Topic: no DAT master, what?

[Jimna]

so i made my first recording with my R4 this weekend and dont know what im doing.  i transferred it all to my PC and am ready to work with the files.  my question is how do i archive the files before i do any post work?  i want the raw wavs to be saved on something tangible.  whats the best route, dvd?  if so then how.  just burn data discs?  man i liked the idea of no matter what i did stupid i could start over with the master DAT and not sweat it.   

on the flip, 24 is such a huge difference!  the future is wide open after over come this latest learning curve.   

[Gordon]

burn as data dvd and back up to a hardrive.  I flac the original wave and burn the flacs.  some do both.  I may start doing both but for now I just flac the files (untracked).  you will then track and flac that as well. 

[Jimna]

well thats simple enough.  thanks gordon.  T

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

I make a 24/48 WAV MD5 for all my masters.  That way I can verify it once I decompress it in the future.

Once, I compress to FLAC, I make a FFP and typical text and burn it all to DVDR for storage on a spindle in the closet.

Once all that's done, I make a working copy and start my junk (24/48 >16/44, CDWave, etc.)

Terry

[Jimna]

MD5ing now...

tanks

[terrapinj]

i create an md5 for the original file on the recorder then verify it with the file once transferred and keep it with the original WAV file on many hard drives as backup

[Roving Sign]

so i made my first recording with my R4 this weekend and dont know what im doing.  i transferred it all to my PC and am ready to work with the files.  my question is how do i archive the files before i do any post work?  i want the raw wavs to be saved on something tangible.  whats the best route, dvd?  if so then how.  just burn data discs?  man i liked the idea of no matter what i did stupid i could start over with the master DAT and not sweat it.   

on the flip, 24 is such a huge difference!  the future is wide open after over come this latest learning curve.   

Thats one of the nice features of Audacity - it never touches your source files...

but yeah - flac > DVD just for safteys sake...

[Jimna]

ok, so im encoding my wavs to flac, but they are all failing the md5s when i decode them to check the files.  is there a setting im not seeing here for 24 bit?  everyone fails, WTF?

[JasonSobel]

ok, so im encoding my wavs to flac, but they are all failing the md5s when i decode them to check the files.  is there a setting im not seeing here for 24 bit?  everyone fails, WTF?

it's probably because the original WAV files had some extra junk in the header.  most recorders put some extra info in the header.  when you encode to FLAC, that extra stuff isn't needed so it gets tossed.  then when you decompress back to WAV, the file is written with a standard WAV header.  the audio is exactly the same, but the file is different because the header differs, which is why it fails the md5.

my suggestion is this:
make an md5 of the original raw, uncut file.  and then burn the WAV files and the md5 files to DVD as your "master"
that's what I do, because even just compressing to FLAC is a processing step.  I like to archive to DVD copies of the original file, as recorded by my deck, with absolutely no changes.  and then, of course, because the file hasn't changed, if you copy that file back to your HD and check it against the md5, it will pass.

[Jimna]

ok, i was worried for a moment.  i think thats a great idea anyway.  ill burn the raw files and process there after.  thanks.  so once i run through cd wav will it correct the header issue in the output files??

[JasonSobel]

yes, CD Wave will save WAV files with standard headers.  (there have been many threads about it, but be sure to check the box "use alternate 24-bit format" when saving 24 bit files in CD Wave).

[Jimna]

thank you