Members geek_usa Posted January 22, 2010 Members Share Posted January 22, 2010 Is this wise? The mastering engineer (who is a friend of a friend) told me when my CD is ready just to send the raw data tracks to him on a flash drive. it seemed all well and fine, but then I thought about data compresssion - do the flash drives degrade the file quality and size when they compress the data? Is it much like an mp3? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nerol1st Posted January 22, 2010 Members Share Posted January 22, 2010 Just get a large enough flash drive and don't compress the audio what so ever. No transferring a file that is 48k 24 bit to a flash drive in it's original form doesn't degrade it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chris carter Posted January 22, 2010 Members Share Posted January 22, 2010 It will be totally fine. some flash drives used to come with built-in compression schemes, but I think those days are pretty much gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AwayEam Posted January 22, 2010 Members Share Posted January 22, 2010 It will be totally fine. some flash drives used to come with built-in compression schemes, but I think those days are pretty much gone. HEY BRO Proprietary compression on flash drives has never been very common. It's pretty much limited to the drives that use some ridiculous encryption scheme. If you're talking about file-system based compression, that would be available on any flash drive with an NTFS file system or something similar. In any case, the compression used would be loss-less. If it wasn't, the flash drive would be quite useless for storing anything other than music and images. OP:The only degradation that can occur is of the storage media itself. That just means you won't be able to read your files, not that the quality lessens in any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 22, 2010 Members Share Posted January 22, 2010 It's been answered already, but it's a good way to deliver files. You don't have to burn a DVD-R and create waste since it's only for delivery anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 If I'm going to a mastering session, I like to bring the mixes on at least a couple of different drives / formats, "just in case". I've been using USB flash drives for a couple of years now as part of that, and they work fine - they actually have a couple of advantages. They're small and relatively inexpensive these days; even for higher storage capacities. And while most of them aren't terribly fast by drive standards, they're usually faster than burning to DVD's; and since they're reusable, they're better from an environmental standpoint. And they're large enough now that you'd need a box of DVD's to get the same amount of storage space. Best of all, since most come pre-formatted as FAT32 drives, they're compatible - I move files back and forth between my MacBook (OS 10.6) and my XP Pro DAW computer all the time using flash drives, and since nearly every modern computer has a USB port on it, chances are your collaborator's or ME's computer will be able to access the files and copy them to their own drive(s). Due to the comparatively slow read / write speed of thumb drives, I'd still prefer to get multitrack sessions on a Firewire drive, or USB 2.0 external hard disk, but for mastering sessions and stereo mix files, I think thumb drives are fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 As far as data compression, there shouldn't be any need to compress the files with SIT or ZIP. Just give the ME your raw stereo mixes in the highest resolution you have available. If you did your multitrack session at 24 bit / 44.1 kHz, then you should be sending the ME 24 bit/ 44. kHz stereo mix files to work with. Oh, and one more suggestion: don't slam your levels flat - give the ME a bit of dynamic range and headroom to work with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scud133 Posted January 24, 2010 Members Share Posted January 24, 2010 If I'm going to a mastering session, I like to bring the mixes on at least a couple of different drives / formats, "just in case". I've been using USB flash drives for a couple of years now as part of that, and they work fine - they actually have a couple of advantages. They're small and relatively inexpensive these days; even for higher storage capacities. And while most of them aren't terribly fast by drive standards, they're usually faster than burning to DVD's; and since they're reusable, they're better from an environmental standpoint. And they're large enough now that you'd need a box of DVD's to get the same amount of storage space. Best of all, since most come pre-formatted as FAT32 drives, they're compatible - I move files back and forth between my MacBook (OS 10.6) and my XP Pro DAW computer all the time using flash drives, and since nearly every modern computer has a USB port on it, chances are your collaborator's or ME's computer will be able to access the files and copy them to their own drive(s). Due to the comparatively slow read / write speed of thumb drives, I'd still prefer to get multitrack sessions on a Firewire drive, or USB 2.0 external hard disk, but for mastering sessions and stereo mix files, I think thumb drives are fine. even if it's a mix/multitrack job, surely the engineer can copy the files off the flash drive to one of his own faster drives before starting, eh? from an artist's perspective, i can put my entire album on a $20 flash drive or a $120 external FW drive.... I think I know which i'm going to choose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AluminumNeck Posted January 24, 2010 Members Share Posted January 24, 2010 8gb USB thumb drives are like $60 these days " maybe less I bought mine last year". but I can actually burn stuff to DVD faster then I can fill my drive. That siad. Thumb drives are alot more convienent for local transport. for anything going any distance. I'd most likely burn a few DVD's if I was sending off to a ME. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scud133 Posted January 24, 2010 Members Share Posted January 24, 2010 8gig-ers are in the $20 range these days.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170522+1309421176&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=522&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc= you can get 16gb for less than $40 now thru newegg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nerol1st Posted January 24, 2010 Members Share Posted January 24, 2010 Yeah I got an 8 gig for $20 at x-mas time. Flash memory is really cheap now a days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 24, 2010 Members Share Posted January 24, 2010 even if it's a mix/multitrack job, surely the engineer can copy the files off the flash drive to one of his own faster drives before starting, eh? I think the idea is that the files can be transferred to his hard drive faster if you brought in your own hard drive than if you brought in a flash drive. And if you're paying someone by the hour, that's a good thing. from an artist's perspective, i can put my entire album on a $20 flash drive or a $120 external FW drive.... I think I know which i'm going to choose From an artist's perspective, you should already own an external firewire drive, if for no other reason than backing up, so you could use this one without incurring extra costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 even if it's a mix/multitrack job, surely the engineer can copy the files off the flash drive to one of his own faster drives before starting, eh? I believe in backing up your data, and I wouldn't want to work directly from a client's source drive - I'm going to do exactly that and copy the data from their source media to my internal drives. Ken nailed it - it's not just a matter of storage size and cost, but also speed. I can do those transfers from the source media to my internal drives much faster if we're using a fast source drive. And a good 7,200 RPM Firewire (or USB 2.0) drive is going to be considerably faster in terms of transferring (and later, backing up) the data than a typical flash drive will be. DVD disks have another drawback in that I have to "babysit" them. If your project is on four disks, I have to keep an eye on them so that once the first one is done copying, I can swap the disks and start the copy process with the second... and then the third and fourth disk. If it's all on a single 16GB flash drive, I can start the copy process and go on to doing something else while it's copying, and I don't have to worry about it or watch it as closely. Even better, if it's on a fast Firewire or USB 2.0 HDD, the transfers will be even faster, which means I can get to work on things much sooner. But again, flash drives are cheap these days, and the storage capacities continue to increase. For relatively small amounts of data, they're nearly ideal - especially considering their cross-platform compatibility. But if you're sending me a album's worth of tracking to edit and mix, and it's 50GB of data, I'd rather get it on one Firewire drive instead of two or three flash drives; and I'd rather have it on flash drives than on a dozen DVD's. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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