Any longer term Single of the Day readers still reading? Anyone remember the arduous task of archiving and future proofing all the material I had in my song catalog? In case you haven’t read about that earlier this year, I went thru a massive undertaking of future proofing my audio projects in my studio. It took a couple of months to get it all done.
Why did I do that? I had backups with digital glitches in them that created problems with playback. Additionally I had songs that had never been stemmed out with the original sounds of some of the virtual instruments used. Thus when moving forward in the tech world, it happens that old instruments tend to get left behind. Not great if you ever have to revisit a mix years down the road.
Anyway, this morning came a request from a co-writer for a song that we had recorded. She needed an alternate mix and lo and behold, I go digging thru my archives. I now have nicely arranged and documented archives. I also went thru my hard drives and another stack of discs that I have of older material. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find the files anywhere. I know for one of the songs in question that she has the files to them. But for one of the other songs, I can not for the life of me figure out where those files went.
The only thing I can figure is that they must have gotten corrupted and where part of the few files that I did not get to future proof. That sucks. But what can I do? They’re no where to be found. Oh well.
I suppose at some point, no matter what you do, something will always disappear. I know that for some people, especially pack rats it’s a major disaster to lose something. Even if you’re not making any kind of use of it. But with songs, it’s a different matter. You never know when a song will be right for an opportunity. I suppose the only solution is to go back and actually record the track again. Don’t know if that’s really an option, but it’s pretty much the only option if the song is that good. It’s also not the first time I’ve lost songs. But it should be the last. I have no reason to lose any songs since the big archiving of 2008.
It makes me wonder if big time artists have ever lost material. I’m sure stuff recorded on Reel to Reel machines is probably on the verge of extinction. But how long will it take things recorded on computers to reach extinction. That’s the real question.
While today’s pick is a band from a bygone era, they still resonate today. The production, the chops, the playing. Whew. It’s all there. I’m sure someone is paying a decent piece of coin to keep those recordings properly stored and backed up. Especially with the quality of the songwriting and the production.
Although the song is about being out of a relationship gone sour and the protagonist is standing tall and on their way in their life, I can liken the title to a song that I should have had backed up for remixing and now it’s already gone. Like a bad relationship I suppose it’s best to relegate it to a memory and move on. Oooh, I can think of another correlation, but I think I’ve already beat that horse to a pulp in the past couple of weeks with other posts. 🙂
For those of us that weren’t around in the 60’s and early 70’s it’s a wise choice to go back and see what was created by those bands that are pretty much already gone. Don’t ya think?