need 2816 data backup advice

[Giff]

I am new to the digital recording scene and am learning the Yamaha 2816. I have a large number of songs (originally recorded with a Tascam 488 onto cassette, then recently transferred to the HD of the 2816) that I would like to archive in unmixed form. I tried to save a bunch of them onto CD-R using the CD-RW drive that came with the 2816 and encountered two problems: 1) I could not even fit 4 complete songs (3-4 minutes each, max of 7 unmixed tracks each) onto an 80-minute CD-R before the 2816 asked me to insert a 2nd CD-R to compete the backup; and 2) saving onto the CD-R seems to take a very long time.

What are the best options for saving large amounts of raw song data? I do have a Mac iBook that is sitting around unused -- can I use that to archive my old raw data?

Thanks for any advice!

[iqi616]

You're up against good old track-minutes - an 8-track 5 minute song will take up to 40 track minutes.

Have you gone through each track erasing the silences? That should reduce the total track minutes (especially if the music is spacious). If there's a lot of tape-hiss, you may have to do fade-ins and fade-outs either side of the bits you want to keep to reduce "noise pumping".

Track minutes are also the reason it takes so long to back-up to CD. Even at 2x or 4x it still takes quite a while.

As you have a lot of backing up to do, all I can suggest is that you back up one or two songs per day. Mealtimes are a good time because you can easily get into the habit of starting the backup just before you sit down to eat and it will be complete by the time you finish your meal. Before you know it you will have backed up all your songs.

I find it easiest to archive one song per CD. It's a bit of a waste but makes it a lot easier to manage.