Topic: Digital Masters best practice

[Duncan]

So I've been troubling myself about how to archive my masters from my 722.
I tend to do straight dumps from the 722 via the firewire to my mac or PC and then copy that across to a couple of different external drives.
The thing that interests me is what would stop it being a master
Would chopping off the pre music crowd noise or normalization (both obviously requiring a save) render it no longer worthy of master status.

What do you guys do?

Cheers

Duncan

[bhtoque]

Trimming the crap off each end of the file is no problem, but any processing (like normalization) and I wouldn't call it "master" any more.

Not that it really matters though. In the digital realm the term has a lot less meaning. Not like this is a 4th gen cassette copy and a copy made from the 'master' would sound vastly superior.

What I do is keep a copy of the original, untouched file till I'm finished with the track & flac routine. Once I am certain that everything is glitch-free, I'll delete the raw file and the verified flacs are the final 'master'. 99.99% of the time I don't do any EQing or heavy processing so I'm not looking to revert back to that original, pristine file for future 'remastering'

YMMV,

JAson

[Duncan]

Thanks for the input Jason

Another dimension to all this is that I record at 96/24
but down-sample to CD quality to torrent.

I'm starting to wonder about if I'll ever use the high bit rate version.

Can anyone point me at a good guide to this whole post production malarky?

I know I'm of topic myself already but I'd be keen to know thoughts about EQing, Hard Limiting and the like

Cheers

Duncan

[DSatz]

Just a note on vocabulary: A "master tape" is an edited copy approved for use in production. In the LP era, "master lacquers" were cut from these "master tapes," and then the vinyl duplication process proceeded from there.

Various other terms are/were used for the original session recording, most of which are far less impressive-sounding than "master" which sounds oh, so macho. For example, "work parts" was the term used at RCA. They didn't get much respect until it became generally understood that CDs sounded a lot better if they were remastered from the work parts rather than being copied by rote from the LP master tapes.

Master tapes didn't have the same sonic character as the finished LPs, since neither the duplication process nor the vinyl medium itself are sonically transparent. The masters were processed so that the resulting vinyl would sound good--not so that the master tapes themselves (which few people outside the record companies ever heard) would sound good.

That's the main reason CDs "remastered" from the LP masters (e.g. nearly all CDs produced in the early-to-mid 1980s from analog recordings) sounded harsh and grainy. The best-sounding CDs based on analog recordings are the ones remastered from the original recorded tracks--not from fourth-generation EQed/compressed analog tape copies.

--best regards

[stevetoney]

Some time has passed since the question was posed...I suspect that nobody has a firm opinion on this.  Frankly I don't either.  I think the answer is that you should keep whatever you feel you need to keep for whatever you think you might want to do with your data in the future.  Question...you said you record in 96/24.  Why?  You must have a reason why you record in this format, so the answer probably should figure into your strategy for long-term storage and archiving.

If you think that you'll always stay 'cutting edge' and the reason you record in 96/24 is so that you might be able, in the future to hear a difference or because you might want to somehow take advantage of a technology that uses this resolution, then you should probably archive this way also.

Personally, I'm not that into it all because my view is that live ambient recordings are inherently faulty.  My ears enjoy a good sounding live recording whether it's recorded in at 44.1/16 or anything higher...IOW, I subscribe to the philosophy that if it sounds good, it is good.  The incremental sound quality difference gained by higher bitrates, while I do acknowledge is there, for me I don't consider it significant...again because my enjoyment of the music derives from the performance quality and the basic elements of what is in the input chain (mics, preamps, location of mics, etc), far more than the resolution of the recording.

That said, I keep my recordings archived in flac'ed and verified versions in 24/48 and don't save the redundant 16/44.1 versions.  I'm now using a 16 bit recorder, so I archive those in 16/44.1.  This is what I keep as my 'master' (without the crap before and after the sets).  Generally, I don't keep the raw unprocessed and untracked file.  IOW, the only FLACs I keep are those that I have applied processing to.  My reasoning is that it's all data and I personally see no difference between what gets laid down originally or what gets tweeked in post.  (I know I'm in the minority here...it's just my preference).  The exception to this is if I needed to do alot of processing on the original file...in that case I do keep the original raw source file.

Right now, I'm exposed in that all of my flacs are on several smaller harddrives and the only backup is the CDRs of the show.  However, I will be buying a second 1TB drive for redundant backup of the entire collection.

[boojum]

If I were an ardent archivist I would  FLAC the masters onto another drive and keep that drive safe.  If I were really paranoid, I would have two FLAC copies on two drives.  I count as "master" the original WAV file as it was recorded.

[wklitz]

I store my raw untracked WAV file in whatever resolution I have recorded it in, I also keep tracked FLAC's at 16/44.1  & 24 Bit FLAC's.  No reason for me not to, storage is cheap.

[nedstruzz]

I store my raw untracked WAV file in whatever resolution I have recorded it in, I also keep tracked FLAC's at 16/44.1  & 24 Bit FLAC's.  No reason for me not to, storage is cheap.

Exactly, Multiple formats on multiple devices.

[SparkE!]

I'm with DSatz on this one.  Masters are the trimmed and/or normalized and/or equalized and/or limited and/or compressed and/or what ever else you do files.  It's the Originals that you guys are talking about in this thread.

Semantics aside, I think it's a good idea to archive:

1) Original files
2) Master files
3) CD-ready tracked Masters
4) Support files (like the .cue files), set lists, source info and any other supporting documentation

The choice of whether to SHN or FLAC or WhateverOtherCompressionScheme or not is a personal choice.  the nice thing about compressed files is that they take less space.  The bad thing about compressed files is that errors in the files will render larger sections of the uncompressed files unusable than if the errors were in the uncompressed files themselves.  I tend to FLAC my files.  I don't know if that's the best thing to do or not and I've probably wasted too much time already, trying to figure out what's the best policy.

[Kyle]

I burn a few DVD-R's with the following:

Two discs with original transferred .wavs and md5's, and .txt files.

Two discs with edited .wavs (trims and fades) and md5's, and .txt files.

One disc with .wavs with any addditonal processing, md5's, .txt files with detailed processing notes, and cdwav cue sheets. If I do not do any additional processing the cue sheets revert to the previous set of discs and this step is skipped.

One disc with tracked .wavs, cdwav cue sheets, md5's, and .txt files.

One disc with flacs of trakced .wavs, md'5s, and .txt files.

The flac disc is my archive but also easily copied for trading/exchange/etc...

There is a bit of redundancy but I like to have many backups in case of failure. I also like to keep the trim/fade wavs separate so  if I am unhappy with my additional processing I can easily go back and change what I did - the cue sheets still line up and it helps to keep everything consistant.