Over the past few years in the pages of FOH, we’ve had more than a passing discussion of digital recording technology. We examined the in-creased demand for live recordings (December 2006), the nature of digital data delivery (January 2007), and the use of optical technology for digi-tal audio transfer (September 2007). In fall of 2006, FOH reviewed the Sony PCM-D1 Linear PCM Recorder, a hand-held stereo digital recorder with a built in XY pair of condenser microphones intended for location recording. The PCM-D1 has the ability to capture linear 16- or 24-bit audio at sample rates from 22.05 kHz to 96 kHz into nonvolatile RAM. Using its 4 GB internal RAM, recording times range from 2 to 13 hours, depend-ing upon sample rate and bit depth, and recording time can be expanded by adding a Memory Stick. You can connect the PCM-D1 to your com-puter via USB, and it shows up on your desktop as a storage device. Note that the words “hard drive” are not mentioned anywhere in a discussion of the PCM-D1.
A Silent Revolution
The PCM-D1 figuratively and literally created a silent revolution when it was introduced. First, it pioneered a generation of handheld digital ‘note-book’ recorders, which now includes Sony’s own PCM-D50, the Zoom H-2 and H-4 Handy Recorders, Korg MR-1 and MR-1000, and Edirol R-09HR. This type of handheld recorder is this audio generation’s equivalent of a cassette dictation machine on steroids, making it easy for musi-cians, audio pros and sound effects editors to quickly and easily capture digital stereo audio with easy-to-use devices that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Second, the PCM-D1 gave us the first glimpse of what we can expect of recording media in the future: Since the PCM-D1 and its brethren re-cord data to solid-state media, the mechanical aspect of data storage has essentially been eliminated. There is no mechanical noise produced by a recording mechanism to be picked up by the microphones, whether it is transmitted through the air or mechanically. Years ago when we used port-able cassette machines (or even portable open-reel recorders) for field recording, the tape transport created noise that was often picked up by the microphone(s) through mechanical vibration. That noise could be quite a distraction when capturing a quiet sound source. Using the new genera-tion of solid-state recorders, there is no tape transport or hard drive mechanism to produce extraneous noise.
So What?
As I always try to make you think in these pages, so what? The “so what?” is that data storage has recently taken another quantum leap. No doubt you have seen “thumb drives” — small devices that plug directly into a USB port, providing storage between 64 MB and 2 GB. If you do a quick bit of math, you can calculate that 2 GB of storage would hold roughly 200 minutes of stereo digital audio at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution. So your thumb drive can store somewhere in the vicinity of 40 tracks of audio at 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution for 10 minutes, which is certainly enough audio for a song or three. At some point, you have to look at a thumb drive and wonder, “why can’t I record audio onto that thing?” While you may be able to store that amount of data, I seriously doubt that you’ll be able to read all that data in real time, as would be required for audio playback. Remember that you are dealing with a USB connection — not my first choice for real-time audio storage. Thumb drives are slower than molasses in Alaska in January.
A New Genre of Storage Devices
However, the concept of solid-state storage has spawned a new genre of storage devices known as the SSD — Solid State Drive. Pioneered by Intel and Samsung, the SSD appears to your computer as a hard drive, except that there is no mechanical device involved. Samsung and Intel are devel-oping SSDs with storage capacities ranging from 1 to 256 GB and data transfer rates in the vicinity of 28 Mbps (read) and 20 Mbps (write). Still kinda’ slow for A/V use, but promising nonetheless, especially since they employ an SATA interface.
If you do a basic comparison between an SSD and a “conventional” hard drive, you’ll come up with several very significant differences. The SSD’s “mechanism” is NAND flash memory, so there are no rotating magnetic platters or heads to be damaged when you drop it. Samsung claims an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of greater than 2 million hours for their SSD versus around 600,000 hours for the average hard drive. An SSD can operate over a wider variety of temperatures than a magnetic hard drive and consumes less power. SSDs weigh less than magnetic hard drives and are way more resistant to mechanical shock, making them a natural for use in laptops (and I’m willing to bet that 85% of laptop prob-lems are due to hard drives being banged around like golf balls at a pro invitational).
When using an SSD you don’t have to wait for a magnetic head to access a location on a disk. The result is that SSDs boot faster, launch applica-tions faster, and can perform random searches quickly. SSDs are not subject to fragmentation, and they maintain their performance over time. Have I mentioned that a SSD generates very little heat?
Costly Technology
As you’d expect of new computer-related technology, SSDs are very expensive at the moment, roughly $500 for a 32 GB model and close to a grand for a 64 GB model. Apple offers a 64-GB SSD option for the MacBook Air, bumping the cost of that laptop up an additional $999 over the 80-GB hard drive alternative.
At the moment, Samsung seems to have the lead in the capacity race, recently announcing that their 256-GB, 2.5-inch SSD drive with SATA con-nectivity will ship by the end of the year (probably at the cost of a mortgage payment). Over the next few years expect to see SSDs become the de facto standard for laptops where their aforementioned strengths will be highly appreciated. Once the data transfer rates are improved, I think we’ll see SSD as a viable recording medium for audio.
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is once again out on tour this summer mixing front-of-house for Blue Öyster Cult. He can be reached via email at Woody@fohonline.com
