Get it? Outta Space? I hope somebody does. This first Rant was going to be on analog v. digital. Later. Instead, lets start off with a more pressing issue so we literally don't lose anything along the way.

I love digital. No complaints here what-so ever. Nonetheless, increased digital, in some essence, translates to one point: Digital Files. Here enters a whole new world of complexity in itself.

The days of auld with analog, tape,tubes, etc. still have their own place of importance. But with everything going digital (including guitars) many of us find ourselves requiring extra digital storage.

In the most simplistic terms I am at heart a slacker and a frugalist. I am in favor of my own energy conservation and doing something well with the least amount of work. I am also against spending money that I dont have to. I'd rather see it go back toward positive business growth.

So where are we? Well, A)More things are digital.
Which leads us to B)The need for more digital file space. And C)whether personal or business, the need to save energy and money in the process.

Now, taking this from an audio viewpoint as I often do, what makes the most sense as far as audio storage taking all the previous points into consideration?
While extra drive space is certainly a worthwhile purchase, its not always logistically the best choice, timewise or costwise. What do I think should be in the foundation of this thought process? One word: File Back-up.

What? Yes, I can hear it now and no its not the same thing. By file storage, I am refering to the present, physical data storage that is located on a main drive and that is subject to loss.
By file back-up, I am refering to that same data stored by one of two means: either by internet or by removable media; and both of which (hopefully) transcend your data to a realm of losslessness.

Losslessness, that is, both in the sense of complete file loss: as in your drive, server, whatever crashes and you are left with no tangible files whatsoever. Yeah, that sucks. And, in the sense of quality loss: as in you've just converted a hand-full of aiff/wav files into some type of mp3 format and then, "crap, what happened to the pre-conversion, crisp, clean, stereo files that I had, these mp3's sound like crap!" It happens.

Ok, so now what? How does the average joe get to this losslessness Shangri-la? Here we go. I'll tell you what I can. And I'll tell you right now that if some of these ad execs (for the kind you see placed in banners and sidebars everywhere) were to read this, that they would probably be pissed off. F-them. Listen, information is key and while we all have our trade-secrets, you really shouldnt have to pay an arm and a leg just to get a damned file to stay where and how you want it.

Alright, that was the rant part, now lets move on to the info part.

To be continued...