Mixed-mode CD/DVD/BluRay? No. Not
for the forseeable. Not whilst it's the preferred
legal sales format for movies.

>> The analogy here is that all spinning
>> optical media
>> would have to go obsolete for there to be no more CD playback.
>
> Not at all. Only the desire for a sufficient number of people to want to
> play CDs. We still have technology to build 5-1/4" floppy drives and odd
> format tape drives, but when the original manufacturers go out of
> business and (or perhaps because) there's little consumer demand,
> there's no incentive to pick up the slack.

I believe that the marginal cost of enabling playing back CDs on a
bay-drive in a tower PC is zero. There is no incentive to get
rid of it.

Also also - I wonder what folks in China use. They'll be driving
this more than we will in the US/Europe/Aus.

> The folks (Mike Spitz, John
> French, and a couple of other associates) were all fired up to build
> 1/2" and 2" analog tape decks half a dozen or so years ago, but they
> couldn't afford it for the few that they could sell. So there goes
> another source for new machines.
>

Yep. Fletcher was the man to sell those, too. I don't see
anything like that on his website any more. Mighta missed it.

>> SFIAK, you can still buy USB floppy drives - for now. I have
>> one.
>
> Me, too, but it's a 3-1/2" drive, not a 5-1/4".

Sure.

> I think I still have a
> 360 KB floppy drive in the closet here. One of these days when I have a
> computer case open, I should plug it in and see if the BIOS knows what
> to do with it.
>

Heh.

>> think I have used it exactly once - to cull through the
>> stack 'o
>> floppies that I will never use again.
>
> Yeah, me, too, like people who buy a turntable (usually a USB turntable
> since they don't know enough to use a preamp and a sound card and set
> the record level properly)

<facepalm>

> and go an a rampage digitizing their records,
> and then don't listen to them again (either the records or the digital
> files). But, yeah, they're "preserved" until the hard drive goes into
> the landfill, working or not.
>

We're all archivists now.

>> I at least have no idea what the long times to read optical
>> media means on a desktop or laptop computer. For all I know,
>> it's
>> a host O/S problem or simply "well, it's always been that way."
>
> I wasn't talking about playing an optical disk on a computer. I have
> only old, slow computers, so I expect that to thrash around for a while.
> I was talking about my CD and DVD players that I have in the living
> room, not the computers in the studio or office.
>

That's just a different color of computer :) The drives are
cost reduced differently, but not much.

>> For all I know, one could make a drive CD-only or DVD only
>> with soft switches from the host computer, if that improves
>> performance and is desired. But they'll still want the thing
>> to be one-size-fits-all.
>
> But they're going to do their darnedest (both the manufacturers and the
> consumers) to make just one size. And then eventually that "size" will
> change to another size and we'll be back into the cycle.
>

IMO, they are there now.

>>> Heck, people can't wait to replace their spinning hard drives
>>> with solid state drives.
>
>> True. But they're not distributing anything on them .
>
> There really isn't the need. I recall that not too long ago, at least
> one company distributed their sample libraries on a hard drive because
> DVD-ROM wasn't available or common yet and it would have taken too many
> CDs to be manageable.
>

Yep.

> I used to get paper press releases when I went to NAMM and AES shows.
> Then I got floppy disks (both sizes), then CDs or DVDs. Now I get USB
> thumb drives. I have a whole bowl full of 'em because I can recycle
> them. But you know what? They aren't as effective (to the exhibitors)
> with me as paper, because I have to stick the drive in the computer to
> see what's there and whether there's any info that I want to use in my
> show report. On paper, I can summarize it quickly, and if I want to use
> a photo, then I can go to the USB drive or, just as quickly (because I'd
> have to locate the thumb drive) the manufactuer's web site.
>

Won't disagree - but you can't search paper.

>> A 1/8" jack has been a feature for a long time. Teh kidz
>> don't do
>> CDs anymore.
>
> I really wish my car had one, but it's a 1993.

Mine too. it's on it's... fifth? head unit. I expect
the next one will have one.

> Not that long, at least
> not on my make and model. But I still carry my MP3 player on trips. I
> used to carry the cassette adapter, too, but since most new cars (and
> rental cars are rarely more than one or two model years old) don't have
> cassette players, that adapter stays in my car. I do, however, now carry
> a cable to connect the MP3 player to an audio input jack if there's one,
> and no USB port.
>
> The pile of stuff that I carry when I travel continues to get bigger and
> bigger, not smaller.
>

No doubt.

>> Uh, bring an mp3 player? JetBlue has a generic headphone out
>> if you want to watch the screen in front of you.
>
> Oh, I've been flying with an MP3 player for quite a few years now, since
> I could get a 2 GB one for $15. Before that, I traveled with my Nomad
> Jukebox 3 (20 GB hard drive) and before that, a CD player and a bunch of
> disks. And cassettes before that.
>
>> I haven't had a reel-to-reel since 1994, and my cassette
>> deck is MIA.
>
> Guess you've been keeping your archive up to date, eh? <g>
>

As much as I want to, yes :)

--
Les Cargill

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> Let's imagine you know what you are doing and *at least* disable
>> automatic
>> updates, and anything else that may start or take over the computer
>> uninvited! But since you are comparing to dedicated devices, one simply
>> disables ALL network access, ALL background tasks, and ALL antivirus
>> programs etc, IF you want a fair comparison.
>
> "Most" people don't know how to do this.

You may be right, (or wrong) but as I said, EACH person should make a
decision based on THEIR requirements and abilty. I see no problem with that.

> If you buy a dedicated piece of hardware for a specific purpose, like a
> stand-alone recorder or music production workstation, it won't have things
> that you need to disable in order to make it work.

I only wish all my stand alone boxes worked as desired. When they don't it's
often impossible to do anything about it.

> Agreed that it's not as versatile - it has no mixing features at all. But
> where can you buy 24 channels of respectable quality analog and digital
> I/O for that price? Particularly one with no haywire, no worries about
> trying to get three separate 8-channel units to work together on the same
> computer?

There are a number of manufacturers that allow you to cascade boxes. I have
used both M-Audio and MOTU without problems, but there are quite a few
others. Presonus have a fairly cheap box you can cascade I believe. How well
it works I cannot say, but it DOES allow recording rates other than 44.1kHz
at least.

> The reason why that argument works much of the time is that the proverbial
> "most people" don't need 24 input and output channels and are perfectly
> happy with eight, or even two.

Right, which is sometimes a good reason for starting with one box and adding
more if required and as you can afford it or justify it. But as I said
whatever works for YOU.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Richard Webb" > wrote in
message ...
> Would agree with that. The trouble is these are do
> everything boxes as sold by the manufacturers to JOe
> AVerage. Therefore we also have to protect MR. Average from himself,
> because he might be too braindead not to follow the link to the malware
> site, etc, but he's not an audio pro,
> nor is he a systems pro, so he doesn't understand either
> world enough to protect himself or maximize the performance
> of his do everything tool for his intended purpose.

I wonder how many of MOTU's customer base for the 828, Traveller and
Ultralite would agree with you? :-)
(not to mention all the other similar manufacturers)
They are hardly the same people who buy soundblaster cards for their
computers.


> My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file
> format,

ONLY? Enough of a deal breaker for me.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> Which is just as well since it's impossible to copy analog without
>> successive loss, as it is with digital!
>
> You keep making the same argument to every point,

Right, just as you do.

>which doesn't apply in every case.

No argument there.

>If I have an analog tape, I don't make a copy of the copy of the copy every
>two or five year like you'd do with digital recording. If I wanted a safety
>copy on a fresh reel of tape for some reason (maybe the old one got damaged
>in the flood, for example) I'd make the copy from the original.

Except when the original has already been lost in a fire. And as we already
agreed, it's already 3rd or 4th generation by the time you have a final
master in any case.


> Now there are people who will tell you that an analog recording degrades
> with every pass, and to them I'd say "Digital is good for you. Go forth
> and prosper." But if I have an analog tape, I'll keep it, I'll do my best
> without being absurd to keep it from physical harm, and if it gets damaged
> in a fire or flood, it's no worse than if your hard drive gets damaged in
> a fire or a flood.

Except you probably have multiple identical copies in other peoples hands,
NOT damged by the same fire or flood. Obviously I must keep making the same
point despite your dislike of me doing so, because YOU keep making the same
points, and just don't seem to be getting it, or even acknowldging that it
is a real benefit to many other than yourself.

IF YOU are still happy with analog tape, I have NO problem with that.
However the vast majority of people have moved on and not looked back.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> That's their business, not yours. If you want to preserve material that's
> been issued by a record company, you can save your phonograph records or
> CDs, or copy them to your own hard drives.

It's that thinking which leads to the problem where new CD's are issued from
old vinyl copies. YOU may think that is OK, but I find it really SAD.


>> Who keeps 147 tracks of analog?
>
> Probably nobody, but there are many projects that use multiple slave reels
> and have several hundred reels in the whole project. Those who keep them
> are those who can afford it.

Right, not many at all.


> Today's digital music hobbyists tend to want to save everything because
> they can't decide when their project is finished and what they might need.
> Professional producers typically will "flatten" tracks, that is, save
> tracks with all their edits, but usually not with effect "printed." That
> makes both storage and retrieval easier if necessary in the future. But
> they may have (and save) alternate arrangements and lyrics because they
> can. Then they also have to save good notes because 30 years later there
> won't be anyone around to remember what all that crap is.

Exactly, and nothing has changed there that makes it any more difficult.


> Please send me your actual contact information. I may have need of your
> services. You should go into business with this if you aren't already
> doing it. But if you just have a bunch of old computer junk in your
> basement that you can cobble together on demand, you'll probably not get
> too much business from the folks with the serious money.

So do they really need the service or not? I have better things to do with
my time than make a full time job of it, even IF there was sufficient
demand, which there isn't.


>Nice of you to do it out of the goodness of your heart, though.

Nope, whilst I do work for nothing on occasion, I'm not about to donate my
time to all and sundry any more than you are.


> No argument there. And projects that start as digital can certainly be
> kept as digital. Some people may choose to also make an analog safety copy
> just in case they can't find you when they need to play a project from one
> of those obsolete disk drives for which they don't have a copy on current
> media. But it's not for everyone.

Right.

> The point, and you seem to conveniently keep forgetting this, is that all
> of this discussion started when Hank said he HAD a 30 year old analog tape
> that was the only copy of the project, and that he was able to use it
> successfully to issue the material. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Never disagreed with that.


> Ah, but there will be a LOT MORE old Pro Tools projects than old analog
> multitrack projects for the simple reason that from the moment that Pro
> Tools came on the market there were more Pro Tools systems than 2" analog
> recorders. I think I remember reading somewhere that there were only about
> 1500 2" 24-track recorders made. Can you imagine a world with only 1500
> Pro Tools systems? How much less bad music there would be! ;)

Yeah, but a lot of bad music was also made on 1/4" tape and even that
abombination portastudio multi-track cassette! :-(
A real shame things like "Tubular Bells" were done on cheaper machines with
the resulting lower quality though.


> This is a decision that we can make at the time. It depends on how we
> agreed to pay for tape, how much the client can store, and what he thinks
> he'll use it for in the future. I suspect that you're correct. If we did a
> project on analog tape and kept it to 24 tracks so multiple reels and
> machines weren't necessary to mix it, or if it was a hybrid project, that
> they'd take a digital backup. But for nearly all of the album projects
> that I did when I was using a 2" recorder the client took the tapes when
> the project was finished.


Interesting to know haow many survived and in what condition, but as you say
it's not your or my) problem.

>For demos, the client didn't care about the multitrack recordings unless it
>was a pre-production thing and tracks might end up on a finished project.
>Like everything else, the universal cop-out answer of "it depends" applies
>here. Your customers, if you have any, are different from my customers.

No argument there, and yes I have customers thanks for asking.


>> even know some artists who when confronted with 2" tapes the record
>> companies no longer wished to store, threw them out because they had no
>> use
>> for them, no way to play them, and no space to store them. They still
>> have
>> CD's and digital copies of the final product of course, but the original
>> tracking is now lost.
>
> Is this really such a bad thing?

Only if the want to remix it, or think they could improve the sound quality
with today's standard of equipment. Enough people seem to think that way as
some CD's have been remastered numerous times, often attracting the same
buyers over and over.



>What could possibly better represent the artist at the time he made the
>recording than a finished mix of what he recorded at that time? And why
>try to make that into something now that he didn't do then? If he's still
>alive and playing, why not just make a new recording? Even a new recording
>of a song that he recorded 30 years ago?

Many do, and most people prefer the original hit.


> Not everything is valuable. True, it's easier to postpone those "throw
> away" decisions if what you'd throw away is smaller than a cigar box, not
> smaller than a clothes closet.

Right.


>> OTOH the persistant argument presented that analog tape is somehow a
>> better
>> archive source, is definitely debateable.
>
> So let's debate it and quit pounding the table.

Funny I thought we WERE debating it, but since you are only "pounding the
table", I guess it's time I quit wasting my time.


>Go find some data. What's the percentage of projects originally recorded on
>digital media 30 years ago have been re-issued from digital media? Compare
>that to the percentage of projects recorded 30 years ago on analog media
>that have been re-issued.

Hardly the point, analog projects are frequently remixed from the original
tracking simply to obtain the higher quality possible these days using
current digital systems and processing. And that's partly because of the
generational losses incurred in obtaing an analog master. Digital projects
didn't suffer from that, and you are stuck with most limitations in the
digital state of the art at the time.


> Project that 30 years in the future and you'll probably not be able to
> find any projects other than esoterics that were recorded on analog tape,
> so that will be then end of this debate. Right now we're in the transition
> period. But 30 years ago, analog was still king and digital was in its
> infancy.

Gee really! :-)


> I think that digital media is a perfectly good means of storage for an
> archive because it's their job to keep up with technology. They maintained
> analog machines when that's what they needed in order to retrieve content
> from the archive, and they'll maintain digital equipment and media if
> that's how they're doing their archiving. But the Library of Congress is
> different from Trevor's Basement. Or even Mike's tape closet.

No ****! :-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
>> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
>> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
>> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the
>> original
>> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
>>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> Is this before or after the bomb drops (and/or the apes take over)?

At that point who cares?


> You assume we'll still have power. At the rate the economy is going, I
> dunno...

Nah the rich will always have power.


> But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
> still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old
> 78RPM
> records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't play.

Right, but only because there is still sufficient demand for turntables and
cartridges. IF there was sufficient demand for those old tape formats,
someone could and would produce them.


> And there are 35mm analog tapes from the 1950s and 1960s that have
> disintegrated so badly, they're almost impossible to play. It's really a
> crapshoot.

Exactly. (although I'm not familiar with 35mm analog tape formats, I did use
a wire recorder once though :-)


> A big advantage of analog is that you can still machine head stacks,
> cannibalize preamps, find motors, and put tape machines back together. If
> the analog media survives, or if you can bake it or otherwise clean it up,
> chances are you can play it back.

True, as with everything, it all comes down to cost Vs importance of doing
so.


> But a hard drive in ten years (or 20 or 30)... that's a tough proposition.
> CDs will probably play, provided you can find a DVD/CD-ROM player. But
> look
> at Apple, who's now starting to discontinue disk drives in their Mac Minis
> and MacBook Airs. In five years, there's a good chance they won't be
> shipping Macs with DVD-ROM players. Apple no longer sells software on
> DVD-ROMs; it's download-only (for the most part).

Fortunately Apple is but one company, and even the latest Blu-Ray players
play standard CD's, many with both digital and analog outputs.
The number of CD's in existence guarantees the availabilty of players for
many decades.
As for formats like Elcassette, GOOD LUCK! :-)


> I think this trend will continue, and all physical media -- books,
> magazines,
> newspapers, music, movies, TV shows, and photographs -- are going to be
> replaced with digital data, all through downloads. Buying, copying, or
> keeping disk-based copies is going to be increasingly difficult.

Well the flip side is that every digital pice of music ever uploaded to the
internet, will probably be there somewhere for generations to come.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> The question is how well things work when people are _not_ careful about
> proper archiving, because unfortunately this is the normal state of
> affairs.

Right, analog OR digital. IF it's important you do whatever is necessary, IF
you don't, you are just hoping you get lucky.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Richard Webb" > wrote in
message
> But, 1" 8 track is not 2" 16 or 24, which was very common,
> which is why it's still out there and there are machines
> maintained.

There are still 1" 8 track capable machines in existence, however your cost
Vs importance ratio was not high enough for you to pursue it I guess, and
you simply placed it in the too hard/do it later basket like most of us do.
Unfortunately it usually becomes even harder as time goes on :-)


> My poinht as well. DO you think whilst migrating that media forward I
> would have even thought about those two reels of
> 1" 8 track in that box in my storage unit? Picture that as
> spinning digital media which languishes for 30 years in a
> box in a garage <g>.

Exactly, lost is still lost no matter what the media!

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
>> play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
>> probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the
>> original
>> master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
>
> That's kind of a loaded bet. Today, most common households don't have a
> record player so they can't play a vinyl record. But they can buy a
> turntable today if they want one. I'll bet that in 30 years, you won't be
> able to buy a CD player.


And I'll bet you can buy a Blu-Ray, or whatever comes after that, which can
still play a standard CD, FAR easier than you can buy a turntable and
cartrdidge in 30 years time. Of course I may not be around to collect on
that bet :-(


>Heck, you can't buy one now, except maybe for a portable.

What garbage, there are plenty of *dedicated* CD players still being made,
and EVERY DVD player and Blu-Ray player can play them, not to mention most
computers, but NOT vinyl disks!


>Fortunately you can play CDs on a DVD player, and, I guess, on a BluRay
>player but will that backward compatibility continue for 30 years? I don't
>think so.

Given the number of CD's in existance I'm happy to bet my house on it. Are
YOU?


> You'll have to find a preservationist who still has working CD drives.

They said that about vinyl disks 30 years ago too.


> And do you think it will be any easier to repair a CD drive 30 years from
> now than it will to repair an analog tape deck 30 years from now?

FAR easier to buy a new one I'm willing to bet.


>Until the paper crumbles, I'll still have the service manuals for my Ampex
>and Otari machines (or, hopefully whoever gets those machines from my
>estate will get the manuals as well).

Good luck producing all the parts though. It eventually becomes more
expensive to fix them, than the value you place on the recordings you wish
to play.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
> When the player manufacturers decide that nobody plays CDs any more,
> they'll leave that capability out of their players. It's going to save
> programming time for the ASIC or FPGA, and that saves them money.

And there is the crux of the matter. Since there are BILLIONS of CD's in
existance, there will be a market for at least one manufacturer to produce a
player for MANY decades to come. Everyone here seems to ignore the simple
premise of supply and demand. Formats become unplayable because there is
insufficient demand. That will NOT happen to CD for MANY decades, but WILL
happen to all analog tape formats long before. In any case I bet EVERY CD is
moved to whatever new digital starage format takes it's place, even if that
is just the internet "cloud", so it will all remain available to all those
who want it. Will you have to pay for it again just like you did when moving
from 8-track cartridge to cassette, or vinyl to CD? IF you haven't already
copied it yourself, then most likely! That's what private enterprise is all
about.

Trevor.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Don Pearce" > wrote in message
...
>
> Google have carried out probably the biggest study of hard drives and
> their longevity. What they found is hardly intuitive - namely, run
> them hot. They last longer. There is a Google publication on the
> subject.

The 2007 Google hard drive reliabilty study has a serious conceptual problem
in 2011. It is 4 year slater and during that time there has been a major
change in hard drive technology - namely the adoption of PMR -
Perpendicualar Magnetic Recording. To put this into focus, the drives were
a mixture of PATA and SATA drives with a capacity of froun 80 to 400
gigabytes. PATA is now dead except in the replacment market, and new drives
are typically > 1 TB with 3 TB being the current max for widely-sold drives.

I'm still fixing and building new computers and it is my sense that the
pattern and nature of hard drive failure has changed considerbly in the past
4 years. I still see a ton of broken ones and have a lot of what I consider
to be infant failures - failures in the first year. I build a lot of
RAID-mirrored systems and continue to be pestered by drives that get bounced
out of arrays due to start-up failures, but that test well later whent they
come into the shop. I also see a lot of drives that can be recusitated for
maybe 30-90 days by a 5-phase run of CHKDSK. I also see a lot of drives that
record and play data perfectly, but do so somewhat or even excruciatingly
slowly.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Neil Gould" > wrote in message
...
> Paul wrote:
>>
>> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>> it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>> had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>> that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>> caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>> certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>>
>> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>> should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>> be the normal distribution probability curve.
>>
> Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true in my
> case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year after about 2 -
> 3
> months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to run drives for 3 months
> prior to their distribution to the market, because those events are an
> anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard drives. Applying that curve to HD
> failures came from somewhere, didn't it?

I install and replace dozens of drives per year and what you seem to be
talking about.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 5:39 PM, John Williamson wrote:

>> I think I
>> still have a 360 KB floppy drive in the closet here. One
>> of these days when I have a computer case open, I should
>> plug it in and see if the BIOS knows what to do with it.

> The BIOS will, as long as there's a PCI or ISA slot for a
> floppy drive interface or a floppy drive interface on the
> motherboard. 1.2Mbyte 5.25" floppy drives will read from,
> but not write to, 360KByte and 180KByte diskettes.

Maybe that's the incompatibility that I remember. I had a f
first generation Compaq that I used to run a BBS, and it
went through several upgrades of both floppy and hard
drives. But why won't a 1.2 MB 5-1/4" drive write to a 360K
floppy that it can read from? Is that just the way they
wrote the driver or the BIOS? I don't mean to be one of
those "it's just software so somebody could write it" kind
of people, so I'll just continue to wonder until the next
time I forget.

> With the
> right driver, you will be able to read *any* 5.25" or 3.5"
> diskette with the right drive. (This may not apply to Apples)

Ah, there you go. And where might I find this "right
driver?" Probably a tough search today given all the other
things that would make it difficult to assemble such a
working system without a stash of old parts.

> For me, the pile got a whole lot smaller when the mp3 player
> was invented. A cigarette packet sized player replaced a
> briefcase full of minidiscs. It's crept back up since,
> though I can do a *lot* more with what I carry now.

That's the creep I'm talking about. My MP3 player is smaller
than the CD player, but I still need to bring a variety of
ways to interface it to the car if I want to listen to the
music when I travel. And of course when I'm flying, I use
noise-canceling headphones rather than the (not always free
any more) ones that the airline provides.

> The microphones, speakers and mixers don't seem to have
> shrunk much, though. :-(

No, but when I travel with recording gear, it's almost
always in my own car and I can manage to get it from the
studio out to the garage. ;)


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sun, 7 Aug 2011 06:36:50 -0400, "Arny Krueger" >
wrote:

>
>"Don Pearce" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> Google have carried out probably the biggest study of hard drives and
>> their longevity. What they found is hardly intuitive - namely, run
>> them hot. They last longer. There is a Google publication on the
>> subject.
>
>The 2007 Google hard drive reliabilty study has a serious conceptual problem
>in 2011. It is 4 year slater and during that time there has been a major
>change in hard drive technology - namely the adoption of PMR -
>Perpendicualar Magnetic Recording. To put this into focus, the drives were
>a mixture of PATA and SATA drives with a capacity of froun 80 to 400
>gigabytes. PATA is now dead except in the replacment market, and new drives
>are typically > 1 TB with 3 TB being the current max for widely-sold drives.
>
>I'm still fixing and building new computers and it is my sense that the
>pattern and nature of hard drive failure has changed considerbly in the past
>4 years. I still see a ton of broken ones and have a lot of what I consider
>to be infant failures - failures in the first year. I build a lot of
>RAID-mirrored systems and continue to be pestered by drives that get bounced
>out of arrays due to start-up failures, but that test well later whent they
>come into the shop. I also see a lot of drives that can be recusitated for
>maybe 30-90 days by a 5-phase run of CHKDSK. I also see a lot of drives that
>record and play data perfectly, but do so somewhat or even excruciatingly
>slowly.
>

Old data is always going to be an issue in any study like this. You
have two options - either include it and compromise the validity of
the result, or exclude it and likewise compromise the result by virtue
of the shrunken population. Looking at the study, I think they were
right to include the vintages they did. Although the numbers may have
changed in terms of lifetime, I think the same mechanisms are still at
work.

d

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 10:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:

>> I used to get paper press releases when I went to NAMM and
>> AES shows.
>> Then I got floppy disks (both sizes), then CDs or DVDs.
>> Now I get USB
>> thumb drives.

> Won't disagree - but you can't search paper.

It's easy enough to search through a piece of paper for the
information that I'm seeing, but the heard part is finding
the piece of paper in my file cabinet. The kind of search
that I need to do is when I remember that I saw something at
a show (maybe three or four years ago) but I can't remember
the manufacturer. I know it's in the file somewhere, but I
don't know where. If I had a hard drive with all the PDF,
Word, and text files as well as pictures from all the press
releases, I might be able to search that if I stumble on the
right words to describe what I'm looking for, but I find
that an on-line search, usually through Google, gets me
there faster. Once I find the name, I can find the
literature in the file cabinet.


>>> A 1/8" jack has been a feature for a long time.
>> I really wish my car had one, but it's a 1993.
> Mine too. it's on it's... fifth? head unit. I expect
> the next one will have one.

I've tried that approach, but the audio sound shops tell me
that the audio system in my car is distributed in so many
pieces, and there's little enough demand (it's a Lexus
ES300) for updates that nobody makes a replacement head unit
or adapters. The CD option when the car was new was a
changer in the trunk that cost $1,000. I figured that if I
had that, I'd play the same ten CDs until I got rid of the car.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 5:02 PM, Paul wrote:

> I won't argue with someone who thinks they know
> what I meant.

That's a great line. I'll have to remember that when someone
starts off a reply to me with "Did you mean to say that . .
.. . ?" followed by an argument about something I didn't say.

I hate it when they do that.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/6/2011 8:13 PM, Neil Gould wrote:

> Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true in my
> case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year after about 2 - 3
> months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to run drives for 3 months
> prior to their distribution to the market, because those events are an
> anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard drives.

A common problem with net wisdom is that people tend to base
it on their personal experience. I guess I've bought maybe
25 or 30 hard drives and I've been buying them over about a
25 year period. That doesn't mean I've bought one a year.

When I got my Mackie hard disk recorders, I was buying 20
and 30 GB drives like they were going out of style, because
they were my "reels of tape." Now that they've gone out of
style, I don't buy so many. And since I've had only one hard
failure and one that became flaky so I took that as a
warning and replaced it (it was on my laptop that's now more
than 10 years old) I certainly can't count my history as
being statistically valid for other users. So I don't. I
don't mind pointing out my own experience, but I don't claim
that it's typical even though it may be for other users like
me.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[John Williamson]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> Maybe that's the incompatibility that I remember. I had a f first
> generation Compaq that I used to run a BBS, and it went through several
> upgrades of both floppy and hard drives. But why won't a 1.2 MB 5-1/4"
> drive write to a 360K floppy that it can read from? Is that just the way
> they wrote the driver or the BIOS? I don't mean to be one of those "it's
> just software so somebody could write it" kind of people, so I'll just
> continue to wonder until the next time I forget.
>
It's the physical layout of the tracks on the diskette. The 180K had 40
tracks on one side, the 360K 40 tracks on both sides, and the 1.2Meg had
80 tracks per side. The heads of the later drives were not wide enough
or consistently enough controlled to write the whole width of the
earlier track, so a 360K diskette written to by a 1.2Meg head will still
have traces of the original data on it, and so would possibly become
unreadable by *any* drive. There was a similar gotcha with 720K and
1.44Meg 3.5" diskettes, where the coercivity of the magnetic material on
the later ones changed, making the diskettes incompatible with earlier
drives. Hence the extra hole in the casing, which was also used to turn
down the power of the later drives for the earlier diskettes.

> > With the
>> right driver, you will be able to read *any* 5.25" or 3.5"
>> diskette with the right drive. (This may not apply to Apples)
>
> Ah, there you go. And where might I find this "right driver?" Probably
> a tough search today given all the other things that would make it
> difficult to assemble such a working system without a stash of old parts.
>
Not hard at all.

http://toastytech.com/files/nformat.html

Works with any standard floppy drive, though it needs either "real" DOS
or a fiddle in an XP DOS box. Most of the formats it generates "just
work" on a standard drive in a standard box.

>> For me, the pile got a whole lot smaller when the mp3 player
>> was invented. A cigarette packet sized player replaced a
>> briefcase full of minidiscs. It's crept back up since,
>> though I can do a *lot* more with what I carry now.
>
> That's the creep I'm talking about. My MP3 player is smaller than the CD
> player, but I still need to bring a variety of ways to interface it to
> the car if I want to listen to the music when I travel. And of course
> when I'm flying, I use noise-canceling headphones rather than the (not
> always free any more) ones that the airline provides.
>
I need a cassette adaptor and a 3.5mm stereo male to male lead, or, very
rarely, an FM transmitter. I've not tried it yet with one of the USB
ports on the newer car systems, but suspect it would get bogged down in
the directory tructure.

>> The microphones, speakers and mixers don't seem to have
>> shrunk much, though. :-(
>
> No, but when I travel with recording gear, it's almost always in my own
> car and I can manage to get it from the studio out to the garage. ;)
>
That bit's easy, it's getting it in and out of the (normally upstairs)
venue in a hurry that's a pain. Or, as in one case lately, the cathedral
that was a few hundred yards from the nearest parking area.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 3:41 AM, Trevor wrote:

> I only wish all my stand alone boxes worked as desired. When they don't it's
> often impossible to do anything about it.

Hopefully, they work as the designer desired. Most of the
time they eventually do after the bugs get worked out, if
the product stays active long enough, but few companies in
this business can afford to do any sustaining engineering
for devices that they no longer have in production. Some
units have a pretty long product cycle, but others are
embarrassingly short.

If you want something to work like you would have designed
it, generally you will have to roll your own. You can choose
(or write) your software and find hardware that has the
features you need. This is the way most people get their
recording systems these days, only they don't always know
what they're getting until they find out something that it
doesn't do or that they don't like they way it does it. Some
software is configurable and can be beaten into shape, some
isn't and can't be, and a lot of users don't bother trying.

> There are a number of manufacturers that allow you to cascade boxes. I have
> used both M-Audio and MOTU without problems, but there are quite a few
> others. Presonus have a fairly cheap box you can cascade I believe.

There are a few, not many, and those who do, don't do it
consistently across their product line. PreSonus, for
example, makes several boxes, some of which can be cascaded,
others can't. And some that you think should be are the ones
that can't. For example, you can cascade two of their
16-channel mixers, but you can't cascade two of the
24-channel version in the same series, or cascade a 16
channel with a 24-channel. And the new semi-16 channel one
in the series won't cascade to others of the same model or
others in the same series.

Again, this is a case where the user needs to be his own
system engineer, and that includes looking to future expansion.

>> "most people" don't need 24 input and output channels and are perfectly
>> happy with eight, or even two.

> Right, which is sometimes a good reason for starting with one box and adding
> more if required and as you can afford it or justify it

Also, if it's possible with the hardware you've chosen. This
is where analog interfacing is king. You can get into
trouble if you try to hook two different Firewire devices to
the same computer (MacOS has "aggregate audio device" which
usually makes this work - Windows has no equivalent since
CEntrance abandoned their Universal Firewire Driver). I've
run across several interfaces that have 8 analog I/O
channels and an ADAT optical port for expansion, but then
you can run into clock synchronization problems (another
system engineering issue).



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>Except you probably have multiple identical copies in other peoples hands,
>NOT damged by the same fire or flood. Obviously I must keep making the same
>point despite your dislike of me doing so, because YOU keep making the same
>points, and just don't seem to be getting it, or even acknowldging that it
>is a real benefit to many other than yourself.

Trevor, the problem is that you're arguing with people who actually do this
sort of thing for a living and actually know the kind of problems that
archivists experience, while you seem to be living in a perfect theoretical
world. It is no wonder that there is a disconnect between the two.

>IF YOU are still happy with analog tape, I have NO problem with that.
>However the vast majority of people have moved on and not looked back.

I don't think you understand what Mike is saying.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Trevor > wrote:
>
>So do they really need the service or not? I have better things to do with
>my time than make a full time job of it, even IF there was sufficient
>demand, which there isn't.

There is. There are easily a dozen companies I can name, starting with
Ontrack Data Recovery, that specialize in dealing with this stuff.
If anything, there's too much competition for a new business.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Arny Krueger > wrote:
>The 2007 Google hard drive reliabilty study has a serious conceptual problem
>in 2011. It is 4 year slater and during that time there has been a major
>change in hard drive technology - namely the adoption of PMR -
>Perpendicualar Magnetic Recording. To put this into focus, the drives were
>a mixture of PATA and SATA drives with a capacity of froun 80 to 400
>gigabytes. PATA is now dead except in the replacment market, and new drives
>are typically > 1 TB with 3 TB being the current max for widely-sold drives.

This is true. I'm not sure how much the error rates are going to change
but I do know that you now lose more data per failure.

>I'm still fixing and building new computers and it is my sense that the
>pattern and nature of hard drive failure has changed considerbly in the past
>4 years. I still see a ton of broken ones and have a lot of what I consider
>to be infant failures - failures in the first year. I build a lot of
>RAID-mirrored systems and continue to be pestered by drives that get bounced
>out of arrays due to start-up failures, but that test well later whent they
>come into the shop. I also see a lot of drives that can be recusitated for
>maybe 30-90 days by a 5-phase run of CHKDSK. I also see a lot of drives that
>record and play data perfectly, but do so somewhat or even excruciatingly
>slowly.

The problem is that you're seeing a large number of different kinds of
errors, and some of those (like the slow running) could in fact be a number
of different electronics errors.

The problem here is that at about the same time, RoHS came in, and the
RoHS requirements have caused the number of electronics failures to shoot
through the roof. HDA errors may or may not have changed, but it's hard
to tell due to the dramatic increase in electronics problems.

Try swapping boards between drives and see if the problems move.

Most of those initial failures and those excruciatingly slow drives are
probably electronics failures.

HOPEFULLY all of that will improve once people figure out how to make
reliable lead-fee stuff, or give up on the whole lead-free thing.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers > wrote:
>
>Maybe that's the incompatibility that I remember. I had a f
>first generation Compaq that I used to run a BBS, and it
>went through several upgrades of both floppy and hard
>drives. But why won't a 1.2 MB 5-1/4" drive write to a 360K
>floppy that it can read from? Is that just the way they
>wrote the driver or the BIOS? I don't mean to be one of
>those "it's just software so somebody could write it" kind
>of people, so I'll just continue to wonder until the next
>time I forget.

Track width. The compatible drives had two read gaps, like those
Technics quarter/half track machines.

> > With the
>> right driver, you will be able to read *any* 5.25" or 3.5"
>> diskette with the right drive. (This may not apply to Apples)
>
>Ah, there you go. And where might I find this "right
>driver?" Probably a tough search today given all the other
>things that would make it difficult to assemble such a
>working system without a stash of old parts.

You write it. That's what people do, people are tool-using animals.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/6/2011 8:13 PM, Neil Gould wrote:
>
>> Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true
>> in my case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year
>> after about 2 - 3 months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to
>> run drives for 3 months prior to their distribution to the market,
>> because those events are an anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard
>> drives.
>
> A common problem with net wisdom is that people tend to base
> it on their personal experience. I guess I've bought maybe
> 25 or 30 hard drives and I've been buying them over about a
> 25 year period. That doesn't mean I've bought one a year.
>
> When I got my Mackie hard disk recorders, I was buying 20
> and 30 GB drives like they were going out of style, because
> they were my "reels of tape." Now that they've gone out of
> style, I don't buy so many. And since I've had only one hard
> failure and one that became flaky so I took that as a
> warning and replaced it (it was on my laptop that's now more
> than 10 years old) I certainly can't count my history as
> being statistically valid for other users. So I don't. I
> don't mind pointing out my own experience, but I don't claim
> that it's typical even though it may be for other users like
> me.
>
I completely agree, and didn't mean to imply that my personal experience is
statistically significant, only that it has been consistent with the bathtub
curve. OTOH, each data point adds to the overall statistical analysis.

--
Neil

[Neil Gould]

Arny Krueger wrote:
> "Neil Gould" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Paul wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>>> it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>>> had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>>> that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>>> caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>>> certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>>>
>>> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>>> should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>>> be the normal distribution probability curve.
>>>
>> Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true
>> in my case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year
>> after about 2 - 3
>> months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to run drives for 3
>> months prior to their distribution to the market, because those
>> events are an anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard drives.
>> Applying that curve to HD failures came from somewhere, didn't it?
>
> I install and replace dozens of drives per year and what you seem to
> be talking about.
>
If I follow your point, it is in agreement with the bathtub curve... right?

--
Neil

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 4:59 AM, Trevor wrote:

>> But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
>> still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old
>> 78RPM
>> records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't play.
>
> Right, but only because there is still sufficient demand for turntables and
> cartridges. IF there was sufficient demand for those old tape formats,
> someone could and would produce them.

The question is how much is "sufficient demand?" And for
what. Apparently there wasn't sufficient demand for a new 2"
analog recorder. There are probably enough 2" transverse
scan and 1" and 1/2" helical scan video decks still working,
and most of what people considered saving in those formats
has been saved it it was possible. Consumer demand to play
their Beta and VHS tapes is probably pretty slim by now. So
I don't expect we'll see any new old format video recorders
built, though there will probably be some one-off
restorations by hobbyists,

> Well the flip side is that every digital pice of music ever uploaded to the
> internet, will probably be there somewhere for generations to come.

Maybe in someone's personal collection, but I've had at
least two Internet file hosting sites go away, along with my
files, with no warning. I never had any tragic losses, and
mostly those uploads were for short term use, but I wouldn't
be surprised if some of the "cloud music" sites of today
don't turn to rain in 5 to 10 years. Some will have the same
music as others so the content won't be lost, but that's not
always the case.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 5:33 AM, Trevor wrote:

> Formats become unplayable because there is
> insufficient demand. That will NOT happen to CD for MANY decades

Perhaps for small values of MANY. I doubt that CDs will
last, other than in the hands of collectors, for more than
another 20 years. But that's only my opinion, but one based
on experience with other post-phonograph media. Collectors
are an anomaly. They will continue to preserve what's
necessary to show off and use their collections. But this
is preservation. You won't see kids in 20 years buying new
CDs, though you may see a small handful sorting through used
ones at flea markets, thrift stores, and garage sales.




--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[alex]

Il 06/08/2011 4.26, Trevor ha scritto:
>> Ok you can configure the laptop to do nothing unless you specifically ask
>> > to do, but the complexity is huge
> For you maybe, many others have no problem.
>
>

complexity does not mean difficult. Complexity is the presence of many
potential config issues that make you never absolutely sure that all is
ok. I used a lot DAW systems for recording, without any problem, but i
fonund that i needed to watch a lot more things than on dedicated
hardware recorders. I repeat i make it! But if i need to explay to
another guy how to do, i would prefer to say: "turn on and press rec"
than going deeply into sw, os, device and laptop issues.
This for a smaller price and for a more robust architecture...
OK you can't play games while recording but...

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/7/2011 5:33 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
>> Formats become unplayable because there is
>> insufficient demand. That will NOT happen to CD for MANY decades
>
> Perhaps for small values of MANY. I doubt that CDs will
> last, other than in the hands of collectors, for more than
> another 20 years. But that's only my opinion, but one based
> on experience with other post-phonograph media. Collectors
> are an anomaly. They will continue to preserve what's
> necessary to show off and use their collections. But this
> is preservation. You won't see kids in 20 years buying new
> CDs, though you may see a small handful sorting through used
> ones at flea markets, thrift stores, and garage sales.
>
I don't think it will take more than a couple of years to reach this state.
The trend is to buy and store music on mp3 players and iPods, and I don't
see that turning around any time soon. 20 years from now, those mp3 players
and iPods will be long gone, along with all of the music that was stored on
them, replaced by something we can't predict at this point.

--
Neil

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/7/2011 5:07 AM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/7/2011 4:59 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
>>> But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
>>> still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old
>>> 78RPM
>>> records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't
>>> play.
>>
>> Right, but only because there is still sufficient demand for
>> turntables and
>> cartridges. IF there was sufficient demand for those old tape formats,
>> someone could and would produce them.
>
> The question is how much is "sufficient demand?" And for what.
> Apparently there wasn't sufficient demand for a new 2" analog recorder.
> There are probably enough 2" transverse scan and 1" and 1/2" helical
> scan video decks still working, and most of what people considered
> saving in those formats has been saved it it was possible. Consumer
> demand to play their Beta and VHS tapes is probably pretty slim by now.
> So I don't expect we'll see any new old format video recorders built,
> though there will probably be some one-off restorations by hobbyists,
>

People like me still buy used VHS movies, and still watch them,
but one day even Youtube will be better quality than tape. I can't
remember the last time I saw a Beta player.....loong time ago....


>> Well the flip side is that every digital pice of music ever uploaded
>> to the
>> internet, will probably be there somewhere for generations to come.
>
> Maybe in someone's personal collection, but I've had at least two
> Internet file hosting sites go away, along with my files, with no
> warning. I never had any tragic losses, and mostly those uploads were
> for short term use, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "cloud
> music" sites of today don't turn to rain in 5 to 10 years. Some will
> have the same music as others so the content won't be lost, but that's
> not always the case.
>
>

Once someone uploads a digital file, that's worthy of saving,
all sorts of people download it, and it's very well protected from loss.

[[email protected]]

On 2011-08-07 said:
>> Would agree with that. The trouble is these are do
>> everything boxes as sold by the manufacturers to JOe
>> AVerage. Therefore we also have to protect MR. Average from
>>himself, because he might be too braindead not to follow the link
>>to the malware site, etc, but he's not an audio pro,
>> nor is he a systems pro, so he doesn't understand either
>> world enough to protect himself or maximize the performance
>> of his do everything tool for his intended purpose.
>I wonder how many of MOTU's customer base for the 828, Traveller and
>Ultralite would agree with you? :-)
>(not to mention all the other similar manufacturers)
>They are hardly the same people who buy soundblaster cards for their
>computers.

Agreed, but many are hobbyists who might or might not think
about all the stuff that's active that they don't need,
especially if they're hobbyists with the money to spend who
don't use the gear all the time. My point, though
expressed poorly I guess, was that the more complex you have
to make something (especially that might not get used every
day) the more chance for a big problem later.

>> My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file
>> format,
>ONLY? Enough of a deal breaker for me.

RIght, but there again, old blind man would need to run a
screenreader while trying to capture 8 16 or 24 tracks of
audio. That screenreader is like those other apps that are
automagically installed for jOe average, and don't do good
things for reliability during such sessions, hence a stand
alone box is required for my work. My choices at the time
were the Radar and the Alesis, Radar was higher cost, less
available. I could always rent/borrow/buy another Alesis
machine in just about any city <g>. SO we put hd24tools on
one of our linux boxes and grin and bear it.

Had I the decision to make today I"d probably hold my nose
and be an early adopter of the JOeco system for the same
reasons. THe other choices on the market at the time had
features I didn't need, didn't wish to pay for and added
complexity to the system. SO, even though the proprietary
file format was very close to deal breaker I held my nose as
it were.



Regards,



Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[[email protected]]

On 2011-08-07 said:
>> But, 1" 8 track is not 2" 16 or 24, which was very common,
>> which is why it's still out there and there are machines
>> maintained.
>There are still 1" 8 track capable machines in existence, however
>your cost Vs importance ratio was not high enough for you to pursue
>it I guess, and you simply placed it in the too hard/do it later
>basket like most of us do. Unfortunately it usually becomes even
>harder as time goes on :-)

YEp, I knew one guy with 1" 8 track available, and didn't
care that much about it, but it just traveled along with all
that other stuff. But, when you talk to guys like MR.
Dorsey who get these restoration jobs this is exactly what
happens to this material that suddenly appears with a
customer saying "please please."

>> My poinht as well. DO you think whilst migrating that media
>>forward I would have even thought about those two reels of
>> 1" 8 track in that box in my storage unit? Picture that as
>> spinning digital media which languishes for 30 years in a
>> box in a garage <g>.
>Exactly, lost is still lost no matter what the media!
YEp, and even though I"d been doing very well at migrating
my digital stuff to newer formats, I just left those things
sit.
What finally kicked my posterior on all of it was my after
Katrina fire which took out my home in SLIdell, La. SInce I
had the room I'd just cleaned out my storage unit, wouldn'ta
ya know.


Regards,



Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>
> Once someone uploads a digital file, that's worthy of saving,
>all sorts of people download it, and it's very well protected from loss.
>

Unfortunately the original owners also lose control of it. So while there
might be downloadable versions of the original out there, there will also
be many poor quality versions (courtesy of folks running through multiple
codecs to transcode the stuff), "improved" edits, "remixes" and all-bongo
versions which will ALSO be found by anyone looking for the original. This
is not a kind of preservation at all.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, > wrote:
>YEp, I knew one guy with 1" 8 track available, and didn't
>care that much about it, but it just traveled along with all
>that other stuff. But, when you talk to guys like MR.
>Dorsey who get these restoration jobs this is exactly what
>happens to this material that suddenly appears with a
>customer saying "please please."

Hmm... would he be willing to sell the machine? I'm looking for a second
440-8.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Frank Stearns]

(Richard Webb) writes:

- snips -

>My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file

Ah, but it was brilliant in its design to overcome the relatively slow drives of the
day. Striping up to 24 tracks of 48K/24 bit was a daunting task; they got around it
by doing big parallel chunks of data -- minimal to no seeking.

Ironcially, as today's drives get really huge (> 1.5 TByte), sometimes the seek
process kills you for real-time wrok (just like audio, with drives there are
marketing specs and then there is real-world performance). You can counter by upping
the cluster size (which I've had to do more than once with workstation drives), but
that has its drawbacks as well.

It'd be nice to be able to tell the file system to favor optimal file positioning
for real-time applications, but I'm not aware of a way to do this, at least in
windows.


>format, and another step needed to render broadcast wav for
>the client. YEs Mark over in EUrope has done an excellent
>job with hd24tools, but my next recorder will be the JOeco
>(spelling) just for that reason. I find the extra rendering step a pita.

Yes, Mark should get an award.

I actually like the extra step, though. I think of the original HD24 disks as
"masters," perhaps even stone tablets, and the copies I make to the workstation as
"working safety copies." And, there is that slight variance in the format of the
data storage. Might just be me, but those two things give me a warm fuzzy.

(Image the client, who isn't so good about backups, doing a big mix/edit session.
But he was smart enough to make backups of the session data -- but maybe all that
track data was too much.

Near the end of their four month post-production, Something Dies. That's it, game
over. You, Mr. Client, had the ORIGINAL track files, and you are soooo S.O.L.

Now, if you still have the original HD24 disks, you just recopy the source files,
relink, and they're back in business, and you are the hero. )

But as always, YMMV.

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Neil Gould" > wrote in message
...
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>> "Neil Gould" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Paul wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm familiar with the bathtub curve, but I don't think
>>>> it applies to hard drives that are manufactured properly. I've
>>>> had only one drive that was dead on arrival, and I don't include
>>>> that as an initial failure, because quality assurance should have
>>>> caught that unit. All the other brand NEW drives I have seen
>>>> certainly lasted longer than 5 years.
>>>>
>>>> Move past the initial failures of the bathtub curve, which
>>>> should be done by the manufacturer, and the second peak can
>>>> be the normal distribution probability curve.
>>>>
>>> Have you had many hard drives? The bathtub curve seems to hold true
>>> in my case, where, for example, I had two drives fail this year
>>> after about 2 - 3
>>> months of service. Manufacturers are not likely to run drives for 3
>>> months prior to their distribution to the market, because those
>>> events are an anomaly in my 25+ years of buying hard drives.
>>> Applying that curve to HD failures came from somewhere, didn't it?
>>
>> I install and replace dozens of drives per year and what you seem to
>> be talking about.
>>
> If I follow your point, it is in agreement with the bathtub curve...
> right?

Yes, if we define infant mortality as higher failure rates during the first
few months of operation, followed by several years of fairly reliable
operation.

As I mentioned in the other post there are actually two failure modes - one
where the drive simply gives up, but another where it simply becomes somwhat
slow or even excruciatingly slow but seems like it will run for months and
even years that way.

Most of the failures I see fit into these categories:

(1) Drive won't spin
(2) Drive spins but will not come ready. Attempted I/O just times out.
(3) Drive spins, goes click-click-click, never becomes ready
(4) Drive spins, comes ready, but won't deliver or write useful amounts of
data
(5) Drive will read and write data but not reliably. Or data comes back
with a random errors error without drive ever reporting data errors
(5) Drive delivers and writes data reliably, but excruciatingly slowly
(6) Drive delivers and writes data, but only somewhat slowly
(7) R/W errors are reported


It happens, pure and simple.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> Trevor > wrote:
>>
>>So do they really need the service or not? I have better things to do with
>>my time than make a full time job of it, even IF there was sufficient
>>demand, which there isn't.
>
> There is. There are easily a dozen companies I can name, starting with
> Ontrack Data Recovery, that specialize in dealing with this stuff.
> If anything, there's too much competition for a new business.

I suspect that in general, the total number of drive failures is slowly
dropping, even the number of drives is probably still increasing.

Flash is the next wave - it has already destroyed the market for floppies,
Zip drives and the like as well as small (<=20 GB) hard drives.

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Sat, 6 Aug 2011 01:04:33 -0700, John Williamson wrote
(in article >):

> I have a machine running XP with a 5.25" drive in it that still works,
> and is shared across the network. It will read and write 1.2Meg
> diskettes, and read, but not write to, 360Kbyte diskettes.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on it.
Anybody got such an animal?

Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.

--MFW

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Sat, 6 Aug 2011 02:01:27 -0700, Paul wrote
(in article >):

> Again, if one is serious about archiving digital data, they
> will back up to the latest storage media every 5-7 years or so.
> So you should never end up with a HD that is too ancient.
>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

Correct -- "migrating the data" is the proper term. All this is spelled out
in the Grammy document I mentioned earlier.

I agree 5-7 years is about the point where drives start to break down. The
good news is, that's also about the point where the price is cut by about 75%
and the size increases drastically. I think a 500GB drive from 2004 costs
about what a 2TB drive does today.

--MFW

[Scott Dorsey]

Arny Krueger > wrote:
>"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
>> Trevor > wrote:
>>>
>>>So do they really need the service or not? I have better things to do with
>>>my time than make a full time job of it, even IF there was sufficient
>>>demand, which there isn't.
>>
>> There is. There are easily a dozen companies I can name, starting with
>> Ontrack Data Recovery, that specialize in dealing with this stuff.
>> If anything, there's too much competition for a new business.
>
>I suspect that in general, the total number of drive failures is slowly
>dropping, even the number of drives is probably still increasing.

I don't think so, not with RoHS. At least, that's not what I am seeing with
the raid arrays these days.

>Flash is the next wave - it has already destroyed the market for floppies,
>Zip drives and the like as well as small (<=20 GB) hard drives.

And oh, man do THOSE have some weird failure modes. And the dynamic balancing
stuff makes recovery very difficult when they fail. I am sure the guys at
Ontrack are working hard on the problems already.

However, the last flash drive I was given to recover turned out to have two
ICs inside... one of whose package was cracked right down the middle and the
leadframe broken.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Marc Wielage > wrote:
>
>Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on it.
>Anybody got such an animal?
>
>Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.

Device Side FC5025 is the tool you want. You will need to supply the drive
and enclosure but it bolts right up.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Paul[_13_]]

On 8/7/2011 11:57 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In >, > wrote:
>>
>> Once someone uploads a digital file, that's worthy of saving,
>> all sorts of people download it, and it's very well protected from loss.
>>
>
> Unfortunately the original owners also lose control of it. So while there
> might be downloadable versions of the original out there, there will also
> be many poor quality versions (courtesy of folks running through multiple
> codecs to transcode the stuff), "improved" edits, "remixes" and all-bongo
> versions which will ALSO be found by anyone looking for the original. This
> is not a kind of preservation at all.


True, but that's not too bad of a situation. There will still
be plenty of versions of the original.

Perfect replication is digital's main strength.

Today's situation is a hell of a lot better than the old
tape and record days, when you had to pay an arm and a leg to
get copies of bootlegs (some many generations from the original
source)and other rare recordings. Now you just do a search on
Youtube, and EVERYONE has access to it, at ANY time....just
incredible.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
> On Sat, 6 Aug 2011 01:04:33 -0700, John Williamson wrote
> (in article >):
>
>> I have a machine running XP with a 5.25" drive in it that still works,
>> and is shared across the network. It will read and write 1.2Meg
>> diskettes, and read, but not write to, 360Kbyte diskettes.
>>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on it.
> Anybody got such an animal?
>
> Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.


You can get the parts to build such a thing, assembly is nearly trivial.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
> On Sat, 6 Aug 2011 02:01:27 -0700, Paul wrote
> (in article >):
>
>> Again, if one is serious about archiving digital data, they
>> will back up to the latest storage media every 5-7 years or so.
>> So you should never end up with a HD that is too ancient.
>>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> Correct -- "migrating the data" is the proper term. All this is spelled
> out
> in the Grammy document I mentioned earlier.
>
> I agree 5-7 years is about the point where drives start to break down.
> The
> good news is, that's also about the point where the price is cut by about
> 75%
> and the size increases drastically. I think a 500GB drive from 2004 costs
> about what a 2TB drive does today.


Price performance of drives doubles every 2 to 2 1/2 years. 2004 is 7 years
ago, so the modern 2 TB drive should cost significantly less than the 500 GB
drive cost in 2004.

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Sun 2011-Aug-07 15:29, Frank Stearns writes:
>>My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file

> Ah, but it was brilliant in its design to overcome the relatively
> slow drives of the
> day. Striping up to 24 tracks of 48K/24 bit was a daunting task;
> they got around it
> by doing big parallel chunks of data -- minimal to no seeking.

INdeed it was.

<snip>

> It'd be nice to be able to tell the file system to favor optimal
> file positioning
> for real-time applications, but I'm not aware of a way to do this,
> at least in windows.

Agreed.


>>format, and another step needed to render broadcast wav for
>>the client. YEs Mark over in EUrope has done an excellent
>>job with hd24tools, but my next recorder will be the JOeco
>>(spelling) just for that reason. I find the extra rendering step a pita.

> Yes, Mark should get an award.

> I actually like the extra step, though. I think of the original HD24
> disks as "masters," perhaps even stone tablets, and the copies I
> make to the workstation as
> "working safety copies." And, there is that slight variance in the
> format of the data storage. Might just be me, but those two things
> give me a warm fuzzy.

RIght, but I'm not doing anything other than capture, and I
use a drive over at least once for some of my own
materiallater. Therefore it's just another step in the way
of deliverable to the customer. The black box would
eliminate that step.

AS I said to Trevor, I did much the same as I do when
entering my voting booth on election day, held my nose and
voted, then the black box appears a couple years later.

> (Image the client, who isn't so good about backups, doing a big
> mix/edit session.
> But he was smart enough to make backups of the session data -- but
> maybe all that
> track data was too much.

THere is that, but I state up front the hd24 drives will be
held for 30 days after delivery. OFten they're around
longer as I'm not near as busy as I'd like to be, but that's the guarantee you get, 30 days. I'll hold 'em longer if you want to pay for the service though, or sell you the drive at cost as well. FInd anybody with an hd24 and recapture the
raw track data yourself, which I've done more than not it
seems. You otoh iirc have a regular fixed location control
room and facility as well to work with.

> Near the end of their four month post-production, Something Dies.
> That's it, game
> over. You, Mr. Client, had the ORIGINAL track files, and you are
> soooo S.O.L.

YEp, which is why smart clients buy the original drive from
me as well. AS I tell them, hd24 machines are everywhere.

> Now, if you still have the original HD24 disks, you just recopy the
> source files,
> relink, and they're back in business, and you are the hero. )

Yep, and for a few dollars more they can bring it to me
again, or have somebody do it closer to home. IT goes to
the client with complete session documentation in cases
where the client has been smart and bought the drive, again
at my cost, no markup on that.

> But as always, YMMV.

Yep, it sure does, and I find it works better for me that
way, let somebody else worry with the backup and archival,
and reretrieval of session data if it's gotta be done. GOod physical storage space is limited, and the time it takes to
get everything happening and render the files again in
usable form not as profitable to me etc. The customer pays
less to just purchase the drive from me at my cost than he'd pay me to do it all again <g>. Talk to me about a
producer's cut on the back end and some cash up front though and then I'll go through the added hassle, of course <g>.
After all, you don't pay any more for that drive today than
you did for a reel of 2" back in the day <g>.


Regards,
Richard
.... Remote audio in the southland: See www.gatasound.com
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet<->Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Frank Stearns]

(Richard Webb) writes:

-snip-

>materiallater. Therefore it's just another step in the way
>of deliverable to the customer. The black box would
>eliminate that step.

Sure, makes sense if you're handing them "the works" right away. It would be a PIA
if Mr. Customer is there, cash in hand, and you have to say, "gimme an hour; I gotta
run back to the shop and do a file conversion for you... That 10 Mbit ethernet port?
Are you insane, Mr. Customer?"


snips

>After all, you don't pay any more for that drive today than
>you did for a reel of 2" back in the day <g>.

This still continues to amaze me... Something like 80 reels of 2"-24 track/15 IPS
would fit onto a single $100 1 Tbyte drive; 160 reels if you were at 30 IPS.

That's assuming a data rate of 96K/24 bit. More than double that reel count if you
were running 44.1K/24 bit. And let's give a nod to physical volume and weight
comparison as well. (Hell, I at one point had 30-odd reels of 2" in my personal
possession before they eventually got shuffled off to their various owners; what a
pain to move/store them!)

So, around a buck or a bit less for a reel of 2"! Who would have guessed that in
1978?!

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[[email protected]]

On 2011-08-07 said:
>>materiallater. Therefore it's just another step in the way
>>of deliverable to the customer. The black box would
>>eliminate that step.
>Sure, makes sense if you're handing them "the works" right away. It
>would be a PIA
>if Mr. Customer is there, cash in hand, and you have to say, "gimme
>an hour; I gotta
>run back to the shop and do a file conversion for you... That 10
>Mbit ethernet port?
>Are you insane, Mr. Customer?"
>snips

YEp, hd24tools takes care of that, but still it's take the
drive out, hook it up to the actual computer, import, render
files to usb connected drive, deliver the drive to customer,
FEdEx or in person, etc. <yawn> THe black box would
eliminate that.

>>After all, you don't pay any more for that drive today than
>>you did for a reel of 2" back in the day <g>.
>This still continues to amaze me... Something like 80 reels of
>2"-24 track/15 IPS
>would fit onto a single $100 1 Tbyte drive; 160 reels if you were
>at 30 IPS.
>That's assuming a data rate of 96K/24 bit. More than double that
>reel count if you
>were running 44.1K/24 bit. And let's give a nod to physical volume
>and weight comparison as well. (Hell, I at one point had 30-odd
>reels of 2" in my personal possession before they eventually got
>shuffled off to their various owners; what a
>pain to move/store them!)

YEp, a point I was sure you'd expound upon too. sO much
more data fits on that drive, smaller physical footprint,
lots more bang per buck! I've told clients this, and those
with any experience at all think they're getting a deal with
that, in fact, often the price of that drive is factored in
just automagically.

>So, around a buck or a bit less for a reel of 2"! Who would have
>guessed that in
>1978?!

YEp, would've never thought it possible. YOu would have
told me in those years storage would come down to that I'd
have laughed you out the door. WHo'd a thunk it? HEck, at
the time I still conceived of computers in my mind as
devices occupying an entire floor of a building or so with a
room full of card readers and decks handling 10" reels of
tape, etc. Totally amazing stuff in that respect.

Regards,





Richard webb,

replace anything before at with elspider
ON site audio in the southland: see www.gatasound.com

[Frank Stearns]

> >So, around a buck or a bit less for a reel of 2"! Who would have
> >guessed that in
> >1978?!

>YEp, would've never thought it possible. YOu would have
>told me in those years storage would come down to that I'd
>have laughed you out the door. WHo'd a thunk it? HEck, at
>the time I still conceived of computers in my mind as
>devices occupying an entire floor of a building or so with a
>room full of card readers and decks handling 10" reels of
>tape, etc. Totally amazing stuff in that respect.

Just to drift even further off-topic, my brother was in the Air Force and had duties
at the SAGE complex at Ft. Lewis (south of Seattle).

In the early 1970s, I got a tour of the system. (The general in charge had taken
a liking to my brother, and no doubt okay'd letting a civilian (me) into the complex
housed in a windowless 3-story concrete cube, built with 3' thick concrete walls.

SAGE was a military air-traffic control and air-defense system. Operators sat in
front of vector displays that showed aircraft ID and locations in near real time.

The raw radar data was crunched through the SAGE computer and the results fed to
those vector displays.

The punchline: the SAGE system (actually twin computers, one was a backup) was
vacuum tube based. 49,000 tubes in floor-to-ceiling racks; each logic gate had a
half-dozen tubes or so in a 2U rack space. The racks were on two walls of a long,
narrow gallery, with another set of racks in the middle. Each computer had its own
gallery; they met to form a large "L" shape. Techs wandered up and down the aisles
wheeling a huge Tek scope and other test gear. They checked and
fixed gates on the spot, and kept spare gates on the lower shelf of the cart.

CPU cycle time was measured in milliseconds, not the micro seconds of your microwave
and pico seconds of your PC. "Core" memory was a wire grid with what looked like #6
flat washers at the intersection of the horizontal and verticle wires. They also had
"drum" memory, which consisted of what looked like piece of 12" water main. To make
a little money, they had a deal to do batch data processing for local businesses on
the backup computer.

Power was in a separate huge gallery housing six generators, each the size of a
couple of stacked cargo ship containers. One generator handled the computers,
another handled the HVAC. Two more generators were on standby, with two more
undergoing their periodic tear-down and rebuild.

IIRC, SAGE ran from the 1950s to the early 1980s.

Ya know, the tube devotees ought to ressurect one of these to handle their digital
audio -- give it that warm, phat sound, and with vintage gear to boot. (Ducking and
running now.)

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[Trevor]

"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
...
>> Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on it.
>> Anybody got such an animal?
>> Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.
>
>
> You can get the parts to build such a thing, assembly is nearly trivial.

Are you sure about that? I see plenty of 5.25" enclosures for ATA and SATA
HD or optical drives to USB, and dedicated 3.5" FDD to USB, but interfacing
a 5.25" FDD that does not meet the ATA, SATA or SCSI interface may be a
little less trivial. Of course I have never wanted to do it, so there may
well be bits I am unaware of. Many brand new PC motherboards still support
5.25" FDD's natively however.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

> wrote in message
...
> >> Would agree with that. The trouble is these are do
> >> everything boxes as sold by the manufacturers to JOe
> >> AVerage. Therefore we also have to protect MR. Average from
> >>himself, because he might be too braindead not to follow the link
> >>to the malware site, etc, but he's not an audio pro,
> >> nor is he a systems pro, so he doesn't understand either
> >> world enough to protect himself or maximize the performance
> >> of his do everything tool for his intended purpose.
> >I wonder how many of MOTU's customer base for the 828, Traveller and
> >Ultralite would agree with you? :-)
> >(not to mention all the other similar manufacturers)
> >They are hardly the same people who buy soundblaster cards for their
> >computers.
>
> Agreed, but many are hobbyists who might or might not think
> about all the stuff that's active that they don't need,
> especially if they're hobbyists with the money to spend who
> don't use the gear all the time. My point, though
> expressed poorly I guess, was that the more complex you have
> to make something (especially that might not get used every
> day) the more chance for a big problem later.
>
> >> My only complaint with the Alesis is the proprietary file
> >> format,
> >ONLY? Enough of a deal breaker for me.
>
> RIght, but there again, old blind man would need to run a
> screenreader while trying to capture 8 16 or 24 tracks of
> audio. That screenreader is like those other apps that are
> automagically installed for jOe average, and don't do good
> things for reliability during such sessions, hence a stand
> alone box is required for my work. My choices at the time
> were the Radar and the Alesis, Radar was higher cost, less
> available. I could always rent/borrow/buy another Alesis
> machine in just about any city <g>. SO we put hd24tools on
> one of our linux boxes and grin and bear it.
>
> Had I the decision to make today I"d probably hold my nose
> and be an early adopter of the JOeco system for the same
> reasons. THe other choices on the market at the time had
> features I didn't need, didn't wish to pay for and added
> complexity to the system. SO, even though the proprietary
> file format was very close to deal breaker I held my nose as
> it were.

Seems you made pretty fair decisions based on YOUR requirements, and I
certainly wouldn't argue with that.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> Trevor, the problem is that you're arguing with people who actually do
> this
> sort of thing for a living and actually know the kind of problems that
> archivists experience, while you seem to be living in a perfect
> theoretical
> world.

A little up yourself aren't you assuming that your "living" from audio
somehow makes you the ultimate authority and theirs doesn't!
YOU get to choose what YOU and YOUR customers want, that's it. I'll do what
my customers want thanks all the same, regardless of your opinion. Let's
just accept that we get to make our own choices, and admit we have both
probably made a bad one once in our lives, regardless of how much of an
authority you THINK you are.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
>>So do they really need the service or not? I have better things to do with
>>my time than make a full time job of it, even IF there was sufficient
>>demand, which there isn't.
>
> There is. There are easily a dozen companies I can name, starting with
> Ontrack Data Recovery, that specialize in dealing with this stuff.
> If anything, there's too much competition for a new business.

Right, too much competition DOES mean insufficient extra demand for ME to
bother then!

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
...
> I suspect that in general, the total number of drive failures is slowly
> dropping, even the number of drives is probably still increasing.

Not sure about that, I've had more drive failures in the last 2 or 3 years
than in the previous decade or two. Of course it may just be my bad luck,
can't say for sure. However some of my friends experience matches my own.

> Flash is the next wave - it has already destroyed the market for floppies,
> Zip drives and the like as well as small (<=20 GB) hard drives.

Right, and they fail too.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> Formats become unplayable because there is
>> insufficient demand. That will NOT happen to CD for MANY decades
>
> Perhaps for small values of MANY. I doubt that CDs will last, other than
> in the hands of collectors, for more than another 20 years. But that's
> only my opinion,

Right, one you can have of course, but I suggest you don't bet your house on
it. I'll happily take the bet if you do! :-)


>but one based on experience with other post-phonograph media.

Name ONE other media type with BILLIONS of software copies in existance that
can even be remotely compared?


>Collectors are an anomaly. They will continue to preserve what's necessary
>to show off and use their collections. But this is preservation. You won't
>see kids in 20 years buying new CDs,

Never suggested they would, THAT has nothing to do with the ability to play
disks for those who still WANT to however.


>though you may see a small handful sorting through used ones at flea
>markets, thrift stores, and garage sales.

And you think they will do that even though you think they won't be able to
play them? LP's have better covers at least if you just want to look at them
:-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Neil Gould" > wrote in message
...
> I don't think it will take more than a couple of years to reach this
> state.

I wonder how many people are willing to put their money where their mouth
is? People were saying this about vinyl 20 years ago, (and 78's long before
that!) and whilst there are now **FAR** less vinyl disks in existance than
CD's, people are still producing new turntables, and cartridges for the very
limited market that still wants them, simply because there is a profit to be
made. I am absolutely amazed that people think that won't happen for MANY
decades to come with the BILLIONS of CD's still available to be played.


> The trend is to buy and store music on mp3 players and iPods, and I don't
> see that turning around any time soon. 20 years from now, those mp3
> players
> and iPods will be long gone, along with all of the music that was stored
> on
> them, replaced by something we can't predict at this point.

You are missing the point, NEW CD's may not (probably won't) be sold in 20
years time, but the abilty to play old ones will almost certainly last for a
lot longer than that, assuming someone is still around to play them.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
> I agree 5-7 years is about the point where drives start to break down.
> The
> good news is, that's also about the point where the price is cut by about
> 75%
> and the size increases drastically. I think a 500GB drive from 2004 costs
> about what a 2TB drive does today.

Nope, an 80-160GB drive cost about the same in 2004 as a 2TB drive does
today, but even more if you allow for inflation, or count hours worked
instead of dollars.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
> Heck, try to open up a 1984 Wordstar file *today* with a modern
> computer and see how far you get

All the ascii data without any problem (assuming you can read the disk) and
all the formatting with a minimal amount of programming.
Probably won't be so easy if you ONLY keep those ProTools work files without
rendering for 30 years however! :-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" > wrote in message
.com...
>>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> From a 5-1/4" disk? You tell me how to read a 5-1/4" DOS disk under
> Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Mac OSX.

Haven't tried with Windows 7, but no problem with XP or Linux. Or just boot
to DOS from CDROM, or USB.


> Even if the file format is compatible in some way, finding a machine to
> retrieve the media is really the hard part.

You mean not absolutely easy. There are still plenty of brand new
motherboards that support 5.25" drives, but finding a drive if you haven't
kept one is a little more difficult.


>I just had a case where I had to
> deal with a Windows 95 computer project for a friend, and because of the
> lack
> of USB, we wound up just emailing the files, chunk by chunk, to another
> computer. That was the only easy way to get them off the machine (and
> from
> 5-1/4" disks).

Or use a local network.

> So far, I've been unable to find a company that currently makes a 5-1/4"
> diskette drive with a USB cable. (Like I'll need one again in the next
> decade...)

I doubt you'll need one after that either! :-)

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Paul" > wrote in message
...
> The mean time before failure (MTBF) of most devices
> will follow a normal distribution probability curve, with
> most units failing at the average life span(peak of bell curve),
> and tapering off to either shorter or longer life. So
> certainly there will be some that fail much earlier or much
> later than the average. Most people feel 5 years is
> the average.

Right, which means *absolutely nothing* when considering when to back up, or
even dispose of the drive.


Trevor.

[Adrian Tuddenham[_2_]]

Marc Wielage > wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 23:54:31 -0700, Trevor wrote
> (in article >):
>
> > I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
> > play a standard vinyl record today. The difference is that the CD will
> > probably be recovereable bit for bit identical when compared to the original
> > master, NOT so the vinyl disk or analog tape!
> >------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<
>
> Is this before or after the bomb drops (and/or the apes take over)?
>
> You assume we'll still have power. At the rate the economy is going, I
> dunno...
>
> But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are companies
> still producing record players and styli that can play back 90-year-old 78RPM
> records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and 1970s we can't play.
> And there are 35mm analog tapes from the 1950s and 1960s that have
> disintegrated so badly, they're almost impossible to play. It's really a
> crapshoot.
>
> A big advantage of analog is that you can still machine head stacks,
> cannibalize preamps, find motors, and put tape machines back together. If
> the analog media survives, or if you can bake it or otherwise clean it up,
> chances are you can play it back.

e.g.

http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/recordgraph/recordgraph.htm


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

[John Williamson]

Trevor wrote:
> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
> ...
>>> Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on it.
>>> Anybody got such an animal?
>>> Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.
>>
>> You can get the parts to build such a thing, assembly is nearly trivial.
>
> Are you sure about that? I see plenty of 5.25" enclosures for ATA and SATA
> HD or optical drives to USB, and dedicated 3.5" FDD to USB, but interfacing
> a 5.25" FDD that does not meet the ATA, SATA or SCSI interface may be a
> little less trivial. Of course I have never wanted to do it, so there may
> well be bits I am unaware of. Many brand new PC motherboards still support
> 5.25" FDD's natively however.
>
If an interface supports a 3.5" drive, it also supports a 5.25" drive
with an easily available (or makeable) cable. The signals are the same,
it's just the physical layout of the connector that's different. On my
all-formats-reading tower, the 3.5" and 5.25" drives are on the same
connector at the board end, and appear as A: and B: on Windows, and
whatever I want to call them under Linux.

I doubt that the floppy interface will go away for a while yet, as it's
buried so deep in the BIOS code, it'd be too hard to remove. Of course,
the hardware might not get installed, but the code will still be there.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Trevor]

"Don Pearce" > wrote in message
...
> One thing to add. Run Scandisk and be aware what the result means. A
> drive that shows an error is 39 times as likely to fail within the
> next 60 days as one that shows no errors. If Scandisk returns an error
> - any error - replace the drive immediately.

Given that some errors are simply because of power failure or incorrect
shutdown, I wouldn't be that ready to throw it away without proper testing.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
...
>> I'll bet in 30 years we can still play a standard CD as easily as we can
>> play a standard vinyl record today.
>
> Oh, and have you never seen a CD peel apart, even a pressed one?

Sure do, I never said *EVERY* CD would always play, (people are still
claiming we won't be able to play ANY of the BILLIONS out there, which I
still think is absolute nonsense!) However I haven't found even one out of
my 2,000+ collection that I couldn't play yet, and some are already 29 years
old! The disks that other people have mangled are another matter entirely,
but that's their problem.


>And I'm sure you know about the foibles of CD-Rs.

I've had more problems with DVDR's than CDR's, but don't expect either to
last indefinitely.

Trevor.

[John Williamson]

Trevor wrote:
> "Neil Gould" > wrote in message
> ...
>> I don't think it will take more than a couple of years to reach this
>> state.
>
> I wonder how many people are willing to put their money where their mouth
> is? People were saying this about vinyl 20 years ago, (and 78's long before
> that!) and whilst there are now **FAR** less vinyl disks in existance than
> CD's, people are still producing new turntables, and cartridges for the very
> limited market that still wants them, simply because there is a profit to be
> made. I am absolutely amazed that people think that won't happen for MANY
> decades to come with the BILLIONS of CD's still available to be played.
>
>
There is a major difference. I could set up a business in a 500 square
foot workshop tomorrow to make every component of a turntable, apart
from the cartridge and stylus, but that would fit in the unit next door.
The design issues have all been solved, and precision bearings and such
have been available for decades off the shelf. Motors can also be bought
in at a very good price, but even making my own motors would only take
up a couple of hundred square feet. Total setup cost could be measured
in tens of thousands.

To make a CD player, I need a much more complex operation. The read head
itself needs a laser, lenses, a sliding mount, a voice coil assembly to
move the lens and a servo controller to control the lens position within
a fraction of the wavelength of the infra red light it uses to read the
disc. I also need to make or buy a motor which will turn at a variable
rate, controlled to within a fraction of a percent of the desired speed,
and a whole lot of specialised logic, DACs and so on. The setup cost
from scratch is in the hundreds of thousands, even buying in parts from
other makers. If there are no component makers left, as there may not be
in a decade or two, then you'd need to build your own fab for the
silicon, or subcontract the manufacture.

Someone mentioned VHS players, and the cost to start making those is
even higher, as they have complex mechanics as well as complex control
circuitry. Yes, they *can* be made cheaply per unit, as long as you're
making tens of thousands, but if you were only making a few, then you'd
be back to the days when a video recorder cost as much as a car.

>> The trend is to buy and store music on mp3 players and iPods, and I don't
>> see that turning around any time soon. 20 years from now, those mp3
>> players
>> and iPods will be long gone, along with all of the music that was stored
>> on
>> them, replaced by something we can't predict at this point.
>
> You are missing the point, NEW CD's may not (probably won't) be sold in 20
> years time, but the abilty to play old ones will almost certainly last for a
> lot longer than that, assuming someone is still around to play them.
>
The death of CD will be dictated by the marketing departments, who will
want to sell the consumer all their music again. They replaced vinyl
with CD, which was accepted due to the vastly increased playback quality
at the lower end of the market, and for its increased robustness at the
upper end. Once the labels stop producing CDs, then the players will
soon become obsolete, and the market will contract to the point where
it's not worth making them. It's already happening in the pop market in
the UK, where legal downloads are now outselling CDs. One chain of
record stores has gone out of business entirely in the UK due to falling
sales of CDs. This is why the electronics chain stores have pretty much
stopped selling dedicated home CD players, and even portables are
getting hard to find.

DVD players can currently play CDs, but need two lasers on the read
head, Blue Ray needs three. At some point, backwards compatibility will
be dropped.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Trevor]

"John Williamson" > wrote in message
...
> Trevor wrote:
>> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>>> Yeah, but what I want is a standalone 5-1/4" drive with a USB port on
>>>> it.
>>>> Anybody got such an animal?
>>>> Near as I can see, it doesn't exist in 2011.
>>>
>>> You can get the parts to build such a thing, assembly is nearly trivial.
>>
>> Are you sure about that? I see plenty of 5.25" enclosures for ATA and
>> SATA HD or optical drives to USB, and dedicated 3.5" FDD to USB, but
>> interfacing a 5.25" FDD that does not meet the ATA, SATA or SCSI
>> interface may be a little less trivial. Of course I have never wanted to
>> do it, so there may well be bits I am unaware of. Many brand new PC
>> motherboards still support 5.25" FDD's natively however.
>>
> If an interface supports a 3.5" drive, it also supports a 5.25" drive with
> an easily available (or makeable) cable. The signals are the same, it's
> just the physical layout of the connector that's different. On my
> all-formats-reading tower, the 3.5" and 5.25" drives are on the same
> connector at the board end, and appear as A: and B: on Windows, and
> whatever I want to call them under Linux.
>
> I doubt that the floppy interface will go away for a while yet, as it's
> buried so deep in the BIOS code, it'd be too hard to remove. Of course,
> the hardware might not get installed, but the code will still be there.



Right, just as I said, still no problem at the moment NATIVELY. You aren't
using a 5.25"drive on *USB* as requested though are you?

Trevor.

[John Williamson]

Trevor wrote:
> Right, just as I said, still no problem at the moment NATIVELY. You aren't
> using a 5.25"drive on *USB* as requested though are you?
>
Only because I don't need to, and for the number of 5.25" diskettes I
meet nowadays, it's not worth the effort. For all the 5.25" diskettes I
own, I long ago put a blank 3.5" into the B: drive and typed "xcopy
A:\*.* B: /s" The syntax may be wrong, it's a good decade since I used
xcopy.

To make a 5.25" USB drive, take one 3.5" USB drive, disconnect the
drive, make or buy a data cable and a power cable, connect the 5.25"
drive. All the pinouts are documented. The fact that you can't find a
USB mounted 5.25" drive only indicates that nobody has found it worth
making one commercially. Okay, it's not an off-the-shelf solution, and
it probably won't be pretty, but it'll work.

It's not *that* much harder than mounting a CD or DVD drive. The hardest
bit will be finding a working 5.25" drive.
--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Neil Gould]

Trevor wrote:
> "Neil Gould" > wrote in message
>
>> The trend is to buy and store music on mp3 players and iPods, and I
>> don't see that turning around any time soon. 20 years from now,
>> those mp3 players
>> and iPods will be long gone, along with all of the music that was
>> stored on
>> them, replaced by something we can't predict at this point.
>
> You are missing the point, NEW CD's may not (probably won't) be sold
> in 20 years time, but the abilty to play old ones will almost
> certainly last for a lot longer than that, assuming someone is still
> around to play them.
>
John Williamson beat me to the practicality of maintaining the production of
CD players, and I fully agree with his perspective toward the issue. Could I
be wrong? Sure. But, as I look at the trend, and look back over the last 30
years since CDs were introduced, it seems unlikely that new CD players will
be handily available or that whatever the music-playing device of the future
is will play CDs.

--
Neil

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/8/2011 3:47 AM, Trevor wrote:

> Are you sure about that? I see plenty of 5.25" enclosures for ATA and SATA
> HD or optical drives to USB, and dedicated 3.5" FDD to USB, but interfacing
> a 5.25" FDD that does not meet the ATA, SATA or SCSI interface may be a
> little less trivial.

I've always been able to connect both sizes of floppy drive
to the same computer port. I've never taken apart an
external 3-1/2" USB floppy drive, but I assume it's built
just like the hard drive cases - with a little board at the
back that connects to the drive on one side and the USB chip
on the other. Instead of the board that talks to an ATA or
SATA hard drive, it's programmed/wired to talk to a floppy
drive. So, in theory, all you'd need to do is mount all the
pieces.

Go for it. You can buy a USB floppy for about $35 or maybe
less. Take it apart and see what you find. If you only need
to read a couple of 5-1/4" disks and you already have a
drive, you can probably string the pieces together on a
table without worrying about a case.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 6:31 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Device Side FC5025

Well, I guess it's true - if somebody wants it, somebody
already makes it. So for small change over $100 and your own
floppy drive you can get the USB controller, a case, and
power supply. http://shop.deviceside.com/ for links to all
the parts you need.

It's read-only and I've never heard of the company (it's
probably a basement operation) but I guess if he thinks he
can sell enough parts to cover his costs, make a little
money, and offer a useful capability, that's a good thing.
But you won't find a company like Belkin making these. They
have to make (and sell) too many before it's profitable on
their scale.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 8:13 PM, Richard Webb wrote:

> YEp, which is why smart clients buy the original drive from
> me as well. AS I tell them, hd24 machines are everywhere.

Well, we said the same thing about ADAT tape decks, too. And
indeed there are still a few around, but mostly they've been
stored for several years and are not likely to work very
well when taken out of the closet to play a tape. Belts
stretch or set, lubricants dry up, if it's stored in an
attic or garage where there may be large temperature swings
over time electronic components can go out of tolerance and
electrolytic capacitors can dry up. Brake pads come unglued.

While the faults resulting from long term storage may be
different for an HD24 than a classic ADAT, the outcome will
be similar. You think you have a way to play the disk (or
tape) but you might have to fix it first.

For a while, maybe even for the foreseeable future, there
will be a small number of people who make it their business
to play whatever medium comes in the door (and charge
appropriately for the service). They exercise their machines
periodically even if they don't have a paying project that
needs it so they know what condition it's in, fix things
that don't work when they have the time between projects,
and in general make their money not by actually copying a
tape or disk (that's the easy part), but rather by
maintaining the capability to do so.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[John Williamson]

Arny Krueger wrote:
> "John Williamson" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>> To make a CD player, I need a much more complex operation. The read head
>> itself needs a laser, lenses, a sliding mount, a voice coil assembly to
>> move the lens and a servo controller to control the lens position within a
>> fraction of the wavelength of the infra red light it uses to read the
>> disc. I also need to make or buy a motor which will turn at a variable
>> rate, controlled to within a fraction of a percent of the desired speed,
>> and a whole lot of specialised logic, DACs and so on. The setup cost from
>> scratch is in the hundreds of thousands, even buying in parts from other
>> makers. If there are no component makers left, as there may not be in a
>> decade or two, then you'd need to build your own fab for the silicon, or
>> subcontract the manufacture.
>
> It appears that as while new optical disc players that play optical discs
> based on a standard-sized piece of polycarbonate or its equivalent are being
> built, the older recorded formats that came on mechanically-similar media
> will continue to be playable.
>
> The big breaking point will come when polycarbonate discs are no longer
> being supported as a mainstream playback format.
>
> For that to happen, flash or its equivalent will have to be priced in the
> range of $0.10-0.25 for say 25 gigabutes of storage. Last year was the year
> of $2/gigabute flash, so using the rule of doubling of price/performance
> every 2 years, we find that point is still well over a decade away. Actually
> more like 15 years. So, in 20 years troubles finding a brand new player that
> handles today's CDs might still be 15-20 years away. If you set 5 GB as your
> target size, then take off 5 years or so.
>
>
The trend at the moment, at least on this side of the Atlantic is for
delivery to be via download, with no physical copy changing hands. This
makes the cost of the medium practically zero, as most downloads are
stored on HD at a cost of pennies per Gigabyte. The perceived cost to
the end user of their portable, flash based, player is, effectively
about a fiver a month, as they replace them every couple of years. The
delivery cost for the vendor is also approximately zero, as the
infrastructure is there anyway, with the vast majority of homes having
broadband access. The major cost to the distributor is keeping track of
the royalties and licence payments.

I notice this when I'm at work in my day job. A few years ago, on each
trip, one or two people would have portable CD players with them. Now,
about 80% of the passengers have an iPod or near equivalent, and I'd
guess that of the stuff they've acquired legally, 90% is downloaded,
with the rest being ripped off CDs using their home computer. I also
find that when I'm carrying schoolkids, they all have the same stuff on
their players, but there's normally only been one copy paid for.

One of our supermarket chains has recently started selling movies as
downloads, as it's cheaper for them. Your assumptions on life and cost
would be supportable if new material were being delivered on physical
media, but increasingly, it isn't. For delivery of large numbers of
copies, though, mask programmed ROM may be cheaper than flash, and has
the advantage of longer service life. It also has the (dis)advantage
that it can't be written over.

As a one off for a client, I can already deliver an 80 minute CD quality
recording, with added already encoded mp3 tracks on a 1Gigabyte memory
stick that costs me under a dollar in bulk, slightly more with my
company logo printed onto it. That's not much more than burning a CD-R
and printing the label side, without the "will it, won't it" when the
client puts it into a clapped out player.
--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/7/2011 8:18 PM, Frank Stearns wrote:

> This still continues to amaze me... Something like 80 reels of 2"-24 track/15 IPS
> would fit onto a single $100 1 Tbyte drive; 160 reels if you were at 30 IPS.

Don't you have that backwards?

> That's assuming a data rate of 96K/24 bit. More than double that reel count if you
> were running 44.1K/24 bit. And let's give a nod to physical volume and weight
> comparison as well.

Sure, today's cost per track-hour on hard drive is far less
than on analog tape. And the cost of the hardware needed to
record it to a hard drive is far less than recording it to
tape. But the time necessary to transfer the tape to disk
with the proper care and using the proper equipment gets
more and more expensive. You have to really want to get rid
of those 80 reels of tape badly to warrant paying someone to
do the transfer for you. Or you could do it yourself.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Mike Rivers]

On 8/8/2011 4:37 AM, Trevor wrote:

> whilst there are now **FAR** less vinyl disks in existance than
> CD's, people are still producing new turntables, and cartridges for the very
> limited market that still wants them, simply because there is a profit to be
> made.

There are basically four kinds of turntable available today.
There are the high end audiophile turntables for $5,000 -
$25,000, USB turntables for about $100, DJ turntables, and
used turntables. Maybe it's different in Europe (and I don't
really follow the HiFi market) but there are no middle-range
makers like the Garrards, Duals, and Technics that I had
while I was in college (and still have a couple, and use them).

> I am absolutely amazed that people think that won't happen for MANY
> decades to come with the BILLIONS of CD's still available to be played.

I think that the last to go will probably be the the
externally connected CD drive, but it's digital and it's
computer hardware, not analog and an essential part of a
system. It's an accessory, and computer accessories go away
relatively quickly. It's enough harder to make a CD
transport than a turntable, so at some point there will no
longer be companies who find it profitable and will quit.

We haven't been able to buy a DAT drive for several years
now, and that's barely a 20 year old format that was used
both for digital audio and computer data, just like the CD.
You can, and probably will, argue that DAT had some
marketing problems that kept it from being widely accepted,
but that's a different story.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[hank alrich]

Adrian Tuddenham > wrote:

> Marc Wielage > wrote:
<snip>
> > But seriously, one interesting thing to think about: there are
> > companies still producing record players and styli that can play back
> > 90-year-old 78RPM records. But there are videotapes from the 1960s and
> > 1970s we can't play. And there are 35mm analog tapes from the 1950s and
> > 1960s that have disintegrated so badly, they're almost impossible to
> > play. It's really a crapshoot.
> >
> > A big advantage of analog is that you can still machine head stacks,
> > cannibalize preamps, find motors, and put tape machines back together. If
> > the analog media survives, or if you can bake it or otherwise clean it up,
> > chances are you can play it back.
>
> e.g.
>
> http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/recordgraph/recordgraph.htm

Adrian, you deal with the coolest stuff in terms of ability to recover
"lost" works. Nice.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers > wrote:

> On 8/8/2011 5:22 AM, Trevor wrote:
>
> > I never said *EVERY* CD would always play,
>
> But there will always be a CD that's very important to
> someone, that won't play.
>
> > (people are still
> > claiming we won't be able to play ANY of the BILLIONS out there, which I
> > still think is absolute nonsense!)
>
> Obviously arguing absolutes like "any" is nonsense. But when
> there are only 500 people in the world with the capability
> to play a CD and BILLIONS of CDs that need to be played,
> they will not ALL get played. There aren't enough hours in
> the life of a CD drive, nor, probably in the owner of that
> drive.
>
> > However I haven't found even one out of
> > my 2,000+ collection that I couldn't play yet
>
> When was the last time you played all of your CDs? Maybe
> there are some that you last played 5 or 20 years ago that
> you can't play now. You can't back up a statement like that
> in a way that means anything to someone who has a different
> collection of CDs.

I have one replicated CD, acquired about six years ago, that failed
almost immediately. I listened to it en route to Weiser, headed to the
National Fiddle Contest, and left in in the van. The weather got damned
hot that year and I can only assume that is what killed that particular
disc. Af first I attributed the problem to the player in the vehicle,
but when I got home I discovered it wouldn't play in any available
drive, whether a standalone CD player or a computer drive.

> > I've had more problems with DVDR's than CDR's, but don't expect either to
> > last indefinitely.
>
> That's because they haven't been around long enough for the
> processes involved in making them haven't been perfected to
> a sufficiently high level yet. If DVDs stick around, maybe
> they'll eventually get to the medium-term (say 20 year)
> reliability of a CD. But I predict that the product life of
> DVDs will be shorter than that of CDs even if there were no
> CDs made after today.
>
> But then I'm a pessimist when it comes to what's basically
> computer hardware or entertainment media that depends on
> computer hardware.


--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqXcV9DYAc
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers > wrote:
>I doubt that it exists. But there are 3-1/2" floppy drives
>with a USB port. You might be able to get a clever mechanic
>to disassemble one, adapt the USB part to the 5-1/4" drive,
>and put it in an external drive case. I'd probably take on a
>project like that for $500, paid in advance, with no
>guarantee of success. But it might be fun to try.

I tried it. It wasn't fun. It wasn't successful, in part because
the USB floppy drives basically use one custom IC which has the whole
disk drive decoding and control circuit combined with the USB circuit on
it. That circuit would need minor changes to work with the timing on a
5.25" drive, but it being an IC, this is nontrivial.

>There are probably a few commercial manufacturers who would
>be willing to build this for you if it's possible to buy a
>new 5-1/4" drive (they wouldn't want to sell a new product
>with a used drive in it) and if you gave them a contract for
>10,000 units. Then you could try to sell the other 9,999 of
>them.

That's what happened, yes. Someone made a USB interface that pretended
to be a 1771 chip to the drive, allowing you to use any standard 5.25"
or 8" drive (even the DEC quad density ones) with a USB interface. That
is the FC5025 board I mentioned earlier.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Arny Krueger > wrote:
>
>I get all that, and then I found that 5.25" IDE drives are still for sale as
>new equipment.

When did anyone ever make a floppy with an IDE interface? That actually
could be interesting and might be easier to interface with USB than a regular
Shugart interface.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers > wrote:
>
>There are basically four kinds of turntable available today.
>There are the high end audiophile turntables for $5,000 -
>$25,000, USB turntables for about $100, DJ turntables, and
>used turntables. Maybe it's different in Europe (and I don't
>really follow the HiFi market) but there are no middle-range
>makers like the Garrards, Duals, and Technics that I had
>while I was in college (and still have a couple, and use them).

They exist, but you have to look hard for them because there is very
little demand for the mid-range machines. Check out the entry level
Music Hall.

>We haven't been able to buy a DAT drive for several years
>now, and that's barely a 20 year old format that was used
>both for digital audio and computer data, just like the CD.
>You can, and probably will, argue that DAT had some
>marketing problems that kept it from being widely accepted,
>but that's a different story.

DAT is kind of a weird thing because the transports were only made by
a couple of companies, and everyone bought them for integration. DAT
was a failure as a consumer product but a reasonable success in the
professional world. The problem is that the basic design and manufacturing
was built around a consumer model that didn't scale down very well.

CD is a lot better than that, thankfully.
--scott
(still recording on DAT this week too)
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Adrian Tuddenham > wrote:
>
> http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/recordgraph/recordgraph.htm

Oh, that is a lovely piece of work!
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."