Tape notes: this is the the Yesterday Rules hard drive being backed up. I expected it to be an easier process, but it was more difficult than expected because, as it turns out, there really is no straightforward dongle to adapt Firewire 400 to USB-c. (I had lots of suggestions from people recommending that I buy and install an extra bridge converter in my laptop, which wasn't going to happen. I can just image the carnage that would have resulted had I tried to open the case of this MacBook to solder in some kind of bridge just to be able to connect this volume for an hour. No.) What I had to do was revive my old, semi-functional laptop, which does have a Firewire 800 port that is dongle-able. This was easier said than done, as the old computer had been retired for a reason. I got it going with some work, though it is still a little rickety. But I did manage to copy the files. As of now though, I can't listen to them because they're in a format that nothing I have can read: "Sound Designer II". I'm sure there's a way to convert them to .WAV files, though, once I get to that stage. There was a non-trivial chance that this old hard drive wouldn't even start up. At which point I wouldn't have known what to do -- remove the actual metal disks from the La Cie enclosure and re-install them in new casing? Thankfully that didn't happen. The rock and roll is safe after all. This is the first MTX album, and the only one in the Mtx forever "window," to have been mixed digitally. (We recorded basic tracks to tape and then did overdubs and mixed in pro tools -- the tapes are no loger extant.) Tape is fragile and hard to store and copy and such, but no part of this project has caused more trouble, anxiety, and possibility of fatal mishap than the one preserved on the most convenient, superior format. And after all that, I still can't listen to it. Give me tape any time. What I'm saying is: Yesterday Rules. #music #tapes #archive #mtxforever #minds