Necessity for Raw Transfers

[ndiamone]

This thread was accidentally deleted yesterday trying to split the classic television part of the threat apart from this part.

Both halves had a lot of very good points to them so it would be a shame not to revive it.

Watch for thread reconstruction coming soon to a forum near you...

Below is my original post.

[/me leaves the irony of the situation open for ponderance...]

I have been in computer-aided music restoration for over 15 years. General archive rules are Keep a Raw Copy of Whatever You Do. That way if somebody doesn't like it, whether it be friends, colleagues or customers, they have a choice.

I can't TELL you how glad I am that I make all my trainees and students do the same. Often, 15 years later, the master they had access to in those days from which to make the original transfer has disappeared or is no longer playable no matter how much rehydrating, baking or airing out is done.

We are then left with the original transfer. If the only available copy is heavily processed, what about when restoration tools become more sensitive in the future? Then you'll have processing on top of processing on top of processing and not much will be left of the original performance.

To solve everybody's issues regarding processors or not vs. the time required of having to perform two passes on the tape, the transcriber may choose to do the same as the major archivists: avail himself of the many professional and archival restoration decks available which have TWO or even THREE identical playback heads. Also known in one instance as a Preview head and in another instance as a Confidence head, the second or third playback-only head has its' own set of electronics and its' own set of jacks in the back, to which a processor can be attached.

In the case of a few select special decks, the preview or confidence head is equipped with circuitry-bypass selection, enabling the transcriber to export the signal without even any preamp or NAB or other equalization, an extreme timesaver for those purists who wish to apply all those within the digital environment.

In either case, old deaf farts, greenhorn kids with no brain left for processing nevermind no ears, or any combination of the two is nothing two sets of presumed professionals in their fields need to be quibbling about in the greater realm of servicing the industry.

Right? (NODDING HEAD)

Once was a time I thought
That love could be sold or bought
Til everything fell in place for me.

 

[lonster]

Déjà Vu!
Either I am having flash backs, or I have heard this ALL before.... :slap:


[nodding head]


(Long Lost) Lonster

 

[JonUrban]

HERE IS A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE POSTS THAT WERE ACCIDENTALLY DELETED


ArmyOfQuad Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:39:51

Originally posted by ndiamone
Personally, me I would say, this being a board of engineers and with the ubiquitousness of music restoration software these days along with the individual restoration tastes therein, I would think each man would want his own straight, raw unrestored transfer upon which to work his own magic in his own den/studio.

Exactly. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

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ArmyOfQuad Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:22:18

This is a great idea. I guess the reason this was never done was because none of the membership had a reel deck like this, or access to one. Also, the powers that be never felt there was enough demand to put any amount of effort into making raw wavs available to the membership.

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Cai Campbell Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:29:48

It may prove onerous to keep copies of everything after every little edit, but keeping the initial raw transfer is a no-brainer!



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ChristopherLees Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:03:52

Personally, me I would say, this being a board of engineers and with the ubiquitousness of music restoration software these days along with the individual restoration tastes therein, I would think each man would want his own straight, raw unrestored transfer upon which to work his own magic in his own den/studio.

sorry but i think this is a wrong assumption as not everybody here can remaster multitrack music....and remake it into a dvd audio or dts disc.

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Cai Campbell Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:09:51

I believe it is perfectly reasonable to express distaste for an organization without insulting the members of that organization. If a member of an organization feels personally insulted because of an attack on an organization to which they belong, it is my opinion that, at best, that person's feelings are misguided.

I wasn't going to comment on any particular organization but hopefully this will be my only exception. I am actually surprised to hear the QpS chose not to share the raw files from QpS conversions. If memory serves me right, that was written into the "bylaws" from the very begining and was one of the main attractions of the organization, from my point of view. I guess I assumed that that had not changed. Wow, give's new meaning to the term no-brainer. @:

Hmm, maybe this whole QpS thing is best left underground. No disrespect to all of you guys in the organization. I know you're all smart enough to differentiate between yourselves as people and some silly TLA (three letter acronym).

==================================================

ChristopherLees Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:24:56

Originally posted by ArmyOfQuad
They aren't speaking now. I do recall a post I made in the QpS forums where I listed somwhere from 3 to 5 quotes from different members expressing either a desire or support for raw wavs.

well 7 people voted for them out of 48 (so 3-5 would be expected...but that is a debate not a straight out insult...don't confuse the 2)

Originally posted by ArmyOfQuad
Obviously you seem to feel strongly that they shouldn't be made available to those that want them.

actually I was one of the seven that voted for them.
and alot of your post is now getting into an unjustified personal attack on me which I refuse to reply to.

Originally posted by ArmyOfQuad
> Also, where have I publicly insulted all the members of QpS?

if the first three lines of this thread ,which are based on your own post (and not somebody elses...so don't accuse me of a personal attack when I realign those comments to just one person only stating it),isn't an insult then I don't know what is..

=================================================

ArmyOfQuad Mon, 16 Jun 2008

Christopher, I have nothing personal against you. Except that I do feel from your posts in here that you started attacking me. But I suppose you feel I was attacking you. Look, I do feel that the reel going to QpS would be the worst fate of it. And I feel that is not an insult to each and every individual member of QpS. I could start naming who it's directed at. But out of respect for Jon, and also because of the policies here, I won't. I'll only say I do apologize if you feel I've personally attacked you, and hope we can move on from this already. Let's go back to talking about WKRP, that was far more productive.

 

[QuadBob]

In theory and a perfect world, you're absolutely correct Tim.

But, the reality is most usually entirely different. Here on QQ we have VERY few true professionals in the audio/recording industry.

The largest majority are hobbiests, working with consumer formats.... 30 year old lps, Q8 and QR tapes, etc. on 30+ year old consumer equipment for playback/decoding, etc.

All but the select few do it as volunteers, for the love of the music and quad in general, with limited $$, time and equipment.

So, the reality is that results vary widely from fantastic conversions to those that pale in comparison to even the original source material.

Most of us appreciate and enjoy the efforts of ALL who delve into attempting to preserve our cherished quadraphonic music, and simply take the good along with the bad in the spirit that it is offered.....usually for free.:banana:

While recommendations are often made to those doing these labors of love on what is the best source material, what equipment and software to use, what is a good process for best results, etc. The bottomline is that each of them makes their own choices, uses their own preferred methods, and the rest of us either enjoy or discard their resulting transfers.

QB

 

[Cai Campbell]

I would say the terms "preservation" and "best practices" go hand-in-hand. Sticking ignorantly to questionable practices when there are obviously better alternatives is suicide, and in the context of preservation, suicide = destruction. What's the point of smiling, patting a guy on the back and offering him a beer if you simply turn around and dump his work in the trash can? Are we preserving people's feelings or quadraphonic recordings? Any path that ignores best practices is obviously not serious about preservation.

But you can have your cake AND eat it too if you offer the raw files. That way anyone who wants to can start with a fresh cup of coffee and piss in it to their own satisfaction.

 

[QuadBob]

I would say the terms "preservation" and "best practices" go hand-in-hand. Sticking ignorantly to questionable practices when there are obviously better alternatives is suicide, and in the context of preservation, suicide = destruction. What's the point of smiling, patting a guy on the back and offering him a beer if you simply turn around and dump his work in the trash can? Are we preserving people's feelings or quadraphonic recordings? Any path that ignores best practices is obviously not serious about preservation.

But you can have your cake AND eat it too if you offer the raw files. That way everyone can start with a fresh cup of coffee and piss in it to their own satisfaction.

Great theory..........

Unfortunately most of us have neither the inclination or right to dictate to anyone what they have to do.

You'll find no disagreement from most of us concerning "raw" files, but the reality is that NONE of us have the right or ability to force or demand anyone to do anything.

Those with the dedication, ability and maturity tend to accept constructive criticism, learn and improve their abilities as time and $$ allow, working together to get the best possible result.

Those that cannot tend to take their toys and leave, then stand on a corner proclaiming their infinitely superior abilities and attempting to demean anyone who won't comply with THEIR personal desires. Most of which mean nothing to the majority of us.

The rest of us simply enjoy what manages to bubble to the top, neither worrying or caring what it takes to get there. Raw files, source material, equipment..........when I can put the little disc in my player and it satisfies ME, I'm happy..........and the rest is just noise.

If you don't like my coffee.........make your own, it tastes fine to me (as I don't piss in mine).

QB

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I like eggs.

 

[Cai Campbell]

Nobody should dictate to anyone what they should do, we can only hope that one has enough common sense, an open enough mind, and the maturity to change course when a superior one is made available. Or express frustration when that doesn't happen. But you're absolutely right that you cannot and should not force anyone to do anything against their stubborn will.

 

[JonUrban]

You know, this QpS, anti-QpS crap is starting to really piss me off.

NOBODY is forced to join QpS. QpS is not (as Jonathan stated) the only way to deal with conversion.

QpS is a MEMBERSHIP group that members CHOOSE to join. No one is forced, no one is held hostage. There is nothing that says there cannot be another "group" to do whatever the hell they want.

If some ex-QpS members are/were unhappy, well fucking LEAVE. I'm tired of this forum being dragged down to the gutter over a few folks who don't like QpS.

QpS IS NOT QQ, they are hosted here because QQ members started QpS. Despite the pleas of some of you, QpS is STAYING. So live with it.

I am really at the edge of throwing all of you whiners the hell outta here. ALL OF YOU

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I like eggs hard boiled or scrambled. Sometimes fried. Egg salad is awesome. How does everyone else here feel about eggs?

 

[ChristopherLees]

I know that this thread has had an attempt at reconstruction, but
1) alot of the reconstruction is not there,
meaning
2) alot of the stuff is out of context
and
3) as a result it doesn't make much sense.
4) I think it was a good idea to kill the thread anyway as I think it was about 2 posts away yesterday from a flame war..and I really don't want to have an argument with anyone. spending time replying to a large post just takes time away from me and the little guy whose sitting in the red cars in those 2 pictures.

 

[Cai Campbell]

Part of the problem is that the conversation was spanning two threads. It was my attempt at merging them that resulted in the accidental deletion of both. The reconstruction brought back the one but not the other, so half the content is missing. I agree that we probably shouldn't have tried to revive it.

I feel the need to apologize for my participation in this whole fiasco. As a moderator, I know better. I hope that Jon decides to kill this thread a second time. Kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth (bonus points if you get the strained pun).

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Agreed, I also apologize for my part in all this. Mmmmm.....eggs.....so tasty. (The egg comment comes from the NHB radio show, Wednesdays 8-11 pm EST on www.nhbradio.com. One of the former co-hosts, Mike the Apeman, was known to comment "I like eggs" when an argument would break out that he didn't want to get involved in)

 

[ndiamone]

In a... perfect world, you're absolutely correct Tim.

But, ...here on QQ we have VERY few...true recording professionals.

The largest majority are...(using) 30+ year old consumer equipment for playback/decoding, etc.

All but the select few do it as volunteers, ...with limited $$, time and equipment.

So, the reality is that results vary widely from fantastic conversions to those that pale in comparison to even the original source material.

For anybody who wishes to have their 4-track quarter-inch and/or half-inch as well as Q-8 titles preserved in a professional manner, I, like QuadBob may as well consider myself retired, for all the personal time my current job allows me. I have a second Scully mastering deck with both Preview and Confidence head, for any other audiophile who wishes to go to the Next Level. If he wants to learn how to use it as well, I have no problem teaching him in addition.

...The bottom-line is that each (transcriptionist or restorationist) makes their own (gear and/or processing choices), and the rest of us either enjoy or discard their resulting transfers.QB

Well at least now everybody is forewarned. Me personally I would in fact pay the $50 membership fee if I were provided raw wavs upon which to work my own magic. However, apparently I am not the only one who cannot see his way clear to subscribing, only to take the chance of possibly receiving an overly-processed final product... .

Granted, maybe some transfers are now locked in time with their processing intact, but it appears all a man lacks at this point is a mastering deck, the Scully version of which I have I would be happy to provide some enterprising ``young green kid with no brains left for processing, nevermind no ears'' in the hopes that he could obtain same, or ``old deaf engineer-fart'' upon which to realize his finest golden-ear dreams.

(This Just In from all the PM's I just got)

For whoever would like the deck, I could either sell it to him, or if he's here in the Bay Area, do sort of an extended-loan til he gets his feet wet.

Being about three by five feet, and maybe two feet deep, it more or less needs a room of it's own. It's not some itty-bitty tabletop consumer affair like you see getting recycled on eBay every other day.

This carries 14-inch reels , runs 7 and-a-half and 15 and has a built-in quarter-revolution preview head with which to originally drive a disc-cutting auto-pitch and auto-depth mechanism.

With it's external four-amplifier stack t is a formidable machine indeed.

However, for those professionals or professionals-in-training not in the Bay Area, the recommendation is to find Ampex 440-4's or their AG-350-4 older-brothers.

Usually tape transports show up in one auction, the amplifier stacks show up in another, and the interchangeable headstacks show up in another. The deck is capable, with change of headstack and tape guides of handling half inch tape as well, making it useful for playing the Bin Loop Reel or Q-8 Duplication Masters that occasionally show up.

The other choice, also fairly ubiquitous is a Scully 480 which is nothing more than a 4-track version of a 280 mastering deck.

Ecuna Metada people.
(And don't nobody remind me what that means in Italian, vs. African (WINK)

OK, now that everybody's out of air on that, lets start a new thread about something else. Night-night...

 

[ndiamone]

I like eggs.

*/me chuckles*

 

[ChristopherLees]

Me personally I would in fact pay the $50 membership fee if I were provided raw wavs upon which to work my own magic. ...

This a completely wrong assumption..
all converters have original product to work with , from which they make their own raw wavs..and what the consumer at the end gets is a finished product from the converter..

but if what the converter does sounds like garbage then it doesn't get released. ..
and there is a seperate democractically elected review panel to discuss each attempt from each and every converter....making possible suggestions to improve it if need be...so some converters have several attempts with their own wavs and original source material to get it right.

If the wavs disappear then it is the fault of the converter....which in this theoretical case would be you ..

if the converter (i.e.you ) decide to use some form of noise reduction(if that is what you loosely call your magic) then you do so , knowing that if you screw up,
then at least 4 people are going to tell you , that you should stop making drink coasters.

This is assuming that the group would want you to do conversions for them (if you joined) and loan you their material....after all just joining a group and then wanting to completely take over is not how it usually works in a democracy, but the group welcomes all people of skill and knowledge to help out, if they want to. ... and basically most of the poeple intersted in having the raw material in the group are converters...the majority want finished product..


Actually in a more basic form...people buy Beatles cd's ...do they want raw wavs of all the edit pieces??...does not having those raw wavs stop them from buying beatles music...I don't think so.... do they have a right to every take and edit piece??...no they don't....so why does joining a quad club entitle the member to all of the work tapes from a converter as well as his finished product.....answer..it doesn't....but it is perhaps nice to know that the converter kept his original transfer for possible future work....

 

[ndiamone]

This is assuming that the group would want you to do conversions for them if you joined and loan you their material.

(To have available the) raw files from QpS conversions was written into the "bylaws" from the very begining and was one of the main attractions of the organization…give's new meaning to the term no-brainer…Are we preserving people's feelings or quadraphonic recordings? Any path that ignores best practices is obviously not serious about preservation….But you can have your cake AND eat it too if you offer the raw files. That way anyone who wants to can start with a fresh cup of coffee and piss in it to their own satisfaction..

You'll find no disagreement from most of us concerning "raw" files…

And also assuming on the other hand I would want to sell/lend/teach them the operation of professional mastering equipment and my time involved therein. (for those interested, the answer is Yes, as stated above in an earlier post.)

…Those with the dedication, ability and maturity tend to accept constructive criticism, learn and improve their abilities as time and $$ allow, working together to get the best possible result. Those that cannot tend to take their toys and leave, then…attempt to demean anyone who won't comply with THEIR personal desires. Most of which mean nothing to the majority.

And the Forum Daddies have Spoken.

 

[BananaSlug]

This reminds me of going to the video store with 3 people. Two people will eventually agree, but with three it always used to take forever. QPS actually functions pretty well. And if you don't like the product you don't have to buy it. If you want something different you are free to do your own conversions and submit them for review (and someone else will make some really nice artwork for you). It really should be a no pressure place. The money isn't really a big issue, anybody who doesn't have $50 isn't likely to be into surround sound with all its hardware and software requirements. Every now and then a title comes up for sale, buy it or don't buy it. It's great that people have passion for quadraphonic preservation, but I'm afraid that we're losing sight of the reason we're all here. It's the music. Don't worry, be happy. And, if that doesn't work, smoke two joints. Don't worry, be happy.

 

[ndiamone]

[Semi-quotes (edited for space and clarity) from various PM's I have received this weekend]:

``I've been trying to get into professional restoration and remastering like the labels hire out to do. I'm heavy into preservation, but you can't get that kind of education and training in junior or senior college, or even at the famous recording schools in L.A., New York, Miami, Nashville or Chicago no matter what kind of money you pay. Being I don't have that kind of money anyway, how would I get started branching out?''

The men here of a teaching mind will I am sure be more than happy to guide you. In addition to that, there are a few basics in both performance and equipment if you are truly serious:

For the restorationist-in-training, rather than getting a great big mastering deck right off the bat, it might be a good idea to look on California, New York, Miami, Nashville or Chicago Craigslist under `Professional Music and Stage Equipment' or on EBAY.

There's always some nice TASCAM 4-track professional 10-inch reel decks with the preview head and once in awhile you find a couple of nice Technics from the 90's from some guy's home studio that would serve you well for not much money.

As far as professional restoration of Q-8's you can get a radio-station commercial cart-player in the same manner and have it retrofitted with a 4-track/8-track mechanism, a two speed 3-3/4/7-1/2 commercial motor (for in-cart fast-forward) and an 8-channel quarter-inch head so you don't end up with any more head alignment errors from having a movable 4-channel head selecting programs.

Make sure the head in either the reel to reel or cartridge unit is capable of manual rack, wrap, height, and azimuth, as you will need to correct some or all of these prior to the final transfer of each tape you plan to restore.

To place the heads back into their factory-prescribed position upon completion of the transfer, source out some STL (Standard Tape Library, now called Magnetic Reference Laboratories) calibration reels of the gauge(s) of tape upon which you are working, and pick up any one of several `Tape Head Alignment' books to help you along step-by-step.

Once you do that, simply transfer the tape, exporting the 4 channels of reel or 8 channels of 8 track off the head into a similarly sourced 4-or 8-channel preamp with the EQ and pre-emphasis selection built-in.

In the case of reel-to-reels, in order to get the best treble response, you might choose to use the pre-emphasis for the next-lower speed the tape was recorded at, i.e. playing the tape at normal speed while using pre-emphasis for 3-3/4 when remastering a tape recorded at 7-1/2.

For 8-tracks, use 1-7/8 or even 15-16 pre-emphasis (measured in us/EQ,, 120, 70, 50, 35, etc) when you transfer. You can always take the treble down in the computer later if you need to. It's a lot harder and sounds a lot worse trying to boost frequencies that were either not recorded or recorded poorly in the first place.

Then pipe that into say, an M-Audio 8-channel computer-recording high resolution soundcard. Record at the highest resolution capable of your soundcard, (usually 192/32) and central processor without inherent amounts of stopping and skipping. Old hard drives WILL skip a LOT when trying to record multi-channel, so get a fresh or not-too-abused Seagate Cheetah or one of the other Specific to Video Hard Drives which run at 15,500 RPM or greater for storing your productions.

For buying this special kind of hard drive, you will need to go to the Broadcast Supply House in your area. You will not be able to find it at the Wiz Elecronics or Circuit City.

Have a separate 500GB or larger hard drive onto which to export the VERY large files you will get upon transfer. For 8-tracks, split with the soundcard or other software the program into Odd tracks for side 1 and Even tracks for side 2 and save as either raw PCM or Broadcast-Wav file same as for reels.

Print the raw, high resolution Broadcast-Wav or other PCM file onto DVD or Blu-Ray for archival purposes and store them in Cold Storage. You will need the high resolution transfers upon which to perform many if not all restoration processes, most of which simply do not turn out that well on standard 44.1/ 48 or (some) 96KHz transfers. Downsample for final production mastering only when you need to, and of course save a high-resolution master of your restored final product.

Happy Restoration and Mastering.

 

[quadanasaziland]

where people are complaining about---and the complainees are complaining right back about--- this quad preservation society and how the worst fate a master could have is to end up there." ..

"I would think each man would want his own straight, raw unrestored transfer upon which to work his own magic in his own den/studio".

"my PM box is crowded with long dissertations of the whole transfer and restoration affair from about three different sides of the issue at hand".

Well at least now everybody is forewarned. Me personally I would in fact pay the $50 membership fee if I were provided raw wavs upon which to work my own magic. However, apparently I am not the only one who cannot see his way clear to subscribing, only to take the chance of possibly receiving an overly-processed final product... .

Damn this crap pisses me off! QpS has been evolving since it's inception and still has a ways to go but you got to love it when the new guy gets a few pm's and starts talking out his arse. The converters for QpS earned thier position, maybe you too could be a converter if you can walk the walk! You are getting off on the wrong foot though! At the rate you are going you and a of q can chuckle and eat eggs together!