Albini is spot-on. WAV vs tape is like Mpeg vs 35mm. Nobody knew 1080p resolution could be extracted from a 35mm roll up until last decade. now 4K video is being extracted from film rolls. All the TV series recorded in the 80s and 90s onto VHS or laser-disc? screwed. that's why TV series like X-Files are never going to be watchable in HD. the studio digitized film rolls, then destroyed the negatives and now those obsolete digital formats cannot be restored.
I have always been facinated by Mr Albini since I first heard Big Black in the 80s. I love his opinion on digital, it does have its place, be it for demos, games, or that massive digital watch on his arm.
I disagree. I use Adobe Auditon 1.5 for alot of work, when I upgraded to Adobe Auditon 3.0 none of the masters from the 1.5 sessions were compatible. Hard drives fail, and you cannot extract any more information from the master than what is there digitally. I fully support the notion that if you want your music masters to stand the test of time, then it has to be on a hard system eg tape or vinyl. It has nothing to do with sound quality, but it is harder but more fulfilling to record analog. There is no undo.
Jason Newman I remember finding this from the Electrical Audio forum about 10 years ago. I really liked it, except for the part about extracting more information out of a recording. That's plain unscientific. It's like making a sculpture in the dark, and then coming back to it in the day. All the information is there from the beginning. The same logic can be applied to a high resolution digital recording that was mixed on a consumer grade hi-fi, and then listened back to on a much better system. Ten years after this lecture, I can see the problem with digital archival permenance has been overstated. But I am glad somebody pointed out how important it is to maintain your archive.
He's not right on the longevity of digital recordings. Pure audio file format is so simple it won't ever change, it is just a stream of bits. And there is no danger of losing them cause everything can be cheaply backed up on cloud systems. The only thing changing is the daw and the project file formats, but even the plugin software is compatible on open standards. Using software is nothing to shy away from. Just keep your raw audio files and you can always reproduce, remix, remaster them whenever you want to.
paul grant I will always allow Steve Albini the benefit of the doubt and to slide on some things. If indeed his wearing of old-school haberdashery pre-dates the current generation of hipsters, then I am okay with it. Anyway I'm quite certain Albini doesn't follow trends, even if he doesn't necessarily defy them on purpose. I just think he happens to have a novel approach to his life and art.
1:22:08 I have to disagree with Albini here. WAV files are probably the universal digital format, and I don't think there will be a time when they are unplayable.
He has spoken about "stemming files" before and he likens it to recording each raw recorded track on its own reel of tape and then having to re-edit, mix and sync and piece together the thing again on another console and machine. The point is, if you record a session on a 24-track machine, do the edits and mixes on that reel, you can load the reel onto another machine, anywhere in the world and the edits and session is intact, aside from console EQ or outboard stuff. If you receive a protools file and the only thing you have is Logic, you have to remix the whole thing from .wav files and the edit points and any other things are lost. That's his point. If there was a universal file type that translated from DAW to DAW, then you can compare the two. The other problem is that the companies that make digital hardware, give zero shits about the future. They don't care if you old hard drive is firewire. If you don't have a way to mount the hard drive via firewire, you're out of luck. Eventually USB will be phased out. Eventually Thunderbolt 1 and 2 will be obsolete and your hardware will have to support it or it won't work and backwards compatibility is becoming harder to convince companies like Apple or Avid that it's critical to future archiving. Etc, etc.
Ah, yes. Good call. When will the sombrero be adopted by the hipster? Would like to see a half-dozen or more people riding the bus or subway, all sportin' enormous sombreros. Perhaps I'll start the trend.
Jesus Christ. Well if it isn't the god damn fashion police. It's a hat. Get over yourself. Steve Albini could walk around in garbage bags and his opinion on recording would still be valid.
aaron marko - There's considerable difference between wearing a hat and wearing garbage bags. If Steve Albini were walking around in garbage bags, it's not the fashion police he'd need to worry about. Rather the REAL police would probably arrest a garbage bag-wearing Albini for loitering or trespassing, thinking him homeless, or put him under psychiactric evaluation, thinking him nuts. I just figured Albini would eschew the hipster chapeau, and I'm surprised he hadn't. But garbage bags would actually be a daring statement.
+jaybone23 Garbage bags worked for Devo www.clubdevo.com/~pilmer/index.php/photos/item/2817-devo-by-blum-ochs So I guess that's been done. I think you'll find those hats were around long before hipsters and have been worn by many. Do you complain about tom Waits choice of hats or The Specials ? He looks like a guy that gets sun-burned pretty easily. He is probably being sensible (and before you say why doesn't he take it off inside...People don't respect hats and many would no doubt want to steal Steve's + no hatstands anymore...). My hat is probably more like Arlo Guthrie's.....but I live in a very sunny place. Don't bag the hat.....
+googlanche googlequake - Ah yes! Good call about the etiquette of hat-wearing. A long ago girlfriend's father thought I was a loathsome punk because I came to a family dinner wearing a ball cap, and kept it on while I ate. Of course he was right. I WAS a loathsome punk. The relationship died not too long after. I haven't a clue as to the etiquette of wearing garbage bags.I don't think I've EVER complained about Tom Waits, except maybe to wonder why "Nighthawks at the Diner" wasn't REALLY recorded live in a small club. I even held my tongue after seeing him in "Mystery Men".And with that, I take my leave, promising that I shan't bag any hat from this point forward.
+jaybone23 Heh. I'm fairly convinced Tom Waits is mostly an actor - and a great musician....I'm glad you've been lessoned well. Good day to you...*doffs hat* ; )
+bucktoofus Back then you had to host a lecture to do that. Advances in digital technology hadn't quite reached the pinnacle of today's You Tube commentary
![Steve Albini - Q and A [Drexel Music Industry Program]](/img/n.gif)
RIP Steve
Albini is spot-on.
WAV vs tape is like Mpeg vs 35mm. Nobody knew 1080p resolution could be extracted from a 35mm roll up until last decade. now 4K video is being extracted from film rolls. All the TV series recorded in the 80s and 90s onto VHS or laser-disc? screwed. that's why TV series like X-Files are never going to be watchable in HD. the studio digitized film rolls, then destroyed the negatives and now those obsolete digital formats cannot be restored.
Seinfeld in HD looks better than it ever had I think. Now each episode looks like a little movie
Isn't there a way to add resolution to old digital formats?
Now it's even worse. A real painting is destroy deliberately and transforming to NFT....
They put out X-Files in hd after you wrote that, but yeah.
I have always been facinated by Mr Albini since I first heard Big Black in the 80s. I love his opinion on digital, it does have its place, be it for demos, games, or that massive digital watch on his arm.
I disagree. I use Adobe Auditon 1.5 for alot of work, when I upgraded to Adobe Auditon 3.0 none of the masters from the 1.5 sessions were compatible. Hard drives fail, and you cannot extract any more information from the master than what is there digitally. I fully support the notion that if you want your music masters to stand the test of time, then it has to be on a hard system eg tape or vinyl. It has nothing to do with sound quality, but it is harder but more fulfilling to record analog. There is no undo.
Jason Newman I remember finding this from the Electrical Audio forum about 10 years ago. I really liked it, except for the part about extracting more information out of a recording. That's plain unscientific. It's like making a sculpture in the dark, and then coming back to it in the day. All the information is there from the beginning. The same logic can be applied to a high resolution digital recording that was mixed on a consumer grade hi-fi, and then listened back to on a much better system.
Ten years after this lecture, I can see the problem with digital archival permenance has been overstated. But I am glad somebody pointed out how important it is to maintain your archive.
My god, it's a phlegm factory in there
covid
covid still
If you dont like it, then don't listen!
Thanks for posting this. I attended MTSU in the late 90s and I loved the lectures like this.
Holy shit. I was there for this. Mind blower. Thanks for posting.
Did he give this lecture during flu season or what? Jesus Christ
He's always a pretty articulate guy when he speaks. Smart man.. he should teach / lecture at Universities and stuff more often as well as his day job.
Thank you so much for uploading this again.
Pretty sure this were Covid-19 came from.
Working for electric must be amazing. Free hair for employees. Wonder if they have a similar dental plan...
lmfao "the great majority of what you're doing is solving problems" so true
finally someone who understands my view on music.
lol, his website hasn't changed since this was recorded
Jason Mewes?
Do you think he still doesn't have a cell phone?
33:40
He's not right on the longevity of digital recordings. Pure audio file format is so simple it won't ever change, it is just a stream of bits. And there is no danger of losing them cause everything can be cheaply backed up on cloud systems. The only thing changing is the daw and the project file formats, but even the plugin software is compatible on open standards. Using software is nothing to shy away from. Just keep your raw audio files and you can always reproduce, remix, remaster them whenever you want to.
why won't that girl stop coughing, get out of there
What a hat
Huh. Do what
Seriously why are so many people coughing.....
The irony of how terrible the quality of this is....
On no. He's wearing a hipster hat. What the fuck?!?!
to be fair he was wearing these hats since the 80's
paul grant I will always allow Steve Albini the benefit of the doubt and to slide on some things. If indeed his wearing of old-school haberdashery pre-dates the current generation of hipsters, then I am okay with it. Anyway I'm quite certain Albini doesn't follow trends, even if he doesn't necessarily defy them on purpose. I just think he happens to have a novel approach to his life and art.
*****
fuck you
1:22:08 I have to disagree with Albini here. WAV files are probably the universal digital format, and I don't think there will be a time when they are unplayable.
He has spoken about "stemming files" before and he likens it to recording each raw recorded track on its own reel of tape and then having to re-edit, mix and sync and piece together the thing again on another console and machine. The point is, if you record a session on a 24-track machine, do the edits and mixes on that reel, you can load the reel onto another machine, anywhere in the world and the edits and session is intact, aside from console EQ or outboard stuff. If you receive a protools file and the only thing you have is Logic, you have to remix the whole thing from .wav files and the edit points and any other things are lost. That's his point. If there was a universal file type that translated from DAW to DAW, then you can compare the two. The other problem is that the companies that make digital hardware, give zero shits about the future. They don't care if you old hard drive is firewire. If you don't have a way to mount the hard drive via firewire, you're out of luck. Eventually USB will be phased out. Eventually Thunderbolt 1 and 2 will be obsolete and your hardware will have to support it or it won't work and backwards compatibility is becoming harder to convince companies like Apple or Avid that it's critical to future archiving. Etc, etc.
@Ian Ballard Fair points.
@@christopherwho8566 pedantic
but aiffs sound better.
For a talk for a room of audio engineers, this has pretty terrible sound!
Ah, yes. Good call. When will the sombrero be adopted by the hipster? Would like to see a half-dozen or more people riding the bus or subway, all sportin' enormous sombreros. Perhaps I'll start the trend.
Jesus Christ. Well if it isn't the god damn fashion police. It's a hat. Get over yourself. Steve Albini could walk around in garbage bags and his opinion on recording would still be valid.
aaron marko - There's considerable difference between wearing a hat and wearing garbage bags. If Steve Albini were walking around in garbage bags, it's not the fashion police he'd need to worry about. Rather the REAL police would probably arrest a garbage bag-wearing Albini for loitering or trespassing, thinking him homeless, or put him under psychiactric evaluation, thinking him nuts. I just figured Albini would eschew the hipster chapeau, and I'm surprised he hadn't. But garbage bags would actually be a daring statement.
+jaybone23 Garbage bags worked for Devo www.clubdevo.com/~pilmer/index.php/photos/item/2817-devo-by-blum-ochs So I guess that's been done. I think you'll find those hats were around long before hipsters and have been worn by many. Do you complain about tom Waits choice of hats or The Specials ?
He looks like a guy that gets sun-burned pretty easily. He is probably being sensible (and before you say why doesn't he take it off inside...People don't respect hats and many would no doubt want to steal Steve's + no hatstands anymore...).
My hat is probably more like Arlo Guthrie's.....but I live in a very sunny place.
Don't bag the hat.....
+googlanche googlequake - Ah yes! Good call about the etiquette of hat-wearing. A long ago girlfriend's father thought I was a loathsome punk because I came to a family dinner wearing a ball cap, and kept it on while I ate. Of course he was right. I WAS a loathsome punk. The relationship died not too long after. I haven't a clue as to the etiquette of wearing garbage bags.I don't think I've EVER complained about Tom Waits, except maybe to wonder why "Nighthawks at the Diner" wasn't REALLY recorded live in a small club. I even held my tongue after seeing him in "Mystery Men".And with that, I take my leave, promising that I shan't bag any hat from this point forward.
+jaybone23 Heh. I'm fairly convinced Tom Waits is mostly an actor - and a great musician....I'm glad you've been lessoned well. Good day to you...*doffs hat* ; )
this guy sure gets offended by a lot of shit that really doesn't matter at all...
+bucktoofus Back then you had to host a lecture to do that. Advances in digital technology hadn't quite reached the pinnacle of today's You Tube commentary
is this guy the only non jew in the music industry
Spotted the Cringe "red pilled" dude
@@olihagen have you seen the music industry. jews have a stereotype for a reason
What the fuck?
its the jew on the inside that counts