He's still working the same way I think. In the Sound on Sound article he did last year (it was in relation to a mix he did for MCRs last album) he mentioned that he receives most mixes via hard drive in Pro Tools format. As most mixes he receives have a track count higher than the 44 tracks he mixes from on his Sony 3348 Digital Tape Machine, he (actually his assistants, supervised by CLA) comp down various source tracks to meet that template (the MCR mix consisted of 120+ source tracks). The last 4 tracks on the Sony are for the rough mix provided by the producer and then his final mix.
Chris Lord-Alge interview
- Thread starter Aaron Smith
- Start date
I was in Chris's room about two weeks ago and he still transfers everything to the 3348 digital tape machine and mixes off that.
Forgive my smallmindedness, but what need could there be 20 years down the road for the original tracks besides a cool trip down memory lane or a full overhaul? Cuz the former doesn't seem worth it, and the latter seems as blasphemous as George Lucas remaking the original Star Wars trilogy
BTW Aaron....your avatar/facial hair gets freakier every time you post a new one
Haha, except I have no idea how I might be able to top this one! Without the help of Photoshop, that is.
SickBoy
Croatian Panzer division
Forgive my smallmindedness, but what need could there be 20 years down the road for the original tracks besides a cool trip down memory lane or a full overhaul? Cuz the former doesn't seem worth it, and the latter seems as blasphemous as George Lucas remaking the original Star Wars trilogy
Dunno, ask those who spit millions of green papers for their artists recordings...
I'd surely want to secure my investment for whatever reason, it's a relatively small percentage of the whole investment anyway. If it turns out to be a really important release, you'd better have it stored securely.
Kazrog
Kazrog, Inc.
Seizure.
Member
kaomao
Member
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Sneap does all his sessions to external firewire drives... I remember him having a thing on his page suggesting bands buy one when they track with him because it was "cheaper than having him backup to multiple DVDs" at the end. Not sure if he's got a giant vault full of LaCies or if he gives them to the artists?
Sloan
Sounds like shit!
Forgive my smallmindedness, but what need could there be 20 years down the road for the original tracks besides a cool trip down memory lane or a full overhaul? Cuz the former doesn't seem worth it, and the latter seems as blasphemous as George Lucas remaking the original Star Wars trilogy
Remixes and remasters.
For example, try to name a top-selling classic rock act that hasn't had a few rereleases of albums that have been remastered. I doesn't cost the the price of recording anything new so they're basically selling the same product 3-4 times. Put that together with all the release formats, cassette, cd, dvd-audio, etc..., and that's why owning the rights and master tapes is so important, it's like a neverending cashflow. It's almost certain that we'll see more and more remasters of AC/DC's High Voltage in various formats until the end of rock n roll itself.
This is why archiving on analog tape is important. It can be restored after decades of storage. If you have just one piece of corrupted digital data it usually becomes unreadable. For example, try unpacking a multifile .rar file with one corrupted piece.
Depending on the .rar file size it may be a lot more feasible. Try recovering an analog tape with eight inches corrupted.
Depending on the way the files were compressed/archive it might be possible for a computer to make very good guesses as to what content was where. Not perfect, of course, but often gaps can be masked. What's more, serious effort put into archiving (closer to how one would take care of tapes) with digital media usually means some level of error detection and recovery (similar to what is done on audio CDs, which offers remarkable protection but is often overlooked) but nobody seems to mention this. I don't work full-time in audio, but I do spend a lot of time with the mathematical aspect of error reduction, masking, and integrity verification, and from that I'd gamble that if people took digital as seriously as analog (as far as treating it properly and not expecting it to be 'magic' with storage) we wouldn't have as much to worry about. If we expect a one-click fix then bad shit will happen. It's not like we never hear stories of tapes needing to be treated or heated or anything of the sort.
Then again, I'm obsessive-compulsive as all hell (not that anyone would have noticed...) so I have an approach to data backup similar to what anyone else would have with protection in a Calcutta house of ill-repute...
Jeff
Depending on the way the files were compressed/archive it might be possible for a computer to make very good guesses as to what content was where. Not perfect, of course, but often gaps can be masked. What's more, serious effort put into archiving (closer to how one would take care of tapes) with digital media usually means some level of error detection and recovery (similar to what is done on audio CDs, which offers remarkable protection but is often overlooked) but nobody seems to mention this. I don't work full-time in audio, but I do spend a lot of time with the mathematical aspect of error reduction, masking, and integrity verification, and from that I'd gamble that if people took digital as seriously as analog (as far as treating it properly and not expecting it to be 'magic' with storage) we wouldn't have as much to worry about. If we expect a one-click fix then bad shit will happen. It's not like we never hear stories of tapes needing to be treated or heated or anything of the sort.
Then again, I'm obsessive-compulsive as all hell (not that anyone would have noticed...) so I have an approach to data backup similar to what anyone else would have with protection in a Calcutta house of ill-repute...
Jeff
kaomao
Member
well said jbroll.
We're in 2007 I don't know for how many years companies will still produce tapes and tape machines.
We can back up audio to the latest medium every 5 years and throw in the can the last backup, so we have an updated backup, and we don't have to worry about it.
If we got a fresh backup that is error free, I don't see the issue of using dvd's or cd's or a brand new hdd with 0 hours of use, in conjuction with that fresh backup I was talking about we're safe.
With technology is impossible that things will stay the same.
We're in 2007 I don't know for how many years companies will still produce tapes and tape machines.
We can back up audio to the latest medium every 5 years and throw in the can the last backup, so we have an updated backup, and we don't have to worry about it.
If we got a fresh backup that is error free, I don't see the issue of using dvd's or cd's or a brand new hdd with 0 hours of use, in conjuction with that fresh backup I was talking about we're safe.
With technology is impossible that things will stay the same.
Jackal_Strain
Sigurd Løberg
Everyone should know that it's wise to backup to at least two different disk/sets of tape etc. and store them at different places.
I think it was Steve Albini that got some tapes that were damaged in hurrican Katrina, covered in mud, and submerged underwater. After cleaning and baking the tapes played back. Try that with a hard drive.
The only reason I'm not using a 2" machine is tape costs a lot of money that I don't have.
Cutting 8 inches from a piece of tape will make you lose a little more than a second of audio if running 7ips, a little more than a half second if running 15ips, and a little more than a 1/4 second if running 30ips. I can deal with a "skip" in audio over a corrupted rar file that won't open losing an entire piece of work.
PhilR
Studio Scapegoat
Parity files can do wonders to recover corrupted archives, but how many people even know what such a thing is? A shame.
Proper backups is gonna have to be a priority of mine when the new studio is built. Clean slate and all that.
everybody's x
My name is Damage
maintained analog tape has a known shelf life of at least 80 years. No other medium can claim that yet.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
No other medium has really been around for 80 years to be tested properly, aside from something like vinyl, and that's still pushing it.
everybody's x
My name is Damage
Daunt
Member
Yeah, but if all the takes have not been merged, can you still open the session files? Sonar 5? Logic 7? Cubase SX2? Pro Tools 4?
