Neil Young on digital audio: You're doing it wrong

Cloud not trustworthy. Uploading huge amounts of data costly in this day and age of data caps. Cloud providers come and go, and your data with them. And external hard drives tend to go FUBAR often. Sometimes without warning. Only Cloud I trust is one I control and manage, not some other provider. Who's servers I maintain.

 

Then all is lost, and we have nothing left but to despair and hope nothing ever happens to our lone analogue copy as we watch it slowly degrade over time.

 

There has been instances where cloud providers have folded and data was lost. There have also been instances where cloud providers have had malfunctions and data was lost.

But in the big picture, with just a few years of history to look at, one could make an objective statement that cloud storage is "relatively reliable".

But until at least 100Mb/sec (upload) is ubiquitous in the home, it's just not a viable solution for any significant amount of data.

 

All true.

It's just bewildering some of the arguments being made against digital storage. It's a relatively new technology, as is cloud storage. But, IMO, there is no more risk involved than with anything we undertake in our lives.

I mean, hundreds of people die in car accidents everyday. Does that leave these people wringing their hands and claiming they'll stick with a horse and buggy?

 

Everyone is trying to validate their method. Your never going to convince the analog/hard copy only folks that digital is a reliable safe archival method. even with a judicious backup and testing plan. It's a waste of breath. Everyone has to weigh the positives and the negatives in their own minds. For me, digital far outweighs any negatives and offers multitudes of positives over hard copy as long as a good backup plan is maintained. But one thing we can all agree on is we enjoy the musical content.

 

What about storing music and other media files on a data CD or a 50GB Blu-ray data disc? We all know how physical discs last years and years. Surly that's more reliable that hoping that the master tapes will last forever? I have my whole family photo archive backed up on data CDs twice. It's a lot safer than just using the negatives as a back up for your photos which can get damaged very easily if handled incorrectly. The same goes for master tapes owned by record companies.

 

I'll pass that info on to my 73 year old aunt. I'm sure she'll know what your talking about.

 

Honestly?

That's the rebuttal you're reduced to?

When something breaks and you can't fix it, do you just say to hell with it, all is lost? No, you call someone with the knowledge and experience to fix it.

For christ's sake...

 

Why did it take THIRTY YEARS for the cd just isn't good enough backlash? I'm happy with what I have Neil. Don't feel the need to replace my collection AGAIN!

 

And will ALWAYS grant you access to your stored files and NEVER "lose" them.

 

Yeah, attaboy.

Let's all go to fantasy land and make believe risk only exists with cloud storage.

 

Someone should change that meme to "Old Man Yells At The Cloud".

 

"Hey, you damned kids get off of my lawn with your fancy television telephones and your confounded remote digital storage!"

 

But still guaranteed to fail. You won't know when. Usually without warning. And, at $60.00-150.00 each, kinda pricey to purchase in quantities.
Some drives have a 25% failure rate.

I would call for help, and did and it got fixed. This time. My Aunt? No way. She doesn't even own a computer.
Perhaps low cost service techs exist in Jefferson City Mo, but there sure aren't any here on Maui.

 

If she doesn't own a computer, then what are we even talking about?

As for "low cost service techs", they exist in every market. It's all relative. Folks here aren't repairing stuff for $.99 an hour...

If you don't have repair techs in Maui who work at a going rate, then there must be a lot of imbecile computer techs down there.

 

Neil was unhappy with CD from the first time he heard it. I've known for a long, long time about Neil's CD antipathy. And think about him releasing old albums on DVD-A and his recent releases of old in-concert recordings on 96k DVD media.

In the greater public view, his battle may recently have surfaced--significantly due to the coming into being of a mechanism he could put to use in his fight ("Kickstarter")--but his battle has still been there. Look, even in this forum of listeners there's no little resistance to high rez music. The recording/distribution industry kinda likes to keep on doing things that don't mess with their perceived source of income.

 

Yeah, a whole handful of dvda's, hurray for him.

 

It's a theoretical computer, see? If she owned one, and the OS drive crashed... and her being old... well... see?

 

Thanks for the article. This shows that Mr. Y0ung isn't crazy or out of touch. But, he is a little off on the issue of space. Hey, you can even buy slimline portable T 1.5 USB hard drives now for good prices.

Not all mp3s are the same. Many people fail to understand that.

 

Digital can develop errors. It is not indestructible. That is why redundancy is important when archiving it.

 

NOTHING is secure. Digital my be robust, but there is always a chance you can get a tape to play if it is damaged. If digital goes bad, it's time to pray.

 

It's not time to prey, it's time to access the material from an alternative hard drive that the material is also backed up on. If you haven't done this yet, you should. Then buy a new hard drive and back it up again, or like I suggested, back it up on a 50GB Blu-ray data disc or two.

 

It was "Rumours", and only half the story. True: the original 24-track was worn to the point of the oxide flaking off and the highs being erased due to it being ran over the heads repeatedly. The other half of the story is that a guy at ABC Records synched the backup tape of the basic tracks with the later recorded overdubs, and copied it all to a new tape, and, thus, saved the multitracks. What you hear today on the finished mixes is a result of that transfer.

 

Well, that goes without saying! One should always keep at least three backups. I do!

 

I grew up rescuing tape that the tape machine had chewed up and in some cases cut (I'm talking about cassettes but all tape is delicate).

So the material was backed up on a hard drive and deteriorated due to neglect? Did you get it all back after the system restore?

Both Rumours and Tusk by Fleetwood Mac have been given 5.1 mixes from the multitracks, although the 5.1 mix of Tusk was never released. I believe this was due to a lack of public interest in 5.1 music judging by what Lindsey said about it in a recent interview. This was about 10-15 years ago, so the multitracks for both of those albums played then. The 5.1 remix of Rumours was released on DVD-Audio.