Logistical Question about Bootleg Lists Online

[siavash]

When people list certain bootlegs as being "masters", does that entail that it was recorded/authored by that person, or does it just mean that they happen to have an exact copy of the master?

Also, would you rather have a trader only list his own recordings as his "masters", or should he include masters that he got from other people (carbon copies)? This has been confusing me for a while, and I don't want to accidentally give people the idea that I somehow managed to fly from a Maiden show in Brazil to a Dio show in Germany in 1 day...

[Ghostwheel]

unless i recorded it, i do not list it as a master. but, that's just me.

[cicada]

When you record a show... that source is the master (some people call this "first generation" or gen1). If you and I were buddies in 1984, I might have dubbed a copy of your tape in the hotel across the street or maybe the next week at a party in your living room. That is 2nd generation. Now my roommate comes home from class and sees my tape, so he adds one more generation when he dubs a copy from me... he has a 3rd generation recording. And so on down the line. Analog recordings in my archives have so many generations in most cases (although I have some masters where I ran the deck and kept the tape).

We are so spoiled to now have access to lossless masters and low-gen transfers. Who would have imagined such a world!

[siavash]

Originally Posted by cicada

When you record a show... that source is the master (some people call this "first generation" or gen1). If you and I were buddies in 1984, I might have dubbed a copy of your tape in the hotel across the street or maybe the next week at a party in your living room. That is 2nd generation. Now my roommate comes home from class and sees my tape, so he adds one more generation when he dubs a copy from me... he has a 3rd generation recording. And so on down the line. Analog recordings in my archives have so many generations in most cases (although I have some masters where I ran the deck and kept the tape).

We are so spoiled to now have access to lossless masters and low-gen transfers. Who would have imagined such a world!

What if it's not analog and it's digital? What if I traded with the person who recorded the show and he/she sent me the master online? Would that still be considered a master and should I list it as such online?

[AAR.oner]

i would...digital copying, if done correctly, results in no altering of the files

[siavash]

So what about a person who insists on only trading masters for masters? Does that mean they only trade shows that they have personally recorded, or do they also trade for exact copies of the original master?

[rspencer]

in that case, it's almost always that they are trading to you shows that they have recorded for shows that you have recorded.

[trustthex]

Originally Posted by rspencer

in that case, it's almost always that they are trading to you shows that they have recorded for shows that you have recorded.

More often looking for shows not in common circulation.

[siavash]

Originally Posted by trustthex

More often looking for shows not in common circulation.

Hello, fellow Texan!

So how do you guys recommend organizing one's list? I'm thinking of indicating masters, copies of masters, 1st generation, 2nd generation, 3+ generation, and Unknowns.

What falls under the category of being in "common circulation"? Especially with less sought-after bands?

[splumer]

Originally Posted by siavash

What if it's not analog and it's digital? What if I traded with the person who recorded the show and he/she sent me the master online? Would that still be considered a master and should I list it as such online?

Calling a recording a master is kind of superfluous in the digital age. When analog recordings were the only thing available, it mattered, but as long as the lineage to a particular recording is lossless, there should be no difference between the "master" and any subsequent copies. They are clones.

So how do you guys recommend organizing one's list? I'm thinking of indicating masters, copies of masters, 1st generation, 2nd generation, 3+ generation, and Unknowns.

What falls under the category of being in "common circulation"? Especially with less sought-after bands?

I have all my shows listed on a Excel spreadsheet, listing, in order: band, date, venue, city, state (or country), quality, number of discs, source and notes. I used to use phishhook.com to host my list, but after a couple of scares where the site went down, I decided to download the delimited file from there, import it into Excel, and have that be my master list. I don't remember the last time I updated my phishhook list, and I doubt it's used much anymore.

"Common circulation" just means the shows every fan of a particular band has. For example, most Pink Floyd collectors have Oakland 77 and Wembly 74. With less-popular bands, the shows in common circulation are probably even more specific, simply because there aren't as many shows in the pool.

[Luke_of_Mass]

ya know, i'm really glad this was brought up because i've been wondering this lately myself.

the concept of 'master' seems to have become more or less a psychological thing when trading digital music which is lossless and identical to what was recorded digitally in the first place. and especially now that trading flacs of shows with an additional text file disclosing the exact lineage and other details about the show has become customary, theoretically anyone could claim to be the taper of something digitally recorded. especially if it hasn't been circulated much.

...and now that i think of it, calling the person who recorded the preformance the "taper" is a bit of an obsolite term now, too-- since the majority of recordings now are digital, not analogue, and therefore tape recording is simply a thing of the past. (although with that said i plan to test out a sony D-6 i found at a yardsale the other day at a concert coming up...)

i havent recorded many things and i am a relatively new collector/trader. but if i was an active taper who started decades ago, i dont think i would be able to trade my master tapes because of sentimental value... maybe that's just to be expected or perhaps im just a hoarder...

well i suppose i'll go to my etree list and proclaim all of the recordings with purely digital lineages to be masters !!

cheers

[rspencer]

You don't usually trade analog masters. Keeping them is expected.
You make a copy to trade, which is a 1st generation.

As far as digital, I think every show I've recorded has a cut somewhere in the seeded/traded copy (bathroom break, talking cut out, etc.). So I'm the only one with the master, for what that's worth.