2012/5/9 RocknRollArchivist <rocknrollarch...@gmail.com> > Hello, > Before this discussion/decision about the masters, I think, it would be > useful to precise something. > An example. We have a recording R of a work W, which is the take T1 of the > version (recording session) V1, often overdubbed by additional instruments > and/or vocals, and initially issued as mono single. > Lately we have a lot of different reissues of this master: > 1) stereo or multichannel > 2) extended (main sound more long than initial and/or an announce, studio > chatter, etc. added) > 3) short-cut > 4) undubbed (initial overdub removed) > 5) differently overdubbed (vocal or instrumental overdub different to the > initial one) > 6) remastered for a digital release (CD, SACD, HDCD, DVD-Audio, sound track > of a DVD-Video, MP3, etc.) > 7) remixed, stereo channels inverted, echo added, etc. > 8) non-classified remastering (e.g., a return to the initial recording > rate, > artificially speeded up for the initial release). > These modifications can be combined. > What is a master(s) here? > And there are a modifications of only one take from only one session. But > we > can have a dozens takes (T1, T2, unknown take 1, etc.) from some sessions > (V1, V2, etc.). Evidently these recordings should have a different masters. >
Don't forget that most of the times we have no way to answer these questions. If there was an organization somewhere which centralized masters and gave unique numbers to them, then we could try, but there exists no such organization, each recording studio / major does what he wants and usually does not give any documentation on how any given track was created. When we have a simple recording date, we must consider ourselves lucky. So that there is no clear way to say "these should be separated" / "these should be merged". Because of this, we should not try to map real world masters to MB Recordings. All we would achieve is huge duplication of Recordings with no benefit I can see. Apart from saying "this Recording is the master for this CD" and "this recording is the master for this DVD" and so on, what would be achieved? We won't be able to enter different ARs to most these masters, so we'll have to enter copies of the masters and of their ARs. What we must maintain, which was why Recordings were created AFAIK, is a way to mutualize data in general and specifically ARs, to avoid data duplication with all the mistakes (and user frustration) which stem from such duplication. I believe the separation should simply be where we need to enter distinct data. If all data is the same, if all performers, engineers and so on are the same, then we should not separate, we should merge, because if we don't merge, we will be doing pointless data duplication. If enough significant data is different, if an artist performed on one Recording and not on the other, or if an engineer worked on a Recording and not on the other, then we need to create separate Recordings. We must separate because if we don't we'll be entering partially false information. This justifies jacobbrett's suggestion: let's use a simple example: if a track was recorded in a certain session, for example 50 years ago, then recently digitally remastered and "enhanced", then we have two main "things", which we could call "masters" (but if someone has a more appropriate word, it would be perfect): the 1960 "master", with specific ARs (engineer..), the remaster with probably all the old ARs plus a few new ones. The sound engineer from the original "master" should appear in the remaster, although it would be nice if we did not have to enter a new AR, if the sound engineer was simply "inherited" from the original master. I understand the word Master is not correct. It is about as misleading as Recording or Work. In the real world, a master is something pretty specific (probably more so than a work ;-) ) -- Frederic Da Vitoria (davitof) Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org
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