All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols.
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Back Up Your Data? Don't Even Think About It
by Roger Nichols
I didn't make that up, I saw it on the brochure that came from Grey Matter
Response in Santa Cruz California, they make Mezzo Media backup software
that runs in the background making sure that all your stuff is archived.
In the process of moving pianos around and flying guitar parts from Mars
into tracks from Venus, I have amassed billions of megabytes of audio files.
I have hundreds of samples of bass parts, thousands of kick drums, a plethora
of hi hats, and one digiridoo. I grab them from floppies, optical disks,
Syquest disks, DAT tapes, and even a couple of sounds I took off of my telephone
answering machine (the digital one, of course). Things are starting to get
lost. Sometimes I even erase samples thinking that they are copies only
to find out later, after I emptied the trash, that they were the originals.
That "Pygmy Belly Slap" didn't work out too well as a back beat
anyway.
There used to be a time when everything that was related to a project would
fit on a floppy disk. If you wanted a safety copy all you had to do was
make a copy of the floppy disk. Then somebody invented the hard disk. The
sole reason for this invention was to sell more floppy disks. A five megabyte
hard disk took fifteen 320k, 5 1/4 inch floppy disks to safely back up everything.
You could have two sets of back up disks and alternate between them each
time you archived your data. I guess floppy disk companies weren't selling
enough floppy disks, so they invented bigger hard disks. Then came bigger
floppy disks. Well, they were actually smaller, 3 1/2 inches, but they held
more data. It started looking like it would take a hundred or more floppy
disks to back up your hard disk. Next there were removable hard disks that
stored more than 40 or 50 floppy disks worth of data, but hard disk manufacturers
were bound and determined to make it impossible to back up your data by
making the hard disks so big that the data would not fit on anything. The
war is on. Exabyte tape, DAT backup, Optical disk, Bernoulli, Syquest, and
Floptical against four gigabyte and nine gigabyte hard disks. You can't
win, so the answer is give up. Don't worry about backing up your data, just
don't do it. Don't save anything. If you make up your mind that if fate
erases your favorite snare drum sample that you weren't supposed to use
it anyway, then you should just keep one copy of everything, no backups,
and forget about it. Done, next subject.
More CD-R Stuff
I just got the new release of Masterlist CD from Digidesign, and used it
to crank out a bunch of CDs. The current version supports most of the SCSI
based CD recorders. The biggest advantage that Masterlist CD has over the
other audio CD writing packages is that you can have continuous music with
CD start IDs during the music (if the recorder supports it). This is pretty
much a must if you are sequencing an album from live recordings where you
would like to hear the audience reaction between tracks. Or how about a
classical piece where you would like to have a start ID at the beginning
of each movement. With Masterlist CD, you can cross-fade between cuts or
just have continuous music across CD start IDs. Some recorders require mandatory
spaces between CD tracks, so Digidesign includes a list of which drives
do and which drives do not require spacing.
The Mezzo guys also have a piece of software called Mezzo Master (DDP) that
works with Masterlist CD for producing Exabyte tapes that can be sent directly
to the CD manufacturing plant. When you have all of your tunes sequenced
and cross-faded in Masterlist CD, you produce an image file of the audio
CD which is then written to the Exabyte tape by Mezzo Master. After the
tape is written, it is read back and verified byte for byte with the image
file. A very nice piece of software.
More Me
In the past I have talked about the importance of headphone mixes on the
recording process. Everyone in the studio wants a little something different
in the headphone mix in order to perform at his optimum. Most studios only
allow you to have two different headphone mixes going at the same time,
and they are controlled from the console. If the bass player wants more
floor tom echo, then the engineer at the console has to change the balance
only to have the drummer complain moments later. During any given session,
every musician in the other room will belt out the memorable phrase, "I
need more me!"
More and more studios are changing over to some form of "More Me"
headphone systems, where each musician can control his own mix on a box
that has eight to twelve inputs for individual inputs. Usually what happens
is that a basic mix of the whole band is sent out to a stereo input on the
More Me boxes and then selected instruments are sent out to the other faders.
The musician can change the level, panning and EQ of the individual inputs.
Not only does it let the musicians hear what they want to hear, but it frees
up the engineer to concentrate on the recording and not the never ending
task of mixing headphones.
A few months back EQ did a review of a bunch of "More Me" systems.
I have been using a system called PrivateQ, made by a company called Mytek
Technology, that somehow got missed in the EQ review. It is a great sounding
system. I have used the PrivateQ system at Donald's studio in New York,
Walter's studio in Hawaii, Sony studios in New York, and Javelina studios
in Nashville. Now when a musician says "Can I get more me?" I
reply with "What, are your arms broken? Just turn up knob three!"
Watch Out Who You Deal With
Here is something that everyone but me has probably already run in to. So,
you are working on your little album in your project studio. A friend of
yours from out of town says that he was thinking about coming in to town
to visit. You say "Great, maybe you can come over and hang out while
I'm recording my album." Your friend comes over and you are recording
your little brains out. Your friend comes up with a couple of suggestions
that help. A word change here, a chord change there, nothing spectacular,
but it helps. Mostly you appreciate the "vibes" that help the
sessions just because you are having a good time. Under normal circumstances,
your friend would have no participation in the album project because of
his minor input, but because you are a magnanimous person you offer to give
him some money for his help (even though he didn't ask) and give him partial
writer's credit for the input he had. You owed him nothing, you were just
being a nice guy.
The next thing you know, your friend is calling up the record company, setting
up interviews with radio stations about his involvement in your album, and
his friends are telling him to watch out because everyone in the record
business is out to screw everybody else (OK, so maybe this part is mostly
true) and that you are going to make sure that he never sees a penny for
all of his hard work helping you with your project. He then starts demanding
contracts for co-writing with you and demands half of the publishing and
a percentage of the artist's royalties. At this point you have to get a
lawyer to draw up agreements between you and your friend over a record that
you will be lucky to see break even for the record company, let alone make
any money for you. Remember, you got no advance and gave this guy money
out of your own pocket for his friendly advice. So far he has made more
money than you have, and you have to pay a lawyer to keep him off your back.
To top it all off, every six months he bugs your lawyer for copies of the
royalty statements and you get the bill for your lawyer's time. You would
have been better off not being such a nice guy, not giving your friend any
money, not putting him on the song as a writer, and just saying "Thanks
for the help", and letting him go on his way. Maybe you would have
stayed friends.
I guess the moral of this story is don't invite friends over when you are
doing anything creative, and if they do come over tell them that all of
their ideas suck. They will thank you for it later.
Erasable CD
I told you so. It is now official, ten companies including Phillips and
Sony have agreed on a format for erasable Compact Discs. The other companies
were 3M, IBM, HP, Ricoh, Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Matsushita, and Olympus (Olympus?
Erasable CD cameras?). Players and recorders should hit the stores in the
first half of 1996. I guess that's good-bye to DCC (again), MiniDisk (except
they are so small and cute) and DAT machines. DATs are twice as long as
a CD, but not far behind will be the HDCD with 5.5 hours of storage. Remember
last month? I told you that everything you owned was obsolete.
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