User talk:Billw58/Backup Strategies

Bill's personal backup method for LP recording
I work on a Mac, so I use AIF as my intermediate export format. It is the "native" Mac audio file format, plus it has reasonable support for metadata (at least, enough for my purposes).

I capture in 16-bit PCM. This is enough for my purposes. I don't feel I need the headroom afforded by 32-bit. I'm capturing from a 16-bit sound card.


 * Create an "artist name" folder.
 * In that folder, create "album name" folders.
 * Record side one of the LP. Export to AIF. This is the backup of the original recording.
 * Record side two of the LP. Export to AIF. This is also the backup of the original recording.
 * After editing and processing, Export Multiple to individual AIF files for each LP track. These become the backup of the final edited and processed version.
 * Import the AIF LP track files into iTunes. Use iTunes to produce MP3s. Delete the AIFs from the iTunes library (this does not delete the original AIFs).
 * The AIFs contain sufficient metadata information that iTunes can assign album title, artist name, track number and track name to each file. iTunes will even look up and display the album cover art if available.
 * Using Max, convert all AIFs into FLAC. Delete the AIFs
 * Delete the Audacity project.
 * The "album name" folder contains a track list in a plain text file so I can reconstruct the LP in proper track order from the exported LP track files.

At this point I have a folder containing FLAC files of the original recording and of the final LP tracks. This is my backup.

I rely on Time Machine to keep a backup in case of a hard drive crash or accidental file deletion.

If I feel the finished tracks need more processing I can import the FLAC files of the tracks into a new Audacity project.

If I feel I need to start over I can import the FLAC files of side one and side two of the LP into a new Audacity project.

Peter's personal backup method for LP recording
Mine is very similar to Bill's but has some subtle differences
 * Same folder taxonomy asBill
 * I work with one side of an LP at a time soup-to-nuts
 * After capture I export a 32-bit WAV file (this is for processing through ClickRepair). If I was being diligent I would back up these raw captures, but I figure that life's too short for me to ever want to go back and reprocess).
 * After all the processing I export a set of 16-bit PCM WAV files.
 * These are diligently copied to two separate 1TB USB disks, using Bill's folder taxonomy (this is the key backup stage)
 * Then I import the WAVs into iTunes and use iTunes to convert to AAC, deleting the WAVs from the iTunes library.
 * I usually backup the entire iTunes library once a month or so, retaining the previous two versions.
 * I scrupulously maintain a spreadsheet to manage what was added to the libarry when and when the last backup was,to aid recovery - and note this has been called on once, making me glad of that thoroughness - this spreadsheet is also backed up regularly along with my other Excel spreadsheets.
 * And note that I never Save an Audacity project in this process.

We moved house just after I'd finished working on my LPs and we had so much stuff to pack that I figured it wea time to let go of the vinyl and send it to the thrift store / charity shop, retaining just a few precious signed ones - I now wish I hadn't. Mrs. Waxcylinder plans on keeping her many boxes of vinyl as the ultimate backup - but if she thinks I'm processing them twice for her "then she's got another think coming" as me old mum used to say.

One of the two 1TB disks failed a year or so ago - so it was a quick trip down to the shops to buy another and then a few happy hours letting the good one copy to the new one.

I still think about offsite backups - but I'd really need two more disks for that to enable cycling of the disks

Ed's personal backup strategy
I use Audacity for four things primarily: (1) archiving vinyl/tapes/etc., (2) producing “albums” (CDs these days) for bands who record in my studio (the original material is recorded raw to CD), (3) recording live material (voice-overs, overdubs, audio messages for various purposes) and (4) “repairing” “bad” CD rips (some used CDs I get have scratches/pits/etc. which cause one or more tracks to skip or be unplayable—I have a few solutions, which I use depends on the material and problem; some live concert material has the into to song 4 tagged onto the last few seconds of song 3—I will cut ‘n’ paste to move this material this material so that when played randomly the speech is with the proper song). On-site, I have an internal hard drive (Music:) which stores the music I randomly play with my player software; it contains a single copy of every tune I have. On-Site I also have an eSATA external hard drive (MusicBackup:) which mirrors Music: (I do this by manually copying any music added to Music: and also via weekly automated backup) and a second external eSATA drive (DataBackup:). Off-site I have a vault with CD/DVD storage and a very large USB external hard drive (OffSiteBackup:) which has one partition which stores images of my C: (boot) drive and another partition which has two folders (Music\ and Data\); the Music folder is a mirror of Music: and Data\ mirrors everything else on my computer not covered by the C: and Music: mirrors. The off-site drive is updated at least monthly—more often if large amounts of data are added to the on-site storages.

The first part of my strategy is to set up my storage structure. I want to have two copies of the original raw recording (in addition to the vinyl/etc.) on CDr (or DVDr if it is big); one will be on-site the other stored off-site. The specific process is a bit different for each of the four processes outlined above. When archiving something like a tape, CD or vinyl I always record (rip for CDs) the entire thing (both sides of a tape or vinyl) then create an “original” raw CD/DVD which I immediately (before proceeding any further) duplicate then stick the duplicate CD in my cheapest boom box and play it (if a CD has problems this boom box will choke, it has no error recovery). Now that I know that both the original raw CD and its duplicate are good I set one aside to take off-site. I follow a similar approach when doing a studio recording of a band but I always send every band member home with a raw recording (on CD) of the session (I have a high-speed CD duplicator which facilitates this). For voice-overs the process is not as rigorous if the material is easily replaced but similar otherwise.

My naming convention for Music: is a bit strange; generally it is designed to store “albums” but it also has a section for “one-offs”; the “one-offs” section is so sparse it needs no sub-folders. The “album” section has a lot of albums so needs some organization—first by artist-last-name/band, then artist-first-name/band then album; it looks somewhat like: ABCDEFGHI\
 * ABCDEFGHI\
 * Bob Dylan\
 * Highway 61 Revisited\
 * Like A Rolling Stone.wav
 * Tombstone Blues.wav
 * […rest of songs]
 * JKLMNOPQ\
 * RSTUVWXYZ\

JKLMNOPQ\
 * ABCDEFGHI\
 * JKLMNOPQ\
 * RSTUVWXYZ\

RSTUVWXYZ\
 * ABCDEFGHI\
 * Earl Scruggs\
 * The Earl Scruggs Revue\
 * Banjo Man.wav
 * Bleeker Street Rag.wav
 * […rest of songs]
 * JKLMNOPQ\
 * RSTUVWXYZ\

When I am recording a band I store stuff on my internal D: (Data:) drive; the structure there looks a bit different: D:Audio\BandName\AlbumTitle\
 * date\ (this will hold daily recording sessions and notes)
 * raw\
 * Song1.wav
 * Song2.wav
 * [etc.]
 * edited\
 * Song1.wav
 * Song1-1.wav
 * Song1-5.wav
 * Song1.aup
 * Song1_data\
 * Song1-1.aup
 * Song1-1_data\
 * [projects 2-5 for song1]
 * [etc. for song2-n and their projects]
 * final
 * Song1-final.wav (a 32-bit WAV because my CD creation software will create CDs from 32-bit WAVs)
 * Song2-final.wav
 * [etc.]
 * production notes.txt

When doing this kind of work, throughout the day I frequently do backups of the band’s folder to my external DataBackup: drive. Note that I am using an incremental backup strategy; while working on Song1 I will have numerous related Audacity Projects and every once in a while I will also export the Project as a WAV (note that there is a Song1-1.wav and Song1-5.wav exported from Song1-1.aup and Song1-5.aup respectively but no Song1-2(3,4).wav(s)).

Notes from the forum thread that started this all
Steve's notes from the forum thread:

Backing up all original recordings in a lossless (WAV/FLAC) file format is a wise thing to do regardless of the type of project. WAV and FLAC are robust formats and even in the unlikely event of a little data loss there is still a reasonably good chance of recovering most of the data. Audacity Projects on the other hand, particularly complex editing sessions can easily be turned to dust by a single small error.

For complex projects my advice would be: First: back-up any original recorded material in WAV of FLAC format. Use "Save As" periodically to create back-up copies of the project. (my-project-001, my-project-002, my-project-003, ...)

Saved Projects do not save the Undo history, so having a trail of projects can be invaluable for "restoring" to a previous version.

Use the "copy in" option or use "File > Check Dependencies" before saving the project to ensure that the project is complete.

Before starting a project, create a new folder and put everything that is related to the project (all WAV files, saved Project versions, notes to self...) into that folder. It is much easier to keep track of the project if it is all in one place.

For long term storage of a project, make a zip archive of the .AUP file and the _data folder.

For important projects, keep at least one external backup copy of both the Project and the original "source" audio files (an external hard drive can be very useful for this).

If you really don't want to lose your trousers, use a belt AND braces.

Bill said:

The problem is that different strategies will work better for different types of projects. For LP digitizing a simple Export-to-wav retains the original capture. For multi-track projects this is impractical for many reasons. To be general enough all the page could say is "back up your projects - keeping the AUP and _data folder together - to external media on a regular basis". Backup will help people who insist on renaming projects or messing with the contents of the _data folder - at least they can recover from their own incompetence. Better would be if they would RTFM and not do those things.

Discussion thread on page structure
This discussion has been transferred here from the page as the page has been restructured to fit this proposed model

Bill 05May12: This what I thought might happen - we all have our own opinions about what the best backup method is. Thus I think we should trim what's here down to a few general, agreed-upon actions.
 * I'd support: (Peter 27May13: unclear whether the "I" here is Gale or Bill - Bill I think)
 * The "Introduction" section, emphasizing that Audacity has robust crash recovery.
 * The "Create a folder" section.
 * The "Be Safe" section.
 * Export original unedited recordings to WAV, AIF or FLAC at the same bit depth as Audacity is set for.
 * Why? So you can go back to your original recording in case you make a disastrous edit you cannot recover from.
 * Save incremental backup copies of your project while you are working on it.
 * Why? Same as above.
 * Save a zip archive of the finished project.
 * Why? So you can go back to it at a later date and do further editing. The Audacity project format preserves your gain, pan and envelope settings.
 * And I'm +0.5 on: Export individual tracks as WAV, AIF or FLAC at the same bit depth as Audacity is set for as an archive of your work.
 * Why? In case your zip archive of the Audacity project is corrupted (?)
 * Why not? Gain, pan and envelope settings will be rendered, so this is not a replacement for a zip archive of the Audacity project.
 * Peter 27May13: I think we have dealt with this proposed structure for this page now. Am I wrong?