Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Tape music archives: from preservation to access

  • Published:
International Journal on Digital Libraries Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article presents a methodology for the active preservation of, and the access to, magnetic tapes of audio archives. The methodology has been defined and implemented by a multidisciplinary team involving engineers as well as musicians, composers and archivists. The strong point of the methodology is the philological awareness that influenced the development of digital tools, which consider the critical questions in the historian and musicologist’s approach: the secondary information and the history of transmission of an audio document.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Source: Centro di Sonologia Computazionale (CSC)

Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. An innovative music genre of the second half of the twentieth century, representing a paradigmatic case of recorded sound art with great implications on the musicological analysis side as well as on the preservation side. Tape music evolved along with technologies for music postproduction, embracing most genres and esthetics trends of recorded sound arts [37].

  2. In this context, passive preservation is meant to defend the original system from external agents without altering the electronic components, and active preservation implies a virtualization of the equipment using a simulation.

  3. “Many institutions have regretted the premature destruction of originals after making copies that proved to be inferior” [24, p. 13].

References

  1. Adenot, P., Wilson, C.: Web audio API, W3C working draft, Dec 08 2015. Technical Report, W3C (2015)

  2. Agosti, M.: Information access using the guide of user requirements. In: Agosti, M. (ed.) Information Access Through Search Engines and Digital Libraries. The Information Retrieval Series, vol. 22, pp. 1–12. Springer, Berlin (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Algazi, V., Duda, R.: Headphone-based spatial sound. IEEE Signal Process. Mag. 28(1), 33–42 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Avanzini, F., Canazza, S.: Virtual analogue instruments: an approach to active preservation of the studio di fonologia musicale. In: Novati, M.M., Dack, J. (eds.) The studio di fonologia—a musical journey, pp. 89–108. Ricordi, Milan (2012)

  5. Bonardi, A., Barthélemy, J.: The preservation, emulation, migration, and virtualization of live electronics for performing arts: an overview of musical and technical issues. J. Comput. Cult. Herit. 1(1), 6:1–6:16 (2008). doi:10.1145/1367080.1367086

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Boston, G.: Digitisation for preservation and access. Technical Report, UNESCO, Paris (France) (2006)

  7. Bressan, F.: The preservation of sound archives: a computer based approach to quality control. Ph.D. thesis, Sciences Engineering Medicine, Verona (Italy) (2013)

  8. Bressan, F., Bertani, R., Furlan, C., Simionato, F., Canazza, S.: An ATR FTIR and ESEM study on magnetic tapes for the assessment of the degradation of historical audio recordings. J. Cult. Herit. 18, 313–320 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bressan, F., Canazza, S.: A systemic approach to the preservation of audio documents: methodology and software tools. J. Electr. Comput. Eng. (2013). doi:10.1155/2013/489515

  10. Bressan, F., Canazza, S., Bertani, R.: Honey, I burnt the tapes! A study on thermal treatment for the recovery of magnetic tapes affected by Sticky Shed Syndrome. IASA J. 44, 53–64 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Bressan, F., Canazza, S., Bertani, R., Rodà, A., Fontana, F.: The safeguard of audio collections: a computer science based approach to quality control in the archive of the Arena di Verona. Adv. Multimed. (2013). doi:10.1155/2013/276354

  12. Bressan, F., Rodà, A., Canazza, S., Fontana, F.: Toward an informed procedural approach to the preservation of audio documents: the case of the Fondazione Arena di Verona archive. In: Lira, S., Amoêda, R., Pinheiro, C. (eds.) Proceedings of Sharing Cultures 2011—2nd International Conference on Intangible Heritage, pp. 177–185. Green Lines Institute, Tomar (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Canazza, S.: The digital curation of ethnic music audio archives: from preservation to restoration. Int. J. Digit. Libr. 12(2–3), 121–135 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Canazza, S., Dattolo, A.: The past through the future: a hypermedia model for handling the information stored in the audio documents. J. New Music Res. 38(4), 381–396 (2009). doi:10.1080/09298210903388947

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Canazza, S., Fantozzi, C., Pretto, N.: Accessing tape music documents on mobile devices. ACM Trans. Multimed. Comput. Commun. Appl. 12(1s), 20:1–20:20 (2015). doi:10.1145/2808200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Canazza, S., Poli, G.D., Mian, G.A.: Restoration of audio documents by means of extended Kalman filter. IEEE Trans. Audio Speech Lang. Process. 18(6), 1107–1115 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Canazza, S., Vidolin, A.: Preserving electroacoustic music. J. New Music Res. 30(4), 351–363 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Casey, M.: Facet (field audio collection evaluation tool)—format characteristics and preservation problems version 1.0. Technical Report, Indiana University (2008). http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/facet/facet_formats_large.pdf

  19. Casey, M., Gordon, B.: Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation. Harvard University, Cambridge (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Cohen, E.: Preservation of audio in folk heritage collections in crisis. In: Proceedings of Council on Library and Information Resources. Washington, DC, USA (2001)

  21. Columbia University: survey instrument for audio and moving image collections. http://library.columbia.edu/services/preservation/audiosurvey.html (2008)

  22. Duranti, L.: Interpares3—team Canada final report. Technical Report, University of British Columbia (2012)

  23. Edkins, G.D., Pollock, C.M.: The influence of sustained attention on railway accidents. Accid. Anal. Prev. 29(4), 533–539 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Edmonson, R.: Memory of the World: General Guidelines to Safeguard Documentary Heritage. UNESCO, Paris (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  25. IASA: The IASA Cataloguing Rules. IASA Editorial Group, Hungary (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  26. IASA-TC 03: The safeguarding of the audio heritage: ethics, principles and preservation strategy. Technical Report, International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), Hungary (2005)

  27. IASA-TC 04: Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Objects. IASA Technical Committee (2004)

  28. IASA-TC 05: Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers. IASA Technical Committee (2014)

  29. IFLA—Audiovisual and multimedia section: guidelines for digitization projects: for collections and holdings in the public domain, particularly those held by libraries and archives. Technical Report, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Paris (France) (2002)

  30. Indiana University: The field audio collection evaluation tool (FACET). http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/facet/ (2008)

  31. Mayer, R., Antunes, G., Caetano, A., Bakhshandeh, M., Rauber, A., Borbinha, J.: Using ontologies to capture the semantics of a (business) process for digital preservation. Int. J. Digit. Libr. 15(2), 129–152 (2015). doi:10.1007/s00799-015-0141-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Menczel, J.D., Prime, R.B.: Thermal Analysis of Polymers: Fundamentals and Applications. Wiley, New York (2009)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  33. Micheloni, C., Canazza, S., Foresti, G.L.: Audio–video biometric recognition for non-collaborative access granting. J. Vis. Lang. Comput. 20(6), 353–367 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Miotto, R., Orio, N.: An efficient identification methodology for improved access to music heritage collections. J. Multimed. 7, 145–158 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Najman, L., Talbot, H.: Mathematical Morphology. Wiley, New York (2013)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  36. Norris, S.: Tape baking (contribution to Stanford University’s audio preservation manual ’Introduction to Audio Preservation’). Technical Report, Stanford University (2007)

  37. Novati, M., Dack, J. (eds.): The Studio di Fonologia—A Musical Journey. Ricordi, Milan (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Orio, N., Snidaro, L., Canazza, S., Foresti, G.L.: Methodologies and tools for audio digital archives. Int. J. Digit. Libr. 10(4), 201–220 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Pendharkar, C., Bäck, P., Wyse, L.: Adventures in scheduling, buffers and parameters: porting a dynamic audio engine to web audio. In: Proceedings of the Web Audio Conference, Paris, France (2015)

  40. Pretto, N., Canazza, S.: REWIND: simulazione di un’esperienza d’ascolto storicamente fedele di dischi fonografici digitalizzati. In: Proceedings of the 20th Colloquium on Music Informatics, pp. 29–34 (2014)

  41. Roberts, C., Wakefield, G., Wright, M., Kuchera-Morin, J.: Designing musical instruments for the browser. Comput. Music J. 39(1), 27–40 (2015). doi:10.1162/COMJ_a_00283

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Salvati, D., Canazza, S.: Adaptive time delay estimation using filter length constraints for source localization in reverberant acoustic environments. IEEE Signal Process. Lett. 20(5), 507–510 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Salvati, D., Canazza, S.: Incident signal power comparison for localization of concurrent multiple acoustic sources. Sci. World J. 2014, 582397 (2014)

  44. Schüller, D.: Preserving the facts for the future: principles and practices for the transfer of analog audio documents into the digital domain. J. Audio Eng. Soc. 49(7–8), 618–621 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Silverstein, R.M., Webster, F.X., Kiemle, D.: Spectrometric Identification of Organic Compounds, 7th edn. Wiley, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  46. Six, J., Leman, M.: Panako—a scalable acoustic fingerprinting system handling time-scale and pitch modification. In: Proceedings of the 15th ISMIR Conference (ISMIR 2014) (2014)

  47. Storm, W.D.: The establishment of international re-recording standards. Phonogr. Bull. 27, 26–37 (1980)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Sueiro, M.: AVDb—Audio and Moving Image Survey Tool. Columbia University Libraries, New York, NY (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  49. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia: An explanation of audiovisual terms in preservation. http://nfsa.gov.au/preservation/glossary/

  50. Wyse, L., Subramanian, S.: The viability of the web browser as a computer music platform. Comput. Music J. 37(4), 10–23 (2013). doi:10.1162/COMJ_a_00213

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Nicola Castaman, Mirco Maniero, Laura Nao and all the engineers who contributed to the coding of the tools described in Sect. 3.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

    Carlo Fantozzi, Niccolò Pretto & Sergio Canazza

  2. IPEM Research Centre, Department of Art, Music and Theater Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Federica Bressan

Authors
  1. Carlo Fantozzi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Federica Bressan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Niccolò Pretto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sergio Canazza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlo Fantozzi.

Appendix: Assessment data

Appendix: Assessment data

This appendix contains supplementary material about the assessment of the REMIND app (see Sect. 4). The assessment was based on a set of 14 questions, which are reported below.

  1. Q1.

    Does the app always present information in a clear fashion?

  2. Q2.

    Are text messages and icons clear and unambiguous?

  3. Q3.

    Is the navigation structure (that is, how information is divided into several screens) easy to remember?

  4. Q4.

    Is the app sufficiently self-explanatory?

  5. Q5.

    Is the touch screen a convenient mean of interaction?

  6. Q6.

    Is the skeuomorphic interface actually interesting, or do you consider it a secondary detail?

  7. Q7.

    Do you think it is correct to offer no way of accessing music beyond sequential access (e.g., no random access)?

  8. Q8.

    Are the dimensions of the tablet adequate?

  9. Q9.

    Were all tasks easy (that is, no task that was thought to be easy proved difficult in practice)?

  10. Q10.

    Are metadata complete (that is, no useful metadata is missing)?

  11. Q11.

    Is the app complete (that is, no useful function is missing)?

  12. Q12.

    Are all implemented features actually useful?

  13. Q13.

    All in all, do you believe the app would allow you to analyze a piece of electronic music faster?

  14. Q14.

    All in all, do you believe the app would allow you to analyze a piece of electronic music more accurately?

Full answers from the professionals are available in Table 7.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fantozzi, C., Bressan, F., Pretto, N. et al. Tape music archives: from preservation to access. Int J Digit Libr 18, 233–249 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-017-0208-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-017-0208-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation