How do I store my music?

I write music. I also record and produce other people’s music. A lot of the time it’s really good music and it would be nice if it were around beyond the life of a CD. What would happen if the only CD copy of your music got scratched or lost? What happens 10 years from now when we’re no longer using shiny plastic discs to store music or video, and manufacturers no longer make the hardware on which to play them? Could be a bummer. Now multiply that bummer by all of the other musicians, studios, Engineers, Producers, project studios, game producers, video production companies, TV stations, etc. using digital data to produce content, and you begin to see exactly how big a bummer this is going to be.

Up until a couple of years ago, everyone agreed that analog tape was the best long-term storage medium for audio. You can pull a tape from the 1940’s and still play it back, and it sounds pretty darn good! Then came the closure of the Ampex plant in Opelika, and reality came crashing in on our comfy world. Sure, there are still makers of analog tape, but try to name 3 current manufacturers of tape recorders? Let’s see, Studer, Otari, um… and I don’t see a bunch of folks entering that market in the near future. How many machines did you see at AES this year? If you have an analog 1/4” machine and plan on keeping it in good working order, that’s cool, you’re covered. But what about multitrack tape machines? 1/4”-4 and 8 track, 1/2”-4, 8, and 16 track, 1”-8 and 16 track, 2”-8, 16, 24, and 40 track? Unless you live near the Smithsonian, this is already a problem. Here in the Northwest we have an e-newsgroup called nwstudios, and nearly every week someone is looking for an obscure multitrack format machine to remix some ancient project. And we haven’t even started talking about digital multitrack – SONY 3324/48, Mitsubishi, DA88, ADAT, Mackie HDR, RADAR, yada yada, etc. See where this is headed?

Here’s an interesting challenge – try to name a current digital storage medium that will still be around in ten years. Will it be CDR or DVD-R? FireWire hard drive? Data tape, like DLT, AIT, or LTO? Maybe Flash drives? (Remember SCSI?) Think about that for a bit, I’ll be back next time to look at solutions.

Cheers,

MBM