Topic: Archiving: Do You Save Your Raw Master File, Just the FLACs, or Both?

[JackHenry]

This might seem like an easy question to answer, but I've never converted to flac. The question is, why convert from wav to flac?? Why not just go direct from 24 bit wav dithered down for CD production?

If there is no real need to convert to flac, saving backup space by not doing it seems like the obvious thing to do. But as I said, I've never used flac so I don't know if there is an advantage or not.

[meatballs]

My philosophy is simple 24/48 is the max that the human ear can signify a difference(so they say). Anything above this you would have to be genetically /grafted (island of doctor meuro) mutated with a dog, bat, whale, or some other animal that can realistically, hear, determine the difference in the higher frequencies of sound.

  similar to vitamins you can take 500 mg of vitamin C, however, the human body can't process more than that -- i.e. 1000 mg grams of Vitamin C is 500 mg of waste -- all living things have this problem i.e. even plants.

That said raw masters saved and archived in 24/48 is as good as it gets for the human capacity. relatively speaking from what I know and understand -- we are fooling ourselves i.e. if you master at 192/24 yes it is more transfers per second and takes up more space but the human ear is not capable of distinguishing this.

I could be wrong, however, my arguement is based on sampling that I can remember i.e CD players first came out with 8x over sampling the moved up to24 48 56 yadah yadah however the human ear is not capable of distinguishing the difference abover 24x oversampling.


That said 24/48 is the ceiling -- I could be wrong but I'm befinetly not a whale as much as I like to sing with them   Note, please correct me if I'm misguided about this.

[Gordon]

This might seem like an easy question to answer, but I've never converted to flac. The question is, why convert from wav to flac?? Why not just go direct from 24 bit wav dithered down for CD production?

If there is no real need to convert to flac, saving backup space by not doing it seems like the obvious thing to do. But as I said, I've never used flac so I don't know if there is an advantage or not.

I know when I batch process the 24/48 files to 16/44 that the 16/44 will have header errors and sometimes have sbe's even using cd wave.  flacing fixes all of this.  and I have no need for the wave files so they get deleted.  I save and listen to the flac files only.  so by flacing and getting rid of the wavs you are saving a lot of space.

[anhisr]

I keep them raw on an external HD and I make a raw copy on a DVD first.  Then I open Wavelab and go to work.

[dmonkey]

I burn the raw master WAV files onto DVD. I put all my mixed/tracked/edited shows onto a RAID server in FLAC format.

[stevetoney]

This might seem like an easy question to answer, but I've never converted to flac. The question is, why convert from wav to flac?? Why not just go direct from 24 bit wav dithered down for CD production?

If there is no real need to convert to flac, saving backup space by not doing it seems like the obvious thing to do. But as I said, I've never used flac so I don't know if there is an advantage or not.

From a practical perspective, I can't see anything wrong with the logic you've stated.  I think most people prefer archiving to FLAC for the obvious benefits of saving harddrive space, saving money if they archive to DVD, or saving bandwidth when/if those files need to be electronically transferred.

[admkrk]

most of my shows are on dat even if the original transfer was from hdd. 

[Xontar]

Fuzzy...unfortunately, DVD media can be amongst the most expensive and least reliable forms of long term storage.  I've got MANY DVDs and CDRs failing to read after less than 5 years...many only 1 or 2 years old.

That's not true. I've only ever found 2 bad discs in my collection out of several hundred (one of which was a cheap DVD9 I'd expect to go bad, and was only bad in the 2-unreadable-tracks sense). I stick at least 2-3 a week in my drive for reading, so it's unlikely a significant fraction are bad. Cost per unit of storage for DVDs is less than for hard drives (I just did a quick calculation, it's about 11 cents per gigabyte for Verbatim DVDs, about 22 for the $80 250GB hard drive I just bought).

[stevetoney]

Fuzzy...unfortunately, DVD media can be amongst the most expensive and least reliable forms of long term storage.  I've got MANY DVDs and CDRs failing to read after less than 5 years...many only 1 or 2 years old.

That's not true. I've only ever found 2 bad discs in my collection out of several hundred (one of which was a cheap DVD9 I'd expect to go bad, and was only bad in the 2-unreadable-tracks sense). I stick at least 2-3 a week in my drive for reading, so it's unlikely a significant fraction are bad. Cost per unit of storage for DVDs is less than for hard drives (I just did a quick calculation, it's about 11 cents per gigabyte for Verbatim DVDs, about 22 for the $80 250GB hard drive I just bought).

Well, 2 bad discs is 2 bad discs.  To me, that's unacceptable performance.

My personal experience is that I've lost maybe 1 disc in a hundred...maybe a little bit more maybe less.  I don't really know the numbers.  To me that is WAAAY too many.

The key point though is that, as time passes, I lose more and more data.  It's a well publicized fact that optical discs have a shelf life.

As far as cost, a spindle of 50 DVDRs in my area costs about $20.
$20 / (4.7GB/disc x 50 discs) = 8 cents a gb

I've bought three 1TB drives in the last year for $100 or less...
$100  / 931gb = 11 cents a gb

So, I guess I did overstate that the cost of DVDR media is more expensive, but given the unreliability of the optical media, I'm sticking with my method of saving everything onto harddrives and backing up with redundant harddrives.

Consider this...if optical media is reliable, then why have virtually 100% of companies stopped using optical and tape-based methods for saving their crucial commercial data?  Instead they use redundant drives with nightly backups, where every night the data is backed up with off-site machines that have guaranteed power sources.

I'm not saying you should abandon your method of storage.  If you're happy with it, then that's great. 

I'm just reinforcing why I personally choose the method that I use.

[Scooter123]

I have a full TB of past shows.  Don't separately store the masters. I store the finished product. 

[gmm6797]

I have made many adjustments to my archval process, but this is what I do:
raw files to an old HD
raw files FLAC'd up to a DVD
edited raw files FLAC'd to a different DVD (normalized, etc)
24bit WAV files FLAC'd to a different DVD
16bit WAV files FLAC'd to a different DVD
16bit audio CDs burned

Over kill?  Maybe, but this way I have multiple copies of my work that can not be re-produced and/or recorded again, since the show is already over

[midside]

I keep 2 NAS (network attached storage) systems connected on my network, one in the house and one in the office space (in another building outside the house).  Each NAS box (Thecus N5200) currently has (4) 1TB drives, 3 in RAID5 with 1 hot spare.  Every night (morning) the other box turns on to backup new files daily.  Deleted/Altered files are not deleted on the backup system.  Once in a while I compare using Syncback and clean up the backup unit.  I feel like I am doing pretty good and everything is automated...no more long and frequent drawn out data copy/backup days for me.  I also keep a single 1TB drive disconnected and update this once in a while for extra security, but it is now full so I either need another or a 1.5.  But, one thing I am not completely safeguarded against is file corruption.  So, I really feel like I need an LTO tape scheme as well so I can go back in time if need be. EVERYTHING connected to ANYTHING on the network is either surge suppressed or plugged in though a UPS.
BTW, a lot of this is business stuff.  So, not only would I lose years or hard work, I would also be out of a job for a while.
p.s. I used to burn discs of stuff..NO WAY I am going to go back down that road.

[mosquito]

I'm a packrat and paranoid about hardware failure.

I save the original data, at least one intermediate version of from when I'm working on it (if there's substantial work), and a copy of each final product.  I use matched & mirrored pairs of drives for a RAID.  If / when there are issues with the drives, I set up a second pair in a RAID and move all of the data there.  Then I wipe (and sometimes zero) the first pair of drives and try to get them to work in a RAID again.  This means I always have two copies of the data.  One day I'll get around to keeping a copy of the RAIDs off site too.  I don't burn 'cause of the additional time.  Using RAID means I always have two copies and the RAID controller does the work of making sure the data matches between the two copies.

Then again, my mother says I get obsessive about things. 

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I've only ever found 2 bad discs in my collection out of several hundred (one of which was a cheap DVD9 I'd expect to go bad, and was only bad in the 2-unreadable-tracks sense).

I started a a project going back to recover all my old masters to HDD from DVD and DAT.  I'm starting to find that my masters aren't all recoverable from DVD.  A 2005 Ratdog show will never be recoverable.  Fortunately around early 2006 I started using two different types of media and making duplicate backups of the master in addition to the authored copies.  I've tossed more tha  a few discs since this project began but was able to read one disk so no other losses yet.

To the original question, yes I save the masters.  I have recordings with little issues and as I improve with the editing tools, I occasionally go back to the master and re edit when my earlier fix was not as clean.  Masters go to a RAID and optical.   Authored tracks go to media server and optical.

[bgalizio]

I do the following:

1. Master WAV to DVD
2. Master FLAC to DVD
3. Final FLAC to DVD (24bit and 16bit)
4. Final FLAC to hard drive (24bit and 16bit)
5. Hard Drive backed up to another hard drive via Time Machine
6. Upload/share final FLAC (24bit and 16bit)