Re: [ARSCLIST] National Recording Registry

[Mike Richter <mrichter@xxxxxxx>]

At 09:03 PM 1/29/2003 -0500, Mike Loughlin wrote:
> Duane, The question is not about sound quality, it is about preservation and
> access. If a recording sits in the library of congress and nobody hears it
> does it make a sound. Sound quality can also be improved after transferring
> to cd also, if that's what you want. The lady on the radio wanted to
> preserve a recording of her great-grandmother's oral history of riding a
> covered wagon into Missouri. The people on the show totally discouraged her.
> She could have easily made many copies of the tape she had. That would have
> given her a better chance of preserving her great-grandmas legacy than
> hanging on to a single casette tape. No one is saying to throw away the
> analog originals are they?-ml

Of course the analogue source should be preserved. With it should be an
analogue copy of practical quality. In the same transfer which generates
the analogue tape, a digital recording can be made on a standalone
recorder. The original should be archived for that day when better
extraction can be tried despite its degradation over time. The analogue
dupe can be used or preserved as appropriate. But the digital capture can
spawn all the copies one desires for archives, for enhancement or for
whatever other purpose. So the solution for that woman would have been:
have someone who knows how set up a single transfer from which further
action can be defined at will.

In the limited work I have done with such materials, I've found that there
are two extremes and a range in between. One extreme is: give me the raw
material and I will see what I can extract. The other is: Make it
listenable to modern ears accustomed to DDD recording. With the undoctored
digital dub, each user can produce what he/she wants but the original is
not compromised.

I know that all that is self-evident. However, sometimes even the obvious
is worth stating.

Mike
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/