Library of Congress Preserves Sounds in Shellac
Mike Rivers
There was an appropriate piece on All Things Considered today,
April 1. The Library of Congress, frustrated by the rapidly changing
audio formats, is preserving their sound archives on 78 RPM shellac
disks.
It's a spoof, of course, but there's some real food for thought in
there. I'm guessing (from the name of the foundation giving the grant
for the is project) that this clever piece is the work of archivist
and audio humorist Steve Smolian.
Check it out at
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1216161.html
--
I'm really Mike Rivers - (mri...@d-and-d.com)
Steven Sena
--
Steven Sena
XS Sound
www.xssound.com
"Mike Rivers" <mri...@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1049253157k@trad...
Chris Hornbeck
<xss...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Now you know, I hate NPR but that was funny...
I, OTOH, love NPR, and, while it was a little funny,
was very far from their best. It certainly was topical
on this newsgroup, though, and had an element of truth
that went beyond funny; so, yeah, you're right!
I look forward to these, after having been "caught"
by the 04/01/9? episode of the "mouth-sounds contest".
Some guy imitating a steam locomotive and then a
choir? OK, maybe it was only me; but I (used to) work
for a living. I made everyone at work come gather
around the radio to hear this amazing.......
About an hour later...
Chris Hornbeck,
guyville{at}aristotle{dot}net
Jim Gilliland
>
> There was an appropriate piece on All Things Considered today,
> April 1. The Library of Congress, frustrated by the rapidly changing
> audio formats, is preserving their sound archives on 78 RPM shellac
> disks.
>
> It's a spoof, of course, but there's some real food for thought in
> there. I'm guessing (from the name of the foundation giving the grant
> for the is project) that this clever piece is the work of archivist
> and audio humorist Steve Smolian.
I didn't hear it on the air, but my wife came home and told me about
it. However, she never figured out that it was a spoof! I listened to
her explanation, and told her that it didn't make a bit of sense, but it
never occured to me that it was an April Fool's joke. So I'll let her
know later.
I still remember sitting in my car on April 1st a few years ago (maybe
ten?) listening to the story on All Things Considered about how the US
had decided to cede Arizona to Canada. They did all the requisite
analysis about the pros and cons, about the issues that led up to the
decision, even an opinion piece by Daniel Schorr. It was brilliant.
After it was over, I got out of my car to buy some things at the
drugstore. At the checkout, I commented on the story to the clerk
(without mentioning the April Fool aspect). Her response? "I didn't
know Arizona was so close to Canada."
That's the truth.
Roger W. Norman
prevent the theft of music called vinyl. Roughly the same thing.
Humorously written and saving the punchline until the last.
--
Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Ro...@SirMusicStudio.com
301-585-4681
"Mike Rivers" <mri...@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1049253157k@trad...
>
William Sommerwerck
part of the US. You have to compromise somewhere.
Jim Gilliland wrote...
Mike Rivers
> Yeah, I got an email from Ronnie Wells about this amazing new development to
> prevent the theft of music called vinyl. Roughly the same thing.
> Humorously written and saving the punchline until the last.
I got that story from a friend at L of C and posted it here a while
back. I believe that, as well as the story about the shellac disk
recording project were both written by our friendly local audio
archivist and perservationist Steve Smolian.
Steve
Clearly a spoof but what kind of recording would be likely to survive
hundreds or thousands of years.Forget anything digital. It would have
to be analog. Shellac wont. But how about etched granite or stainless
steel?
Steve Lane
Artie Turner
> Clearly a spoof but what kind of recording would be likely to survive
> hundreds or thousands of years.Forget anything digital. It would have
> to be analog.
Ok, it's April 2nd, back to reality. ;^)
Shellac wont. But how about etched granite or stainless
> steel?
Great for counter tops and gravestones, a little bulky for the Walkman.
Artie
>
> Steve Lane
Analogeezer
I'd suggest that whatever that record they attached to the Voyager
spacecraft was made out of. The one that had Chuck Berry, political
speeches, etc.
My day job industry (aerial mapping) is starting to make the headlong
rush to digital...us and the movie biz will be the last major
consumers of film. The thing is much of this stuff (aerial
photographic images) is very valuable from a legal perspective (e.g.
property rights, water rights, that sort of thing) so you really do
need to preserve it, but the digitheads are so enamored of their new
toys they are giving little thought to storage and archival from these
systems for future years.
We're talking major amounts of data, 600 to 900 gig from one plane in
a day, each image is about 300 meg or more (it's a large format).
Modern Aerial film (post about 1955), properly stored has a life of
100+ years, but now you've got people proposing to scan these archives
which are often 1,000,000+ frames in size, at 100 - 300 megs per
image.
Our facility that is responsible for the archival of this analog stuff
(it comes in large cans, about 10 inches high by five inches in
diamter) also does satellite data, the last time I was out there they
were on their fourth type of backup media for that data in about 12
years....about once every three years they have to get some new
storage technology and refresh their archive to that new media.
Digital is great for many things, but archival is not one of them,
that's for sure...maybe those old guys had the right idea with the
stone tablet.
Analogeezer
Scott Dorsey
>
>Shellac wont. But how about etched granite or stainless
Copper blank (cut DMM) that is gold plated. (Solid gold would be better...
it's totally inert and would cut better than copper since it's softer, but
NASA was willing to compromise and go with gold-plated copper).
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Artie Turner
> Artie Turner <art...@swbell.nyet> wrote:
Actually, I didn't write that.
>
>>Shellac wont. But how about etched granite or stainless
>
>
> Copper blank (cut DMM) that is gold plated. (Solid gold would be better...
> it's totally inert and would cut better than copper since it's softer, but
> NASA was willing to compromise and go with gold-plated copper).
I was responding to the same line you did. Using etched granite or
stainless steel to archive audio makes for a marginally funny post-April
Fool's gag, but I guess I'm missing something.
What's wrong with storing audio as digital data? If the storage medium
approaches its estimated shelf life, transfer it to the latest digital
storage medium.
Granite, steel, and gold plated copper seem a little heavy and expensive
for archiving, but then, when did Congress ever worry about cost?
Artie
> --scott
sgordon
: Clearly a spoof but what kind of recording would be likely to survive
: hundreds or thousands of years.Forget anything digital. It would have
: to be analog. Shellac wont. But how about etched granite or stainless
: steel?
Wasn't something like that included in one of our spacecrafts, and
in the 1000-year time capsule sponsored by ... was it Time Magazine
a few years back? Certainly a titanium disk (or some such) would
last far longer than any current digital medium, and be much easier
to playback later (presuming the finders would need to deduce how to
play it back) if it were analog.
Scott
Steve
I think you have to consider that in hundreds or thousands of years
the technology that we have now may be lost due to some kind of
catastrophy. A simple mechanical analog system would be simpler
to implement. But what would you want to preserve ?
Stevel
Mike Rivers
> I think you have to consider that in hundreds or thousands of years
> the technology that we have now may be lost due to some kind of
> catastrophy. A simple mechanical analog system would be simpler
> to implement. But what would you want to preserve ?
Well, if you heard the piece on the air (or listened to the Real Audio
link) you'd have heard that LofC is preserving Celine Dion and Eminem.
On the other hand, I sometimes wonder why musicians just starting to
record at home want to preserve anything for more than about the life
of a floppy disk.
P Stamler
>
>In article <224b4a15.03040...@posting.google.com> sste...@aol.com
>writes:
>
>> I think you have to consider that in hundreds or thousands of years
>> the technology that we have now may be lost due to some kind of
>> catastrophy. A simple mechanical analog system would be simpler
>> to implement. But what would you want to preserve ?
>
>Well, if you heard the piece on the air (or listened to the Real Audio
>link) you'd have heard that LofC is preserving Celine Dion and Eminem.
Yes, but that was in the report that aired April 1st. Their efforts may be
somewhat different the rest of the year.
In all seriousness, however, the recording attached to the Voyager spacecraft
is in fact an LP (actually running at 16-2/3 rpm) which includes analog
representations of pictures (a la analog fax) as well as music. There's also a
picture of a crude acoustic gramophone on the spacecraft to give an idea of how
to play it to anyone who might discover it.
Peace,
Paul
Chris Hornbeck
>In all seriousness, however, the recording attached to the Voyager spacecraft
>is in fact an LP (actually running at 16-2/3 rpm) which includes analog
>representations of pictures (a la analog fax) as well as music. There's also a
>picture of a crude acoustic gramophone on the spacecraft to give an idea of how
>to play it to anyone who might discover it.
Hi Paul,
I'm pretty dense, but I can't figure out how to describe to a stranger
what speed to play a disc. The Pioneer 10 used distance references
based on the wavelength of some hydrogen atom "hyperfine transition".
If they say so. They also referenced it to the size of the craft
itself. But how can they describe the correct speed? Springs
are too springy; gravity's here and there; what to do?
Thanks,
P Stamler
>what speed to play a disc. The Pioneer 10 used distance references
>based on the wavelength of some hydrogen atom "hyperfine transition".
>If they say so. They also referenced it to the size of the craft
>itself. But how can they describe the correct speed? Springs
>are too springy; gravity's here and there; what to do?
I don't remember what they actually did, but one method that springs to mind is
to establish a particular reference frequency, such as the 1420 MHz frequency
of hydrogen, then specify one revolution per 5112000000 cycles of that
frequency. Like I said, I don't know what method they actually used, but I
suspect it was something along those lines.
Peace,
Paul
Mike Rivers
> >I'm pretty dense, but I can't figure out how to describe to a stranger
> >what speed to play a disc.
> I don't remember what they actually did, but one method that springs to mind is
> to establish a particular reference frequency, such as the 1420 MHz frequency
> of hydrogen, then specify one revolution per 5112000000 cycles of that
> frequency.
If we're talking about the audio disk (16 rpm) here, I'd do what all
the transcribers of "78 rpm" disks do - adjust the speed until it
sounds right. How right does it have to be in order to get an idea of
what music sounded like on Earth in the 20th Century? If they can
still dance, they'll get it pretty close.
Bob Cain
Mike Rivers wrote:
>
> If we're talking about the audio disk (16 rpm) here, I'd do what all
> the transcribers of "78 rpm" disks do - adjust the speed until it
> sounds right. How right does it have to be in order to get an idea of
> what music sounded like on Earth in the 20th Century? If they can
> still dance, they'll get it pretty close.
Right. Further we have no basis for believing another being's perceived time
base or sensory bandwith would be anything like our own. They would just
reproduce it to be within some band that is covered by their senses and their
notion of time. Or they would just apply an FFT analysis and look at it. :-)
Bob
--
"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler."
A. Einstein
Harvey Gerst
>Mike Rivers wrote:
>>
>> If we're talking about the audio disk (16 rpm) here, I'd do what all
>> the transcribers of "78 rpm" disks do - adjust the speed until it
>> sounds right. How right does it have to be in order to get an idea of
>> what music sounded like on Earth in the 20th Century? If they can
>> still dance, they'll get it pretty close.
>Right. Further we have no basis for believing another being's perceived time
>base or sensory bandwith would be anything like our own. They would just
>reproduce it to be within some band that is covered by their senses and their
>notion of time. Or they would just apply an FFT analysis and look at it. :-)
>
>Bob
Couldn't we just include an Autotune schematic, so it'll play back at the right
pitch? I just don't see the problem here.
Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://www.ITRstudio.com/
Ben Bradley
You wouldn't want them to hear Johnny B. Goode with the 'Cher
Effect,' that would give them the wrong impression about us.
>Harvey Gerst
>Indian Trail Recording Studio
>http://www.ITRstudio.com/
Les Cargill
>
> In rec.audio.pro, Harvey Gerst <har...@ITRstudio.com> wrote:
>
> >Bob Cain <arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Mike Rivers wrote:
> >>>
> >>> If we're talking about the audio disk (16 rpm) here, I'd do what all
> >>> the transcribers of "78 rpm" disks do - adjust the speed until it
> >>> sounds right. How right does it have to be in order to get an idea of
> >>> what music sounded like on Earth in the 20th Century? If they can
> >>> still dance, they'll get it pretty close.
> >
> >>Right. Further we have no basis for believing another being's perceived time
> >>base or sensory bandwith would be anything like our own. They would just
> >>reproduce it to be within some band that is covered by their senses and their
> >>notion of time. Or they would just apply an FFT analysis and look at it. :-)
> >>
> >>Bob
> >
> >Couldn't we just include an Autotune schematic, so it'll play back at the right
> >pitch? I just don't see the problem here.
>
> You wouldn't want them to hear Johnny B. Goode with the 'Cher
> Effect,'
I would if Devo did it.
> that would give them the wrong impression about us.
>
> >Harvey Gerst
> >Indian Trail Recording Studio
> >http://www.ITRstudio.com/
>
> -----
> http://mindspring.com/~benbradley
--
Les Cargill
Mike Rivers
> I'm pretty dense, but I can't figure out how to describe to a stranger
> what speed to play a disc.
Time and time again, we tell people "use your ears." What you need to
be able to describe is the concept of what it is - that you need to
spin it around the center axis and put a point in the grooves to
convert mechanical motion to sound. They'll figure out what speed to
turn it at once they get some sound out of it. They may not make A be
440 Hz, but then we don't know what their hearing will be like 10,000
years into the future. It might just be some curious but meaningful
sounds to them.
(isn't that what some forms of pop music are right now?)
lanis lebaron & hank alrich
> Harvey Gerst <har...@ITRstudio.com> wrote:
> >Couldn't we just include an Autotune schematic, so it'll play back at the
> >right pitch? I just don't see the problem here.
> You wouldn't want them to hear Johnny B. Goode with the 'Cher
> Effect,' that would give them the wrong impression about us.
Yeah, they might think Chuck Berry would use hair gel and hang out in
ladies' rooms.
--
ha
lanis lebaron & hank alrich
> guyv...@removethisaristotle.net writes:
>
> > I'm pretty dense, but I can't figure out how to describe to a stranger
> > what speed to play a disc.
> Time and time again, we tell people "use your ears."
But what if they're not people and they don't have ears?
--
ha
Ben Bradley
wrote:
Use your sensory inputs.
>--
>ha