?¿? Future proofing our intellectual property ?¿?

ChrisMusic

After reading ICBMs response to a question raised, in one of the Boss Katana threads, about repairability of current hi-tech products, it got me thinking about how little we seem to care about future proofing our lives, in the name of a quick gratification 'fix' in the here and now...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
original excerpt that got me thinking:

Spikeedog said:    ... Oh and the guy that fixes my amps - a real old stager - says I should check if you can get spares for these amps coz some of the other modern SS/ digital modeller type Amps, he can't so he can't repair them!

ICBM said:    This is actually going to become a serious issue for all repairers, not just old stagers… there are a lot of modern digital pedals and amps which can't be repaired economically, if at all - not only are the surface-mount chips difficult to replace (although feasible, with the right tools and skills), some of them are literally unobtainable once the production run has ended and the surplus stock has been used up.

Quite a lot of modern repair work is modular - ie you replace a whole circuit board or sub-assembly rather than a failed component. That's fine - and makes the repair easy, if a bit more expensive - until the factory runs out of replacement boards, then you're totally stuffed. This has already happened with even some basic analogue circuitry - for example there's a series of Yamaha acoustic guitar preamps which Yamaha have run out of boards for. These are simply unrepairable and have to be replaced with something different.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

In response to @ICBM 's point about built in obsolescence by the design and manufacturing process...

The same redundancy is rife with all new technology, and while it's advances pave the way to new sounds, new opportunities, reduced costs, etc, there are serious issues about future access and repairability.

For instance, recording technology, mostly proprietary, the digital formats have changed often since the early days of DAT and other video based technologies.  There is the issue in trying to gain access to any session, or even finished product recorded over the last few decades.  Is the medium still intact, is the medium still playable, i.e. video formats - look at an old VHS recording and at the potential issues of tracking due to tape stretch, cassette warping etc, can you even find a machine to even play it back on?

What about the redundancy of software formats ?  Do you have access to the original, proprietary, software ?  Do you have access to a machine to run it on ?  Can you plug in any other necessary hardware, and are the drivers functional ?  Is there a risk of damage having already occurred to the data files, and if so, are they in a format which is potentially resurrectable ?  Is the company still in business, and if so are they prepared to support an archaic format ?  What about the impact of access to protection, effectively product kill strategies, like the infernal lost dongle, access to internet based services and authorisation codes to run software or plug ins ?

There are cases of reissued compilation albums, where despite finding several of the old machines, the original tapes would not play, and the final reissue of one track track was taken from a vinyl album playback, not the digital masters !

The price we pay for the steady march of technology at prices we are prepared to pay, is the complete lack of 'future proofing' that previous generations largely took for granted.  And even there the access to valves and transformers, etc, is becoming an issue for the future, as has been talked about in previous threads on this very forum.

The same issues face the photographic community, and anyone with an interest in archival.  A digital object, whether image or sound file, or text, is more ephemeral than it has ever been.  Once gone there is often no sign that it ever existed.

Worthy of a couple of minutes contemplation, or maybe even further discussion ?

PolarityMan

For software formats at least you have the option of converting to newer formats. Even if no converter exists it is possible (if difficult) to reverse engineer and write converters for any format.

Many formats are actually open standards of course so you always have the option to write something to retrieve your old data.

Spikeedog

The guy that repairs my amps could not get the part he needed for a fairly new modelling type amp/ combo from one of THE major names. So he advised if I was ditching the heavy stuff (valves and big cabs) which he reckons is a good move, to run it past him first. One of the main reasons for going back to basics would be reliability.

scrumhalf

ChrisMusic said:

What about the redundancy of software formats ? 

I was involved in a start-up (that didn't) that sought to address this problem. When you consider that the FDA in the USA require records to be kept for 70 years, and these records may be test results obtained on pretty much bespoke equipment in very rare formats, it's a biggie.

maltingsaudio

Just to add a bit to this boards for older sennheiser radio mics EW series no longer available and as its all surface mount its game over if you get a switch failure as I've found out this year

p90fool

Having run a largely digital home studio for the last 14 years or so, and seen various formats come and go (and go from cripplingly expensive to worthless in five years) I have always relied on simple analogue technology for my major guitar gear purchases.

I regard ALL digital gear as transitory, which is the only reason I won't go down the Kemper/AxeFX route. I'm happy to dabble in cheapo modelling, but if I'm spending 500 quid or more I'm staying with stuff I can fix myself these days.

Teetonetal

I'm not that fussed. My gear pays for itself many times over. Once it fails and repair not possible it's on to the next thing.

I have found that not updating os is a good way of avoiding enforced redundancy on the computer side. My current setup does me well but if I upgrade from mavericks I'd lose a bit of outboard gear due to driver issues. I'd gain very little on the SW side.

I still have a laptop with cubase sl3 and a steinberg soundcard from 1996. All still works and I could still use it to create tracks if I wished.

As for pedals they are generally not expensive enough for me to care if they die in 5 years or so. 

Throwaway society in full swing.

Roland

ChrisMusic said:

After reading ICBMs response to a question raised, in one of the Boss Katana threads, about repairability of current hi-tech products, it got me thinking about how little we seem to care about future proofing our lives, in the name of a quick gratification 'fix' in the here and now...

It's not just quick fix or low price which drives this. Some of what we use wouldn't be possible without recent technology. For a start, all modelling relies on integrated circuits.

The problem is far wider than music. We wouldn't have current fuel economy without digital engine management.

Sporky

Roland said:

It's not just quick fix or low price which drives this. Some of what we use wouldn't be possible without recent technology. For a start, all modelling relies on integrated circuits.

And beyond that, it's at a complexity where the chips have to be surface mount.

Danny1969

 It's not changing the chips that's a problem even on  Digital modelling equipment  ....  The size and scale of integration is rarely as bad as what you see on a laptop or phone and we change those. It's a different skill set to normal soldering and you need some decent magnification and heat  but with a lot of practice it is do able  even for the home tinkerer 

   The bigger problem is even if you could buy a new generic chip it wouldn't contain the correct firmware ..  That requires specialist programming and specialist code ....  This is a problem we have with MacBook and MacBook Pro SMC chips .  You have to scavenge the chip from another faulty board and hope that the chip your scavenging is actually good . Putting a  new uncoded chip one wouldn't achieve anything .... Likewise with a Line 6 DSP chip 

 Recording format wise you can see why Chris lord Alge  transfers ProTools sessions to a Sony Dash machine ... as long as he keeps those tapes and that machine he's always going to be able to recall a session 

Me I have a Protools 24 rig, a Protools Mix rig and an HD2 ... Not worth much now but handy for old transfers 









 

Roland

BBC news item on repairing tech products:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37954769

ChrisMusic

The thread I posted a while back on Steve Albini hit on some of the issues from a recording and music production perspective.  There is in the thread here...

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/94038/masterclass-with-steve-albini#latest