Photo: Ashlee NicholsWhen the only format for mixing to was analogue tape, I did not mix to a piece of tape then copy it. You don't complain about CD rot until your music disappears: you are supposed to clone the music to a new format while the error correction can still correct.īaking tapes in special ovens can temporarily make 'sticky' tapes playable for transfer to another format, but baked tapes are not usable in the long term. The trick is to admit what they are, correct them in future formats, and figure out how to correct for them when migrating the data to the new ones. Overlooked RemediesĪll formats have their flaws. The message on the analogue tape starts deteriorating as fast as skywriting messages over Brands Hatch on race day. Once the analogue tape has been recorded, there is never any mention of the sound change that occurs over time from the minute the recorder was stopped. I have only once seen an engineer rewind the two-track and play it back in sync with the actual mix to A/B what the tape did to the sound, and then make small corrections to the mix to somewhat compensate for those differences. The engineer spends three days making a perfect mix, then prints it to the 30ips quarter-inch tape and hangs out in the lounge while the assistant plays the tape back to make sure it was actually recorded. I have almost never seen anyone do that when recording or mixing to analogue tape. When an ad agency is producing a magazine ad, they look at the final proof after it has been printed, and then go back and change colour balance and lighting until the results are what they want. Some digital formats are more robust than others, so why not print your mix to more than one? You want to print your mixes to analogue tape? OK, it has worked for all the years prior to digital, but analogue tape does not reproduce exactly what you put on it. I don't really care whether someone likes analogue or digital, but you must accommodate the medium to which you are recording. We did not make digital copies of the multitracks, and since then the record company has lost the 24-track tapes of that album. We had to use the copy I made during the original mixing. The record company could not find the 'B' side of the Aja album. In 1981 all of the Steely Dan two-track tapes were transferred to digital. Tapes were damaged or missing after being stored for only a few months. I decided to do this in 1970 after seeing the storage facility at ABC Dunhill Records in Hollywood. I, personally, have made a copy of every project I have ever worked on. We just want the CD master now for release, and send the multitracks to our office." There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. "We will not pay for the additional time or media. Record companies and production companies will not pay for the additional time necessary to correctly document and consolidate DAW sessions so that they can be recalled years later for additional releases in new formats. Record companies will not pay for extra archival copies on alternate formats during mastering sessions. The record companies still have the attitude that they will not spend money to preserve what they have, but will spend tons of money later to recover something that is gone when they need it for a release. It seems like we want our recordings to slowly fade into oblivion. An advocate of digital recording since 1977, Roger designed and built the first digital audio percussion replacement device and has lectured on digital audio around the world. His work with Steely Dan in particular has led to a string of Grammy Awards and nominations, including a Best Engineered Album award for Two Against Nature. Roger Nichols has been professionally involved in the music business since 1968, working as a staff recording/mixing engineer at ABC Records and Warner Bros before becoming an independent engineer/producer in 1978. It is more fun to argue about the multiple possible origins based on incomplete data. The human species seems concerned about its past, but would rather wait 1000 years and try to reconstruct what might have happened instead of dutifully preserving the information for future generations that will remove any doubt. What can we, as engineers or musicians, do to prevent our recorded legacy being lost?Īudio preservation is a topic that keeps rearing its ugly head, and will not easily go away.
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