[klaatumail] Re: King Crimson (no kk)
- From: "Bradley, David" <David_Bradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <klaatumail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:42:28 -0400
> His one exception was "Something Happened" on the 'Sun Set'.
> Because the tune was a demo and was never properly mixed
> when it was recorded, the guys consented to a remix because
> Dee had saved the original mult-track tape. Dave Bradley
> and I were part of a salvage operation in 1998 to convert
> that tape onto multi-track ADAT format for future use.
> But when I pulled the ADAT out for remixing in early 2005
> it wouldn't play. And because we were on a deadline for the
> 'Sun Set' release to coincide with the convention, we stopped
> right there and went with the original demo mix on the disc.
Wish I had known that. At the time of the transfer, I did the
individual tracks to DAT tapes, without mixing. :-(
However, that brings up a topic that may interest some people and may
bore others to tears.
Digital tape is NOT an archival medium. Optical disc is NOT an archival
medium.
With analog, if there's a problem with the tape, you get a dropout,
glitch, noise, whatever, and the recording continues to play. With
digital, if there's a problem with the tape, the decoding of the digital
signal often times stops completely at that point. Rarely will you hear
a digital glitch. You're more likely to hear the recording go completely
silent and IF the machine will continue playing the tape, you'll get it
coming back after the bad section of tape. This is also a problem with
analog video because of the necessity of the sync pulse track being
intact. Don't get me started on the failings of digital video tape!
Many an analog tape got transferred to DAT tape, ADAT tape, DTRS (DA-88)
tape, Sony DASH, Mitsubishi Pro-Digi (X-80 and X-86 and their various
incarnations), etc, and then the original was destroyed or discarded.
Those digital mediums are failing at a huge rate and the recordings on
them can't be recovered. If the original analog still exists, it can be
re-transferred, often with better results than the original transfer
because of updated analog to digital converters.
The biggest problem with ADATs is that the machines didn't hold
alignment very well, and as a result, the tapes may have been recorded
out of alignment (even on a brand new machine) and can't be recovered
without machine the alignment of a deck to the recording on the tape,
which is very tedious, very tenuous, and very expensive.
The biggest problem with the X-80 and X-86 varieties is compatability.
Here is an attempt to summarize the various versions and their
(in)compatibility from my friend Richard Hess:
---
The original X-80 machine had a 50 kHz sample rate. It's tapes will play
back properly on a 50 ks/s X-80, or 4% slow on a 48 ks/s X-80 or an
X-86C.
Later X-80 machines had a 48 kHz sample rate. It's tapes will play back
properly on a 48 ks/s X-80 or an X-86C. Presumably they will also play
4% fast on an original, 50 kHz X-80.
The switchable 44.1/48 ks/s X-86 tapes will play on an X-86, X-86C, and
X-86HS.
The high-resolution (88.2/96 ks/s) X-86HS tapes will only play on that
machine.
The "radio-station" 7.5 in/s tapes made on the X-86LT will only play on
that machine.
---
Also note that two additional digital formats are wide spread. PCM-F1
(recorded on analog beta video, analog VHS video, and analog U-Matic
video) are very difficult to get to play, and the standard for a couple
decades of CD manufacturing is the Sony 1610/1630 format which is also
very difficult to get to play these days.
One additional thing about the PCM-F1, they were often 14-bit
recordings, not 16-bit, and even the 16-bit were sampled at 44,096, not
44,100, so there is a possibility of not being able to get the digital
signal to lock with a modern capture card.
Fun stuff! Our memories are disappearing right in front of our eyes and
there's little we can do to stop them from doing so!
I've had CD-Rs that I recorded 10 years ago start to fail, but even more
scary is that CDs that I bought 15 years ago are starting to not play
(and they aren't all PDO discs either!).
Optical is NOT an archival medium either.
Hard Drives are cheap, high capacity, and often your best option, but
even then, formats change. IDE is quickly giving way to SATA. MFM and
RLL drives are not supported by any currently manufactured devices. As
formats start to change, transfer your data to the new format as soon as
possible.
ALWAYS keep the originals too!
Dave
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