STUDIO

The round the world round of round tablemeetings between the IFPI andJapanese electronics companiescontinues. They were started, by JanTimmer of Philips (ex- Polygram), with the aim ofhammering out an acceptable format for DAT. Asthe only format acceptable to the IFPI was adigital recorder that didn't record digitally, it isnot surprising that two years after the firstmeeting in Vancouver, in December 1986, therewas still no agreement. But there is now astronger will to talk.This is not the result of some newfound lovebetween the record and electronics industries. Thewill to talk and compromise is born out of sheernecessity. Delays on DAT killed the format fordomestic use, making recordable CD a viablealternative. The record companies see CD -R as aneven greater threat than DAT. The electronicscompanies see CD -R as a new money- spinner,provided that they can agree a technical standardthat appeases the record companies.At Philips' Annual General Meeting inEindhoven earlier this year Jan Timmer was stillconfident that the warring factions wouldeventually make peace."The software and hardware industries are stilltalking," said Timmer. "There is no conclusionyet but I think there is a better understanding bythe hardware industry of the need to reachagreement with the software industry. I believewe will reconcile the two. Many manufacturershave announced erasable or recordable discs.There is no technical problem here. But there isneed to set a worldwide standard, we needagreement on the technology. It will be a longtime before we talk about the orderly introductionof recordable CD."Later Philips engineers explained the need for atechnical standard -even though all the differentCD -R systems produce the same end result, astandard size CD with a spiral of marks that lookto the readout laser like the pits in a pressed disc.Some kind of procedure will have to be agreedfor creating the Table of Contents at thebeginning of the disc, so that the playerelectronics know what recordings are there toplay. This is not as easy as it sounds, when youbear in mind that domestic CD -R will be used tobuild up a piecemeal compilation of favourite dubsfrom a variety of pressed CDs.If the user makes a false start while dubbingonto a record -once disc, the TOC will have to flagthe player to ignore that part of the disc. Andthis will eat playing time out of the total hour -rather like erasing records from EPROMcomputer memory. The erased records cannot beread but they remain in memory, soaking upcapacity.Says Gijs Wirtz, the man responsible for DAT atPhilips:"We have forever lost the freedom of the '50sand '60s. In those days you could construct yourown radio set from components. The consumerelectronics industry can no longer just put aproduct on the market and see what happens. Butobviously we can't make a recorder which cannot32 Studio Sound, June 1989Barry FoxRecordable CDsystems and anelectronic musictechnology coursemake recordings. We are working on acompromise."Wirtz draws an interesting parallel:"In many respects digital recorders are like atelecommunication network -they both allowdigital cloning. Once information has been sentdown a digital telecoms network, it is there foranyone to copy as many times as they like. Sousers pay for the service. The telecoms industrywas fortunate that governments understood theproblems and made rules that are backed up bylaw, for instance to prevent phone tapping. Theconsumer electronics industry has so far lackedsimilar structured standardisation of hardwareand software, backed by Governmentenforcement."Magneto- optical erasable, or rewriteable, discsare already made, eg by 3M, for the computerindustry. They are expensive and difficult to readon a conventional CD player, because thereflective character of the disc is below thestandard set by the Red Book.Canon has developed the rewriteable opticaldrive being used in the Steve Jobs Next computer.This relies on interesting new technology to skirtthe current compromise between life andreadability. Conventional rewriteable discs use alayer of rare earth which slightly changes thepolarisation of reflected light when magnetised.Materials which give a large phase change, andare thus easily read, have short life. Theirswitched magnetic state changes too easily. Morestable materials switch the phase by only 0.1 °.The Canon disc has two rare earth layers, onewith low coercivity, but high Curie point, on topof another layer with high coercivity and lowCurie point. The top layer gives a strong phaseshift, and its short life magnetic state iscontinually backed up by the long life layerunderneath.So far Canon are supplying discs and drives onlyto Next, ready for deliveries to begin in June inthe USA. Canon say they aim to offer an opticalsystem which beats hard disk for price andperformance within two years. Current OEMprices are around $1,500 for the drive and $50 perdisk.Tandy is still pledged to make the Thorerasable CD system available this year, foraround $500. Thor uses a double layer of dyedplastics, and two lasers, of different wavelength,for write and erase. The top layer passes thewrite beam so that it can heat the lower layerand cause bumps. The top layer bumps thenabsorb the erase beam. So they melt and flatten,erasing the recording. The snag is that the bumpsnever completely flatten. So the disc has a goodSN ratio when first used to record, but the ratiodegrades steeply on first erasure and thendegrades slowly on subsequent record/erase cycles.Other manufacturers have opted for cheapersystems which record only once. They argue that60% of audio cassette tapes sold are never re -used,so the public will be happy with a one -use disc.Taiyo Yuden has promised That's CD. Philipsengineers have tried some of the discs whichTaiyo were touting round Europe and found thatthe technology used does not tally with thedescription given by Taiyo. The disc does notrecord by gas explosions caused in the surfacelayer by heat from the laser; iñstead a dye layeris bleached by the laser. No -one yet knows howstable the dyes will be. Doubtless this is whyTaiyo says the disc must be kept clear of brightsunlight.At the giant CeBIT computer show in Hanoverearlier this year, Fuji demonstrated a write -oncerecordable CD, which works with a recorder madeby Yamaha. Fuji proved, with demonstrations,that its disc is directly compatible with aconventional CD player and can be handled justlike an ordinary CD, without the need for aprotective cartridge.There have been two more roundtable meetingssince the Philips AGM -and they are still nocloser to a real solution.This could be interesting. The Universityof East Anglia, Norwich, UK, is runninga residential course this summer(August 26th to 30th) on electronicmusic technology. For around £300 you get yourhands on a roomful of keyboards, guitar, drumand wind controllers, tone generators, samplers,computers, digital MIDI mixers and recorderswith tuition from the likes of Dave Mattacks,Adrian Lee and David Bristow.Yamaha is providing the hardware -around 25work stations for a hundred pupils. Maybe it's anact of contrition, for flooding high street shops,homes and bars with play -in -a -day keyboardscomplete with chords and rhythm accompanimentprogrammed in Tokyo.The UEA are aiming the course at semi -proswho already own a few pieces of electronic kit, atprofessional musicians who have so far playedonly acoustic instruments and at broadcast andstudio engineers who want to plug some holes intheir knowledge. As UEA say, "No -one knowseverything."With such a mixed bag of pupils, there willobviously have to be some careful streaming, toensure that students aren't paying £300 to learnto `suck eggs'. And hopefully there won't be toomuch musical philosophising from academics.With a bit of luck the cost of the course, calledSoundscape, could be money well spent for anyonenow trapped by job circumstances into pretendingthat they know more about electronic music thanthey really do.Details from Soundscape at UEA. Tel: 0603592802.