a must-read for beginner computer musicians

destroyifyer

I have literally lost 24+ hours worth of music (yes a whole day of music). this happened when I deleted the music after I made a backup CD...well guess what the blank CD used was total crap, and almost a year's worth of electronic music went swirling down the toilet. yes i know it sucks.

But that's OK. old music sucks anyways. It just inspired me to make new music. It was like some diety trying to tell me, "Teradacto, thine music blows. Make new music."...

But others might not feel the same way about their hard work. So be quite careful, with your backup and recording methods.

So if you are new to computer music, then definately beware CD backup...it's not as dependable as it seems. Just never delete music before you check to see it's safe and sound.

Also, be very careful how you record on a computer! DEFINATELY run tests before you record, and make sure there are no beeps, cliks, or bumps bugging into your music. Not to sound like a pompous ass or anything, but I have made some very awesome music that accidently got turned into unrecognizable garbage by sloppy recording.

p.s. "Sound recorder" rules...I think that songs sound great on 48000 HZ's on sound recorder. But you just have to be careful with your frequencies. Recording from a lower to a higher frequency or vice-versa can really mess up your song. Also, it's a good idea to un-plug your microphone and line-in if you aren't using them, just so you don't get any little feedbacks. Another beware, a song might sound fine when you're recording it, but it might actually be getting distorted to crap if your playback volume is low. I could go on, but

I'll just shut up now

Love, Teradacto

seraph · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:49 pm Post subject:

thanks for reminding us of the "art of backup" Exclamation

jksuperstar · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:01 am Post subject:

When failure is not an option:
http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/Index.aspx

Ok, ok. Shamless plug. But tapes will last for 30 years easy, and will tell you if & when they don't write properly. Assuming you've got it on the hard drive first....

destroyifyer · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:31 am Post subject: a Subject description: a

Yeah this "tape backup" is totally new to me...I mean, things will never be the same between me and CD-R's...I just look at them with the most bitter, chilling feelings shooting down my spine.

v-un-v · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:58 am Post subject:

Antimon · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:21 am Post subject:

What does a tape backup solution cost? Are there any low-budget alternatives? I remember 10 years ago hearing about using your VCR together with some Amiga interface to make backups on VCR tape...

/Stefan

v-un-v · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:33 am Post subject:

I remember seeing someway of backing up to Mini DV tape too- via your camcorder and a firewire connection.

Anyone else seen this? I'll google it.

v-un-v · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:41 am Post subject:

Here;

http://www.coolatoola.com/

It's for Mac- but I'm sure there will be 10 PC versions to take its place Razz

jksuperstar · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:02 am Post subject:

For what's called the mid-range tape drives, they are ~ $3,000US, $90/tape. These are the DLT-S and LTO drives. Ok, stop choking. If I had a busy studio, I'd invest in one of these, since in the end, it costs 6.5cents per GB. One 4" square tape can hold over 1TB, which is enough room for every project, take, track, DVD, CD, super-CD, and web formats for an entire album, along with all the pictures & video taken while in the studio Smile

The next level is the DLT-V, which is ~$600-$1,000, $50/tape. 160 - 320GB per cartridge.

Then you hit DDS ($500), <100GB/tape.

Last is Travan, the cheapest. They're 20GB/tape, for ~$130US, $30/tape. That's probably the most realistic for anybody's home use, and it's still 3x a DVD dual-layer, and can be used a few thousand times.

When shopping, you'll notice some are listed as 20/40GB. the first number is usually the raw data the tape can hold, while the second number is with compression turned on. Most tape drives these days have a hardware compression chip, and it's foolish to turn this off, since it guarantees that you'll get at least 1x, and if you're lucky upwards of 4x compression. Most audio (NOT .mp3, but .wav, etc) will compress ~1.5-2.0 (up to 1/2 the size). Any file already compressed, won't shrink much (.mp3, .jpg, .zip etc). The low end drives (travan) will probably do this in software, making your backups & restores take longer.

Antimon · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject:

Cool, thanks.

Browsing for Travan I stumbled across a local Mac merchant on the net. Under the heading "tape station" they had Iomega REV 35/90GB FireWire, which costs 2795/400 SEK which is roughly (sleepy currency translation in my head) $350/45. They claim it is more reliable than older tape solutions...

Rolling Eyes

It seems to be Mac only, which is OK by me since I am a proud owner of a MacBook since a day ago Very Happy

/Stefan

bachus · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject:

I’ve had professional experience with tape backup (long time ago admittedly) but I can assure you they are NOT guaranteed security. And you still must use a three tape rolling backup and replace the tapes regularly which is quite costly. AFAIK The advantage of tape is not that it is more reliable, it’s that they can backup entire HDs as a single image.

I use DVD backup, though CD is probably safer. The “Shadows of War” piece was 2+ gigabytes so DVD was the only reasonable choice. Only use a backup program that verifies the backup. Backup your work at least once a week preferably more. I bakup on to a second HD on my computer daily (Raid 1 is a better approach) and onto DVD weekly. Retain at least the 4 most recent backups. I.e. don’t’ use RW media. Chances are extremely good that at least one of those backups will be OK. If you backup weekly you will loose no more than a months work worst case at near astronomical odds – assuming that you do in fact use a program that does a read-verify after write. Once a project is complete you can make two or three copies on gold archival CDs or DVDs.

Anyway that’s what I do and would recommend. What do think mosc?

jksuperstar · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:16 am Post subject:

Tape drives today don't use ferrite heads anymore, they use magneto-resistive elements, so the read & write heads have to be seperate. Because they *have* to have seperate elements, drives will check the data as it's being written. Because MR heads are so much smaller, most drives use at least 2, if not 4, 8 or 16 tracks. So more redundancy is built in, and the built-in error correction schemes used leap frog off of this fact. Point is, tapes have gotten very reliable, as long as you take care of the tape Smile

So follow the instructions on tempurature & humidity, because they are 2 very big factors in how well a tape survives, along with your data.

I don't think any Travan would be limited to "Mac Only". Supporting that market would be way too small for any tape drive company to survive doing. The software doing the backup, and hence the data on the tape would only be accessible via MAC (and micr$oft does the same thing).

mosc · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:08 am Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:45 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:56 pm Post subject:

in this context south is kinda like down the drain, up shit creek, into the volcano, off into space, departed and so forth..

seraph · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:59 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject:

nah.. it´s more like kinda mixing up geography with death...

I guess we have been talking too much about norwegian food

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:04 pm Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject:

bachus · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:58 am Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:44 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:06 am Post subject:

Keep in mind that skillfully handled, aquavit will make sure that there is no major difference between north and south, up and down, east or west. Take care though, aquavit can also remove paint from furniture and dissolve several types of glue.

seraph · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:35 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:48 am Post subject:

True!