PRESERPRESERVINGVING OUROUR MUSICALMUSICAL HERITHERITAAGEGE A Musician’s Outreach to Audio Engineers*

Mickey Hart 360º Productions, Inc., Sebastopol, CA 95473, USA

istorically we have been im- do we have a chance of winning or even sent, interpret, and make accessible pre- printing sound onto one medi- matching strides with the ravages of served films in archival collections and, Hum or another for over 110 time—a most worthy opponent. And a in doing so, demonstrate the cultural and years. The first person to capture sound worthy opponent deserves a well- historical value of American film and in the field was the ethnographer Jesse planned strategy and fearless commit- film preservation. Of particular interest Walter Fewkes who, on March 15, ment to the fight. are projects that bring preserved films to 1890, walked out into a field in Maine to Although the Phonogrammarchiv in new audiences or communities. record a Passamaquoddy Indian harvest Vienna is the world’s oldest sound 2) Laboratory Grants: These federally song.1 His medium was wax; his record- archive,2 we need to look to the film in- supported grants fund laboratory preser- ing device of choice (there were no oth- dustry for examples on how to create vation work on endangered films. ers at the time) was an Edison wax public awareness of preservation issues. 3) Partnership Grants: These grants cylinder, very similar to the Singer pedal They have the lead on the audio field as distribute preservation services gener- sewing machine, in which one drives a far as public awareness and industry ously donated to the NFPF by laborato- belt with repeated foot movement. Since consciousness of preservation are con- ries and postproduction houses that that fateful day we have imprinted cerned. The American Film Institute work in partnership with the archival sound on tin, wire, glass, acetate, and was created in 1967 to advance and pre- community. magnetic tape. Each of these media has serve the art of the moving image.3 By These programs are useful models for its own set of problems: impurities in 1984 the National Center for Film and the audio community. They function on manufacturing, innate poisons in the Video Preservation4 was created, and multiple levels to: substances, exposure to air, and improp- from that came the National Moving Im- ¥ Increase public awareness. er storage conditions that lead to decay age Database, the Film Foundation, and ¥ Fund scientific and technical re- and rot. Ultimately the death knell is the Digital Archive. As of 2001, the Na- search in the field of preservation. sounded for all of these recordings. Thus tional Film Preservation Foundation ¥ Provide funding for preservation. digitization and preservation become a (NFPF) offers three types of grants sup- ¥ Provide funding for training in race against time for the serious musical porting film preservation and access preservation technologies. archaeologist and preservationist. Will projects: Recently U.S. House Resolution the race be won? Perhaps, if we can: 1) Access Grants: The goal of this (H.R.) 4846 established the National 1) Inventory our collections. U.S. federally funded program is to pre- Recording Registry in the Library of 2) Make the difficult aesthetic choices Congress to maintain and preserve 2 Austrian Academy of Sciences, Phono- recordings that are culturally, historical- on what to preserve. grammarchiv, Dietrich Schüller, Ed. (2000); 3) Identify the technologies that will http://www.pha.oeaw.ac.at/. ly, or aesthetically significant, and for enable affordable preservation. 3 President Johnson signed the National other purposes.5 The Audio Engineering Foundation of the Arts and the Humanities Society (AES) will have a representative 4) Communicate the technical innova- Act of 1965. The legislation created the Na- tions to the music and library communi- tional Endowment for the Arts, which estab- on the registry board. ties in understandable form. lished the American Film Institute as an in- We are just beginning to make other dependent nonprofit organization dedicated inroads. The American Folklife Center 5) Expand preservation grant pro- to: preserving the heritage of film and televi- grams that will focus on our sound and sion, identifying and training new talent, and of the Library of Congress is entrusted music heritage. increasing recognition and understanding of with the digitization and preservation the moving image as an art form; of the largest collection of indigenous Only when the situation is understood http://www.afionline.org/. by the multiple communities involved 4 The National Film Preservation Foundation music in the world. It is a daunting (NFPF) is a nonprofit organization created task, but a great challenge. With over *Presented at the 109th Convention of the by the U.S. Congress to save America's film one and one-half million hours of Audio Engineering Society, Los Angeles, heritage. Working with archives and others CA, 2000 September 22Ð25, Workshop 5: who appreciate film, the NFPF supports recorded material, the job is to identify Digital Libraries, Preservation, and Meta- preservation activities nationwide that ensure the most endangered collections for data. the physical survival of film and improve ac- 1 “Song of Salutation,” recorded in Calaif, cess to film for study, education and exhibi- Maine, on 1890 March 15 by Jesse Walter tion; http://www.filmpreservation.org/ 5 Library of Congress, HR4846; http:// Fewkes, Archive of Folk Culture. about.html. thomas.loc.gov/bss/d106query.html.

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 49, No. 7/8, 2001 July/August 667 PRESERVING OUR MUSICAL HERITAGE preservation, restore them, and then, protect this resource. Without with intellectual property and copy- our voices and music and art, rights willing, give access to the world we are bankrupt as a society. through the Internet. Specifically, the The sure way to success is Endangered Music Project6 at the Li- not only to educate ourselves brary of Congress identifies, transfers, and the public, but to be and subsequently digitizes the most en- proactive in this project. dangered of their recordings for com- Whenever we have the atten- mercial release. Another innovative tion of our elected representa- project is Save Our Sounds, a joint Li- tives and agents, we must brary of CongressÐSmithsonian initia- bring up this subject, present Fig. 1. Sonic Solutions digital audio workshop. tive funded by the Save America’s the facts, and secure their sup- Treasures Program.7 Save Our Sounds port. We must become lobbyists for the engineers: archives. We are their voice, and we ¥ Restore and preserve original must tell their story to everyone who recordings. can listen. ¥ Make digital and archival copies. Can preservation and digitization be ¥ Put select recordings on the Web good business? Indeed, and the Grateful and into CD form.8 Dead is a good example. For nearly 30 Leadership is a critical factor: we years we recorded almost every show, have to assume responsibility for our over 2400 performances. Now we are at own world; no one else will. We are ar- a point where many of our tapes are de- chaeologists, preservationists, activists, caying, and so we are in the process of Fig. 2. Early vault at Grateful Dead but mostly, we are lovers of sound. We preparing for mass digitization. Of Productions. must also be you, the audio engineers, course, when we talk of the digitization who can design and build the tools we process, it is not just a simple “let’s- sticky residue. The end result is that the need. We must also be you, who can throw-it-into-the-digital-domain.” Prop- tape is unplayable. implement the technologies to dis- er analog-to-digital conversion, Sonic The situation can be corrected very tribute the music so that it will be ac- Solutions preparation (see Fig. 1),9 and simply by baking. We have a custom- cessible to future generations. We all careful handling and storage of the built convection oven (Figs. 3 and 4) must become teachers. Our first job is source tapes will be necessary to provide that keeps a constant temperature (+- to educate ourselves, our governments, for an uplifting and accurate view of 1/10 of a degree over a specified time). and the public at large to pull together these memorable artifacts. We can bake a number of tapes at a time and preserve this wellspring, this talk- A number of prized tapes in the (four 10-inch reels of 2-inch tape or ten ing book of folk song. Grateful Dead vault (Fig. 2) were 7-inch reels of 1/4-inch tape). We bake What is folk song? Folk song is the recorded during the years between 1976 them for 12 hours at 130o F, with 30- celebration of life in sound. As you and 1981. Much of the magnetic tape10 minute warm-up and cool-down times. know, most of these aural traditions manufactured during that period of time The oven does not really need to be very have recorded their history in song and has exhibited a problem called shedding. elaborate. Any commercial convection dance. So, in essence, these are perhaps When those tapes are played, they will oven and timer can be used. The temper- humanity’s greatest invention and also a either squeal loudly as they pass through ature and time of baking can be varied repository of all the dreams, the history, the tape guides, or they may not play for slightly, although it is safer to go longer and the hopes of the past, the present, longer than a few seconds. The problem with a lower temperature. and the future. These sonic masterpieces is mainly due to the use of the Jeffrey Norman at Grateful Dead Pro- become valuable beyond measure. To polyurethane binders that were intro- ductions (GDP) used the recommenda- allow their demise would be unaccept- duced with the Ampex 406/456 series of able. Can we stand together and declare tapes. With the stress of time and hu- as one—this shall not be lost without a midity, the binder absorbs moisture. The fight. This is why you, the engineers, are urethane reacts with moisture, migrates so critical to this cultural quest—once to the surface of the tape, and becomes a these recordings are lost, they are lost forever. We, the engineers and preserva- 9 Sonic Solutions is the Grateful Dead digital tionists and lovers of sound, will be the audio workstation. From here all sound-file ones held accountable and responsible editing and manipulations as well as metada- ta documentation can be done. for the future of this legacy. We must 10 The Grateful Dead has had problems specifically with Ampex 206/207 and Am- 6 http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/ryko.html. pex 456. Scotch 206/207 which was also in 7 www.saveamericastreasures.org. use at that time has not exhibited a shedding Fig. 3. Convection oven used for 8 www.saveoursounds.org problem. “baking” at Grateful Dead Productions.

668 J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 49, No. 7/8, 2001 July/August PRESERVING OUR MUSICAL HERITAGE

than 50%. The entire room is moves the medium forward toward protected by an Inergen fire- greater interactivity. It preserves an im- suppression system. (Oxygen portant personal record. is replaced by an inert gas and This is a very personal body of work. thus fire is extinguished with- The Grateful Dead’s musical legacy en- out water damage.) compasses the group’s personal experi- Currently new masters, that ences as well as a record of our spiritual is, masters to be sent to manu- journey on this planet. And we are only facturing, are created on a one band. There are countless other mu- Sony CDW-900E through the sicians and composers who have vaults Sonic Solutions workstation. of their own and who need to preserve They are HDCD (high-defini- their aural gifts and history. They need tion compatible digital) -en- an affordable, easy-to-use technology, Fig. 4. Tapes inside convection oven at Grateful Dead Productions. coded 16-bit, 44.1-kHz repository, and distribution system. That CD-Rs. Once masters are cre- is why audio engineers are so important. tions of Fred Layn,11 who was an Am- ated (usually several sets), the project is CDs will be made, downloads will be pex product manager and then sat on archived to DA98 (through a Prism delivered with high-level streaming, the ANSI (American National Stan- 2024T bit splitter) with 24-bit, 44.1-kHz people will get what they want, and mu- dards Institute) board. Norman has sampling. sical history will be served accurately. achieved a 100% success rate with the We are also in the process of prepar- The Internet was given to us for this current setup. ing for mass digitization. When archiv- service. Unlike other methods of distri- The benefits of the baking process ing a tape that is not currently intended bution, the Internet allows for economi- will last approximately 30 days, but it is for public release (or sale), our standard cal pathways for these low-volume best that the tape be used as soon as pos- procedure is to identify the most fragile recordings. This is a new model. In the sible after baking. In a very few in- tapes and back those up first. Ironically, old model, record companies would stances, a second baking may be neces- in this digital age these are the earliest need huge inventories of recordings to sary under a particularly difficult digital forms (DAT and PCM). They are flood the pipeline. With the Internet, condition, but so far we have been able backed up as audio files to DA98, DAT, custom orders can be made in 24 hours. to retrieve everything we attempted. We and CD-R through an Audio Alchemy Indigenous music will have the advan- have also been able to rebake months af- dejitter box, which ensures accurate tage of the new economic realities of the ter the initial baking (and thus after the times between samples. When we get twenty first-century music distribution benefits have worn off), but we do not our final archiving system completed system. It has the ability to cross-polli- know how many times the process will (see next paragraph), we will archive as nate and cross-access from dance to mu- work. We always back up to as high a data files. When that system is complete, sic to historical text to in-depth liner resolution as possible, as well as making analog tapes will be archived to 192 notes. This rich confluence will happen reference CDs and/or DATs. kHz, 24 bit. through Internet access. GDP engineers also take a number of Currently we believe the best method In the digitization process, preser- ➥ other steps in the preservation process. would be to use our 192-kHz, 24-bit These steps include: converter and the Sonic Solutions ¥ Restoration and optimization of workstation to create WAV data files, playback equipment. not audio files. These can then be ¥ Climate-controlled storage. stored on LTO (linear-tape open) car- ¥ Triage of endangered materials. tridges or on some optical medium All analog tape is played on a fully re- such as DVD-R. During the process, a stored Ampex ATR 102 two-track tape number of CD, DAT, and MP3 ver- machine. This machine has been re- sions can be created for listening and stored by Mike Spitz of ATR Service for downloading purposes. Co., York, PA, USA. This system has Once the body of work is digitized, the ability to handle fragile tapes and individual songs as well as entire shows fulfills the sonic requirements. can be custom burned for our audience. All masters are stored in a climate- If someone wants 800 versions of controlled vault (Fig. 5). The vault is a “Truckin” or “Drums in Space,” or even 2000-ft2 double-insulated, sheetrocked, just audience applause, they will be able and air-conditioned secure room. The to customize their own perfect perfor- temperature is maintained at 69o F de- mance. This accomplishes several grees, and a relative humidity of less things: it preserves our legacy to our children’s children and the audience at Fig. 5. Vault at Grateful Dead 11 Personal Communication. large and it advances the technology and Productions.

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 49, No. 7/8, 2001 July/August 669 PRESERVING OUR MUSICAL HERITAGE vation and access go hand in hand. Why culation. Only then shall we be justified many challenges. These include: preserve if there is no access? You in calling music a universal language.” ¥ Identifying what recordings to save. should be aware that there are reposito- People are beginning to understand ¥ Establishing the aesthetic and tech- ries of indigenous music in the attics of the value and worth of centuries of mu- nical criteria for preservation. homes, museums, libraries, and ware- sic making and instrument building, ¥ Specifying the process so that engi- houses all over the world, and through both being recognized as bona fide cul- neers can estimate the cost of preserva- Internet digital distribution we can link tural treasures. This is a good thing. We tion. all of these far-flung outposts and create have the opportunity to balance the ¥ Organizing to get volume discounts a world archive and database. We can ledgers with indigenous cultures by ad- for collections. cull the world’s archives to identify the dressing issues of authorship, copyright, Some of the engineering challenges most important and valuable collections and ownership so that we may repatriate include: and make them available. This will also to these cultures the music that was ap- ¥ Publishing lists of resources of correct the current duplication of effort, propriated from them during coloniza- playback equipment. as many of these archives are holding tion, war, economic pressures, and mis- ¥ Maintenance of playback equip- duplicates and triplicates of the same or sionary invasions. This will allow ment. similar materials. different cultures to reclaim their music, ¥ Establishing reasonable rates for The process described here is not a to utilize it in their educational systems, public archives and libraries. simple one. Not all cultures have the and perhaps even to generate revenues ¥ Developing metadata standards for same concepts of access. In some cul- from its distribution. Again, the Internet improved retrieval. tures, music can only be accessed by is a powerful tool that can help provide Restoration can be a good business if way of an intermediary source, whether these corrections to history and put this managed intelligently. It is also a cry it is a person or an institute set up by music in its rightful place. from the heart. that particular culture. Many cultures We know we have over 100 years of are very protective of their most prized recorded sounds, which translates into 12 E. Cohen, “Folk Heritage Collections in 12 Crisis,” in Preservation of Audio (U.S. Li- possessions, their oral history in song many petabytes of data. Librarians, brary of Congress, Washington, DC, 2000 and story. archivists, and private collectors face Dec.1). Affordable technology must be devel- oped and made available for all archive markets, whether they be national insti- tutions, musical groups, schools, indi- THE AUTHOR vidual collectors, scholars, or other in- Mickey Hart is best known for his terested parties. The AES should be the nearly three decades as an integral leader in this timely movement. AES part of an extraordinary expedition into members must provide the guideposts to the soul and spirit of music, disguised the future. You must give a portion of as the rock and roll band the Grateful Dead. As half of the percussion tandem your time and energies to this task. It is known as the Rhythm Devils, Hart and not only the right thing to do, but also Bill Kreutzmann transcended the con- good business in that it will provide a ventions of rock drumming. Exposure greater service to the world. This is not to these exotic sounds fueled Hart’s just another bottom-line business opera- desire to learn about the various cul- tion. It never was and never will be. I tures that produced them. remember when this indigenous or tribal His tireless study of the world’s mu- music was considered less than real mu- sic led Hart to many great teachers sic. It was called race music, third-world and collaborators, including his part- music—all derogatory terms to desig- ners in Planet Drum, which received nate subclasses of popular or classical the Grammy¨ for Best World Music Album in 1991—the first awarded in this category. music. I quote virtuoso pianist and folk- Hart’s lifelong fascination with the history and mythology of music is docu- song collector Percy Grainger from mented in three books: Drumming at the Edge of Magic (written with Jay 1933: “I firmly believe that music will Stevens and Fredric Lieberman), Planet Drum (with Fredric Lieberman and someday become a ‘universal language.’ D.A. Sonneborn) and his 1999 offering, Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Mu- But it will not become so as long as our sic (written with Fredric Lieberman). musical vision is limited to the output of In 1999 Hart was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the American Folk- four European countries between 1700 life Center at the Library of Congress where he heads the sub-committee on and 1900. The first step in the right di- the digitization and preservation of the center’s vast collections. This has rection is to view the music of all peo- evolved into the fund raising effort “Save Our Sounds,” of which Hart is cur- ples and periods without prejudice of rently chairman. In 2001 Hart was appointed by James Billington, the Librari- any kind, and to strive to put the world’s an of Congress, to a seat on the Recording Preservation Board. known and available best music into cir-

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