WENDY HAGENMAIER: Hi, podcast listeners, Lost in the Stacks broadcasts on WREK Atlanta from the campus of Georgia Tech every Friday at noon. Thanks for joining us through the internet. And if you have a moment, let us know how you found us, how you're listening, and what you like. We are always trying to improve and expand. Enjoy the show. STEVE ALBINI: My entire worldview was formed through my experiences with punk rock. Literally my entire worldview, I started thinking for myself, I started making music. I started viewing the world differently after exposure to punk rock. Punk rock was the single most important thing that happened to me. And everything around me, certainly all of my friends, all of my good friends anyway, and anything of significance that I've done is, one way or another, is a result of me having heard the Ramones as a teenager. [MUSIC PLAYING] You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the one and only research library rock and roll radio show. CHARLIE BENNETT: I am Charlie, my co-host is Ameet. AMEET DOSHI: Gaba gaba hey hey, everyone. CHARLIE BENNETT: And we both work at the Georgia Tech Library. The best of the best, our man on the board is Anthony. ANTHONY: Hey. CHARLIE BENNETT: Short but sweet, did you like that, Fred? FRED RASCOE: Yeah, maybe an ovation to go with it. [APPLAUSE] ANTHONY: Thanks, guys CHARLIE BENNETT: Fred and Wendy are in the studio with us. I think Josh is getting ready to leave. And for the next hour, we've got music and library talk for you. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it. AMEET DOSHI: That's right, Charlie, our show today returns to our occasional series, citizen archiving. This is part three, the master tapes. Charlie talked to a recording engineer about music recordings as archival items. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Asking questions about analog versus digital, about the completeness of records, about historical and archival importance. FRED RASCOE: And you just called up some recording engineer to talk about all this, Charlie? CHARLIE BENNETT: Dude, I called up Steve Albini. FRED RASCOE: Whoa, Albini of Big Black? Albini of Shellac? CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, yeah. FRED RASCOE: The recording engineer for thousands of bands? CHARLIE BENNETT: The very one. And I was only a little bit scared when I talked to him. AMEET DOSHI: Our songs today are Albini centric. We're playing a small selection of our favorite songs that were performed or recorded by Mr. Albini. Our first song is from the recorded by column. This one goes out to our beloved and missed Avinash. CHARLIE BENNETT: Avinash. AMEET DOSHI: There may be no Pixies in the old country. But this is "Bone Machine" by the Pixies right here on Lost in the Stacks. [THE PIXIES, "BONE MACHINE"] THE PIXIES: Your bone's got a little machine. AMEET DOSHI: That was "Bone Machine" by The Pixies right here on Lost in the Stacks. Our show today is called The Master Tapes. And you can tell we are excited about this. Our guest is Steve Albini. Albini is a recording engineer and performing musician. You may have heard him play on records by Big Black, Shellac of North America, or a handful of other bands. CHARLIE BENNETT: I have. AMEET DOSHI: You may not recognize his name. But you have almost certainly heard music he's recorded at his Chicago studio, Electrical Audio. Charlie spoke to Albini by phone all about making records. CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you have an accurate count of how many bands you've worked with or how many records you've recorded? STEVE ALBINI: Not a [BLEEP] clue. CHARLIE BENNETT: Thousands, that's sort of the-- STEVE ALBINI: Yeah, a couple thousand at a minimum. I mean, it's hard to say, really, just because-- there are some bands that I've done many, many sessions with. There are bands-- there are some bands where I've probably-- I've probably done 20 or 30 sessions with certain bands to accumulate 10 or 12 albums or something like that. So that's a lot of repeat business. And I don't really know how to-- I wouldn't really know how to categorize that either. Would each of those records count as a separate thing? Or is it just one band that I've worked on many, many times? And there are some bands that have a kind of an amorphous lineup, where you might be working with a completely different band but under the same moniker. So I'm not really sure how that would taxonomically-- how you would break that down. But let's just say a couple thousand. CHARLIE BENNETT: All right. And so after all of that, do you have a sense of why bands want to make records? STEVE ALBINI: Well, as a guy who's been in bands his whole life, there's a natural impulse to make a recording of what you're doing as a band because you may not-- the memory of having done it may not seem satisfying enough in the future. So you'd want to make some kind of a recording. And that's been true-- I've been in bands since the '70s and that's been-- that's always been true in the culture of bands is that bands have always wanted to make recordings of themselves. CHARLIE BENNETT: But then it's usually the studio recordings that we hear as opposed to live recordings. And live recordings that would be a more maybe authentic or honest recording of what a band was doing. So what's the-- what's the extra value to recording in controlled-- a controlled situation with so much detail that you can change in a recording session? STEVE ALBINI: Well, a live recording is always compromised in terms of the recording because the considerations that you use on stage for effective PA amplification for an audience, those considerations are often at odds with what you would want for a studio recording for maximum clarity, or definition between the different instruments, or sound quality per instrument, that sort of thing. And the acoustics of the live show may not be as flattering to some kinds of music as others. Basically, in a studio recording, you can get a more accurate recording of exactly what the band is doing. And if that's the impulse-- if that's the impetus for doing it, then that's preferred. A live recording is almost always compromised in one way or another. There's extraneous noise. Like I said, the sound quality isn't necessarily there. The band might blow a take. And like if they blow a song, blow the outro to a song in a live show, it doesn't really matter because it's gone. But if they're making a recording that's going to outlive them, then they'd want-- they'd want the outro to be the way they wrote it, that sort of thing. CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you think that bands make records that are just for themselves sometimes, that would never even-- they'd never even try to sell it? STEVE ALBINI: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of demo recordings or a lot of work recordings are done by bands which are never intended to hear to the outside world. But then those become important in a historical context if a band becomes significant, then even these informal recordings, which are not intended to be released, then they develop some either commercial potential or historical significance, which warrants them being released. I've been doing this long enough that I've seen, say, the silver anniversary of a lot of records that I've worked on. And those significant anniversaries are often a time for representation to the audience. OK, well, this record, when we put it out, it was just one of a dozen records we did that month. So we didn't think it was going to be anything important. But now, it turns out you guys like it. It's an important and significant record. So here's a deluxe version of that record, which has remastered for better sound quality, has included these extra bonus tracks that weren't available at the time because we didn't think they mattered. But now, it's obvious that there's a historical significance. And here's an alternate take of a song or an alternate version of a song that might be interesting as a novelty now that we know that this band is significant, that sort of stuff. CHARLIE BENNETT: So do you have do you have packages of the extra stuff with each recording? I mean, would they come back to you and say, hey, you were the recording engineer on this record-- STEVE ALBINI: Sometimes. CHARLIE BENNETT: What's the extra stuff you've got? STEVE ALBINI: I'll give you an example. Like in the course of recording an album, during the vinyl era, an album was typically 35 to 40 minutes long. And so depending on how productive a band was, they might have significantly more material than they could conveniently release on an album. And they might record all of it thinking that they would then cull a few of the lesser songs and put together an album that was appropriate album length, leaving in reserve a couple of extra songs. Then that album comes out, maybe it's a flop at the time or whatever. The band breaks up. Time passes, the album acquires some cachet. And they want to-- and someone wants to issue an anniversary edition of that album. And they go to the original master tapes. And they look in the box. And they see, look, there's three extra songs here. Well, we can put three extra songs in there and give people additional fan appreciation of the band, give people more value for this new packaging, all that kind of stuff. And that's a really, really common scenario. I would say that's probably the majority of deluxe anniversary editions, for example, would have some material like that. Another possibility is in the recording of an album, there may be three or four versions, complete versions of a song recorded in some cases, where the band did several versions and then treated them differently and then decided between them at the end of the process. So there may be a song that everyone is familiar with in one incarnation may have had a faster, or heavier, or Calypso version, or whatever. And all that stuff is available as long as the master tapes survive. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our guest today is recording engineer Steve Albini. And we'll be back with more about the master tapes after a music set. ANTHONY: File this set under PN6110.L6L496. [BIG BLACK, "IN MY HOUSE"] [LOW, "IMMUNE"] CHARLIE BENNETT: That was "Immune" by Low And before that, "In My House" by Big Black, a Mary Jane Girls cover. That was a pair of love songs. [MUSIC PLAYING] FRED RASCOE: Our guest today is Steve Albini, a recording engineer who has been making records for 35 years. We asked Albini what records are for and how he makes them. STEVE ALBINI: I work exclusively in the analog domain. All the records that I've made have been recorded on multi-track tape and mixed to stereo master tapes. So there is a multi-track of the original session that includes all the individual instruments and voices. And then there's a stereo master tape, which is the mixed version of it that ended up getting pressed into a record. CHARLIE BENNETT: Can you describe the actual object that is a master tape? STEVE ALBINI: The stereo master tape is magnetic tape on a reel that has two tracks on it, corresponding to left and right. And those two tracks are the final mix of the record, which is what would be pressed into a CD or a record or turned into a downloadable file or whatever. CHARLIE BENNETT: Is it big? Or is it like-- STEVE ALBINI: There are several formats. The most common reel-to-reel formats are quarter inch, where the tape is a quarter of an inch wide. And half inch, where the tape is half an inch wide. Those are the most common stereo formats. Almost-- I would say 95% plus percent of the records, 99 plus percent of the records I've done, the stereo master has been a half inch master. CHARLIE BENNETT: In your mind, is the master tape the end result of the recording process? Is that the object that you're supposed to make out of the process? STEVE ALBINI: Yes, although I don't think that it is more significant in a historical sense than the multi-track tape, which is the session tape that has all of the individual instruments and voices on it recorded independently. The multi-track tape is what you are working on in the first part of the session prior to mixing. The multi-track tape is a much wider tape, typically, that will have individual tracks recorded on it. Instead of just having the two tracks of left and right recorded as stripes running longitudinally on the tape, you could have as many as 24 individual tracks on that tape. That tape is typically two inches wide. Although there are other formats that are 1 inch or 1/2 inch wide. So the multi-track master would have, say, on track one, it might have the bass drum. On track two, it might have the snare drum. On tracks three and four, It might have the two mounted tom toms. And then track five might be the floor tom. And then there would be a stereo pair of tracks that would have the overhead mics. And then you might have a stereo pair that was auxiliary drum mics, either percussion instruments, or room mics, or something like that. And then you might have the bass guitar could be on one track or a couple of tracks if there was say two different amplifiers or two different microphones on the amplifier. And then there could be guitar on several tracks. And there could be several tracks of vocals, or several tracks of overdubs, or several tracks of percussion and some backing vocals, and things like that. Each of those recorded independently or recorded-- could be performed simultaneously, but channeled through the console in the studio, they could be divided out as different signals sent to the tape independently. So on the multi-track master would be the most complete recording of the session. But everything is sort of unmediated. If you just put all the faders at unity and played the tape, it wouldn't sound like the finished record because the considerations of mixing wouldn't have come into play. To represent the music in a natural setting, certain tracks of the music should be louder than others. And the stereo orientation of each of the tracks might contribute to the overall clarity of the sound and that sort of thing. So a lot of things could change from the initial recording on those multi-tracks to get to the stereo mixed final product. So the multitrack tape is the complete, comprehensive session. And the stereo master is the final mixed result, which is what everyone would be familiar with from the released version of the record. I should point out that each of these tapes comes in a box. And in the box with the tape would be notes. So for example, in the stereo master inside the box might be notes intended for the mastering session. Say, this song, the introduction is a bit too quiet on reflection. Can you boost the level of this song in mastering? Or there's a cross fade between this song and this song that occurs at this point. Or this song is-- on reflection, this song has slightly too much base energy. Can you thin the bass out on this song? Things like that, notes for the mastering engineer that would be modifications from the original stereo master to suit the artist. Those notes typically would go inside the box for the stereo master. And then anything that was done to the stereo master, like let's say there was a mastering session and the mastering engineer took notes on his session, he would typically put the notes for his mastering inside that box as well. So inside the box would be additional documentation on the stereo master, including things like the matrix number of the lacquer if it was cut into lacquer. There may be information about billing, ultimate location of the final tapes, who signed off on everything, all that sort of stuff could be inside that stereo master box. Inside the multi-track master could be an extraordinary amount of information. There'll be track sheets that indicate what instrument is on which track on a per song basis. There might also be notes on a per song basis like the guitar solo is too quiet at 3 minutes and 20 seconds, boost that up. Or there are three backing vocals. This one is the dominant backing vocal. These other two are a subordinate harmony. Or notes about which instrument was used through which amplifier for the tracking. There could be an abundance of information inside the multitrack box, things like song lyrics, notes taken throughout the course of the session, doodles by the band and engineer. All kinds of stuff appears inside that multitrack box. So when we send the multitrack home with the band, I always include all of that documentation, any of the notes on the session, any of the track sheets, all the track sheets, any of the mixing notes, whatever, anything that we have, the documentation of the session, that all goes inside that box. And that box is taped shut. And then the band takes it home with them. And that's part of the archive, part of the master tape is all of the notes that go along with it that allow you to-- that would allow you to reconstruct the session later if need be. CHARLIE BENNETT: But you're not keeping a copy of that at your studio? STEVE ALBINI: No, we have way, way, way too much material comes through here for us to archive things for people. And also, I mean, there are other considerations. We don't keep an audio copy of the recordings. In some instances, when you're dealing with a corporate entity or someone who's litigious, just the act-- just the fact that we might have another copy of the master here at the studio would be actionable. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, wow. STEVE ALBINI: We would be-- depending on how corporate the label is, they would consider that a breach-- or they would consider that a violation of their copyright if we were to maintain a copy of their record here. So we have to turn over all of the work products to the client. That's one of the reasons why digital recording is not archivally sound, in my opinion, is that there's no physical object that can be put on a shelf someplace and ignored. And then in 100 years, you could take it off the shelf and recreate the session in complete detail and have all of that additional information, all of those unheard songs, all of those outtakes, all of those extra-- all that extra documentation. There's no equivalent to that in the digital paradigm. WENDY HAGENMAIER: We'll be back with more from Steve Albini about the master tapes and the material oomph on the left side of the hour. [MUSIC PLAYING] BRETT NETSON: Hey this is Brett Netson from Built to Spill, Caustic Resin, and Snakes. You're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta. CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show is called The Master Tapes. And I must confess, this whole show is built on a pun. Records, you see, archives and recording studios, master tapes versus derivative copies, records management, records retention, records creation. I like my archival records cut into 180 grams of virgin vinyl. But 140 is OK too. File this set under GN28.7.L36. [SHELLAC, "DUDE, INCREDIBLE"] AMEET DOSHI: "Dude, Incredible" by Shellac of North America. That was a song about monkeys. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Our guest today is Steve Albini, a recording engineer and musician. Albini has run thousands of music recording sessions at his Chicago studio Electrical Audio. STEVE ALBINI: And I feel a heavy responsibility to the bands that I work with to provide them with the materials that might allow their career to bloom very late. There are a lot of bands that don't find their natural audience very quickly. Bands that are even considered epochal, or groundbreaking, and foundation material, sometimes that music isn't popular when it's first released. And so the commercial lifespan of some of that stuff is very short. And sometimes, those records are given almost a perfunctory release. And in some cases, bands that later become historically significant, their music isn't even released in the initial phase. Their recordings may not have ever made it to market until after the sort of lifespan of-- the arc of their traditional career is over. So I feel like it's critically important that what I make in the session is a thing that will outlive everyone in the room at the time. That we make the recording in the case that the band doesn't find its audience right away. Then they're good for the next 100 years if they ever do find an audience. CHARLIE BENNETT: So one of my questions I had written down was I wanted to ask you about the phrase that's appeared on the outside of some of your records that you've performed on, that the future belongs to the analog loyalists. It sounds like you've just answered that for me. I mean, is that what that phrase means? Is that-- STEVE ALBINI: Well, I was being cute at the time when I wrote that. At the time I wrote that, there was-- the CD was a new product. And so there was a kind of a frenzy to convert everything to CD, release things on CD. And it seemed like a gimmick format to me that would quickly be supplanted by something else. And I mean, I don't like pointing out how right I am about things. But I was right about that. The CD was a convenience listening format. And as a convenience format, it was better in sound quality and accessibility than the cassette. But that's what it was. It was a convenience format. It wasn't-- in its earliest iterations at least, it was not a hi-fi option relative to a well-made vinyl record. So that convenience format was obviously going to be supplanted by something else eventually. And it was by MP3s, and downloads, and streaming, things like that. And so now, CDs have seen a catastrophic drop in sales. But the hi-fi format, that is the sort of collector's format of vinyl records, has not completely disappeared. And at the time that CDs were kind of in kind of in vogue, a good friend of mine, a very, very talented recording engineer and studio owner named John Loder in London, who's since passed away, he predicted that vinyl records would outlast CDs. And at the time, the conventional industry wisdom was that CD was going to completely kill vinyl. That vinyl would be a historical artifact within a few years and that no one would have an interest in vinyl in 10 years. And that was proven wrong very quickly because the vinyl market stabilized. And people who bought records in preference to CDs continued to buy records in preference to CDs. And people who had collections of records continued to collect records rather than to get rid of their record collections and replace them all with CDs. There has been a resurgence in vinyl sales that corresponds with the decline in CD sales. From a home standpoint, from a user standpoint, vinyl records are much more long-term stable as well. They're much less likely to deteriorate over time and become unplayable. They have that quality that I was describing, where you can put them on a shelf and then come back in 100 years and take them off the shelf and play them just like normal. Whereas, CDs tend not to survive long term that well. There's a very thin metallic imaging layer, which is subject to all the oxidation and physical distortion problems that you have with any thin metallic film. So CDs often become unplayable after a period of a few years. CHARLIE BENNETT: I always enjoy when I open up a new Shellac record that if I pull out the vinyl record just right, the CD falls out and bounces on the table. And speaking of Shellac, if there was an archive of Shellac, either in reality or potentially, what would the thing be that you'd say, that's the record I recorded at this time, this is the archive of what we've produced? STEVE ALBINI: Well, we have maintained all of our master tapes somewhere either in the basement of the building that I'm speaking to you from, or on the shelf at Bob's mastering studio, or in the storage room at Touch and Go Records are the master tapes for every record we've ever made. So that would be the recording archive, everything that's ever-- everything we've ever recorded of ourselves has survived. And it's all still accessible. CHARLIE BENNETT: Are there single copies of those things? Or have you made many copies of the master tapes? STEVE ALBINI: They're analog tapes. So you don't need multiple copies. Digital files are subject to corruption, subject to the failures of the drives that they're on, subject to manipulation and the nefarious hands of somebody who's got the files on them, that sort of thing. None of that stuff can happen with analog master tapes. You really only have to worry about them being physically burned up in a fire. The tapes are in several locations. So presumably if Touch and Go burned down, or if Bob's studio burned down, or my studio burned down, we wouldn't lose everything. But the risk of buildings burning down is relatively low. So I'm not-- it's not on my mind that there is a risk at the moment. CHARLIE BENNETT: And so for vinyl records, is there anything about them that you could imagine could be improved upon in the future? Are there any inherent flaws to the format that can be fixed through-- STEVE ALBINI: Well, you have to assume a couple of things about vinyl records. Number one is that compatibility is going to be-- compatibility is fixed. That there's an enormous body of vinyl records out there now. Historically, there have been so many records made that if someone buys a turntable to play a record, they're going to be playing one of those records more likely than a brand new record. So you can't really change the format. The format is fixed. The good thing about that is that any record from any historical era can be played on any turntable anywhere in the world. because it's standardized and because it's open source. So anyone can build a turntable. Anyone can build a preamplifier. Anyone can-- you could build one in your garage if you wanted to. The point being that there's nothing proprietary about the format. And it's universal. So any record will play on any turntable anywhere in the world. And that's what's great about that format. The carrying on effect of that is that the format can't change. We can't come up with a new kind of record that plays at 66 RPM, for example, to get better high frequency response, which is conceivable. You could conceivably do that. But if you did that, then that record would be incompatible with all of the turntables in use historically. It would be incompatible with all the other records. And so you can't really make any changes in the format. Conceivably, there might be a material sciences improvements that would allow for better, more accurate cutting, or more accurate plating, or more accurate pressings. Those would be very small incremental improvements. I mean, the state of the art is actually quite good. If you get a well-made vinyl record that is where the program length is appropriate for the size of the storage size of an LP side, for example. And the mastering and manufacturing are diligently done in a way that observes all the standards necessary to keep quality, from my perspective, playing a well-made vinyl record is the most accurate sounding reproduction of the experience of listening to the stereo master in the control room. I listen to master tapes all day, every day. That's my job. I'm a kind of a professional listener. So I'm listening to the goings on in the studio constantly. I'm listening to stereo master tapes all day, every day. When I hear the consumer formats, the different consumer formats, playing an LP, a well-made LP of one of those sessions with which I am intimately familiar, a well-made vinyl record is the most accurate according to my sense memory of having heard that session underway of any of the consumer formats. CHARLIE BENNETT: Thank you so much for talking to me today. STEVE ALBINI: Oh, no problem. FRED RASCOE: Our guest today was Steve Albini. He is the guitarist for Shellac of North America and the owner/operator of Electrical Audio, a recording studio in Chicago. [MUSIC PLAYING] ANTHONY: File this set under RB127.L456. [SUPERCHUNK, "PUNCH ME HARDER"] [NEW BRUTALISM, "025"] FRED RASCOE: That was "025" or maybe it's "025" by New Brutalism. CHARLIE BENNETT: Those guys are awesome. FRED RASCOE: Before that, "Punch Me Harder" by Superchunk. CHARLIE BENNETT: Those guys are pretty good. FRED RASCOE: Songs about doing things that hurt. [MUSIC PLAYING] Charlie, what is going on at the library next week? CHARLIE BENNETT: Discovery, focus, creation, growing, and showcasing. And a bunch of us are skipping town to go to the Library Collective in Knoxville, Tennessee. I hope to track down New Brutalism and strum one of their aluminum guitars. We are the Georgia Tech Library. And we are at your interstate service. [MUSIC PLAYING] ANTHONY: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library produced by Ameet Doshi, Charlie Bennett, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Fred Rascoe. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Anthony was our engineer today. And our show was brought to you by Georgia Blood and Southern Love, a.k.a. Lost in the Stacks Live at Eddie's Attic. FRED RASCOE: It is almost here, Tuesday, March 1 at 7:30 PM, we'll be doing a live version of this show on stage with crime writer Brian Panovich, humorist Hollis Gillespie, professor Dr. Monica Miller, Dr. Dr. Monica Miller, CHARLIE BENNETT: Dr. Doctor. FRED RASCOE: And the band Chickens and Pigs. CHARLIE BENNETT: You can get tickets at eddiesattic.com or by finding one of the many links we've posted on Facebook or Twitter. AMEET DOSHI: Legal counsel and a lifetime supply of half inch tape were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group here in Atlanta, Georgia. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Special Thanks to Steve for being on the show, to Electrical Audio for all the great recordings, and thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. FRED RASCOE: You can hear this show again or get in touch with us at wrek.org/lostinthestacks soon, very soon. And you can find our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or at lostinthestacks.libsyn.com. And libsyn is short for liberated syndication. CHARLIE BENNETT: Next week on Lost in the Stacks, an archive near and dear to our hearts, the Manuel's archive. AMEET DOSHI: It's time for our last song right here on Lost in the Stacks. And while this one does not have Albini as a performer or recording engineer, it is certainly Albini related. I'm going to let Charlie and Steve explain. CHARLIE BENNETT: I think of you guys, especially after Dude, Incredible, which is an amazing album, I listen to it all the time, I cannot get out of my head. STEVE ALBINI: Well, thank you. CHARLIE BENNETT: I think that you guys are a bizarro world ZZ Top. You made-- you made a record-- STEVE ALBINI: I do, I do openly mimic ZZ Top pretty regularly. I wasn't particularly a ZZ top fan until I was in a band with a couple of Texans. And they were crazy about ZZ Top. So that sort of rubbed off on me. And I ended up becoming crazy about ZZ Top. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I'm crazy about ZZ Top too. [ZZ TOP PLAYS] Well, hey, you've been very generous with your time. And thank you very much. I'll send the studio an email when the show is going to be broadcast, just so you guys will know. And you can always-- sorry, you can always download a digital copy after it broadcasts. STEVE ALBINI: Well, you know, I don't have anything anything against digital stuff. I think it's-- as a convenience, I think it's very nice. CHARLIE BENNETT: It's just terrible for archives. STEVE ALBINI: Yeah. AMEET DOSHI: Thanks for listening to Lost in the Stacks from Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library find us online at wrek.org/lostinthestacks to see playlists for old shows, connect with our social media, or get in touch with us.