KVR Audio

Jaeson Merrill · Post by **Jaeson Merrill** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:50 pm

i honestly still dont understand how digital 1-1 copies can EVER degrate.

my first album, most of which was backed up on cds at the time, was ruined because of a hard drive error during a copy, but then i just replaced it with the originals. It introduced pops, click, and silent spots.

But that was easy to spot, and VERY easy to fix.

and to me, the later copies sound just the same, although im sure i dont have "golden ears"...

wheres the logic behind digital denegration???

nuffink · Post by **nuffink** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:56 pm

Jaeson Merrill wrote:i honestly still dont understand how digital 1-1 copies can EVER degrate.

my first album, most of which was backed up on cds at the time, was ruined because of a hard drive error during a copy, but then i just replaced it with the originals. It introduced pops, click, and silent spots.

But that was easy to spot, and VERY easy to fix.

and to me, the later copies sound just the same, although im sure i dont have "golden ears"...

wheres the logic behind digital denegration???

Physical degeneration. HDD's break, CD's become corrupt unless stored carefully.
Out of datedness (ouch, sorry) - try reading an 8" floppy nowadays.

duncanparsons · Post by **duncanparsons** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:01 pm

nuffink wrote:Out of datedness (ouch, sorry)

I have that problem.. all my older stuff sounds realy out of date now, no matter what format it's on...

DSP

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:09 pm

Jaeson Merrill wrote:i honestly still dont understand how digital 1-1 copies can EVER degrate.

my first album, most of which was backed up on cds at the time, was ruined because of a hard drive error during a copy, but then i just replaced it with the originals. It introduced pops, click, and silent spots.

But that was easy to spot, and VERY easy to fix.

and to me, the later copies sound just the same, although im sure i dont have "golden ears"...

wheres the logic behind digital denegration???

I think that the point he was making is that DAT machines are finicky, and that it may be difficult to lift the data from them. I disagree that digital copys are not 1:1. The only way that could happen is if it passed through an D/A then A/D during the copy...

Cordelia · Post by **Cordelia** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:10 pm

"The people who say this are part of the legion of the uninformed. They have not heard a digital to digital DAT copy compared A/B to the originating master."
Very misleading. Of course it's the "tape" in the digital audio tape equation that is creating the losses. Tape+digital was, in my opinion, the worst of both worlds.

Muzik 4 Machines · Post by **Muzik 4 Machines** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:29 pm

The big problem here is that analog tape is the universal archival medium.

100 years from now, engineers will be able to play back 2-inch 24-track tape if it's been carefully environmentally preserved. But in 2104, who will be able to access and remix the individual tracks on an IDE hard disk of an elaborately mixed album recorded in Cubase SX 2.2 optimized for a Motorola G4 processor running Mac OS X 10.2? Nobody. All we will have, if we are lucky, is a 16-bit CD with a stereo mix.

In 1997 I interned at Crawford Productions, a huge broadcast post-production facility in Atlanta Georgia. The Martin Luther King Foundation brought in Reverend King's entire library of sermons and speeches, which were on 1/4 inch reel-to-reel and cassette, for archival restoration. While Crawford made DATs and CDs, they explained to the Martin Luther King Foundation that they were also re-copying everything to fresh 1/4 inch analog tape, and that this would be the preferred archival method and the tapes they should most jealously protect.

What now?

by wheatwilliams (605974) on Wednesday January 05, @09:36PM

Sicklecell666 · Post by **Sicklecell666** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:37 pm

I better get another Space Echo & have my kicks while I still can..

All those tape replacements for that unit were taken out of production years ago as well if I'm not mistaken..

There will definately be a sore spot where tape existed..

Devices like the Roland Space Echo only represent a small portion of that..

clueless · Post by **clueless** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:41 pm

Sicklecell666 wrote:All those tape replacements for that unit were taken out of production years ago as well if I'm not mistaken...

happily, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:47 pm

whyterabbyt wrote: And whole albums on tape have been destroyed by fuckups as well. Its not a computer problem its a human one.

Not only that but tape wears out. I was recently doing some digital transfers of old multitrack tape projects and was horrified to find that the metal oxide of the original tape was beginning to flake off, especially at the beginning and ending of the tapes, which causes nasty audio drop-outs. Tapes also stretch with use and the plastic backings, on which the metal oxide is supposed to be adhered, can become more brittle with age.

(Heavy sarcasm): Yeah, that's much better than digital.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:55 pm

Tape flakes off and digital audio copies do corrupt, interesting isnt it? Which is the longer lasting? I would say analogue and tape - why? Digital has so many formats MP3/WAV/AIF/OGG etc. As the quote from Cyberpink showed, digital moves so quickly that new formats evolve and die, so do computer formats. For the record (sic) Im a fan of digital but due to its volatilty, I dont think it will survive as long term archive storage. Who knows, when will we see the 1st wav/mp3 virus?

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:05 pm

UltraJv quoth For the record (sic) Im a fan of digital but due to its volatilty, I dont think it will survive as long term archive storage.

Digital is not a medium. Unless you know of a third state of data quantifaction that noone else has ever conceived of, the choices are still, and always will be, 'digital' or 'analogue'.
There is no 'volatility' for 'digital storage' as a whole. But the problem is actually the analogue media being used to store digital data. Digital is not a specific medium
There are no perfect, permanent media. But digital copying allows complete data integrity across copies. Analogue does not.

Who knows, when will we see the 1st wav/mp3 virus?

The same day you see the first analog tape virus.

Midiworks · Post by **Midiworks** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:06 pm

Stone and paper are the only medium that survived
the test of time and mouth to mouth of course...

All the rest is just

Dust in the wind :harp:

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:10 pm

Except that stone and paper dont, generally, except under rare conditions.

Chinese whispers anyone?

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:11 pm

Digital is not a medium. Unless you know of a third state of data quantifaction that noone else has ever conceived of, the choices are still, and always will be, 'digital' or 'analogue'. Eh?

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:13 pm

I could mention Quatuum states lol...

Analog multitrack recording is dead...