DAT masters often will not play back on the same day that they were recorded. Often a DAT will only play on the machine that it was originally recorded on. Even the pro models wont play stubborn DAT masters. This is quite a difference from a master that playes flawlessly after 25 years, as in the case of In a Silent Way . Synthesizer constructed music will suffer even more, because written transcription cannot cope at all with the main thrust of this type of expression, which is texture rather than notes.
Synthesizers are like snapshots out of the history book of electronic manufacture and design.
Synthesizers are thousands of times more complex, and hundreds of layers of manufacturing processes go into the production of even the most simple synthesizers. This coupled with the intricacies of modern studio techniques means that the re-recording of electronically created music in the future will be impossible without an audible reference . In order to insure that this music is going to live into the future in any accurate way, we must master onto high stability analogue tape. When tapes are due for re-archiving they must be archived onto another generation of analogue tape. Its only in this way that music, and records like The Shutov Assembly will survive, in high fidelity, for future generations.