MOTB White Papers
| In the future we will be posting new white papers that address specific new hardware and/or software. |
Yesterday's Transfers:
In the 1980’s the taping/ trading community started transferring the old analog master tapes to digital formats, utilizing 16-bit PCM technology. But that was twenty years ago! The 21st Century has yielded amazing steps in audio technology. The live music community has been trading music for decades and have been vanguards in live music preservation and archiving. Tapers have always sought the finest recording decks, cables, mic pre’s and mic’s.
Today, tapers use the best field digital recording gear around and have rigs so small that they can achieve high-quality recordings from "pocket" stealth rigs. Considering they don't use tape anymore, should we still call them "tapers"? This craving for "the best rig" has pushed us deep into the newest technology both for live show recording as well as trading. How come the digital transfers of the best analog recordings haven't kept pace?
OK, so what is it that sets MOTB apart?
This process is very different than what has been happening in the community. The transfers of recent times have been done at very low bit depths and slow speeds I.E 16 bit / 44.1kHz. They are still being done with technology that was the vanguard in the mid 1980’s. There is an inherent loss of musicality in these transfers. Errors are abounding in these transfers. The Mastering process at these bit depths causes horrible digital artifacts. Our process ensures only the finest sound quality releases. Our 2nd and 3rd generation tape transfers sound better than the Masters done in the old way.
Along the same lines, just because someone transfers at higher rates does not insure better quality. If the transfer used an inferior $300 sound card or firewire interface you will see many of the same problems. They are not pro audiophile quality pieces of gear and will not produce the open transparent sound of the original tape.
Please read our white papers on Transfers 101 and our Hardware resources to get the full boat of info on how to do the job right the first time. This is not rocket science. We at the Mouth of the Beast, only wish everyone would use this process. Seeds would sound better everywhere. Our only goal is to get the music archived in the best possible manner no matter who is doing the work!
So how does MOTB transfer analog masters?
The MOTB Team is divided by specialty into important job functions. This distributes the load of expertise putting important quality control functions where they are needed in the process:
MOTB Process:
1.) Archive Vault Overseer manages the interface with the Tape Archive’s owner and makes the tapes available to MOTB
2.) Transfer: AN MOTB Transferor creates a raw digital 24/96 master either at the tapes location or in an MOTB studio. This Transferor is a team member who is directly responsible for the transfer, to WAV, of the source tapes. Playback is the first step in the process and utilizes the best available technology decks with playback azimuth control. If a source is very old or is flaking a tape ‘bake’ might be necessary to ensure the safety and best quality transfer of the Master Tape. Baking is only done with Tape owner permission and by our qualified MOTB Tape technician. The transferors are technically adept with reel to reel and cassette decks, etc. They can adjust AZIMUTH for each tape during playback. They have only the highest quality professional A/D unit available, not your $300 sound card or firewire interface. All physical connections in the equipment chain are matched to ensure maximum signal transfer and transparency. These transfers are made to hard drives not to error prone optical media. After the real time transfer, a check some file is created for the Master WAV files. An accompanying text file is generated detailing all information of this important step including transferor’s notes on the source. Copies of these are put into the MOTB Vaults around the world. One copy is returned with the tape to its owner.
3.) Master WAV file evaluation is done by multiple MOTB researchers and MOTB Reviewer/Listeners to detail quality of the source and annotate the shows text file for issues to be corrected as well as to update song titles, start times for songs, etc. In this way an editor can quickly get to the task of editing vs. a multi-hour listening session. This process will determine if the show in question will be mastered or put into the vault to be mastered later.
4.) Mastering/ Editing: A Master MOTB editor is assigned to the newly transferred show. He will read the notes from the QC process and start attacking the issues on a professional Digital Audio Workstation. This mastering process will yield a tighter error free set of lossless compressed files known as FLAC. They will be in both 16 and 24 bit flavors. The files will be tracked into individual songs. AN MOTB Control Number will be generated and will become the MOTB Release Number upon final release.
5.) QC Team Review: a few members of the MOTB team will listen to the files to do a final QC on the release. If slight modifications are necessary the master editor will go back and adjust the master and redistribute for another round of QC. This is not a DANK seed process just a sanity check!
6.) Artwork: MOTB has a team of MOTB Artists who feed the project with individual CD/DVD cover art as well as direct media marking art. This art work accompanies all final MOTB releases.
7.) SHN ID. AN MOTB member will get in contact with db.etree and obtain a new SHN ID for the show to be seeded.
8.) MOTB Seeding/ Distribution. AN MOTB Distributor will take the new seed and release it on one of the common music sharing sites as an MOTB release. The shows will be evenly distributed among the standard sites. This ensures healthy relations in the trading community. The final MOTB Release document will be placed in the MOTB Release Page of the web site.