Re: Sound recordings

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval...>]

>Sholem Aleichem,
>Congratulations on the formation of your new Jewish music archives. As the
>designer and former Director of the Archives of Recorded Sound of the YIVO
>Institute for Jewish Research in New York (1982-1994), I feel I should offer
>you a small bit of advice regarding your propsed use of DATs to house your
>music materials.
>Due to the current studies of the long-term storage capabilities of digital
>recording media (DATs, RCDs, etc.) there are no reputable repositories which
>use them until their archival quality is fully tested. It would be better for
>you to record on a dependable fully tested tape medium such as analog reel to
>reel tape recorded at as high a speed as possible (15 ips US). This way, when
>the long term storage and sonic retention capabilities are known, you can
>then transfer them to the accepted medium. There is no evidence that DATs
>will be that long term storage medium as it is only a gateway technology
>(half digital/ half analog) and that its long term sonic range is
>questionable at best.
>Analog may not be the most sexy technology with all the digital technologies
>around today, but for the moment it is the only one used by the world's most
>reputable archives (The Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution.)
>Hob a zisn un a gezintn peysakh,
>
>Henry Sapoznik
>Executive Director
>Living Traditions

Dear Henry Sapoznik,

thank you for your interest and advice. I know all the difficulties that
DATs are generating among the archives worldwide.
I am pretty sure that DATs are not the most reliable recording media today,
for the above mentioned reasons (to the ones you enumerate, I'd add the
problem that DAT mixes digital quality with a mechanical medium - the tape
player, and tapes are quite insecure), for archival purposes. On the other
hand, they are nowadays
 the best known medium for live recordings, and they reproductional quality
is astonishing. The best thing, as far as I understand the issue, would be
to record the new materials on DAT, and make an analog copy of it right
away.
Of course, some recent studies also affirm that DATs are reliable, and
safe. But then again, who knows? we cannot be 20 years ahead of our time to
know what will happen.
In any case, I will decide what to do also with the advice of the National
Sound Archives in Jerusalem, and the Discoteca di Stato in Rome (in Rome,
for instance, keep 1 analog reel copy, and 2 RCD copies of each new
recording...).

I really hope we can keep in touch (plus: YIVO is one of my idols in Jewish
culture!).

Hag sameah

Francesco Spagnolo

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