Save Your Stuff!: Beginner’s Archiving for Musicians

Subtitled, "Beginner's Archiving for Musicians", this wonderful little ‘zine-like pamphlet presents some easy to understand concepts to help musicians (as well as engineers and producers) "organize, describe, and back up" their music. Author Jessica Thompson (see her re-mastering article this issue) specializes in mastering, restoration, and archiving, as well as contributing to occasional Tape Op reviews, so she knows this world well. Her friend, Kelley Vaughn-Kauffman, contributes excellent and charming illustrations and design to this 12-page booklet. Subjects include: setting up spreadsheets, backing up data, folder hierarchy and naming, and also tips on maintaining an archive. As the audio archivist for Elliott Smith's indie label work, I know that helping spread this kind of useful information, especially as technology continues to rapidly change, is more important now than ever. Every studio should have a stack of this insightful work available for clients at every session!