The Logic Off Topic list

Lee Blaske:

> Are you using hard drives as an archival medium? That would be pretty odd.

I do not.  I know people who do, and people who have but don't anymore.  It
is not done for reasons of longevity, but for convenience or economy.  False
economy, one might say, but I don't get to dictate what people archive to.

> Properly cloned digital data, however, should suffer no loss.

You won't have to work hard to convince me of that!

> I believe properly maintained digital data has the best potential for
> long-term preservation. Obviously, you've got to clone before the
> storage medium suffers any degradation,

And that's the rub.  When you miss the "clone by" date, it all goes to hell.
And because accelerated aging tests aren't perfect, the clone-by date could
be closer or farther away that we suspect - who knows?.  You're concerned
about the financial future of Alesis and the future of ADAT (rightly so; I
only mentioned the ADAT tape bit as an FYI), but not about the stability of
whatever institutions/individuals wind up holding digital archives?  When
they find the old CDR archives in the attic... uh oh.  And even if archives
wind up in the hands of responsible institutions, they may not be perfectly
financially stable in every year, or mistakes may be made.  Digital as it
currently exists is extremely unforgiving.

> Also, for anyone interested in long term access to original session
> audio, I think it's very important to archive original, contiguous
> tracks (beginning from a common start point) rather than simply
> keeping a Logic session. It would be great if Logic is still around
> years from now and is able to maintain backward compatibility over
> many decades, but I wouldn't count on it.

Alternately, AES31 EDLs will be openable far into the future.  Logic can't
export those yet though.  Prediction: eventually, it'll have to.

f-erenc szabo wrote, in another message:
> If you're worried about the long term storage of, say, CDr
> then simply make another clone of it every few years.  This
> is vastly easier to do than the baking/solvent shenanigans
> needed for analog tape.

Until the data is irretrievably lost because the CDR was forgotten for a
decade or so.  Baking a CDR that's gone south won't help. :(

I will be interested to see what long term solutions are developed for
holding digital.  From what I've read of communication theory, it's going to
be an uphill battle.

-- Marvin Humphrey
Mastering Engineer and Graphic Designer, emeritus
CD design website - http://marvin.mrtoads.com