[JEWISH-MUSIC:5091] Re: Sapoznik (was Re: Sound Archiving and transfers of 78s)

[BarMusProd <BarMusProd...>]

Dear Listers,

As an active record producer, I must agree wholeheartedly with most of Henry
Sapoznik's remarks regarding archival methods for recordings.

As a rule of thumb in the business today, anything of importance that is
stored on DAT (Digital Audio Tape), should be retransferred to a new set of
DATs, or whatever is the better medium at the moment, every five to six years.
We don't know if they can hold their data accurately longer than that. Always
fast forward and rewind DATs completely before playing them or recording on
them for the first time to "exercise" the tape and mechanism.

Henry mentions "RCD"s. I've never seen this term before, but I know what he is
talking about: Recordable CDs. the standard industry abbreviation (that I know
of, at least) is "CD-R". It's a relatively recent and affordable technology
that uses a laser to actually burn the digital pits into a CD. As I understand
it, these CDs are somewhat more light and temperature sensitive-and we
currently don't know their long term storage capabilities. But let me clarify
that CD-Rs (the recordable CDs) are *not* the same as the standard digital
audio disk (the original name for a CD) that you buy and play on your CD
player. With proper minimal care, standard CDs should last at least a lfetime-
that's not to say that there will be a player able to play your CDs in 75
years....

The one aspect that I must take issue with Henry's letter is his mention of
analogue tape as a possible archival storage medium. Yes, with proper care,
some well-manufactured analogue tapes *may* last a long time-how long, is hard
to say. It all depends on the quality of the backing material and of the
binder that holds that magnetic particles in place on backing material of the
tape. During the 70s and even into the 80s, there were large batches of
analogue tapes from the top manufacturers that are deteriorating even as we
speak, and are alomost unplayable because of extreme shedding-even though
these tapes were stored properly. It was a product manufacturing problem that
we only discovered when we went back to make CD masters in the mid-80s from
the original analogue master tapes. You can "bake" these tapes at a certain
temperature for a certain length of time and they may play back once-long
enough for you to transfer them to another medium. But like old films, some of
these master tapes are unfortunately lost for the ages. Analogue tapes must be
"exercized" periodically (fast forwarded and rewound, or better: played top to
bottom), must be stored flat-wound in play- or library-wind, must be stored
tails out to avoid pre-echo (the passing on of loud audio information through
the layers of tape was and remains a problem with analogue), must be stored
vertically and in temperature- and humidity-controlled conditions. As good as
Dolby-A noise reduction is, it actually colors the recorded sound, and tape
hiss is unavoidable, even with Dolby-A (of course, the Dolby unit must be
calibrated properly). Analogue tape, even with Dolby-A, has a limited dynamic
range compared to digital (but wider than an LP, if you are old enough to
remember vinyl). Mishandled, analogue tape can easily stretch, and you'd
better be prepared to redo any edits that have come apart or that the glue has
spread beyond the edit tape. Finding a well-cared-for analogue tape machine
other than in the best (and most expensive) recording studios is a challenge
in this day and age of digital and hard-disk recording. I personally would not
recommend analogue as a safe, or even accurate recording medium for archival
purposes (but it still works and sounds great for normal recording purposes if
you understand and exploit its inherent limitations).

What do I recommend? If you have to archive under deadline, I would transfer
the master to the most accurate medium currently available, and be prepared to
do it all over again when a better and longer lasting medium comes about. I
know that's a cop out, but I'd rather have my master archived to *something*
(even DAT or CD-R), than have the only copy as a fragile 78, for instance.

I'm not sure this has been helpful, but I hope it has been informative.

Best wishes,
Steve

Steve Barnett
Composer/Arranger/Producer
Barnett Music Productions
BarMusProd (at) aol(dot)com