There's a lot of scaremongering in this thread, imo. We need to be careful when we use words like "digital". For example, a modern digitization of a master tape to storage is not the same as talking about a obsolete digital storage system from the 1980's. There are several options to digital storage today, and different types of drives (solid state, and platters based). There is also a misconception that someone like Spotify have (essentially) copies of servers around the world to service requests. Take, for example, Amazon's Cloud Services, it's a lot more sophisticated that a single server with hard drives with a backup being made elsewhere. Even the idea of a file sitting solely on a single server isn't valid at this level. I did a security/legal appraisal some time back for a legal firm that wanted to use cloud services, but when it became clear that you couldn't really govern in which country some cloud data is stored, it was a no go (files, or part of files, are broken up when written for redundancy and data protection). Of course, there are the traditional methods of redundancy such as RAID 5 etc, but I doubt (and hope) the major labels aren't using that at this level. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'll be using one of the cloud services. As such, any talk on the life of the hard disks is irrelevant. Even with those digital methods that are issues today, the reason is either a) Bad media; b) Obsolete technology and we can't get parts anymore. This won't apply moving forward. Data is viewed very differently today, and it's not so tied to devices. You've only got to think about how much data is stored and used globally to know the systems in place and reliable and will last, well... for as long as we keep them switched on. There is no reason to suggest there's anything like the potential for loss as we saw in the Universal fire.
Jeez man !!! We keep talking about long term accurate data storage in thread after thread...Here is the solution still evolving...but it surely appears to be the holy grail...as far as digital storage....I've only posted this several times in the last 5 years or so....so Southhampton U scientists...get with it ! Eternal 5D data storage could record the history of humankind | University of Southampton Other source video sample
Can't those 3M tapes be played back using the original hardware and then re-digitize the analog output using modern equipment? It's the first thing that came to mind but maybe it's not that easy...
Another big issue is getting a good quality DAT recorder/player. I've read various anecdotes that these machines break down more easily and sourcing replacement parts, etc. are almost nigh impossible.
I had a conversation with Rhys Fulber a few years ago. A re-issue of his Conjure One 2002 album S/T was done in 2017 and included some unreleased bonus tracks. Some of them had digital artifacts, glitches etc.. He was pretty upset as this was recorded at a 'world class studio' as he put it and they had degraded that much already. He didn't go into detail on the storage medium, I'm assuming DAT's. I was just grateful he took the time to converse with me
The obvious answer is on a computer. But given it's the music industry we are talking about, I believe they print it all off on paper and leave it in large building corridors in cardboard boxes propping fire doors open
Makes sense. Optical, high density & storage capacity, non wearable, resistant if correctly sealed, no motors or moving parts, etc. Ideal for preservation.
I would hope that at least the big labels are storing the masters in an AWS S3 bucket or something similar.
I don't know if this is ironic but keeping things in an analogue format would be totally crazy. Digital information can be replicated an infinite number of times without any loss in quality. Analogue information degrades each time you need to copy it. Using a digital format to preserve information is the correct way to do things.
They chased down looking for the master tapes for Aqualung for years then finally asked Ian Anderson Oh, I have that outside in my garage
Then Moses came down from the mountain His face glowed He carried two stone tablets Made of 1’s and 0’s
I was able to get a Panasonic 3800 off of eBay for chump change with like 50 hours on it. I also have DATs dating back to the mid-90s and earlier that still play, amazingly. Not a great format(and I should archive everything soon), but nowhere near the disaster that some make it out to be. Dan
It may seem crazy, but I read a little while back that some films shot in digital are having film transfers made over fears of future data access issues, the logic being that film - stored in the right conditions - has a proven longevity that digital doesn’t. The same logic could be applied to music.
That may be an issue with a particular digital medium format (disk, tape, etc) becoming obsolete, not with the concept of storing information digitally. How can digital information not have longevity when it can be copied infinite times without degradation? For example I find it inevitable that people with SACD collections will suffer from this fate because the format is proprietary, cannot be easily copied and eventually SACD players will disappear. It doesn't mean that the information gets degraded, only that there is no longer a machine to read it.
I guess once we get to the point where an optimum archiving standard is definitively agreed on, long-term digital audio storage will become both the ‘best’ and safest option. As long as the standards keep changing, the possibility of accident obsolescence - however small - remains a threat.
