5 ms·

I normally don't bother posting replies to comments on here, but I have to point out that this is an unbelievably bizarre and wrongheaded interpretation of the

by mrbbk 7y ago

I normally don't bother posting replies to comments on here, but I have to point out that this is an unbelievably bizarre and wrongheaded interpretation of the scale and depth of this disaster. Curated collections of lossless streaming music are possible to recreate. Master tapes can NEVER BE RECREATED. Comparing the loss of a collection of reproducible fungible audio files with analog magnetic tape is misinformed at best and disingenuous at worst.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
randomsearch 7y ago
Steelmanning, if you’re certain you’re correct then you should assume the OP was misinformed, in which case why not kindly explain why without being aggressive? Educate us rather than attack us, please!
- bogomipz 7y ago
  They did explain and so does the article: From the article: >'2. The Truest Capture It is sonic fidelity, first and foremost, that defines the importance of masters. “A master is the truest capture of a piece of recorded music,” said Adam Block, the former president of Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment’s catalog arm. “Sonically, masters can be stunning in their capturing of an event in time. Every copy thereafter is a sonic step away.”' There is no recording with fidelity greater than the master tapes. It is the canonical "lossless" audio source. To state that the loss of a retail outlet that sold consumer products is somehow greater than the loss of 175K original audio recording from which all retail products were generated from is truly bizarre. I didn't take the OP's tone aggressive just one of astonishment.
- Dirlewanger 7y ago
  Remember that what.cd only stored metadata files like .torrents/magnets/.cues/etc. I doubt very few, if any, of the rare releases there were actually lost; they're still out there somewhere in the Internet. What was lost was the platform and the community that allowed said rare music to be easily shared and propagated.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Can you still use a cached copy of what.cd since all it hosted was metadata that you could pull downloads from?
imtyler 7y ago
I understand your point, but what good are master tapes if they're not available to be heard? I think you could argue that destroying a musical distribution network has the same effect as destroying music: it's no longer available to be consumed.
- xoa 7y ago
  >I understand your point, but what good are master tapes if they're not available to be heard? But they might be. The article itself gave examples of music long ignored that was rediscovered and became of interest, at which point the company could go to its archive and digitize the masters again with the latest tech. They did keep it archived in the first place for a reason after all. Alternatively with advancing tech and changing management the time may come when they'd be able to and decide to floor-perfectly digitize it all. Or down the road the public zeitgeist might change and support requiring the above. Whether or not they were private, they at least represented potential, real and significant potential. Just like the Brazil museum that burned, or so many other sad losses. Having that potential destroyed forever can be rued even if it's not fully certain it'd be realized can't it?
  - iicc 7y ago
    >music long ignored that was rediscovered and became of interest, at which point the company could go to its archive and digitize the masters again with the latest tech. For anyone interested check out the part-isolated "mogg" files from the Rockband games.
    - LocalH 7y ago
      Harmonix doesn't really like people getting those stems out of the games, though (it can affect their ability to license music going forward). I'm part of the GH community, and when RB4 was ripped, HMX got pissed. Admittedly, the people downloading the rips largely didn't care about analyzing the music, they just wanted to play RB4 songs for free, so I totally understand why they'd be pissed. They care far less about the stems they put out in the pre-RB days, in GH1/2/80s. But they were mostly covers in the first place (except for the bonus songs, and a small handful of main setlist songs).
xnyan 7y ago
Was screaming really a need in this post? Despite what you wanted to communicate, that was my take away.
nitwit005 7y ago
Assuming the original masters are preserved. Plenty of stuff does get lost, discarded, and occasionally the warehouse burns down: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-universal-fire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-univ... The digital copies often is all there is.

by mrbbk 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

randomsearch 7y ago

Steelmanning, if you’re certain you’re correct then you should assume the OP was misinformed, in which case why not kindly explain why without being aggressive? Educate us rather than attack us, please!

bogomipz 7y ago
They did explain and so does the article: From the article: >'2. The Truest Capture It is sonic fidelity, first and foremost, that defines the importance of masters. “A master is the truest capture of a piece of recorded music,” said Adam Block, the former president of Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment’s catalog arm. “Sonically, masters can be stunning in their capturing of an event in time. Every copy thereafter is a sonic step away.”' There is no recording with fidelity greater than the master tapes. It is the canonical "lossless" audio source. To state that the loss of a retail outlet that sold consumer products is somehow greater than the loss of 175K original audio recording from which all retail products were generated from is truly bizarre. I didn't take the OP's tone aggressive just one of astonishment.
Dirlewanger 7y ago
Remember that what.cd only stored metadata files like .torrents/magnets/.cues/etc. I doubt very few, if any, of the rare releases there were actually lost; they're still out there somewhere in the Internet. What was lost was the platform and the community that allowed said rare music to be easily shared and propagated.
- asdff 7y ago
  Can you still use a cached copy of what.cd since all it hosted was metadata that you could pull downloads from?

imtyler 7y ago

I understand your point, but what good are master tapes if they're not available to be heard? I think you could argue that destroying a musical distribution network has the same effect as destroying music: it's no longer available to be consumed.

xoa 7y ago
>I understand your point, but what good are master tapes if they're not available to be heard? But they might be. The article itself gave examples of music long ignored that was rediscovered and became of interest, at which point the company could go to its archive and digitize the masters again with the latest tech. They did keep it archived in the first place for a reason after all. Alternatively with advancing tech and changing management the time may come when they'd be able to and decide to floor-perfectly digitize it all. Or down the road the public zeitgeist might change and support requiring the above. Whether or not they were private, they at least represented potential, real and significant potential. Just like the Brazil museum that burned, or so many other sad losses. Having that potential destroyed forever can be rued even if it's not fully certain it'd be realized can't it?
- iicc 7y ago
  >music long ignored that was rediscovered and became of interest, at which point the company could go to its archive and digitize the masters again with the latest tech. For anyone interested check out the part-isolated "mogg" files from the Rockband games.
  - LocalH 7y ago
    Harmonix doesn't really like people getting those stems out of the games, though (it can affect their ability to license music going forward). I'm part of the GH community, and when RB4 was ripped, HMX got pissed. Admittedly, the people downloading the rips largely didn't care about analyzing the music, they just wanted to play RB4 songs for free, so I totally understand why they'd be pissed. They care far less about the stems they put out in the pre-RB days, in GH1/2/80s. But they were mostly covers in the first place (except for the bonus songs, and a small handful of main setlist songs).

xnyan 7y ago

Was screaming really a need in this post? Despite what you wanted to communicate, that was my take away.

nitwit005 7y ago

Assuming the original masters are preserved. Plenty of stuff does get lost, discarded, and occasionally the warehouse burns down: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-universal-fire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/master-recordings-univ... The digital copies often is all there is.