How to get that "Pro" sound, your personal hints?
Christian Fowler
I have been slowly learning the keys to getting a good sounding recording. the
key things I have learned are the most important areas are:
1. Eq. A good eq can bring a recording to life, if something sounds bad, ie
harmonics etc, turn the gain all the way up amke it sound as bad as
possible and then suck then gain negative.
2. Good equipment, not $5000 Neumans, but quality gear, including flat monitors
3. Turn down instead of up. - Very important
4. Resist all your learned tendencies - i.e. smiling eq, etc
My current problem is just how loud should the vocal be?
trying to make a recording sound professional is like the difference between
a home movie and something you see on TV. Even if you have a $10K camera to
record your home movies they still don't have the professional edge. Seems
like there is a lot of similarities between mastering audio and mastering video
anyway what tips have you learned???
--
+-+
+-+|+-+ Christian Fowler
+-+|+-+ ma...@cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu
+-+
JeffL10651
CD's, a good set of monitors, and listen. Listen for individual
volumes, balance, reverb/effect levels, stereo placement, frequency
ranges, everything that you can learn. Try to figure out what mics
they used- it's impossible to say, but you start to learn the
character between instruments and mic sounds. One way to get an
*unpro* sound is excessive reverb- I'm listening to "Syncronicity"
right now and it has a lot less reverb than I remember. Try to do
some live sound too- it helped me to get good sounds and mixes fast,
and how to get a full sound with a small ensemble/ bad equipment.
Good luck, dude.
George Stone Oberwetter-Ludwig
Christian:
One of the BEST things I ever did was to buy a real microphone.
If you have an AKG414 and a nice transformer, youd'd be
shocked at the difference it makes regardless of the gear you
have on the back end (i.e., 4 trk cassette, 8 trk 1/2", ADAT,
whatever).
Of course, an AKG414 will set you back over $1000, and it's
unlikely you'll find one used(because no one ever sells them).
But for me, it was really the thing that put my recordings
into the "pro" quality arena. Previously, I'd used an AKG
C1000s. That's like a $300 microphone. I thought I was rockin'
when I bought it. Then I one day I got a wild hair up my butt
and sprung 1200 for the 414. It changed my life forever!
Oh, and a good compressor/limiter helps too. I didn't need a
de-esser anymore after I got the 414, because I didn't have
to squash the signal anymore to get a decent sound out of it.
Anyway, that's my .02
George
* George Stone Oberwetter-Ludwig * I AM my employer, so if you don't like my *
* glu...@well.sf.ca.us * attitude, you can just piss off! *
* finger me for PGP public key * "Better living through creative thought." *
Don A.B. Lindbergh
>when I bought it. Then I one day I got a wild hair up my butt
>and sprung 1200 for the 414. It changed my life forever!
What transformer/preamp do you use and what console (typically) ie when
you're not plugging into an API/Neve etc.
I have a 414 and a Yamaha 16 ch board (can't remember model) wonder if a
good preamp straight into my Tascam TSR-8 will really make a difference
(probably).
Don A.B. Lindbergh II
not a spokesperson for nlm
Gabe Wiener
Christian Fowler <ma...@cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu> wrote:
>
>1. Eq. A good eq can bring a recording to life, if something sounds bad, ie
> harmonics etc, turn the gain all the way up amke it sound as bad as
> possible and then suck then gain negative.
This technique is a good one, and is one that I use a good deal
myself, though be aware that in order for it to work right, you really
have to be able to manipulate the Q of your equalizer. If you have a
fixed bandwidth device, the old boost/sweep/cut effect will likely
damage the material somewhat.
> My current problem is just how loud should the vocal be?
Loud enough that it sounds good. There honestly is no other answer.
It is the sort of thing that you just have to learn from doing. Some
singers will, without question, need to be compressed. I did a
recording once with a wailing saxophone and a gospell singer who
insisted in jumping from whispers all the way up to levels that I
could hear through my IAC soundproof door.
>trying to make a recording sound professional is like the difference between
>a home movie and something you see on TV. Even if you have a $10K camera to
>record your home movies they still don't have the professional edge. Seems
>like there is a lot of similarities between mastering audio and mastering
>video
The analogy is quite good. People who go out and buy those snazzy
$6,000 Sony EWV-300 camcorders that the news crews are using find out
quickly that their home movies don't look like TV even though the
color balance is right and there are no more comet tails. Think about
what goes into a TV program. You have directors calling the shots.
You've got cameramen who know how to walk with a camera so it doesn't
all look like Cinema Verite. You've got editors and effects people
and sound mixers and people to timebase correct the video and color
correct the tapes, and....
It's the same sort of thing in audio. The home studio phenomenon is
quite remarkable, but it doesn't suddenly make musicians into
engineers, anymore than does owning a camcorder make someone into
Spielberg.
There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
therefore is CD-ready. Be prepared for lots of bad sounding CDs in
the years to come.
--
Gabe M. Wiener -- ga...@panix.com | "I am terrified at the thought that
N2GPZ -- PGP public key on request | so much hideous and bad music may be
Quintessential Sound, Inc. | put on records forever."
Recording / Mastering / Restoration | --Sir Arthur Sullivan
Gabe Wiener
>>1. Eq. A good eq can bring a recording to life, if something sounds bad, ie
>> harmonics etc, turn the gain all the way up amke it sound as bad as
>> possible and then suck the gain negative.
>
>I didn't understand this.
If you have a certain timbre that is irrotating you but you can't seem
to find it in order to notch it out or at least attenuate it with a
parametric, you can use the following trick:
- TURN YOUR MONITOR LEVEL DOWN A GOOD DEAL
- Narrow the Q of the equalizer
- Turn the Fc down all the way.
- Set EQ for maximum gain
- Sweep the Fc until the annoying timbre is as bad as it can
get, and then make it worse.
- Swing the gain negative, and then narrow the Q as much as
you can without causing the anomaly to return.
- If it doesn't work, widen the Q and start again.
Aashi Deacon
>There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
>and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
>assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
does anyone have a list of these plants, and what it takes to
get cds made at them? i assume most only take a 1630, and
duplicate from that?
aash
--
aash@{ms.uky.edu|ukma.bitnet|ukpr} "the only thing i ever really wanted to
{backbone|rutgers|uunet}!ukma!aash say was wrong, was wrong, was wrong."
JKreines
writes:
))You've got cameramen who know how to walk with a camera so it
doesn't
all look like Cinema Verite.((
As an actual cinema verite filmmaker, I truly resent that remark!!
I walk so smoothly while shooting that I've been accused of using a
Steadicam!
--Jeff
Gabe Wiener
JKreines <jkre...@aol.com> wrote:
>As an actual cinema verite filmmaker, I truly resent that remark!!
>I walk so smoothly while shooting that I've been accused of using a
>Steadicam!
When we make rec.audio.pro: The Movie, you can be the cameraman and I'll
be the soundman, okay? :-)
Seriously though, no offense intended, and nothing against cinema
verite. But _bad_ cinema verite doesn't get beyond a person swinging
around a camcorder!
Daniel Seeman
>There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
>and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
>assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
>the years to come.
I beg to differ...
I am very happy that garage CD duplication shops are popping up all over
the place. You are absolutely correct that one is quite capable of
putting a bad recording onto a DAT master then transferring that to a CD.
Equipment is part of the equation, but certainly someone has to drive
said equip. and this is where the art and ideas are expressed.
However as you have probably seen by the "Who's in a band" thread, there
are many, many musicians out there all with interesting things to say.
IMHO, it is a crying shame that the music industry is so difficult to get
into that smaller, lesser known bands are essentially excluded from
publication. Certainly recording quality helps and is nice to hear, but
it is the idea that is important to me. As long as I can hear that, all
else is truly secondary.
Increasing the opportunity for others to get their music out can only be
good. I would love to walk into a music store like Tower Records and see
it filled to the ceiling with local artists on independent labels playing
their own music.
Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially you'll
post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
The more music, the 'mo betta'...
dks.
Don A.B. Lindbergh
>Increasing the opportunity for others to get their music out can only be
>good. I would love to walk into a music store like Tower Records and see
>it filled to the ceiling with local artists on independent labels playing
>their own music.
>
>Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
>(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
>forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially you'll
>post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
>will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
Right. Why wait? It's happening now. See page 31 of latest Rolling Stone
(Julia Roberts). If you're hip to the Web, check
If you don't know what the Web is, ftp the faq from rtfm.mit.edu
(comp.infosystems.edu) and/or read the usenet group.
Jamie Krutz
>
> There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
> and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
> assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
> therefore is CD-ready. Be prepared for lots of bad sounding CDs in
> the years to come.
Gabe, could you summarize what's missing in the above
scenario? If I mix my music, normalize it on my computer, and
put it on a DAT in such a way that it sounds good played start
to finish over a variety of studio, home and car stereo systems,
what steps have I left out that would make this DAT not CD-ready?
Thanks!
-Jamie
Raymond 'Model checking' Groenewoud
|> > My current problem is just how loud should the vocal be?
|>
|> Loud enough that it sounds good. There honestly is no other answer.
|> It is the sort of thing that you just have to learn from doing. Some
|> singers will, without question, need to be compressed. I did a
|> recording once with a wailing saxophone and a gospell singer who
|> insisted in jumping from whispers all the way up to levels that I
|> could hear through my IAC soundproof door.
I have the same problem. In the studio it may sound ok, but at home the vocals turns out
to be too loud or you hardly hear it. How about the problem of ears getting 'tired' and
the monitoring in the studio? I thought it is a good idea to use a CD with songmaterial
that resembles the music you are mixing especially with the amount of bass and what loud
the vocals should be. This is because the sound of the studio monitors is quite
different from what you hear at home and I am _not_ in the studio every day (only a
weekend per month or so). I know professional engineers always use the same monitors as
a reference; when they are in some other studio with unknown monitoring, they bring
their own monitors.
---------------------------------------------------
/ Raymond Groenewoud /
/ Student Computer Science /
/ University of Twente /
/ The Netherlands /
/--------------------------------------------------/
/ e-mail: groe...@cs.utwente.nl /
----------------------------------------------------
Jim T. Rusby
Daniel Seeman <dse...@wc.novell.com> wrote:
>
>Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
>(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
>forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially you'll
>post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
>will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
Ahh, Utopia. Does this mean musicians will no longer need to be paid for
their work, and all of us technical types shall be volunteering? Musical
instruments won't cost money, rent will go away- and food will be free...
And of course, its all on the network- didn't I hear that before the last
election? :)
Using the words "free endeavor" on a pro audio newsgroup is liable to
give someone a coronary, or at least get them to cancel their order for
the latest (pick one) workstation, console or microphone.
--
Jim Rusby Phone: 503-346-5659
Recording engineer UO School of Music email:jru...@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Tech Director- Dept of Dance Two Tracks- 8 chickens and a dog.
Joseph Selby
>>the years to come.
>
>I beg to differ...
>
>I am very happy that garage CD duplication shops are popping up all over
>the place. You are absolutely correct that one is quite capable of
>putting a bad recording onto a DAT master then transferring that to a CD.
> Equipment is part of the equation, but certainly someone has to drive
>said equip. and this is where the art and ideas are expressed.
>
independant, unsigned bands? Cassettes are cheaper and still more
abundantly supported byt the hardware that consumers have in their
cars/homes etc. Producing a shitty CD will cost a band a couple thousand
dollars, as opposed to a few hundred for cassettes.
>However as you have probably seen by the "Who's in a band" thread, there
>are many, many musicians out there all with interesting things to say.
>IMHO, it is a crying shame that the music industry is so difficult to get
>into that smaller, lesser known bands are essentially excluded from
>publication. Certainly recording quality helps and is nice to hear, but
>it is the idea that is important to me. As long as I can hear that, all
>else is truly secondary.
>
>Increasing the opportunity for others to get their music out can only be
>good. I would love to walk into a music store like Tower Records and see
>it filled to the ceiling with local artists on independent labels playing
>their own music.
Tower is already very supportive of local bands. They will stock your
independantly produced product. Wherehouse won't and neither will
Blockbuster, and that is not likely to change.
>
>Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
>(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
>forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially you'll
>post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
>will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
I don't want to insult you, but you are naive if you think the big 6
record companies are just sitting around waiting for their industry to
become obsolete. I have aquaintences in the record business who are
doing nothing right now but research and development of online services
for major labels. It will be a one way affair. You will download, but
you will NOT upload to the big six, and it will NOT be reasonably priced,
but that won't matter. The unwashed masses will gobble it up and never
blink at the price. If we are not very careful, the electronic media is
going to get less diverse and even harder to get involved in, not the
other way around.
>
>The more music, the 'mo betta'...
I agree with you on that one, but the marketing swine at the big 6 don't,
and right now they are the ones calling most of the shots.
>
>dks.
-Joe
ps. just my two, semi-informed cents above, I just write in an
impassioned voice.
--
----
jse...@netcom.com | Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
------------------------| -Grant/Naylor
jse...@mfi.com | This of course does not apply on the Usenet.
Daniel Seeman
jru...@darkwing.uoregon.edu writes:
>>Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
>>(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
>>forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially
you'll
>>post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
>>will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
>
>their work, and all of us technical types shall be volunteering? Musical
>instruments won't cost money, rent will go away- and food will be free...
No, this is not what I meant. Instruments will cost for the materials
and every piece of hardware you will continue to have to purchase.
Definately your rent and food will all cost you 50 years from now
(assuming we make it that far). But you may have to find some way (other
than the performing arts) to pay for these necessities.
It is the recording\publishing of performing arts that will become a
household or nearly free endevor. Take a look at the desktop publishing
industry and the fledgling 'zine industry. 50 years ago, it was only the
rich that could publish a newspaper, magazine, or even a flyer for that
matter. Now you see "indi" papers all over the place. It won't be too
long before other forms of media are as easily produced/distributed as
written media is today.
>And of course, its all on the network- didn't I hear that before the
last
>election? :)
>
It 'aint no pie in the sky.
Certainly it will not happen without lots of creativity, hard work and
luck. And this *definately* won't happen in the next four years as some
(politicans) would like you to believe but it is out there and it will
happen.
>Using the words "free endeavor" on a pro audio newsgroup is liable to
>give someone a coronary, or at least get them to cancel their order for
>the latest (pick one) workstation, console or microphone.
>
I guess I kind of picked the wrong crowd for this discussion. Sorry to
ruffle anyone's feathers. For now though rest assured that we all pay...
dks.
The Bakalite
look forward to being able to chose from a wide variety of music, not
the usual crap that the A&R people at the big labels like.
Frankly, I am surprised you would say something like that, there is so
much terrible music that is being put on CD's, as your tagline says, and
most of it is overproduced stamped out formula pop.
If you get a few individuals together who play music but also know what
they are doing engineering and production wise, you certainly can get
some good stuff out. I for one applaud the revolution in the music
industry, and hope to see a much vaster array of styles available to
consumers in the future....
Now if only we could get rid of those dmn distributors, let's see, a CD
costs about $1.50 to make, so even if we only sell it for $6.50, it would
still make enough for everyone....and people would buy 3 times a smany
cd's, there would be more support for bands, and people would have a
greater selection in their home....sounds good to me.
PvB
Gabe Wiener (ga...@panix.com) wrote:
: It's the same sort of thing in audio. The home studio phenomenon is
: quite remarkable, but it doesn't suddenly make musicians into
: engineers, anymore than does owning a camcorder make someone into
: Spielberg.
: There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
: and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
: assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
: therefore is CD-ready. Be prepared for lots of bad sounding CDs in
: the years to come.
: --
: Gabe M. Wiener -- ga...@panix.com | "I am terrified at the thought that
: N2GPZ -- PGP public key on request | so much hideous and bad music may be
: Quintessential Sound, Inc. | put on records forever."
: Recording / Mastering / Restoration | --Sir Arthur Sullivan
--
Remember, it's all a Bakalite trick.
Gabe Wiener
Daniel Seeman <dse...@wc.novell.com> wrote:
>No, this is not what I meant. Instruments will cost for the materials
>and every piece of hardware you will continue to have to purchase.
>Definately your rent and food will all cost you 50 years from now
>(assuming we make it that far). But you may have to find some way (other
>than the performing arts) to pay for these necessities.
Once every three months or so, this thread gets started on this
newsgroup. It's always "in [10/20/50] years, there'll be no more
physical distribution. We'll all just be able to download music free
of charge to our homes and enjoy it. Music will be a free-for-all,
open-to-everyone sort of endeavor."
This view is at best naive and at worst idiotically misinformed.
Perhaps you forget that there is an entire industry that isn't just
sitting on its hands, waiting for the electronic frontier to flatten
them. Electronic distribution will perhaps come of age, but if it
does, it will be brought to pass by the very hardware manufacturers,
record companies, and music producers that fuel today's commercial
market.
If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
>It is the recording\publishing of performing arts that will become a
>household or nearly free endevor.
Please. Don't kid yourself. Anyone can buy a microphone and a
4-track and make a recording. Anyone can buy a microphone and DAT
machine and record their kid brother's band. That doesn't make the
band any good, and it doesn't mean that the guy with the microphone
knows the first thing about how to make a good sounding record.
The truth of the matter is that quality always has a way of coming
through, and good musical performers, good engineers, good producers,
etc. manage to rise to the top in our current socio-economic system
of distribution.
>Take a look at the desktop publishing
>industry and the fledgling 'zine industry.
I have. Have you noticed the pathetic quality of the typography and
graphics? Let alone the quality of the writing. Desktop publishing
is great. I too love to sit down at the mac and bang out an
impressive-looking postcard mailer, community concert program, A/D
shootout protocol, or track sheet. But that doesn't make me a graphic
artist. At least I'm smart enough to know that I'm *not* a graphic
artist and shouldn't pretend to be one.
I'm all for free press and grass-roots music distribution, but I have
to chuckle when I hear people whining on about how the distinction
between major labels and behind-the-boiler-in-dad's-garage labels will
disappear once we have electronic distribution.
>50 years ago, it was only the
>rich that could publish a newspaper, magazine, or even a flyer for that
>matter.
Drivel. APAs (Amateur Publishing Associations) existed well back into
the 30's and before.
> Now you see "indi" papers all over the place. It won't be too
>long before other forms of media are as easily produced/distributed as
>written media is today.
Fine. But so what? DTP hasn't displaced commercial publishers.
Magazines and books haven't seen declining readership because everyone
and his brother has a mac and a laser printer. Peopan now can make
flyers with 17 fonts on a page so no one can read them...great.
>I guess I kind of picked the wrong crowd for this discussion. Sorry to
>ruffle anyone's feathers. For now though rest assured that we all pay...
Quality costs money. People somehow have this delusion that once
information is available to all, we'll all live in peace and harmony
and everyone will donate their time for the greater glory of mankind's
artistic advancement. Save it for Gene Roddenberry, please. For the
moment we still live in a commercial society that perpetuates itself,
and as long as people have an entrepreneurial spirit, people will
continue to need to receive payment for quality work, and as long as
that's the case, quality products will have a price.
I usually tend to like the music that I record, edit, and master. That
doesn't mean that I'll do a CD for someone free of charge. I have rent
and insurance and salaries to pay.
Gabe Wiener
Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
>Gabe, could you summarize what's missing in the above
>scenario? If I mix my music, normalize it on my computer, and
>put it on a DAT in such a way that it sounds good played start
>to finish over a variety of studio, home and car stereo systems,
>what steps have I left out that would make this DAT not CD-ready?
The problem is that DAT is a consumer format with delusions of
grandeur. Yes, I know everyone uses it. I use it too. That doesn't
mean it's a good format. It isn't.
First of all, contrary to what your digidesign manual says, there
are situations where you do *not* want to normalize your music. We
can get into discussions about why in some other thread.
Compact discs start out their production life as a glass master. This
master is used to make the stamper which ultimately makes the disc.
The glass master has to be "struck" from a source medium that contains
a full set of PQ information.
Originally, the CD standard was designed around the PCM-1600 digital
format, since that was the only suitable format around. Later, the
PMCD format became accepted as a far better plant delivery format than
PCM-1600/10/30.
As of late, the Doug Carson DDP system has enabled certain plants to
press from other media without a format conversion....Exabyte tapes
and redbook (i.e. non-PMCD) discs. A few plants are even using the
Carson system to generate PQ subcode right off DAT. The problem is
that this misses the point of what a plant delivery format ought to
be.
When you send a disc to the factory to be pressed, you had better be
sure it's perfect. DAT is far from perfect. It is subject to massive
dropouts. The start ID system is inaccurate to say the least. Try
playing a tape with tight start IDs. Some machines (Otari DTR-90 for
instance) will cue right to the ID and be spot-on. Other machines
(Panasonic 3700) will cue a little _before_ the ID. So, when you drop
an ID, particularly a splice ID on a CD with a vcery small offset,
where exactly is it going to end up on the CD? Who knows?
The reason I prefer optical formats is that you can tell *precisely*
what your finished product will sound like, particularly with respect
to ID placement and error count.
Gabe Wiener
The Bakalite <pbr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Frankly, I am surprised you would say something like that, there is so
>much terrible music that is being put on CD's, as your tagline says, and
>most of it is overproduced stamped out formula pop.
>If you get a few individuals together who play music but also know what
>they are doing engineering and production wise, you certainly can get
>some good stuff out.
If you get a few people together who know what they're doing, they'll
know enough not to use DAT as a plant-delivery format. I'm not saying
that independent people shouldn't produce music. Far from it. I've
got my own independt label.
What I'm saying is that if people want their music to sound good on
record, they should prepare it using quality methods, and the plants
shouldn't condone a bad technique (delivering masters tor manufacture
on DAT) by advertising it as an option.
>Now if only we could get rid of those dmn distributors, let's see, a CD
>costs about $1.50 to make, so even if we only sell it for $6.50, it would
>still make enough for everyone....and people would buy 3 times a smany
>cd's, there would be more support for bands, and people would have a
>greater selection in their home....sounds good to me.
But this will never happen. See, people are *paying* the $13.99 for
CD's. As long as they pay it, the prices will stay up there. You can
bet that if all the distributors disappeared tomorrow, the labels
would charge $13.99 too.
Only when we have truly high-bandwidth electronic databank distribution
is there a shot (and no guarantee) of a pricing restructure.
Jonathan Egre
>In article <pbraunbC...@netcom.com>,
>The Bakalite <pbr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Now if only we could get rid of those dmn distributors, let's see, a CD
>>costs about $1.50 to make, so even if we only sell it for $6.50, it would
>>still make enough for everyone....and people would buy 3 times a smany
>>cd's, there would be more support for bands, and people would have a
>>greater selection in their home....sounds good to me.
>
>But this will never happen. See, people are *paying* the $13.99 for
>CD's. As long as they pay it, the prices will stay up there. You can
>bet that if all the distributors disappeared tomorrow, the labels
>would charge $13.99 too.
Not necessarily. What we have at the moment is two layers of cartels:
the major record companies and the distributors. There is no incentive
for any of the record companies to break the cartel by charging less
for their CDs/whatever, because the distributors will keep the savings
for themselves and not pass them on to the consumer (I believe that it's
been tried by one of the majors). But if the majors were distributing
directly to the consumer, then there would be an incentive for them to
offer lower prices than their competitors. (It's possible that they
wouldn't, but I don't think it's inevitable.)
--
jona...@mantis.co.uk == Jonathan Egre' at Mantis Consultants, Cambridge, UK
Monte P McGuire
>If you get a few people together who know what they're doing, they'll
>know enough not to use DAT as a plant-delivery format.
>
>What I'm saying is that if people want their music to sound good on
>record, they should prepare it using quality methods, and the plants
>shouldn't condone a bad technique (delivering masters tor manufacture
>on DAT) by advertising it as an option.
I missed something - what's so horrible about DAT? If not DAT, then
what? 1630? DASH? 1/4" analog? 1/2" analog?
I know DAT is not completely reliable (i.e. excess errors etc. are
possible with careless handling) but then again, DAT can be done
right; some people use it for computer backup...
Maybe I'm a hillbilly, but I (like the rest of the world back then)
used to charge people to prepare 1/4" masters; isn't DAT basically on
par with 1/4", assuming $3-5K machines??
A confused old fart....
Monte McGuire
mcg...@world.std.com
Jonathan Egre
>
>>It is the recording\publishing of performing arts that will become a
>>household or nearly free endevor.
>
>Please. Don't kid yourself. Anyone can buy a microphone and a
>4-track and make a recording. Anyone can buy a microphone and DAT
>machine and record their kid brother's band. That doesn't make the
>band any good, and it doesn't mean that the guy with the microphone
>knows the first thing about how to make a good sounding record.
It's true that anybody with a few hundred to a thousand dollars can make
a recording today. But their options for *distribution* are very limited
without the help of a record company.
And right now the record companies would much rather make their profits
by re-releasing the music they already have on new media (including
computer networks), than by introducing new, quality music to the
public. The majors are refusing to take any risks at all with new music.
The public are being starved of new music, contemporary musicians
are being starved of an audience, and a paranoid aversion to risks is
bad for long-term business.
The point of all this is that record companies are not omniscient,
infallible judges of quality. Record companies turn down quality
music all the time. Therefore, there is a huge amount of quality
music that the public might suddenly have the opportunity to hear
by computer network distribution. Certainly there will be an
even larger amount of rubbish, but it won't *all* be rubbish.
>The truth of the matter is that quality always has a way of coming
>through, and good musical performers, good engineers, good producers,
>etc. manage to rise to the top in our current socio-economic system
>of distribution.
Basically what you're saying here is, "if they are making lots of money,
they *must* be good, and if they aren't making money, they *must*
be bad". Not only do I disagree with this (as explained above),
I think this is actually a self-defeating idea. The link between
quality and financial success (in all things, not just music)
can only hold if everybody judges quality independently and makes their
decisions according to their individual judgement. If people fail to
exercise their right to use their own personal judgement of quality,
then how is the link between quality and success established?
>For the
>moment we still live in a commercial society that perpetuates itself,
>and as long as people have an entrepreneurial spirit, people will
>continue to need to receive payment for quality work, and as long as
>that's the case, quality products will have a price.
I don't believe that there has ever been a society, anywhere in the
world, at any period in history, where *everybody* has had "an
entrepreneurial spirit". And as long as there are artists who
consider persuing their art to be more important than making a fast
buck, there will be quality music available for just the distribution
costs (which might become very small) and a contribution towards
food and rent; if music is not the only source of income for these
people, then quality music might very well be free.
Sure, there will be artists who *do* want to make a fast buck.
But the idea that cheap *always* means low quality is sometimes wronG,
and in the world of art, usually wrong.
JKreines
writes:
))But _bad_ cinema verite doesn't get beyond a person swinging
around a camcorder!((
CINEMA verite means no camcorder. Video is another matter....
shooting video causes one's IQ to drop.
;-)
--Jeff
Gabe Wiener
Jonathan Egre <jona...@mantis.co.uk> wrote:
>
>And right now the record companies would much rather make their profits
>by re-releasing the music they already have on new media (including
>computer networks), than by introducing new, quality music to the
>public. The majors are refusing to take any risks at all with new music.
Indeed this is true. My solution is to start my own record company,
which I'm in the midst of doing. Of course, the "new music" that I'm
interested in recording is early music that has never been recorded.
The majors are too busy re-recording The Four Seasons this year.
>The point of all this is that record companies are not omniscient,
>infallible judges of quality. Record companies turn down quality
>music all the time. Therefore, there is a huge amount of quality
>music that the public might suddenly have the opportunity to hear
>by computer network distribution.
This is true, but recognize how the networks will get there. When
mass-market networking comes to pass, it will have serious commercial
overtones to it. Record companies will buy space en masse, if they
don't own the music distribution channels entirely. Sure, you will be
able to prowl around to find new music if you know how, but it will be
the *precise semantic equivalent* of going to a specialty CD shop to
find esoteric music.
People always seem to have this off-the-wall belief that suddently
the independent labels will be able to compete just as effectively
with the majors. It just ain't gonna happen. Once a hierarchy is
put in place, it tends to remain in place.
Networking will make it easier for new musicians to get their stuff
available. But it will not make it any easier for them to get people
interested in it.
>Basically what you're saying here is, "if they are making lots of money,
>they *must* be good, and if they aren't making money, they *must*
>be bad".
Hardly. What I'm saying is that historically, people with qualuty
products and good heads on their shoulders can find a way to hawk
their wares.
>I don't believe that there has ever been a society, anywhere in the
>world, at any period in history, where *everybody* has had "an
>entrepreneurial spirit". And as long as there are artists who
>consider persuing their art to be more important than making a fast
>buck, there will be quality music available for just the distribution
>costs (which might become very small) and a contribution towards
>food and rent; if music is not the only source of income for these
>people, then quality music might very well be free.
For those for whom music making is an avocation, perhaps. But it will
be the equivalent of those people who just want to put their music out
and not make any money off it. There are some of those....the folks
who would do vanity pressings of CDs if they could afford to. But
anyone with a higher aspiration for their music will still be drawn
to the conventional channels.
Gabe Wiener
Jonathan Egre <jona...@mantis.co.uk> wrote:
>But if the majors were distributing
>directly to the consumer, then there would be an incentive for them to
>offer lower prices than their competitors. (It's possible that they
>wouldn't, but I don't think it's inevitable.)
But see, the difference is this. The one thing the majors do *not*
want is a price war, and the best way for all (major labels, not
consumers) involved to avoid a price war is to fix prices artificially
high. If labels get into the distribution biz and prices get locked
high, I could see some *serious* antitrust action at some point.
Gabe Wiener
Monte P McGuire <mcg...@world.std.com> wrote:
>I missed something - what's so horrible about DAT?
DAT is unreliable. Yes, I know that everyone uses it to mix down on,
but as a *mastering* format, it is certifiably awful. It is prone to
excessively high error counts, dropouts, mechanical failure, and (most
of all), an absolute kludge when it comes to track subcode info that
we need during glass master preparation.
DAT is a consumer format that has wedged its way into the pro world
since there was nothing else available with the price/performance ratio.
>If not DAT, then what? 1630? DASH? 1/4" analog? 1/2" analog?
Folks, I'm not talking about _mixdown_ formats here. I'm talking
about _mastering_ formats....formats that a mastering engineer can use
to prepare your material for CD issue. PCM 1630 works, but is a
horrible dinosaur that deserves to die.
My vote goes for CD-R. It's cheap, reliable, and frame-accurate if you
buy a decent machine.
>I know DAT is not completely reliable (i.e. excess errors etc. are
>possible with careless handling) but then again, DAT can be done
>right; some people use it for computer backup...
No, people don't use DAT for computer backup. People use DDS for
computer backup. The only thing it has in common with DAT,
essentially, is the shell. The protocol, error correction, access
time, tape formulation, etc. is all different and works very well.
>Maybe I'm a hillbilly, but I (like the rest of the world back then)
>used to charge people to prepare 1/4" masters; isn't DAT basically on
>par with 1/4", assuming $3-5K machines??
Yes, DAT is found today in nearly every situation that 1/4" was found
ten years ago. The difference is that to prepare a CD, you need to
go one step beyond that and use a format that has a decent implemtnation
of subcode.
Joseph Selby
[much stuff about how everything is going to great in the future deleted]
>
>Once every three months or so, this thread gets started on this
>newsgroup. It's always "in [10/20/50] years, there'll be no more
>physical distribution. We'll all just be able to download music free
>of charge to our homes and enjoy it. Music will be a free-for-all,
>open-to-everyone sort of endeavor."
>
>This view is at best naive and at worst idiotically misinformed.
>Perhaps you forget that there is an entire industry that isn't just
>sitting on its hands, waiting for the electronic frontier to flatten
>them. Electronic distribution will perhaps come of age, but if it
>does, it will be brought to pass by the very hardware manufacturers,
>record companies, and music producers that fuel today's commercial
>market.
You are right, oh great one. Let's not forget also that the
entertainment and music business is a huge part of our economy. If the
record companies (and consequently the studios and pressing plants) were
to suddenly lose the revenue from the sales of music tot he public, it
would a far worse economic calamity for the general populous than the
shut down of most of the defense industry was a few years back.
>
>If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
>a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
>
[more stuff deleted]
>>Take a look at the desktop publishing
>>industry and the fledgling 'zine industry.
>
>I have. Have you noticed the pathetic quality of the typography and
>graphics? Let alone the quality of the writing. Desktop publishing
>is great. I too love to sit down at the mac and bang out an
>impressive-looking postcard mailer, community concert program, A/D
>shootout protocol, or track sheet. But that doesn't make me a graphic
>artist. At least I'm smart enough to know that I'm *not* a graphic
>artist and shouldn't pretend to be one.
But, you could be a graphic artist if you had the time to learn it.
There are a lot of good DTP things out there, but they are mostly done by
people with formal training.
>
>I'm all for free press and grass-roots music distribution, but I have
>to chuckle when I hear people whining on about how the distinction
>between major labels and behind-the-boiler-in-dad's-garage labels will
>disappear once we have electronic distribution.
>
>>50 years ago, it was only the
>>rich that could publish a newspaper, magazine, or even a flyer for that
>>matter.
>
>Drivel. APAs (Amateur Publishing Associations) existed well back into
>the 30's and before.
>
>> Now you see "indi" papers all over the place. It won't be too
>>long before other forms of media are as easily produced/distributed as
>>written media is today.
>
>Fine. But so what? DTP hasn't displaced commercial publishers.
>Magazines and books haven't seen declining readership because everyone
>and his brother has a mac and a laser printer. Peopan now can make
>flyers with 17 fonts on a page so no one can read them...great.
Right. What DTP technology has done is make life easier for the
mainstream publishing industry. I work for a large publishing company in
San Francisco, and these days almost all 52 of our magazines are created
on Macs on desktops by grossly underpaid kids just out of college. Used
to be that publishing companies had to hire highly skilled union
typesetters and graphic artists in huge numbers to publish one or two
magaznies. Now You hire bright eyed kids right out of school who want to
work for a publishing company and send them to two DTP classes and poof,
you've got the tools to create scads of magazines at low labor costs.
Music isn't that easy. If a major record company thought that any joker
could put together a hit record on his own, without the help of a
hit-making producer and a skilled engineer, they'd go for it.
Unfortunately, most musicians can't tell which song on the record should
be a single, let alone the one to push as a hit.
>
>>I guess I kind of picked the wrong crowd for this discussion. Sorry to
>>ruffle anyone's feathers. For now though rest assured that we all pay...
>
>Quality costs money. People somehow have this delusion that once
>information is available to all, we'll all live in peace and harmony
>and everyone will donate their time for the greater glory of mankind's
>artistic advancement. Save it for Gene Roddenberry, please. For the
>moment we still live in a commercial society that perpetuates itself,
>and as long as people have an entrepreneurial spirit, people will
>continue to need to receive payment for quality work, and as long as
>that's the case, quality products will have a price.
Quality also takes skill and thought, two commodities that are
unfortunately scarce in the music community these days.
>
>I usually tend to like the music that I record, edit, and master. That
>doesn't mean that I'll do a CD for someone free of charge. I have rent
>and insurance and salaries to pay.
>
An economy to support.
>--
>Gabe M. Wiener -- ga...@panix.com | "I am terrified at the thought that
>N2GPZ -- PGP public key on request | so much hideous and bad music may be
>Quintessential Sound, Inc. | put on records forever."
>Recording / Mastering / Restoration | --Sir Arthur Sullivan
Jamey Jones
>There are a few CD plants that are taking DAT masters for pressing,
>and I'm not very happy about it. This gives people the mistaken
>assumption that because they can get their material on DAT, it
>therefore is CD-ready. Be prepared for lots of bad sounding CDs in
>the years to come.
>--
>Gabe M. Wiener -- ga...@panix.com | "I am terrified at the thought that
>N2GPZ -- PGP public key on request | so much hideous and bad music may be
>Quintessential Sound, Inc. | put on records forever."
>Recording / Mastering / Restoration | --Sir Arthur Sullivan
One of the magazines published in England (Future Music) has already started putting readers' demos on CD every month. The production quality is good. The
songwriting isn't the best with some of these artists and some of them are a bit lacking in creativity, but they're getting the sound on the tape remarkably
well in light of what equipment is being used on these recordings... and where
the songs are good, these are very listenable.
I recently read a quote from Don Was where he said he didn't worry about
noise, but that a good song would always come through and make make the
record work. I agree with that and I'm not afraid of basement records.
Gabe Wiener
Joseph Selby <jse...@netcom.com> wrote:
>If the
>record companies (and consequently the studios and pressing plants) were
>to suddenly lose the revenue from the sales of music tot he public, it
>would a far worse economic calamity for the general populous than the
>shut down of most of the defense industry was a few years back.
Invalid argument. The defense industry is funded by public monies and
is subject to shutdown by the lawmakers.
This is a very different scenario. The music industry that charges
$13.99 for a disc is the same entity that is responsible for its own
well-being (unlike defense, which has to look to Congress). If the
trend moves to electronic distribution, you can bet that the
commercial forces at play will be right there, ready to cash in.
The notion that the high-bandwidth network age will be a purely
altruistic one is downright silly.
>But, you could be a graphic artist if you had the time to learn it.
>There are a lot of good DTP things out there, but they are mostly done by
>people with formal training.
Actually I doubt I could be a graphic artist. I know what I like, and I
can make a pretty good guess at scale, font choices, PMS colors and the
like, but I don't have the vision and visual creativity to do my own
professional graphics work.
I remember all these ads when the 4-tracks came out, telling everyone
how they now can record at home without ever needing a studio. Well,
they sure can. But what they'll get will sound like what it is...a tape
made at home on a four track.
No matter what the field, if you want professional results, you need people
with professional experience and professional resources. Macs with laser
printers are great, as are tascam portastudios. But neither will replace
the graphic artist or the recording stddddio for projects where ultimate
quality matters.
>Right. What DTP technology has done is make life easier for the
>mainstream publishing industry. I work for a large publishing company in
>San Francisco, and these days almost all 52 of our magazines are created
>on Macs on desktops by grossly underpaid kids just out of college. Used
>to be that publishing companies had to hire highly skilled union
>typesetters and graphic artists in huge numbers to publish one or two
>magaznies. Now You hire bright eyed kids right out of school who want to
>work for a publishing company and send them to two DTP classes and poof,
>you've got the tools to create scads of magazines at low labor costs.
Then as you know, unless you have some folks on staff who *really*
know fonts and kerning pairs and proportionality of type and scaling
and how fonts interact with each other, you get something that looks
like a bunch of college kids put it out.
While I'm sure that you get good results with having college kids do
data entry, rough layout, etc., I'll bet that you have professional
graphics folks on hand who look it over and decide what work and what
doesn't.
The number of magazines out there with poor typography today is
amazing. Ever see WIRED? Great magazine, but can anyone actually
read the thing? Sometimes I think it's a practical joke...trying to
see how many fonts they can use on one page. Typography and graphic
layout is an art, and one that is sadly under-practiced.
>Music isn't that easy. If a major record company thought that any joker
>could put together a hit record on his own, without the help of a
>hit-making producer and a skilled engineer, they'd go for it.
>Unfortunately, most musicians can't tell which song on the record should
>be a single, let alone the one to push as a hit.
Let alone how to make a recording that sounds good.
>Quality also takes skill and thought, two commodities that are
>unfortunately scarce in the music community these days.
Scarce in the music community, the publishing community, every community.
It is easier now than ever to produce shoddy workmanship in any craft.
Our standards for what is acceptable keep dropping, and there is more
and more crud out there, in books, records, music, movies.... Can you
name all that many _great_ movies from recent years? Ones that people
will want to watch in 50 years? There are a few, but not many. How many
great recordings? Great books? Our standards drop. Quality isn't
the norm anymore, it's the exception.
Jamie Krutz
> In article <jkrut...@meta.burner.com>,
> Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
>
> >Gabe, could you summarize what's missing in the above
> >scenario? If I mix my music, normalize it on my computer, and
> >put it on a DAT in such a way that it sounds good played start
> >to finish over a variety of studio, home and car stereo systems,
> >what steps have I left out that would make this DAT not CD-ready?
>
> The problem is that DAT is a consumer format with delusions of
> grandeur. Yes, I know everyone uses it. I use it too. That doesn't
> mean it's a good format. It isn't.
OK. So what if instead of putting it on DAT, I put it onto a
recordable CD. Better?
>
> First of all, contrary to what your digidesign manual says, there
> are situations where you do *not* want to normalize your music.
> We
> can get into discussions about why in some other thread.
>
I don't currently use digidesign stuff. I use SunRize, but I
digress. Lets assume I only normalize where I should, and
I'll start that other thread about when and when not to
normalize.
Back to my basic question, it sounds like you're saying the
only thing missing in the above scenario is a better format
than DAT for the final master. Is that true?
If so, just tell me what I need to send to the plant. I
currently don't have a DAT, so if I don't need one, I won't
get one. I do have access to a recordable CD system that
I can access by dumping tracks out of my hard disk editing
system to a SyQuest and taking them to that system.
> Compact discs start out their production life as a glass master. This
> master is used to make the stamper which ultimately makes the disc.
> The glass master has to be "struck" from a source medium that contains
> a full set of PQ information.
What's "PQ information?" Hope you don't mind these pestering
questions, but inquiring minds need to know... :)
>
> Originally, the CD standard was designed around the PCM-1600 digital
> format, since that was the only suitable format around. Later, the
> PMCD format became accepted as a far better plant delivery format than
> PCM-1600/10/30.
>
> As of late, the Doug Carson DDP system has enabled certain plants to
> press from other media without a format conversion....Exabyte tapes
> and redbook (i.e. non-PMCD) discs. A few plants are even using the
> Carson system to generate PQ subcode right off DAT. The problem is
> that this misses the point of what a plant delivery format ought to
> be.
The plant delivery format ought to be simple, high quality, cheap
and available, eh? I take it DAT falls down on the high quality
part due to drop outs.
So what is the simplest and best way to deliver a master to
a plant? DAT is out, I take it. How about the old Sony PCM-F1
standard (I have an F1). Is the recordable CD I mentioned above OK? Should I go searching for an Exabyte tape drive?
My problem is simple. I will have music that I want to get onto
a CD as cheaply as possible without compromising quality. You
can first tell me to hire someone like you (what do you charge?),
but I would also appreciate any pointers you feel like giving
for a do it yourself approach. Include all the caveats that
such an approach entails, of course.
Thanks big guy! :)
-Jamie
Gabe Wiener
>OK. So what if instead of putting it on DAT, I put it onto a
>recordable CD. Better?
Much better.
>Back to my basic question, it sounds like you're saying the
>only thing missing in the above scenario is a better format
>than DAT for the final master. Is that true?
Leaving out the question of whether the *content* is aesthetically
okay or whether it could use a trip to the mastering house, yes. I am
referring to the plant delivery format.
>If so, just tell me what I need to send to the plant. I
>currently don't have a DAT, so if I don't need one, I won't
>get one. I do have access to a recordable CD system that
>I can access by dumping tracks out of my hard disk editing
>system to a SyQuest and taking them to that system.
The point is that somewhere along the line, you should be able to try
out a reference disc and know exactly where your track markers will
fall, and what your music will sound like in final form. DAT has too
many variables to make this a reliable reference medium for serious
mastering work.
>What's "PQ information?" Hope you don't mind these pestering
>questions, but inquiring minds need to know... :)
The CD subcode area contains eight data frames, each being a 96-bit word.
We call them the P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W frames. The words are
interleaved into 96 bytes to reduce burst errors. But I digress.
The only frames currently in use are the P and Q frames. The P frame
is used to denote the start of a track. The Q frame contains all
sorts of other data..... running time, TOC, ISRC # if it is asserted,
copyright flag, etc. There are several modes that the Q frame can be
set to.
Part of the mastering process involves generating the PQ information.
Some of the process can be automated, but on carefully-produced CDs,
you usually create a fair amount of it by hand....so that you can
control exactly where the track markers fall, when the player counts
up and when it counts down, etc.
>The plant delivery format ought to be simple, high quality, cheap
>and available, eh? I take it DAT falls down on the high quality
>part due to drop outs.
DAT fails because it is subject to dropouts (like in the mail, exposed
to a magnetic field on its way to the plant), and its inaccuracy in the
location of markers that will ultimately be used to generate subcode.
>So what is the simplest and best way to deliver a master to
>a plant? DAT is out, I take it. How about the old Sony PCM-F1
>standard (I have an F1). Is the recordable CD I mentioned above OK?
>Should I go searching for an Exabyte tape drive?
Redbook CD-R is okay, though PMCD is better. Exabyte-DDP works well too.
And there's always 1630, but I hate that.
>My problem is simple. I will have music that I want to get onto
>a CD as cheaply as possible without compromising quality. You
>can first tell me to hire someone like you (what do you charge?),
>but I would also appreciate any pointers you feel like giving
>for a do it yourself approach. Include all the caveats that
>such an approach entails, of course.
If you're doing one project, you might want to seek out someone to do
your mastering work. You can do it yourself on DAT, CD-R, or a
variety of formats, but there is no guarantee of what the quality of
the ultimate pressing will be. It's like buying a camera. You can
buy a Hasselblad <sp?> but it won't make you a great photographer.
Christopher L. Goosman
>If you're doing one project, you might want to seek out someone to do
>your mastering work. You can do it yourself on DAT, CD-R, or a
People, please note he says *mastering* not mixdown. MASTERING, MIXDOWN,
two totally different processes. I think that this is where some confusion
has arisen.
--
=========================================================================
Christopher L. Goosman University of Michigan Computing Club
Ann Arbor, MI, USA go...@umcc.ais.org
"The fools only laugh 'cause they envy you." - Paul Weller, 1977
Craig Shergold
>In article <2v0n70$2...@sunforest.mantis.co.uk>,
>
>But see, the difference is this. The one thing the majors do *not*
>want is a price war, and the best way for all (major labels, not
>consumers) involved to avoid a price war is to fix prices artificially
>high. If labels get into the distribution biz and prices get locked
>high, I could see some *serious* antitrust action at some point.
>
may be missing something here, but the six major labels *do* own the
major distributors. And the prices of music recordings *are*
artificially locked high. Frederick Dannen's book _Hit_Men_ is a good
reference for how the major-label distribution system works.
-Craig
--
_____ "I looked across the square and watched a tourist burning in blue fire;
|\ /| they had gasoline that burned in all colours by then. Look at them out
| O | there, all those little figures dissolving in light. Rather like
|/_\| fairyland, isn't it?" -Biosphere cst...@nova.eng.wayne.edu
Joseph Selby
>In article <jselbyCs...@netcom.com>,
>Joseph Selby <jse...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
>>But, you could be a graphic artist if you had the time to learn it.
>>There are a lot of good DTP things out there, but they are mostly done by
>>people with formal training.
>
>Actually I doubt I could be a graphic artist. I know what I like, and I
>can make a pretty good guess at scale, font choices, PMS colors and the
>like, but I don't have the vision and visual creativity to do my own
>professional graphics work.
>
>I remember all these ads when the 4-tracks came out, telling everyone
>how they now can record at home without ever needing a studio. Well,
>they sure can. But what they'll get will sound like what it is...a tape
>made at home on a four track.
The best thing about a tascam porta-studio is that it gives a band or a
musician the chance to hear what the song sounds like on tape without
going into big debt. I have done many four track cassette recordings and
saved myself a lot of time and trouble and money by being able to use it
to help me weed out the songs that just aren't there and to help me see
what little extra bits of composing would help other songs.
>
>No matter what the field, if you want professional results, you need people
>with professional experience and professional resources. Macs with laser
>printers are great, as are tascam portastudios. But neither will replace
>the graphic artist or the recording stddddio for projects where ultimate
>quality matters.
Agreed.
>
>>Right. What DTP technology has done is make life easier for the
>>mainstream publishing industry. I work for a large publishing company in
>>San Francisco, and these days almost all 52 of our magazines are created
>>on Macs on desktops by grossly underpaid kids just out of college. Used
>>to be that publishing companies had to hire highly skilled union
>>typesetters and graphic artists in huge numbers to publish one or two
>>magaznies. Now You hire bright eyed kids right out of school who want to
>>work for a publishing company and send them to two DTP classes and poof,
>>you've got the tools to create scads of magazines at low labor costs.
>
>Then as you know, unless you have some folks on staff who *really*
>know fonts and kerning pairs and proportionality of type and scaling
>and how fonts interact with each other, you get something that looks
>like a bunch of college kids put it out.
Well, what we have are style guides that are set up by the art director
of the magazine. No one is allowed to deviate from the style book at all.
>
>While I'm sure that you get good results with having college kids do
>data entry, rough layout, etc., I'll bet that you have professional
>graphics folks on hand who look it over and decide what work and what
>doesn't.
Nope. Again, its the sytle book that dictates the layout.
>
>The number of magazines out there with poor typography today is
>amazing. Ever see WIRED? Great magazine, but can anyone actually
>read the thing? Sometimes I think it's a practical joke...trying to
>see how many fonts they can use on one page. Typography and graphic
>layout is an art, and one that is sadly under-practiced.
I love the stuff in WiRed, but I always get lost. I confuse the shoddy
typesetting in the advertising witht he shoddy typesetting in the
articles and I lose track.
>
>>Music isn't that easy. If a major record company thought that any joker
>>could put together a hit record on his own, without the help of a
>>hit-making producer and a skilled engineer, they'd go for it.
>>Unfortunately, most musicians can't tell which song on the record should
>>be a single, let alone the one to push as a hit.
>
>Let alone how to make a recording that sounds good.
>
>>Quality also takes skill and thought, two commodities that are
>>unfortunately scarce in the music community these days.
>
>Scarce in the music community, the publishing community, every community.
>It is easier now than ever to produce shoddy workmanship in any craft.
>Our standards for what is acceptable keep dropping, and there is more
>and more crud out there, in books, records, music, movies.... Can you
>name all that many _great_ movies from recent years? Ones that people
>will want to watch in 50 years? There are a few, but not many. How many
>great recordings? Great books? Our standards drop. Quality isn't
>the norm anymore, it's the exception.
Well, yeah, mostly. I'd say it is also easier than ever before to make
great works. I do CAD work in the Facilities Planning dept. and I used
to do this kind of thing on a drafting table with pencils and lots of
tracing paper. I can do fifty "what-if" plans in the time it used to
take me to do one detail. My craftsmanship hasn't changed, but my output
has increased enormously. I also enjoy what I'm doing more. Digital
recording and editing technology are to todays music professional what
graphics equalizers and digital reverbs were twenty years ago. An old
engineer I met once said he hated all the "kids" who put bad sounds on
tape and think they can fix them with outboard gear. He taught me to
always pay more attention to the mic placement and the room sound than to
what gear I had in the booth. That same philosophy applies to the new
toys that are out there now.
-Joe
Bill Llewellyn
Jonathan Egre <jona...@mantis.co.uk> wrote:
>The point of all this is that record companies are not omniscient,
>infallible judges of quality. Record companies turn down quality
>music all the time. Therefore, there is a huge amount of quality
>music that the public might suddenly have the opportunity to hear
>by computer network distribution. Certainly there will be an
>even larger amount of rubbish, but it won't *all* be rubbish.
I'd like to raise a point in this thread that future, broad-based, public
access to formerly obscure music may be analogous to the arrival of home
satellite receivers in the TV realm.... The plethora of choices -- as with
satellite TV -- may dilute the scene and blurr things. Who knows? That
may be good. Good music which otherwise may never have gone public will
get a chance. Nonetheless, one's ability to sort through all that good and
bad music downloaded off of the information superhighway (or wherever)
presumes one has the time and resources necessary to filter-out what one
likes and what one does not. (And to store it.) Computer nerds and music
pros and hobbiests may be willing to, but that's certainly not
everybody.... it is not the masses, at which the current distribution
system is aimed. I think the present big-6 system works out for most folks
because people like the pre-screened fare (I see you wincing!), where
somebody else did the "quality" search, and the big-6 are more than happy
to provide this service.
Personally, I enjoy sifting through various things on the net --
newsgroups, audio/sample archives, mac software, etc. I also like the idea
of computer net distribution of music, and I would be willing to sort
through some of it. I'm a musician and computer nerd, however. :) I'm not
sure John 'n' Jane Q. Public are going to be apt to sort through every
garage band's repertoire for That Sound they've been looking for. What I
think might happen is some new music firm (#7?) will rise up which is
willing to scout the net to find that "good" stuff and -- get ready -- put
it on CD (copyrights appropriately addressed -- income for the artists)
for folks without time to ferret through it all.
Big problem with the information age -- too many choices.
--
=====================================================================
Regards, Bill Llewellyn ><> thi...@rahul.net
I'll take on ANYBODY in a missppelling contest....
=====================================================================
Bill Llewellyn
>In article <jkrut...@meta.burner.com>,
>Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
>
>>Gabe, could you summarize what's missing in the above
>>scenario? If I mix my music, normalize it on my computer, and
>>put it on a DAT in such a way that it sounds good played start
>>to finish over a variety of studio, home and car stereo systems,
>>what steps have I left out that would make this DAT not CD-ready?
>
>The problem is that DAT is a consumer format with delusions of
>grandeur. Yes, I know everyone uses it. I use it too. That doesn't
>mean it's a good format. It isn't.
Do you mean this for full pro applications, or for Joe Music and his
$20,000 studio set up in the back of a friend's warehouse where he cuts
albums for local talent? I'd think for the latter it is pretty good. No?
And I'd guess that's where a big chunk of the readership of this newsgroup
is -- music hobbiests and avocationists.
>When you send a disc to the factory to be pressed, you had better be
>sure it's perfect. DAT is far from perfect. It is subject to massive
>dropouts.
I've had an SV-3700 for a few months.... no dropouts yet. Are these
really that common? I would guess anybody mastering to a DAT would make
sure they had near-best grade (perhaps computer data grade) tapes and
clean heads. Still not reliable enough?
>The start ID system is inaccurate to say the least. Try
>playing a tape with tight start IDs. Some machines (Otari DTR-90 for
>instance) will cue right to the ID and be spot-on. Other machines
>(Panasonic 3700) will cue a little _before_ the ID. So, when you drop
>an ID, particularly a splice ID on a CD with a vcery small offset,
>where exactly is it going to end up on the CD? Who knows?
I confess a lack of knowledge here. I wasn't aware the DAT id's could be
transparently transferred to a CD master -- I'd guessed they needed to be
regenerated or remapped. How important is targeting the start ID?
Half-second? 10 milliseconds? What do you do with a sloooooow fade-in?
>The reason I prefer optical formats is that you can tell *precisely*
>what your finished product will sound like, particularly with respect
>to ID placement and error count.
If I understand DAT correctly, all errors below some span length are fully
corrected during playback/transfer, so good tape and clean heads should
leave you with (1) knowing just what you are really going to get in the
final product, and (2) a flawless CD master (start id's notwithstanding).
No?
Anyway, I sure can see your point when it comes to full professional
applications. DAT sounds like a nice compromise, though, for the
budget-minded local folk, if treated with care -- even for CD mastering.
Gabe Wiener
>The best thing about a tascam porta-studio is that it gives a band or a
>musician the chance to hear what the song sounds like on tape without
>going into big debt.
No argument. Portastudios are great. But some people think that they
are panacea replacements for studios, just as some people think that
DA-88's and ADATs can replace DASH machines in every circumstance.
The truth is that these low-cost systems work for some things, and not
for others, and they always show themselves up for what they are.
The amount that musicians can do with home gear is always increasing,
but you still are not at the point where someone can record an album
in their basement with a portastudio and get the same all-around level
of sonic quality that one can get in a professional situation.
>Well, what we have are style guides that are set up by the art director
>of the magazine. No one is allowed to deviate from the style book at all.
But see, then you _are_ adhering to professional standards set by an
art director, and (no offense intended) have a bunch of monkeys at
typewriters to bang the data in. The point here is that it's the art
director who is running the show. All of the college kids are simply
extra hands for him.
The increase in technology and the ability to run typesetting software
on a mac means that you no longer have to hire typesetters who are
skilled in Linotype keypunch or handling slugs cast from hot lead.
It means that you can get a college kid trained to *use* the system
in a matter of weeks.
However, he isn't going to have the vision to create a beautiful
layout, no matter what you do.
>I love the stuff in WiRed, but I always get lost. I confuse the shoddy
>typesetting in the advertising witht he shoddy typesetting in the
>articles and I lose track.
Precisely. Because they're a bunch of computer hackers who think that
because they have the software, they are therefore typesetters. They
aren't, as you know.
>Well, yeah, mostly. I'd say it is also easier than ever before to make
>great works.
Depends whose hands the tools are in. I know enough about type to be
either good or dangerous. I try to know enough about audio to get my
work done each day.
Gabe Wiener
>In article <2v05v7$r...@panix.com>, Gabe Wiener <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
>>The problem is that DAT is a consumer format with delusions of
>>grandeur. Yes, I know everyone uses it. I use it too. That doesn't
>>mean it's a good format. It isn't.
>
>Do you mean this for full pro applications, or for Joe Music and his
>$20,000 studio set up in the back of a friend's warehouse where he cuts
>albums for local talent? I'd think for the latter it is pretty good. No?
>And I'd guess that's where a big chunk of the readership of this newsgroup
>is -- music hobbiests and avocationists.
I'm not saying it isn't functional. It works fine as long as you
don't work it too hard. For someone in a $20,000 project studio, it
is ideal. For me, it is a liability that I have to deal with every
single day.
DAT is not a robust format. It was never intended for the jobs with
which it has been entrusted. The result is that for real pro
applications, we need to use these enormous $10,000 decks that
try to make something out of it.
Does anyone remember about 11 or 12 years ago when the Timex-Sinclair
1000 computer came out? All these manufacturers started coming out of
the woodwork with disk drives, video modules, rack card slots, modems,
extended keyboards, industrial control, wafertape systems, etc. It
never occurred to someone that perhaps this was overkill for a $99
computer, and that they might get better performance by changing what
was at core, instead of trying to dress the thing in all sorts of
expensive clothing. There's a lesson in there for DAT.
>I've had an SV-3700 for a few months.... no dropouts yet. Are these
>really that common? I would guess anybody mastering to a DAT would make
>sure they had near-best grade (perhaps computer data grade) tapes and
>clean heads. Still not reliable enough?
Still not reliable enough. Faulty tapes, excessive error counts, sync
problems, flags that don't translate from one machine to another, a
clunky mechanism, the list of woe goes on. DAT is great for semipro
people who need a cheap and generally reliable format to record on.
It is just that, though we all expect it to be more.
>I confess a lack of knowledge here. I wasn't aware the DAT id's could be
>transparently transferred to a CD master -- I'd guessed they needed to be
>regenerated or remapped.
They _should_ be regenerated on a professional PQ-subcode generator.
The problem that a few plants are accepting DATs as-is and are
generating the subcode right from the DAT. This is a bad plan in my
book.
>How important is targeting the start ID?
>Half-second? 10 milliseconds? What do you do with a sloooooow fade-in?
On a DAT? or on a CD? On a DAT, it depends on what deck you play it
on. Set an ID so that it's really tight on a Panasonic 3700 and
you'll find that the Otari DTR-90T will clip the beginning. Set it on
the DTR-90, and you'll find it's very loose on the Panasonic. This is
just one example. You could pick nearly any two machines and find
operational differences. There are no standards.
For CD, the situation gets a little more difficult. We have two sorts
of IDs to concern ourselves with....Start-of-track, and Splice. In a
properly-encoded start-of-track, you have a track that just ended a
few seconds ago. Once the player reaches the end-of-track mark of the
previous track, the display will start counting down (the running time
at this moment is stored in the Q frame of the PQ subcode). When it
gets to 0, the P frame contains a start-of-track, and the music starts.
Now, if you tell the player to go right to that track, it'll do it.
BUT....just like DAT machines, different players have varying amounts
of accuracy. Some will cue very loosely to a track, some very
tightly. Thus, when you set up a PQ burst for a CD, you always allow
a little slack between the start of track mark in the P frame and the
actual beginning of audio. This slack is called the PQ start offset.
Usually this is not a problem in normal Start-of-track/end-of-track
operation, because there is *usually* digital black between the end of
track and the start of new audio. However, the one time this does
present a problem is when you do splice starts. A splice start means
that there is a start-of-track without a previous end of track. This
is done in segue pieces, like opera, where a recitative leads into an
aria which leads into another recit, which....you get the idea. There
is no fade to black, and thus the player will never count down.
The problem is, of course, that if you set splice IDs with a wide
offset, the slow players will get it right, and the fast players will
get it too early and play the last snippet of the previous track. If
you splice very tightly, the fast players will get it right, and the
slow players will clip the beginning of the music.
>If I understand DAT correctly, all errors below some span length are fully
>corrected during playback/transfer, so good tape and clean heads should
>leave you with (1) knowing just what you are really going to get in the
>final product, and (2) a flawless CD master (start id's notwithstanding).
>No?
No. DAT is subject to massive errors. All true pro machines, and
some of the pretend-to-be-pro machines (like the SV-3700) can display
the burst A+B error rates in their diagnostic mode. The older a tape,
the more it's been worked on, etc., the higher an error count you'll
see. Sometimes you'll get defective media and you'll see the error
count rise and fall quickly. We say "the error count is spiking" and
it generally means something needs to be looked at.
DATs in professional applications _always_ must be checked for spiking
to make sure that the heads aren't clogged (which can happen very VERY
quickly with some tape formulations), or to make sure that the tape
itself isn't defective. Still, when you deal with complex operations
on DAT...shuttling around to relocate IDs, insert editing,
read-before-write operations, pre-striping, spot erasing, etc., you
run the risk of getting massive burst errors.
DAT is a great format for cost-effective high quality recording. But
there comes a time where you should not be using it for real pro
applications, and quality CD mastering is one of them. There is too
much chance of something going wrong.
Don A.B. Lindbergh
>The best thing about a tascam porta-studio is that it gives a band or a
>musician the chance to hear what the song sounds like on tape without
>going into big debt. I have done many four track cassette recordings and
Yes. It can even be more than that. Bruce Springsteen's _Nebraska_ is the
best example. Yes, audio purists, that album was recorded on a Tascam
Portastudio *4 track cassette deck*. Of course there were several factors
that allowed this to be released (as probably one of the Boss's greatest
records).
1. He's the Boss
2. The music had very simple production (guitar/voice/harmonica)
3. It was really good (both musically and technically)
Admittedly, it may not have been a big seller, but I think it is artistically
successful in many ways.
Michelle Shocked _Campfire Tapes_ also comes to mind, but I admit I have
not actually heard it.
But it just goes to show ya a record is what YOU say it is. The public are
TOLD what is good/acceptable. Hell, listen to _Achtung Baby_
Personally I don't go for low budget sound, but _Nebraska_ is perfect, it
needed no more. That's why when Bruce took the demos he'd recorded by
himself up in a cabin to the E street Band to make a record, they told him
"It sounds great as it is, we can't make it better, put it out!"
I'm sure they'll be some if/and/or/buts followups, but I stand behind my
argument. If you've really got some music people want to hear, nobody's
gonna be complaining about what mic/compressor/method to generate start ID's
you used. Obviously this is one of those perennial arguments and note I
am not attempting to start a flame war and/or drag this group away from
what I have found to be actually useful/helpful discussion. Just another
data point....
Don A.B. Lindbergh II
not a spokesperson for nlm
Joseph Selby
I, as you know have been following this thread actively the last few days
and it has raised some questions in my mind:
If I am totally off track, let me know, but what tthis discussion seems
to be about is that sending a DAT to a CD plant without having it checked
out by someone like yourself first is a very bad idea.
Some friends of mine just did just that (their CD will be out this week)
for their debut on Dutch East-India records. They told me that they had
some problems related to the test CD and had to have the whole thing
remastered. Now their record is not opera, and the original recording
was done on an 8 track 1/2 inch tape. It is pretty rough, indie rock
sounding stuff. The thought that occurred to me was that they would have
been better off having the CD mastered from a two track reel to reel
master, considering all the trouble they went through with the DAT.
Would you say that in some situations, the older technology is less fussy
and more appropriate to work with? My example would be a punk band that
really doesn't benefit from the precision of digital recording.
John Whynot
[lots of very informative stuff edited for brevity]
: DATs in professional applications _always_ must be checked for spiking
: to make sure that the heads aren't clogged (which can happen very VERY
: quickly with some tape formulations), or to make sure that the tape
: itself isn't defective. Still, when you deal with complex operations
: on DAT...shuttling around to relocate IDs, insert editing,
: read-before-write operations, pre-striping, spot erasing, etc., you
: run the risk of getting massive burst errors.
: DAT is a great format for cost-effective high quality recording. But
: there comes a time where you should not be using it for real pro
: applications, and quality CD mastering is one of them. There is too
: much chance of something going wrong.
Gabe: great explanations! Many readers will learn valuable things from
you. Thanks!
I get around the error problem with DAT masters in the mastering suite by
using them only as an alternative to an analog master. For example, I
mixed a couple of albums last year while I was on the kick of mixing to
1/4" 15IPS with SR. Kind of a "new-old" format. But for rock music ( or
sort of a folky-rock thing that I was doing ) there is a great added bump
at the bottom, as well as a general "crushing together" of the mix that
was very satisfying. I always run every two-track in the room when
mixing, including whatever HD recorders and DATs are around. OK, maybe I
don't use the 1/2" if I'm using the 1/4", but you get the idea. Then in
mastering I like to make a determination with the engineer on a
song-by-song basis which master we'll use. We play some of the DAT, and
the 1/4" and so forth and pick the one that seems closest to the desired
result. But we're not using the DAT as a straight transfer. It worked
better and (oddly enough) sounded better straight off the 3700, through
various bits of analog gear.
Because we are making the determination of format based on a listening
test, rather than a technical test, and we're comparing apples to plums
by hearing everything as it hits the mastering converter, the digital
integrity of the DAT was much less of a problem.
Of course, on all but a couple of the songs the 1/4" won the comparison
hands down. But where we preferred the DAT the analog playback was
aesthetically right, even though we committed the sin of re-converting it!
Best,
JW
Gabe Wiener
>If I am totally off track, let me know, but what tthis discussion seems
>to be about is that sending a DAT to a CD plant without having it checked
>out by someone like yourself first is a very bad idea.
It isn't about who does the checking, it is about what format you
deliver your master to the factory on. DAT is not the way to go.
Even if you are not going to have your tape prepared by a mastering
house, you should at least deliver it on a Red Book CD-R.
>Some friends of mine just did just that (their CD will be out this week)
>for their debut on Dutch East-India records. They told me that they had
>some problems related to the test CD and had to have the whole thing
>remastered.
Live and learn, eh?
>Now their record is not opera, and the original recording
>was done on an 8 track 1/2 inch tape. It is pretty rough, indie rock
>sounding stuff. The thought that occurred to me was that they would have
>been better off having the CD mastered from a two track reel to reel
>master, considering all the trouble they went through with the DAT.
No, they'd have been better off taking the DAT to someone who knows
how to master a recording, and letting them prepare a suitable
pressing master that sounds good and has decent subcode on it.
>Would you say that in some situations, the older technology is less fussy
>and more appropriate to work with? My example would be a punk band that
>really doesn't benefit from the precision of digital recording.
I would say nothing of the kind.
You can not master a CD from a 1/4" analog tape, or from any analog
tape. When we get analog tapes in, the first thing that happens is
that they go through A/D and get recorded to a digital format. The
point here is that you can't just send a tape to the factory and tell
them "make this into a CD." The audio has to be in digital form and
has to be on some form from which subcode can be generated.
Gabe Wiener
John Whynot <jwh...@netcom.com> wrote:
>I get around the error problem with DAT masters in the mastering suite by
>using them only as an alternative to an analog master.
Folks, I've been repeating myself like a broken record (skipping CD?)
and I still don't seem to be getting my point across.
I have no problem at all if you want to mix down to DAT, to 1/4", to
1/2", to DASH or whatever. Mix to whatever you think sounds good.
I am *only* talking about the plant delivery format....that is, the
object you take to the factory and say "This object contains on it the
entire album, including the start-of-track marks, the table of contents,
the indications of when I want the counter going up and when I want it
counting down, and what total running time I want to flash on the display
when I put the disc in."
I am not talking about sound quality, and I am not talking about
whether people like the sound of DAT or 1/4" or whatever. The fact is
that when you send something to be pressed, it has to go to the
factory on a format from which the proper subcode can be generated.
DAT is too slipshot a format to do that.
Why people keep insisting on interpreting that to mean that they
shouldn't be mixing to DAT is beyond me.
I'm not talking about mixing. I'm talking about preparing pressing
masters.
>Because we are making the determination of format based on a listening
>test, rather than a technical test, and we're comparing apples to plums
>by hearing everything as it hits the mastering converter, the digital
>integrity of the DAT was much less of a problem.
Sigh. Once again, this isn't about sound quality or listening tests.
Mix to whatever you think sounds best for your project. But
eventually your master will end up on something digital, and will have
subcode tacked onto it.
>Of course, on all but a couple of the songs the 1/4" won the comparison
>hands down. But where we preferred the DAT the analog playback was
>aesthetically right, even though we committed the sin of re-converting it!
Eh? Playback is always analog, since your amps and speakers are analog.
If you are using the D/A on the DAT for playback and then using another
A/D for the final master, recognize that you are allowing the D/A to
add coloration to your signal, using it as a veritable signal processor
if you will.
Jamie Krutz
> Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
> Leaving out the question of whether the *content* is aesthetically
> okay or whether it could use a trip to the mastering house, yes. I am
> referring to the plant delivery format.
Thanks for your insight, Gabe!
OK, what kinds of things would a mastering house normally do that
would change the aesthetics of the content? Are we talking EQ
changes, compression, or what? Why would I want someone to
change the sound of a hard earned mix? :)
> The point is that somewhere along the line, you should be able to try
> out a reference disc and know exactly where your track markers will
> fall, and what your music will sound like in final form. DAT has too
> many variables to make this a reliable reference medium for serious
> mastering work.
Won't the plant send you a reference cd to check after you
send a DAT? (just curious; you've already convinced me to
go with CD-R)
> >What's "PQ information?" Hope you don't mind these pestering
> >questions, but inquiring minds need to know... :)
>
> The CD subcode area contains eight data frames, each being a 96-bit word.
(more insight munched)
Fascinating. Thanks! What are the unused data frames destined
for? How do you access the subcode area and adjust the PQ
info to your liking?
> DAT fails because it is subject to dropouts (like in the mail, exposed
> to a magnetic field on its way to the plant), and its inaccuracy in the
> location of markers that will ultimately be used to generate subcode.
If DAT is so fragile, why do people mix to it? (I mix to
PCM-F1, ADAT tracks, or a SunRize AD516 direct to hard disk
recording/editing system, depending on the project).
Would a DAT that supports SMPTE time code help with the marker
problem? How could the designers of DAT blow something so simple
as accurate markers in a digital system? Is this just not
important to DAT itself?
> Redbook CD-R is okay, though PMCD is better. Exabyte-DDP works well too.
Are the first two formats commonly supported formats on cd recorders?
Is the Exabyte-DDP a format I can write to an Exabyte tape drive
from any computer, or does it take some kind of special setup?
What do you recommend for a CD recorder and for an Exabyte setup?
> And there's always 1630, but I hate that.
Is that the old system with PCM encoded onto 3/4" video tape,
or is that something else? Why do you hate it? Thanks for
clearing up my ignorance here. :)
> If you're doing one project, you might want to seek out someone to do
> your mastering work. You can do it yourself on DAT, CD-R, or a
> variety of formats, but there is no guarantee of what the quality of
> the ultimate pressing will be.
If you do it on CD-R, don't you get a CD that you can listen
to and that should be exactly like the final product?
> It's like buying a camera. You can
> buy a Hasselblad <sp?> but it won't make you a great photographer.
True. I don't buy equipment and call myself a pro just for
owning the equipment. I do try to get professional results out
of the equipment available, and I invest time and energy into
making _myself_ better.
In this case we're talking about a project that started
out on an Akai MG1212, and is now on Alesis ADAT where I'm
adding final vocals, solos, and misc tracks. Some of the
performances were recorded to MIDI and so have never been on
the Akai or the ADAT tracks (it's SMPTE synced). I'm using
the originally Akai tracks when the performance outweighs any
disadvantages picked up from the Akai (while not as clean as the
ADAT, the Akai did a credible job).
I'm confident in my abilities as a song writer, arranger,
performer (variety of instruments), and engineer. I'm also
borrowing other talented ears for the mix. While I haven't
done a CD yet, I've done a fair amount of composing for
video/film; I've done a lot of video and animation production
work; written about computers, video and audio production for
various magazines and in various product manuals; and helped
design several video facilities. I say all this just to let you
know that I'm not afraid to jump in and do this thing. I'm not
scared off by equipment, procedures, jargon, or the need to trust
my ears.
I don't need a lot of hand holding, but I do appreciate any and all
advice going in (including, but not restricted to "get someone
else"). I'm doing this because I enjoy writing and recording
music and lyrics, I think I'm good at it, and it's time to share
that part of me with others. Part of the fun is the challenge
involved in bringing it to a CD, and I want to learn all about
that process.
Gabe, I really, really appreciate the fact that you take the time
on the net to share what you know. I try to do the same in
those areas where I can share, like video production, desktop
video tools, MIDI, etc.
I am very open to everyone's advice, tips and tricks in the
process of creating a CD. Right now, here's my step by step
impression of the process. Feel free to add/delete/expound/etc.
on this:
1) Write compelling music, and optionally, lyrics.
This is where most projects fail. I used to be an announcer
at KTCL, a pretty adventurous station where us on-air types
got a lot of freedom to pick the music we played. Monday
mornings we got a huge stack of new releases to listen to.
It was obvious that a lot of work was wasted on poorly written
material. Very little of what we listened to actually made
it to air, and that's at one of the most open stations in the
country.
2) Work out the arrangements
3) Record inspired performances
4) Mix the songs
5) Create a CD ready master
(this is where I am in serious "learning mode." :)
A) Additional EQ?
(Maybe on an LP project, but on a CD project?)
B) Additional compression?
(again, why on a CD project? To fix a bad mix?)
C) Adjust levels and normalize so CD sounds cohesive
(Thanks for the informative posts on this one)
D) Put mix on a CD-R disc
E) Mind your Ps and Qs :) (But how do you do this, exactly?)
(fill in step by step here...)
F) Listen to disk, and if it's good, send to the plant.
I left out the steps of creating the cover art and the booklet.
If anyone wants to throw in some insight on that process, great!
6) Market the CD.
This is the other place where some projects fail, and others that
deserve to, don't. You gotta love the music biz. :)
7) Do it again? ;)
Best,
-Jamie
Bill Vermillion
>You are right, oh great one. Let's not forget also that the
>entertainment and music business is a huge part of our economy. If the
>record companies (and consequently the studios and pressing plants) were
>to suddenly lose the revenue from the sales of music tot he public, it
>would a far worse economic calamity for the general populous than the
>shut down of most of the defense industry was a few years back.
That's really not true. The impact on the public of the
entertaiment industry, I am thinking of only films and music,
is greatly out of proportion with the amount of the economy
they control.
I don't have any current figures, but I thought it was
interesting that just a few years ago, when the electronic
video arcades became popular, that the amount of money in
quarters put into those machines, exceeded the total revenues
of the music industry in America.
A good many of the Fortune 500 companies, are EACH INDIVDUALLY
larger than the combined music industry.
Probably ever one of the top 50 Fortune companies is bigger
than the collective music industry.
It is just that entertainment grabs the public's eye more
readily.
--
Bill Vermillion - bi...@bilver.oau.org | bill.ve...@oau.org
Bill Vermillion
>You are right, oh great one. Let's not forget also that the
>entertainment and music business is a huge part of our economy. If the
>record companies (and consequently the studios and pressing plants) were
>to suddenly lose the revenue from the sales of music tot he public, it
>would a far worse economic calamity for the general populous than the
>shut down of most of the defense industry was a few years back.
That's not true. Not even close. The music industry for
example as a whole is really a minor part of our economy, not a
HUGE part, as you say.
The impact on the public of the
entertaiment industry, I am thinking of only films and music,
is greatly out of proportion with the amount of the economy
they control.
I don't have any current figures, but I thought it was
interesting that just a few years ago, when the electronic
video arcades became popular, that the amount of money in
quarters put into those machines, exceeded the total revenues
of the music industry in America. That is not a HUGE part of
the economy.
A good many of the Fortune 500 companies, are EACH INDIVDUALLY
larger than the combined music industry.
Probably ever one of the top 50 Fortune companies is bigger
than the collective music industry.
It is just that entertainment grabs the public's eye more
readily.
Does anyone have the figures from the trades on the total
dollars of the record industry last year. I can dig up the
others.
JKreines
Do you consider CD-R an acceptable short term (25 year?) archival
format? I assume it has to be better than DAT or DA88... my other
alternatives for a particular project.
--Jeff
Gabe Wiener
>OK, what kinds of things would a mastering house normally do that
>would change the aesthetics of the content? Are we talking EQ
>changes, compression, or what? Why would I want someone to
>change the sound of a hard earned mix? :)
Recognize what the term "mastering" originally meant. In the bygone
era, you mixed your tape in the studio until you thought it sounded
good. You then sent it to the mastering house, where the lacquers
were cut. The problem was that when you were dealing with the LP
record, there were certain limitations and sonic colorations of the
medium, and it was up to the mastering engineer to use the right
tweaks to make your mix sound as good as possible on the record.
Often this meant adding judicious program EQ or other processing to
compenssate for what the medium was about to do to your music.
Today, we no longer have to compensate for deficiencies in our medium,
but we do have other concerns. Often the monitors on which people mix
are less than ideal (say NS-10M's for instance!) and you really need
someone with a real set of speakers to make sure that the program
sounds timbrally ok. There is also the questions of level, which is
particularly relevant when the mixdown is on analog source, and not
entirely irrelevant when the master is on digital tape.
But beyond that, even if you are perfectly pleased with the sound of
your mix, there are issues such as dithering, pauses, fades, etc.,
plus the very fundamental tasks of generating subcode and making the
master itself.
Once in a while you get a tape in that needs serious help....hum, noise,
or other unwanted garbage. Video flyback is another common one. It's
amazing how many tapes have this problem.
In general, mastering represents the last chance to do any QC on your
sound, to correct any problems, to generate subcode, and if necessary,
to make any program changes to the audio to either make it render
better in into released form, or to make artistic changes ex post
facto. Very often a tape will be sent to a mastering house such as
Gateway, Sterling, or Masterdisk because it is realized that although
the tape sounded fine on the NS-10Ms, it doesn't sound "like all the
others." In the pop market, conformity is the rule, sad to say.
>Won't the plant send you a reference cd to check after you
>send a DAT? (just curious; you've already convinced me to
>go with CD-R)
No. Plants don't send reference discs. They assume that what you're
sending them is what you want, and rightly so. You send them a master,
they press it, and they send the discs where you tell them to.
>Fascinating. Thanks! What are the unused data frames destined
>for?
RIght now they're unused and I know of no plans for them.
> How do you access the subcode area and adjust the PQ
>info to your liking?
When you make a pressing master, you enter the information into a PQ
editor which encodes it as a data burst onto the master itself. There
are a variety of PQ editing systems out there, depending on what sort
of mastering system you're using. We use the Sonic Solutions system, so
we have a module in software that lets us set PQ information as we like it.
>If DAT is so fragile, why do people mix to it? (I mix to
>PCM-F1, ADAT tracks, or a SunRize AD516 direct to hard disk
>recording/editing system, depending on the project).
Eh? People use DAT because it's cheap, readily available, and it usually
works as a good mixdown and recording format. It just doesn't work too well
in a mastering situation.
>Would a DAT that supports SMPTE time code help with the marker
>problem?
Nope. Timecode DATs are better about a lot of things, but they can't
compensate for a bad format.
>How could the designers of DAT blow something so simple
>as accurate markers in a digital system? Is this just not
>important to DAT itself?
No, it isn't. Please be aware that DAT was _never_ designed to be a
professional format. This was not in the cards _at all_ when the
format was developed. DAT was designed to be a consumer format
through and through. We're dealing with a format that was conceived
to replace _cassette_ here folks. No one really cared if you had
frame accurate cue points for a consumer format.
The professionals saw DAT and drooled at how cheap and cost effective
it was, and forced the manufacturers into making a pro version of it.
The pro standards for DAT...timecode and the rest...are all such kluges.
>Are the first two formats commonly supported formats on cd recorders?
>Is the Exabyte-DDP a format I can write to an Exabyte tape drive
>from any computer, or does it take some kind of special setup?
>What do you recommend for a CD recorder and for an Exabyte setup?
Exabyte-DDP is only supported by a few workstations out there. PMCD
is supported by Sonic and I think a few others are on the bandwagon.
Certain plants will take Redbook CD-Rs, but you have to be careful
when you drop these IDs, because the Philips mechanisms can be late.
>> And there's always 1630, but I hate that.
>
>Is that the old system with PCM encoded onto 3/4" video tape,
>or is that something else? Why do you hate it?
Because it is DAT on a higher plateau :-)
It is another helical-based system which is not up to the task. The
tapes don't have good shelf life. You can come back to a master you
made a year ago and find it unreasable. The hardware needs constant
attention. It's just a dinosaur format. It works, but that doesn't
make it good.
>If you do it on CD-R, don't you get a CD that you can listen
>to and that should be exactly like the final product?
YES. That's one of the benefits. Whether your CD-R master is redbook
or PMCD, you can pop it in your CD player and listen to it before sending
it to the plant. What you hear is what you'll get.
Of course, you have to do this _carefully_. Don't scratch the disc!
>5) Create a CD ready master
>(this is where I am in serious "learning mode." :)
Probably the easiest way for someone to create a CD-ready master on their
own is to beg, borrow, steal, etc. a stand-alone CD-R machine, or computer
based CD-R system. Get your music onto a CD so that you like everything
about it, and then send it to one of the plants that will take regular
CD-R's for pressing, and you'll be all set.
> E) Mind your Ps and Qs :) (But how do you do this, exactly?)
> (fill in step by step here...)
If you use a CD-R system, it will build the PQ info for you. You
won't have all the flexibility that a mastering house will have in
doing it (usually you're in the position of "push this button when you
want to drop a track start"), but if you can get the IDs where you
want them on the CD-R, that's where they'll be on the CD release.
> F) Listen to disk, and if it's good, send to the plant.
A-yup.
>I left out the steps of creating the cover art and the booklet.
>If anyone wants to throw in some insight on that process, great!
When you send your disc to the plant, you have to arrange for your
printer to send the booklets and backliners to the plant for insertion.
Gabe Wiener
JKreines <jkre...@aol.com> wrote:
>Gabe:
>
>Do you consider CD-R an acceptable short term (25 year?) archival
>format? I assume it has to be better than DAT or DA88...
Yes, I regard optical discs as an acceptable archival format. We estimate
that CD-R's have a 30-year life span, but of course, no one knows for sure!
All I know is that I have DATs from six years ago that I can't play. Sigh.
As much as I am skeptical of the MSdisc mastering format, the one thing I
_do_ like about it is its non-volatility.
Jeff Ulmer
information is available to all, we'll all live in peace and harmony
and everyone will donate their time for the greater glory of mankind's
artistic advancement. Save it for Gene Roddenberry, please. For the
moment we still live in a commercial society that perpetuates itself,
and as long as people have an entrepreneurial spirit, people will
continue to need to receive payment for quality work, and as long as
that's the case, quality products will have a price.
>Don't blame the lack of quality on simply the cost of the equipment. It
takes TALENT to produce quality. A talented musician/author will have quality
regardless of the cost of his/her equipment. In the past most people willing
to work hard enough to promote their talent would invest in expensive
equipment or facilities thereby weeding out those of lesser means and
determination. This isn't the case anymore as more and more affordable
equipment comes on the market. In the end it's what the consumer wants (or is
told to want) that will dictate the market. Quality speaks for itself, and
doesn't require a price tag to give it quality. I think that quality work is
worth more, but not necessrily because it costs more to produce, just because
it requires more talent.
-------------------------------------------------------------
From The Revelation BBS * Vancouver, BC * (604) 929-1615
-------------------------------------------------------------
Clete Baker
:
: >>The plant delivery format ought to be simple, high quality, cheap
: >>part due to drop outs.
:
: DAT fails because it is subject to dropouts (like in the mail, exposed
: to a magnetic field on its way to the plant), and its inaccuracy in the
: location of markers that will ultimately be used to generate subcode.
An even greater risk with DAT is that do-it-yourselfers seldom have
the requisite editing equipment to properly clean up and sequence a
master. The master is assembled by transferring from a "dirty" session
tape, often with bits of countoff remaining at the front (or worse,
foreshortened attacks where a countoff was clipped too closely) and,
possibly the most common sin among d-i-y projects, throttled ringouts at
the end of a piece. If the ringout isn't nipped there's often the sudden
slam of the noise floor dropping when the source machine is stopped.
Whether plants which accept DAT masters advertise it or not, nobody is
currently cutting glass from DAT; the material *still* must pass through a
premastering process and put to another medium (either 1630 or DDP 8mm at
the plants I've canvassed, with DDP being by far the most popular) to go
to glass. The cost of that process is buried in the overall price, so the
d-i-y'er isn't saving as much as he might think over employing a
professional mastering house who'll administer some care to his project.
--
Clete Baker | cle...@sound.omahug.org
Sound Recorders, Inc. | or cle...@gonix.com
Omaha, Nebraska |
John Whynot
: Whether plants which accept DAT masters advertise it or not, nobody is
: currently cutting glass from DAT; the material *still* must pass through a
: premastering process and put to another medium (either 1630 or DDP 8mm at
: the plants I've canvassed, with DDP being by far the most popular) to go
: to glass. The cost of that process is buried in the overall price, so the
: d-i-y'er isn't saving as much as he might think over employing a
: professional mastering house who'll administer some care to his project.
That's it really, isn't it! It's well worth it to take whatever 2track
master you have to a reputable (or at least well-experienced) mastering
person. They have the benefit of hearing your product in the context of
hundreds of others, and also have submitted all of these to the various
plants. That person is in a position to choose the best format to ship.
Patronize your mastering engineer! I certainly do!
John
Gabe Wiener
>master you have to a reputable (or at least well-experienced) mastering
>person. They have the benefit of hearing your product in the context of
>hundreds of others, and also have submitted all of these to the various
>plants. That person is in a position to choose the best format to ship.
And this is why I'm angry at the plants for taking DATs, because it gives
the DIYer the incorrect idea that it's "okay" to send DATs to the plant,
when in general it isn't.
Jim T. Rusby
>
>I'd like to raise a point in this thread that future, broad-based, public
>access to formerly obscure music may be analogous to the arrival of home
>satellite receivers in the TV realm.... The plethora of choices -- as with
>satellite TV -- may dilute the scene and blurr things. Who knows? That
>may be good. Good music which otherwise may never have gone public will
>get a chance. Nonetheless, one's ability to sort through all that good and
>bad music downloaded off of the information superhighway (or wherever)
>presumes one has the time and resources necessary to filter-out what one
>likes and what one does not. (And to store it.) Computer nerds and music
It is hard to hear everything, but I , too, like deciding what I
"audition" rather than depending on the account execs in the big 6 to
screen my music for me.
Still, your analogy to satellite TV reminds me of a comedian I saw who
was discussing sat tv- his quote " I've got 85 channels coming in- all in
full stereo and theres still nothing to watch!".
I've heard some great stuff by the independents- but I had to suffer
through quite a bit of nonsense get to it. Such is life.....
--
Jim Rusby Phone: 503-346-5659
Recording engineer UO School of Music email:jru...@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Tech Director- Dept of Dance Two Tracks- 8 chickens and a dog.
Mark Secker
>In article <2uvfmq$f...@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Jim T. Rusby,
>jru...@darkwing.uoregon.edu writes:
>>>Actually I'll venture a guess that within 50 years, most performing arts
>>>(music, video, photographic etc. excluding sculpture and other physical
>>>forms) will largely be a free endeavor for all of us. Essentially
>you'll
>>>post and get your music to and from the network where time and storage
>>>will be so cheap that you'll consider it free.
>>
>>Ahh, Utopia. Does this mean musicians will no longer need to be paid for
>>their work, and all of us technical types shall be volunteering? Musical
>>instruments won't cost money, rent will go away- and food will be free...
>No, this is not what I meant. Instruments will cost for the materials
>and every piece of hardware you will continue to have to purchase.
>Definately your rent and food will all cost you 50 years from now
>(assuming we make it that far). But you may have to find some way (other
>than the performing arts) to pay for these necessities.
One idea that I can think of off the top of my head is to have a sample
facility that allows a potential buyer to listen to a short sample (say 20
sec) or to the entire material (but at a much lower resolution - ow 8 bit
with a deliberatly high white noise level) and if they like what they hear
then can have the original high quality recording "mailed" to them after a
credit card transaction occures. (much like the software sample cds
availible now) This or some sort of anti duplication code embeded in the
sample that would only allow them to listen to once or twice while "live"
on the distribution net.
Mark Secker
Edith Cowan Uni
Western Australia
Marc Grondin
In a previous article, ga...@panix.com (Gabe Wiener) says:
>In article <jwhynotC...@netcom.com>,
>John Whynot <jwh...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>That's it really, isn't it! It's well worth it to take whatever 2track
>>master you have to a reputable (or at least well-experienced) mastering
>>person. They have the benefit of hearing your product in the context of
>>hundreds of others, and also have submitted all of these to the various
>>plants. That person is in a position to choose the best format to ship.
So um, just what is done in the mastering room on the two track format. I
guess it is mostly working with the levels, the EQ, compression and other
gizmos.... I'm I close?
My hint for getting that "pro" sound,
LEARN WHAT UNIT GAIN IS AND DOES TO MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER.
On all gear, pro or semi, unit gain is the KEY to making a clear clean
sounding mix either live or in the studio. Then the next bet is using
decent mics and micing technique to get the sound you want with as little
EQ work as possible...
--
| Marc Grondin, Avenue A/V | Multi-Room Audio & Video, Automation |
| Vox (613) 834-6963, | Install & Consult |
| Fax (613) 834-6328, | Commercial & Residential |
| Pager (800) 363-8444 #13946 | aq...@freenet.carleton.ca |
Gabe Wiener
Marc Grondin <aq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>So um, just what is done in the mastering room on the two track format. I
>guess it is mostly working with the levels, the EQ, compression and other
>gizmos.... I'm I close?
That would depend on the specific demands of the material being
mastered. We have lots of "gizmos" depending on what a tape's
particular needs are.
> LEARN WHAT UNIT GAIN IS AND DOES TO MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER.
Gee, thanks so much for SHOUTING at us. Now, please educate me.
What, pray tell, is unit gain? I must confess that although I have
mastered more than a hundred commercial releases, I haven't the
foggiest idea what "unit gain" is.
And surprisingly enough, I have never found any sort of gain that
can make one's life better. One's CDs better, yes. But one's life?
Oh, is unit gain anything like unity gain?
>On all gear, pro or semi, unit gain is the KEY to making a clear clean
>sounding mix either live or in the studio.
Uh huh. So the way to get a good mix on a multi-track desk is to push
all the faders up to unity? I suggest you go back to mixing 101.
There are lots of things wrong with today's mixes, but pushing all the
faders up won't help much.
>Then the next bet is using
>decent mics and micing technique to get the sound you want with as little
>EQ work as possible...
I'm so glad that you're deciding on our gain structure _before_ you're
deciding on where to put the microphones. Sigh.
Ian G Batten
Don A.B. Lindbergh <da...@lhc.nlm.nih.gov> wrote:
> Yes. It can even be more than that. Bruce Springsteen's _Nebraska_ is the
> best example. Yes, audio purists, that album was recorded on a Tascam
> Portastudio *4 track cassette deck*. Of course there were several factors
At the time it was released there was a campaign in the UK to reduce the
claimed losses to the audio industry from people copying records. The
slogan (with a logo of a cassette shell and skull and crossbones) was
``Home Taping is Killing Music''
And there it is, stamped on my vinyl copy of Nebraska...
ian
Bruce A. Rothwell
In article <2v4jk0$r...@panix.com>, you write:
> ...stuff deleted...
> Why people keep insisting on interpreting that to mean that they
> shouldn't be mixing to DAT is beyond me.
>
> I'm not talking about mixing. I'm talking about preparing pressing
> masters.
Gabe,
I understood _exactly_ what you meant the _first_ time you said it.
Most people, evidently, don't understand that once they've done
their final MIXING, then the album has to be MASTERED in order
to be MANUFACTURED. The 3 M's... separate and distinct.
Sheesh... such a simple concept.
Bruce Rothwell
baro...@pobox.cca.rockwell.com
=============================================================================
"I take my guitar with me everywhere I go... I wouldn't be without it."
- Chet Atkins, CGP
=============================================================================
Marc Grondin
In a previous article, baro...@cca.rockwell.com (Bruce A. Rothwell) says:
>
>In article <2v4jk0$r...@panix.com>, you write:
>> ...stuff deleted...
>> Why people keep insisting on interpreting that to mean that they
>> shouldn't be mixing to DAT is beyond me.
>Gabe, > >their final MIXING, then the album has to be MASTERED in order
>to be MANUFACTURED. The 3 M's... separate and distinct. > >Sheesh... such
a simple concept. >
So what does a person that masters listen for on the
two track mix, what tricks are used... Lets say some one did the Urge
Overkill release or some other, did they hear an unsmooth part and did
"that" to make it more presentable to J. Q. Public?
Bob Mills
wrote:
>The cost of that process is buried in the overall price, so the
>d-i-y'er isn't saving as much as he might think over employing a
>professional mastering house who'll administer some care to his project.
Amen. A recent production was mastered by Dave Glasser of Airshow,
well-known for his work in our niche (acoustic folk). Diskmakers did the
repro, and although they don't advertise it, they were glad to knock $200
off the price when receiving a CD-R master instead of DAT.
When you think of the ears you're buying in the process, that have heard
*hundreds* of recordings per year, you'd be nuts not to use a pro at this
stage. It's the cheapest, most highly-qualified consultant you can get.
Bob Mills
NoiseToys Phone: 1-609-683-0234
9 Charlton Street Fax: 1-609-683-4068
Princeton, NJ 08540 USA e-mail: deci...@tigger.jvnc.net
The Bakalite
with the book industry. You can download Peter Pan or Henri IV from a
few sites, and if you really want you can read it on the screen or print
it out, but it would probably be cheaper (and nicer) to go to a bookstore
and buy the book.
It costs about 2 bucks to make a cd. if I could download the latest
"These Immortal Souls" cd and listen to it from my harddrive, I'd do so,
and after deciding I liked it, I'd go out and buy it. My Gig harddrive
cost me over a K, so even 10 or 13 $$ is cheap to free it up again.
Of course, storage will get cheaper, but so will cd's.....if those
marketing guys have any brains. If they don't, someone else will start a
business and make a million bucks, selling cd's for $4 bucks a pop,
making a buck on each cd sold, and selling a ton of them because people
can audition the stuff before they buy it.
There is no need for error induction, 8bit, white noise or any of that...
Did someone say DAT? DAT tapes are still more expensive, and the access
is more of a pain and there is no artwork.
Believe me, if cd's were 5 bucks a pop they'd be cheaper to make too, and
people would own more of them, and more artists would make money....utopia!
PvB
--
Remember, it's all a Bakalite trick.
Gabe Wiener
The Bakalite <pbr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Hmmm, one way to look at this problem is to compare it to what happened
>with the book industry. You can download Peter Pan or Henri IV from a
>few sites, and if you really want you can read it on the screen or print
>it out, but it would probably be cheaper (and nicer) to go to a bookstore
>and buy the book.
Please. You're referring to a handful of works that are in the public
domain. Besides, the Projest Gutenberg is not supposed to be a
replacement for printed books, just a way to have fulltext of some of
the classics available online. No one is advocating curling up by the
monitor for a good read.
>It costs about 2 bucks to make a cd.
More like $0.95 actually
>Of course, storage will get cheaper, but so will cd's.....if those
>marketing guys have any brains. If they don't, someone else will start a
>business and make a million bucks, selling cd's for $4 bucks a pop,
Ummmm....before making ridiculous comments like this, perhaps you'd be
best off to learn a bit about how the music industry works, and why
CDs will never cost $4 each in the mainstream. You're welcome to try
to start a business and make a million bucks though.
>making a buck on each cd sold, and selling a ton of them because people
>can audition the stuff before they buy it.
Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
>There is no need for error induction
Actually, given the quality of some of the recordings out there today,
I think a little error induction might help the sonics a good deal.
>Did someone say DAT? DAT tapes are still more expensive, and the access
>is more of a pain and there is no artwork.
Whaddya mean no artwork? Those HHb tapes are a keystone of modern
art, what with those purple cassette shells and the like.
>Believe me, if cd's were 5 bucks a pop they'd be cheaper to make too, and
>people would own more of them, and more artists would make money....utopia!
And my dad has an old barn we can use. We could make 'em there!
Fredrick McConnell
>
>Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
>a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
Just remember - "All we hear is Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo, Radio Ca Ca."
Roger Taylor (of Queen), 1984
Smile - I like interjecting a little bit o humor into the music world.
Oh, I'll post something of real importance soon. I am a college student
who is an aspiring Quincy Jones. :)
Fred
--
Fred McConnell
QMS Court Choirmeister
Galen Watts
>Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
>a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
And you only get to hear what the radio station wants you to hear.
Galen, KF0YJ
Sick of broadcast radio.
Jamie Krutz
> In article <jkrut...@meta.burner.com>,
> Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
(cool summary of mastering then and now deleted)
> In general, mastering represents the last chance to do any QC on your
> sound, to correct any problems, to generate subcode, and if necessary,
> to make any program changes to the audio to either make it render
> better in into released form, or to make artistic changes ex post
> facto.
Thanks Gabe! This makes sense.
(more great discussion munched)
> >5) Create a CD ready master
> >(this is where I am in serious "learning mode." :)
>
> Probably the easiest way for someone to create a CD-ready master on their
> own is to beg, borrow, steal, etc. a stand-alone CD-R machine, or computer
> based CD-R system. Get your music onto a CD so that you like everything
> about it, and then send it to one of the plants that will take regular
> CD-R's for pressing, and you'll be all set.
Great! Thanks again!
Best,
-Jamie
Gabe Wiener
Fredrick McConnell <smi...@gwis.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
>Just remember - "All we hear is Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo, Radio Ca Ca."
>Roger Taylor (of Queen), 1984
You don't honestly expect me to know any music after 1750 do you?
>Oh, I'll post something of real importance soon. I am a college student
>who is an aspiring Quincy Jones. :)
Don't worry, we won't hold it against you.
Marc CR Bouron
Around that time, there was a series of articles in one of the UK music mags
(SoS?) on multi-tracking - "Home Taping is Skill in Music"...
[M][a][r][c]
Scott Dorsey
>In article <2vdcef$k...@panix.com> ga...@panix.com (Gabe Wiener) writes:
>>Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
>>a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
>
>And you only get to hear what the radio station wants you to hear.
This is why I volunteer a few hours a week with the local noncommercial
station. If they go off the air, there is _nothing_ on the dial to listen to.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Lewis Melville
In Canada we have the CBC, a great venue for everything you don't
hear on commercial radio. lewis melville.
: "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
David L. Campbell
>In article <CsGoy...@fulcrum.co.uk>, i...@fulcrum.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:
|> In article <1994Jul2.1...@nlm.nih.gov>,
|> Don A.B. Lindbergh <da...@lhc.nlm.nih.gov> wrote:
|> > Yes. It can even be more than that. Bruce Springsteen's _Nebraska_ is the
|> > best example. Yes, audio purists, that album was recorded on a Tascam
|> > Portastudio *4 track cassette deck*. Of course there were several factors
|>
|> At the time it was released there was a campaign in the UK to reduce the
|> claimed losses to the audio industry from people copying records. The
|> slogan (with a logo of a cassette shell and skull and crossbones) was
|>
|> ``Home Taping is Killing Music''
|>
|> And there it is, stamped on my vinyl copy of Nebraska...
You're comparing apples and oranges and expecting to find irony. The kind
of "home taping" the music industry was campaigning against (illegally
duplicating copyrighted material) is a completely different animal than
the kind of "home taping" represented on Nebraska (recording original
works of music).
David.
--
+-----==== opinions expressed do not represent those of my employer ====-----+
| David L. Campbell, IBM Austin, TX | "... and you eat your own soul |
| Internet: dcam...@austin.ibm.com | until the only thing |
| VNET: dcampbel at austin | left is appetite..." |
Jeff Chestek
G> using for a while to audition music before buying it. It's called
G> _radio_.
I'm sorry, but I find it difficult or impossible to listen to the
radio long enough to:
A) find some music I'd want to plunk down $14 for, and
B) find out the name of the artist so I can actually find it in the
store!
Given the enormous variety of music that is released to the
record-buying public, radio airplay in any given market will expose us
to a VERY small percentage of what's actually available. The "classic
rock" and "easy listening" and "contemporary hits" formats that
dominate our market here leave very little room for music from new
artists or anything slightly off the mainstream.
I'd personally like to see record stores that have listening centers
where opened copies of everything the store sells are available for
audition (am I crazy or what!). Will "online" versions of this concept
work? I dunno.
G> >Believe me, if cd's were 5 bucks a pop they'd be cheaper to make too, and
G> >people would own more of them, and more artists would make money....utopia!
G>
G> And my dad has an old barn we can use. We could make 'em there!
I'm in!
---
ş KWQ/2 1.2c NR ş A viola's range ? 30 feet if kicked hard enough.
Mike Rivers
> Yes. It can even be more than that. Bruce Springsteen's _Nebraska_ is the
> best example. Yes, audio purists, that album was recorded on a Tascam
> Portastudio *4 track cassette deck*.
Not that you have any reason to beleive me (I'm not The Boss's
producer) but that was just a good story. He did the preliminary
production work on a 4-track cassette, but when he got ready to record
the album, he brough an MCI 8-track into his home. That's what the
track were cut on, and they were mixed in a full studio. His record
company knows better than to go to all the work necessary to make a
portastudio recording suitable for mainstream release when it's so
easy to wheel in something that will do the job much better.
Ever see photos of Sting's "portable" SSL console? <g>
>
> Michelle Shocked _Campfire Tapes_ also comes to mind, but I admit I have
> not actually heard it.
The rumor on that one was that it was done on a WM-6 cassette
recorder. I'd believe it. It sounds pretty good, but has limitations
that they worked around nicely.
------------
I'm really Mike Rivers (mri...@d-and-d.com)
on the road, somewhere in California
Mike Rivers
> An even greater risk with DAT is that do-it-yourselfers seldom have
> the requisite editing equipment to properly clean up and sequence a
> master. The master is assembled by transferring from a "dirty" session
> tape, often with bits of countoff remaining at the front (or worse,
> foreshortened attacks where a countoff was clipped too closely) and,
> possibly the most common sin among d-i-y projects, throttled ringouts at
> the end of a piece. If the ringout isn't nipped there's often the sudden
> slam of the noise floor dropping when the source machine is stopped.
I simply don't understand this. I was doing "project studio" kind of
work 20 years ago, and my work always included an editing session with
a razor blade and analog tape, sometimes dubbing to another reel to
correct a bad fadeout, tricks like that. When my tapes went to the
mastering house to cut the masters for vinyl pressings, the mastering
engineer worked his magic to EQ a little here, compress a
little there, and in general, give me the advantage of his
(presumably) better ears for the music, and higher quality monitors
and tools than I had in my studio. Nowadays, however, people are
"mastering" at home from their Portastudio and MIDI gear direct to
DAT, monitoring on NS-10's or their home stereo speakers, and
expecting professional results because "it's mastered to digital".
Even if the step to write the PQ codes wasn't required (it isn't if
the final product is cassette), there's still considerable value to be
added by a skilled mastering engineer that you just can't get at home.
Paul Kamran Hashemi
>
> I'd personally like to see record stores that have listening centers
> where opened copies of everything the store sells are available for
> audition (am I crazy or what!). Will "online" versions of this concept
> work? I dunno.
>
In Charlottesville, VA, not exactly a metropolitan town, there
are now three different record stores with this setup. One of
them is a "college"-type record store, with lots of independent
and exotic music, but the other two are regular retail places.
They have "listening stations" set up, 10-disc changers with
the names of the CDs showing up when you switch to it, and the
jackets on display. There's also one listening station at the
front desk, and you can bring up any CD and they'll let you
listen to it.
When you think about it, this approach makes a LOT of sense. I
thought it was kind of a national trend, but apparently it's
still kind of localized if you haven't seen any stores doing it.
-- Paul Hashemi
Department of Systems Engineering
University of Virginia
Scott Dorsey
>>
>> Michelle Shocked _Campfire Tapes_ also comes to mind, but I admit I have
>> not actually heard it.
>
>The rumor on that one was that it was done on a WM-6 cassette
>recorder. I'd believe it. It sounds pretty good, but has limitations
>that they worked around nicely.
There was a _substantial_ amount of work done in mastering to make it
sound that good.... a lot of equalization and some noise reduction. The
original recording was indeed made with a Professional Walkman and a
pretty dreadful single-point stereomike from Sony. The off-axis response
on the mike is pretty weird, too, and you can tell even from the final
recording, by listening to the vocals a bit as she changes position.
The actual recordings that were selected were a pretty small fraction of
the recordings that were made... they were selected mostly on the basis
of technical quality.
--scott
--
Jimmie Farmer
>>It costs about 2 bucks to make a cd.
>
>More like $0.95 actually
>
When my band did our CD, we had 2000 pressed. The pressing plant charged
~$2400 for 2000 units. Now, that's $1.20 per... and, of course, the
bigger the run, the less it gets per unit. Now, the trick is that the
TOTAL cost of our project, studio time, artwork, digital editing,
mastering, camera ready artwork for the pressing plant, and all the
nickel and dime stuff that crops up, pushed the TOTAL COST to us for 2000
CDs to right around $10,000. We needed to sell our CDs for $5 JUST to
make our money back. We were selling them for $10, $8 at shows. Now,
when we put them in stores like Tower, we wanted the RETAIL price to be
$10. To do that, Tower's cost (what WE made) was like $7. Most other
stores bought them for $8, and sold them for $10. We haven't gotten rich
yet, as a matter of fact, this CD is barely paying for itself.
>Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
>a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
>
We get/got quite a bit of radio play of our CD on our local
college stations. But, as we all know, to get the BIG sales through radio,
you need to get the support of the big stations, because *most* people
buy what they are force-fed by the stations and the big money labels. I
believe that we have sold the amount of Cds that we have because of the
radio exposure we have received (we were reported Top 10 to CMJ by our
region's college radio stations), but only the people that listen to
those particular small stations are getting exposed. As we found out the
hard way, getting air time on a commercial station is next to impossible
without big-label support. I almost ALWAYS got the brush-off from MDs at
the 'mersh stations.
>And my dad has an old barn we can use. We could make 'em there!
>
Well, anything to save a buck! By the way, we mixed down to DAT,
digitally edited the songs together using some program who's name I have
forgotten on a Mac, and then put the finished product back onto a DAT,
and sent it to the plant. Now, I am sure that they made a master from
this DAT, but we controlled the sound from start to finish. I seem to
remember we sent them running times and stuff on a sheet of paper, but
the CD itself plays JUST as we set it up on the 'puter. The sound
quality is pretty darn good for a self release, if I say so myself!
Just thought I would pitch in my $.02 worth of experience...
Sincerely,
Jimmie Farmer
--
* cal...@eskimo.com |" Hangin' out/on the street/the same old thing *
* AKA:Jimmie Farmer | /we did last week" -A.Chilton- "Hold my life *
* I'm in a band... | /until I'm/ready to use it/hold my life *
* like you care! =) | /cause I just might lose it" -P.Westerberg- *
The Bakalite
intermediaries who do little work and want a big share of the money.
Once bands have the technical capability to make great recordings in
their home, and we're pretty much there, and once the net will have
enough bandwith to support downloading some digital audio, we'll see a
whole new market develop.
Those profit hungry men in suits who decide what we like will simply be
bypassed.
And don't make me laugh with radio stations. Even college radio dj's
have to play certain albums, i like to decide what I want to listen to,
thanbk you very much, I don't need someone else to do the thinking for me.
And Gabe, if you have something to say about how the industry works, why
don't you enlighten us all, instead of telling me I say ridiculous
things. it sounds to me like you now that things are changing, and it's
scaring a few people 'cause they may well be losing their profit margins.
Jay Kadis
> In article <2vdcef$k...@panix.com>, Gabe Wiener <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
> [deletia]
> >>It costs about 2 bucks to make a cd.
> >
> >More like $0.95 actually
> >
> ACTUALLY.... (imagine an old man's voice, e.g. "In MY day...")
> When my band did our CD, we had 2000 pressed. The pressing plant charged
> ~$2400 for 2000 units. Now, that's $1.20 per... and, of course, the
> bigger the run, the less it gets per unit. Now, the trick is that the
> TOTAL cost of our project, studio time, artwork, digital editing,
> mastering, camera ready artwork for the pressing plant, and all the
> nickel and dime stuff that crops up, pushed the TOTAL COST to us for 2000
> CDs to right around $10,000. We needed to sell our CDs for $5 JUST to
> make our money back.
This is just about what we paid last year when we did 1000 CDs. Mastering was
$400. The pressing cost (which was included in the price from a local company
that also assembled the final product) came to $1750. Art work was done on a
Macintosh, sent directly (via Syquest) to the printer, and cost $2200 (full
color booklet cover and tray card and 8 page b/w booklet insert [2000
printed]). We paid the artist/DTP guy $1000. The cost of CD replication is
small compared with the total cost.
Of course, the next 1000 will be a lot cheaper...(if there IS a next 1000).
Jay Kadis
j...@ccrma.stanford.edu
Andrew Wing
: : >>Ya know, there's this wonderful technology that people have been using for
: : >>a while to audition music before buying it. It's called _radio_.
: : >
: : >And you only get to hear what the radio station wants you to hear.
: : This is why I volunteer a few hours a week with the local noncommercial
: : station. If they go off the air, there is _nothing_ on the dial to listen to.
: : --scott
: : --
: In Canada we have the CBC, a great venue for everything you don't
: hear on commercial radio. lewis melville.
All this brings up bitter memories of how our local mecca WXPN
was gutted and turned into a more mainstream college station. They cancelled
the programs 'Diaspar', 'Experimental Radio Project', 'Directions in
Music' and other specialty programs. They all too briefly carried CBCs
'Brave New Waves', a great show, but still not up to the caliber of
'Diaspar'.
What am I getting at? ...wellllll maybe in the future we will
have the bandwidth for as many cable radio channels in the info superhighway
as we do now for TV. If we can have thousands of newsgroups/LISTSERVs/etc
then why not access channels that specialize, too? A progressive music
channel, a chamber music channel, etc.
the key to this is mandating public access. Does the FCC have
jurisdiction over cable radio? Will they limit the number of channels
so only the big boys can pay? I hope not.
--
A fool and his net access soon go their separate ways.
"Any disclaimer issued by me is subject to change without notice"
Andy Wing Temple U. Computer Services agw...@astro.ocis.temple.edu
Lewis Melville
: The reason CD's will "never" be cheap is because there are a million
: Once bands have the technical capability to make great recordings in
: their home, and we're pretty much there, and once the net will have
: enough bandwith to support downloading some digital audio, we'll see a
: whole new market develop.
: Those profit hungry men in suits who decide what we like will simply be
: bypassed.
computer experts who will handle all the business of maintaining the
digital audio database for the musicians, monitering data transfers,
ensuring proper credits are deposited into musicians and composers
accounts, and trying to convince the general population to download their
music instead of someone elses. Not only that, but they will still have
to promote the products so that we can select it from the millions of
other albums available, plus they will make sure that musicians make it
into the studio on time and complete the project on budget etc., etc.
They will charge a substantial fee for these services, and specialization
will occur as individuals gain experience in each of the respective steps
in the process. Then we will have a million computer nerds controlling
the type of music which reaches the public, and it will all be gothic
thrash metal fantasy industrial ( which is the type of music computer
nerds like, if what they have done to the film industry is any indication).
This will happen because musicians will not want to do any of it
themselves, because it has nothing to do with music, and they will not
want to spend all their time keeping up with digital delivery systems and
software updates. Musicians will still be poor and parasitized by those
million middle persons who do little work, but who control some small but
necessary step in the delivery process.
Live music is best. Recorded music is a benevolent toss-off we musicians
provide to others less fortunate than ourselves. We keep them employed
and off the streets. Let it not be said that musicians have not paid
their debt to society. Like martyrs we have foregone the vast majority of
the income generated by the fruit of our labours so that others may eat
at a table better laden than our own. :-)
Just out of curiosity, has anyone figured out how much of the money
generated by music actually goes to musicians? How does this compare to
other professions?
Computers don't really make life easier..but they do seem to change the
nature of the work people do. lewis melville.
BiLL S
>In article <1994Jun30.2...@novell.com>,
>Daniel Seeman <dse...@wc.novell.com> wrote:
>If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
>a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
From this consumer's perspective, variety and freedom of expression are
forms of quality, so I disagree.
>[...]
>Please. Don't kid yourself. Anyone can buy a microphone and a
>4-track and make a recording. Anyone can buy a microphone and DAT
>machine and record their kid brother's band. That doesn't make the
>band any good, and it doesn't mean that the guy with the microphone
>knows the first thing about how to make a good sounding record.
So? As the technology becomes more availiable, more people will have a chance
to learn. Some won't, of course. And don't for a second forget that
professionals make their share of awful recordings (many of which sell
quite well, of course).
>The truth of the matter is that quality always has a way of coming
>through, and good musical performers, good engineers, good producers,
>etc. manage to rise to the top in our current socio-economic system
>of distribution.
All I can say to this is... yeah, right! I'll agree with you in disagreeing
with those that say the buisness is corrupt and assures that talented people
*never* rise to the top (audio conspiracy theorists), but I have to stop there.
On the one hand, it takes motivation to get ahead, and that's good. On the
other hand, there are things involved that have nothing to do with art and
music, and this is a barrier that could well exclude most that have something
pure to say.
A popularity controlled system also tends to assure that only music and art
formulated for mass popularity can recieve exposure beyond the underground
level (i.e., limited beyond the actual limited segment of society that might
appreciate the work). This is an extremely bad incentive.
>>I guess I kind of picked the wrong crowd for this discussion. Sorry to
>>ruffle anyone's feathers. For now though rest assured that we all pay...
>Quality costs money. People somehow have this delusion that once
>information is available to all, we'll all live in peace and harmony
>and everyone will donate their time for the greater glory of mankind's
>artistic advancement.
I agree. I have to make a point in discussions of technology that change tends
to be incremental, rather than revolutionary, in the areas that really matter.
Still, it's possible that electronic music distribution will be very nice
incremental improvement. I'd like to see the gambling and MTV elements taken
out of finding new music to listen to, and I'd like to have a much greater
freedom of choice. The effect on art should be very positive.
BiLL S
bi...@gki.com
Sorry for anon post, but my news poster is down.
If you post a reply and want me to see it, please email me a copy. My
news reader will quit otherwise due to Murphy's Law.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to he...@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to ad...@anon.penet.fi.
Gabe Wiener
>The reason CD's will "never" be cheap is because there are a million
>intermediaries who do little work and want a big share of the money.
Who, pray tell, is doing little work and getting a big share of the
money? You would be advised to actually learn the economics of the
recording industry before making these comments.
It is true that things could be organized very differently if we had
the chance to do it, but as it stands, there is no mob boss standing
over the record industry, taking money for no work.
>Once bands have the technical capability to make great recordings in
>their home, and we're pretty much there, and once the net will have
>enough bandwith to support downloading some digital audio, we'll see a
>whole new market develop.
No, you'll see a new _format_ develop.
Every six weeks or so on rec.audio.pro we see someone come on and post
more gobbledygook about how "people are going to be able to make great
recordings in their homes." Frnakly I don't care one way or the other
if bands record at home or not, as it isn't my end of the business.
But what I will tell you is that recordings made at home will sound like
just that..._recordings made at home_. The state of the art always
increases, and it will never be possible to achieve on a portastudio
(or even on a Mackie 1604 and a DA88) the same quality that can be
achieved in a good-sounding studio run by people who know what they're
doing.
Comments such as yours above are akin to saying "Well, instant cameras
are getting so good that soon we'll be able to take professional quality
pictures without the need for photographers."
But I digress. This business about electronic distribution of music
being the liberator of the music industry is a lot of hooey. Realize
that when the infobahn arrives on a large scale, it will be championed
by the very forces that commercialize our current means of
communication. It will reach homes by phone companies and cable
companies. They will sell time and rights-of-way to clients, and
you can bet that the record labels will right there, hawking their
wares over whatever new methods of transmission are developed.
Now yes, the cognoscenti will be able to prowl the net and get
esoteric music, but you are seriously misguided or just plain asleep
if you honestly believe that the independent labels are going to gain
any more visibility than they have now. There will still be races to
compete for screen space, ad space, attention spans, etc. And you can
bet your bottom dollar that the move will be driven on by the same
players we have now.
>Those profit hungry men in suits who decide what we like will simply be
>bypassed.
They don't decide what you like. You decide what you like. You decide
what you buy. They choose to sell whatever they want. And most A&R
people I know don't wear suits.
>And Gabe, if you have something to say about how the industry works, why
>don't you enlighten us all, instead of telling me I say ridiculous
>things.
Becuase you _do_ say ridiculous things.
And if you've read this newsgroup for any appreciable time, you
realize that I *do* try to spend 98% of my time here talking about how
the industry works. However, I become very amused when I see people
posting fantasy to the net, without the slightest understanding of how
the music industry is built.
>it sounds to me like you now that things are changing, and it's
>scaring a few people 'cause they may well be losing their profit margins.
Being that I happen to own an independent label, I would be the first
one to welcome a breakdown of the current structure of the music
distribution industry. But being that I also happen to produce music
for labels big and small, I am the first to admit that the advent
of connectivity is *not* going to be the thing to do it.
Peter_...@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com
Yikes. Gee Gabe for someone so concerned about accurate PQ info I'm
suprised you'd recommend a stand-alone CD-R. Many people have been burned
thinking they can get by with such a system. If you are going to try this
make sure you have a method for triggering the start ID accuarately (not
with your finger!). I *do* think that CD-R is a great format to deliver to
the plant. I'm plenty sick of dealing with 1630. The Sonic handles the
CD-R beautifully.
PC
Peter...@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com
Clete Baker
: OK, what kinds of things would a mastering house normally do that
: would change the aesthetics of the content? Are we talking EQ
: changes, compression, or what? Why would I want someone to
: change the sound of a hard earned mix? :)
Damn good question! Gross generalization mode on: Mastering engineers
can be divided into two large classes ... those who 1) aspire to give
*your* creative output its best possible representation, and those who 2)
aspire to give *their* creative output its best possible representation
(and who the heck are you to question their vast experience and
impeccable credentials anyway, thank you very much).
My own philosophy runs toward the former. I know that *I* agonize over
tracking and mixing at the appropriate times, and get it right in the
studio. The mastering process is one of accurately transferring the
material to a mastering medium, taking full advantage of the strengths of
the release medium (and, if necessary, correcting for predictable
weaknesses). If a project is done correctly through the studio stage
there's *no* reason to "change the sound of a hard earned mix". Print it!
There are occasions, however, when your "hard earned mix" is ... well,
"deficient" is a charitable term. It might seem self evident that fixing
it in mastering is a logical solution. But IMHO that's no more wise (nor
successful) than fixing bad tracking in the mix. It's only if the
deficiencies of the mix run to such mundane and forgivable things as
inconsistencies of eq among the cuts, too much dynamic range for a
cassette, a program-wide eq anomaly caused by a monitoring quirk, that
"fixes" in the mastering stage are valid. But these kinds of things don't
really address aesthetics as much as they address pragmatics.
That said, we did have one well known artist come to us for remastering
his entire catalog specifically to align it with what he perceived to be
the trademark sound of one of our better known products. I was happy to
do it, but I'd never suggest that that was a good reason to remaster his
catalog. I've mastered several things for him since, and I know the kind
of bullets he sweats over his product. He doesn't continue to come to me
for "my sound", he comes to me for the TLC with which I handle *his* sound
at the mastering stage. And that's as it should be.
: How do you access the subcode area and adjust the PQ
: info to your liking?
Fundamentally, if you can put your material on a medium which can be
taken directly to glass with no intermediate steps (i.e., 1630, DDP, PMCD)
you can govern the PQ data. Barring that, you have no way of tagging the
PQ data accurately to an event in the program, so it's moot. The closest
you can come is by supplying the plant or mastering house with a very
detailed description of exactly where to place that index point or that
track mark. Don't be surprised if your instructions are met with a shrug
at a pressing plant, where yours is just one more in the stack of 10
masters to crank out that day, and they don't take kindly to know-it-alls
who slow them down.
: If DAT is so fragile, why do people mix to it?
Because it's a great mixdown and live capture format! It's convenient,
it's cheap, it's ubiquitous ... it ain't 24 bits, but it's pretty darn
good. But Gabe's right ... it's not for *mastering*.
: Would a DAT that supports SMPTE time code help with the marker
: problem?
No. Regardless of the presence or absence of TC the problem is with
the resolution of marker placement. By several orders of magnitude.
DAT's usually something on the order of 300 ms. Professional mastering
equipment is capable of resolving events down to less than 0.05 ms.
: How could the designers of DAT blow something so simple
: as accurate markers in a digital system?
DAT was designed from the ground up as a *consumer* item. Its
designers never had any notion of going after the pro market. If they
had, time code wouldn't be the kludged afterthought it is. It's been
adopted readily by the pro market in spite of its warts because it filled
a significant role not addressed by any other hardware to date. And no,
consumers are not likely to care that their index points can only be
placed within 300 ms of the start of a program.
: > And there's always 1630, but I hate that.
:
: Is that the old system with PCM encoded onto 3/4" video tape,
: or is that something else? Why do you hate it?
Although it was designed to be the de facto mastering standard format
for CD, it has warts as well. It continues to be used out of habit, but
more plants and mastering houses are moving to other formats all the
time. Its biggest problems are that the tapes are bulky, fragile, and
especially in the longer lengths required for todays longer programs,
fitful in reliability. From a practial standpoint they also have the
disadvantage of having to be created in real time, and (at least in our
house) can't go out the door without a real time 100% playback for QC.
I canvassed every CD plant in the states in December to find out if
they were going direct to glass from DDP-8mm. With two exceptions (one
of which does galvanics only ... no mastering in-house, and the other
very near to jumping onto the DDP-8mm bandwagon) they all are. 8mm has
the advantages of being a data format from the git-go with all the
inherent write/read verification we've come to expect of data devices, it
can be "cut" outside of real time and no additional time is required for
an audio verification playback. Those are the advantages to the
mastering house. Further advantages obtain at the plant: they can cut
the glass master outside of real time. For both, the media is cheap,
small and light (less shipping cost), and putting even a *very* long CD's
worth of data on it doesn't come close to the edge of its design parameters.
: If you do it on CD-R, don't you get a CD that you can listen
: to and that should be exactly like the final product?
Audibly, yes (in theory; Bernie Grundman has some other thoughts about
that). But PQ codes still might be an approximation of how you made the
CD-R because the TOC (Table Of Contents) data can't be directly read from
a CD-R for transfer to the glass master. That's why the PMCD (Pre-Master
CD) came into being ... it solves the problem by explicitly writing out
the PQ data as audio in an "inaudible" section of the CD. Otherwise it's
a common b-flat CD-R.
: I don't need a lot of hand holding, but I do appreciate any and all
: advice going in (including, but not restricted to "get someone
: else").
I'll echo the advice you've already received from Gabe ... if you
don't have the technology to do it properly at your own fingertips, take
it to someone who does. But by all means see that it's done properly.
: I am very open to everyone's advice, tips and tricks in the
: process of creating a CD. Right now, here's my step by step
: impression of the process. Feel free to add/delete/expound/etc.
: on this:
Egad!
: 1) Write compelling music, and optionally, lyrics.
:
: This is where most projects fail....
:
:
: 2) Work out the arrangements
:
: 3) Record inspired performances
Don't be seduced by the lure of a "paint by numbers" approach to
multitracking. You won't end up with anything worthy of being called art.
: 4) Mix the songs
All right ... mix the songs *as if you were creating the CD master on
the spot*. Do your normalization here (your mixing medium has meters,
no?). Do your EQ here (is this song consistent in sound with the one we
mixed last night?) Do your dynamics processing (if you really believe
you *have* to) here. GET IT RIGHT, RIGHT HERE, so you won't have the
opportunity to second guess yourself into a hole later on.
: 5) Create a CD ready master
:
: 6) Market the CD.
Nope... *this* is where *most* projects fail! Years ago I cut a set
of lacquers for a local band and brokered the pressing. As they were
loading up their station wagon with umpteen thousand records one of 'em
turned to me and asked me (with a straight face, no less!) "Do you know
who we could take these to so that they get into the record stores?"
Sorry to have taken so much of the net's time. What can I say? I saw
an opportunity to vent....
--
Clete Baker | cle...@sound.omahug.org
Sound Recorders, Inc. | or cle...@gonix.com
Omaha, Nebraska |
Gabe Wiener
<Peter_...@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com> wrote:
>
>Yikes. Gee Gabe for someone so concerned about accurate PQ info I'm
>suprised you'd recommend a stand-alone CD-R. Many people have been burned
>thinking they can get by with such a system. If you are going to try this
>make sure you have a method for triggering the start ID accuarately (not
>with your finger!). I *do* think that CD-R is a great format to deliver to
>the plant. I'm plenty sick of dealing with 1630. The Sonic handles the
>CD-R beautifully.
The reason that I recommend people use CD-R for "do it yourself" mastering
(which in general I don't recommend!), is that no matter how they drop the
IDs, they can play it back afterwards and know what they're getting.
One thing I should mention if I haven't already....if you record on a
CD-R with the intent of sending it to the plant, you *must* record in
one pass. You cannot record a song, stop the CD-R, record the next,
stop, etc. The CD-R must be continuous, which means you'd better have
a fast ID finger or else a subcode trnaslator to convert DAT start IDs
to CD-R subcode.
Stopping a CD-R unit creates an E-32 error on the disc, and E-32 errors
will cause a plant's cutter to shut down immediately.
bi...@mix.com
> But I digress. This business about electronic distribution of music
> being the liberator of the music industry is a lot of hooey. Realize
> that when the infobahn arrives on a large scale, it will be championed
> by the very forces that commercialize our current means of
> communication. It will reach homes by phone companies and cable
> companies. They will sell time and rights-of-way to clients, and
> you can bet that the record labels will right there, hawking their
> wares over whatever new methods of transmission are developed.
And - if you think things cost too much now, just wait till they expect
you to start paying for all this new distribution hardware. It reminds
me of that old question, "Is this trip really necessary?" ...
Billy Y..
Bill Llewellyn
>
>And - if you think things cost too much now, just wait till they expect
>you to start paying for all this new distribution hardware. It reminds
>me of that old question, "Is this trip really necessary?" ...
Great point. The net is now paid for by tax $$ and corporations. I'm
wondering how long these entities are going to be willing to go along
with a significant (and growing) percentage of bandwidth going to the
purposes of keeping costs down for independent music (etc) distribution.
Even Usenet is living on borrowed hardware, as I see it. (Ask yourself --
how many participants in this forum are reading/posting from their
university or workplace?)
But I digress.
I'd like to summarize the current debate as I understand it, graphically.
Reality:
Creativity ---> Commerce ---> Listening public A
Ideal:
Creativity ---> InfoHwy ---> Listening public B
Commerce is a definitively polarized filter for the material it is willing
to support. It is, at the same time, very effective in delivering that
which it is willing to support through to the masses. The InfoHwy is
non-filtering, transparent. It is, however populated by nerds like myself,
underground musicians (presently), and others. I separate the above
"listening public" into group A and B because group A is presently the
real masses and group B is, well, us -- that is, nerds, compupeople,
netters, and underground musicians. My feeling is that as the InfoHwy
becomes better and better at delivery of artistic material, it will also
migrate closer and closer to "commerce", with influences like the present
mass distribution system has. Therein lies the rub. I reiterate my point
from above -- we're living on borrowed hardware, and as expansion comes
(to handle all this music, etc), somebody's going to have to pay for it.
Guess who? Commerce, I'd say. I don't *want* this to happen, I just think
it will. :(
--
=====================================================================
Regards, Bill Llewellyn ><> thi...@rahul.net
I'll take on ANYBODY in a missppelling contest....
=====================================================================
Bob Olhsson
par with 1/4", assuming $3-5K machines??>>
Not at all!:
I know of no 1/4 inch tapes that are absolutely unplayable. The worst is
mistreated acetate that can only be played once with the oxide flaking off
as it plays but most of my 3M 111 and 201 acetate tapes are in fine shape.
Some more recent polyester based tapes (yes, the stuff that was SUPPOSED to
outlast acetate) require baking or other treatment in order to play because
the manufacturers' binder/lubricant formulas and life expectancy tests
proved to not work. But, they are playable given any sort of abuse short of
shredding them.
Many people have reported DAT tapes that are two years old than won't play
at all. Leaving a DAT tape in a hot car or dropping it on a hard floor can
make a DAT toast.
Bob
Gabe Wiener
BiLL S <an9...@anon.penet.fi> wrote:
>>If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
>>a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
>
>From this consumer's perspective, variety and freedom of expression are
>forms of quality, so I disagree.
Only if you are willing to submit to relativisim, which I'm not. My
five year old cousin can fingerpaint. That doesn't make his paintings
great art, even though it's freedom of expression. It isn't quality
art in any useful definition of the word.
Of course, if you think that having the freedom of expression guarantees
quality, then enjoy yourself. You can find lots of quality out there.
I know I can't.
>So? As the technology becomes more availiable, more people will have a chance
>to learn. Some won't, of course. And don't for a second forget that
>professionals make their share of awful recordings (many of which sell
>quite well, of course).
Yes, there are plenty of awful recordings made professionally, but on
balance, most of the finest recordings are made by people who happen
to know what they're doing. Most amateur recordings sound like just
that...amateur recordings!
>On the one hand, it takes motivation to get ahead, and that's good. On the
>other hand, there are things involved that have nothing to do with art and
>music, and this is a barrier that could well exclude most that have something
>pure to say.
In case you haven't noticed, there _are_ a few people out here doing good
work. It isn't all soul-less commercialism.
>A popularity controlled system also tends to assure that only music and art
>formulated for mass popularity can recieve exposure beyond the underground
>level (i.e., limited beyond the actual limited segment of society that might
>appreciate the work). This is an extremely bad incentive.
And how do you expect that the infobahn will change this? Bandwidth
will still be bought and sold, and you can bet that the major players
in the music industry will buy lots of it.
Sure, independents will have their day, but it will be the semantic
equivalent of their taking their stuff around to the store buyers, or
perhaps cajoling a distributor into handling them.
Gabe Wiener
Clete Baker <cle...@sound.omahug.org> wrote:
> Damn good question! Gross generalization mode on: Mastering engineers
>can be divided into two large classes ... those who 1) aspire to give
>*your* creative output its best possible representation, and those who 2)
>aspire to give *their* creative output its best possible representation
>(and who the heck are you to question their vast experience and
>impeccable credentials anyway, thank you very much).
I'm glad you set a gross-generalization flag to the on state, or else I
would have had to flame you :-)
> My own philosophy runs toward the former. I know that *I* agonize over
>tracking and mixing at the appropriate times, and get it right in the
>studio. The mastering process is one of accurately transferring the
>material to a mastering medium, taking full advantage of the strengths of
>the release medium (and, if necessary, correcting for predictable
>weaknesses). If a project is done correctly through the studio stage
>there's *no* reason to "change the sound of a hard earned mix". Print it!
Well, the problem is that most studio monitors are absolute crud. You
know, those NS-10s that we all love to rank on. One of the things
that you pay (and hopefully get!) when you send your tape to a
mastering studio is a) someone with a good set of ears who knows what
music is supposed to sound like, and b) a studio with a good set of
loudspeakers.
The role of the mastering engineer has changed over the years. it used
to be that he actually made the physical master from which the records
were produced. Today, mastering serves more as the last shot to tweak,
to make sure that when your recording hits CD and ends up in people's
homes, that it sounds good.
Sometimes a recording is in dire need of, shall we say, artistic
reassessment, and hopefully the mastering engineer one chooses can
listen and make judgments of what is wrong, and then knows how to
correct it.
Other times there are actual technical deficiencies with a recording,
music notwithstanding. Hum, crackle, a click here and there, a pause
that is too long, a dropout, flyback noise (particularly on recordings
made through a certain console with a video monitor built in!), and
mastering represents the last chance to correct that.
But still in the end, the more things change, the more things stay
the same. Mastering engineers make sure that the music will sound good
on the delivery medium.
> Fundamentally, if you can put your material on a medium which can be
>taken directly to glass with no intermediate steps (i.e., 1630, DDP, PMCD)
>you can govern the PQ data. Barring that, you have no way of tagging the
>PQ data accurately to an event in the program, so it's moot. The closest
>you can come is by supplying the plant or mastering house with a very
>detailed description of exactly where to place that index point or that
>track mark.
The situation isn't _that_ bad :-) You can, if you choose, give a
plant a cue sheet with your PQ info, or else you can just give it to
them on a floppy. In fact, most plants that take non-PM CD-Rs have a
readback system that scans the disc, extrapolates PQ, writes the cue
sheet to a floppy. The floppy is then loaded to a PC clone which runs
in tandem with the Sony CD-900R/CD-900X EFM modulator that is used to
control the cutting laser.
> Because it's a great mixdown and live capture format! It's convenient,
>it's cheap, it's ubiquitous ... it ain't 24 bits, but it's pretty darn
>good. But Gabe's right ... it's not for *mastering*.
Sometimes I think it isn't for recording either, but not often :-)
>consumers are not likely to care that their index points can only be
>placed within 300 ms of the start of a program.
Sadly, the current batch of stand-alone CD-R units is essentially as
bad. However, if you use a subcode generator like the Audio+Design or
the HHb, you can figure out the offset of your CD-R and calibrate the
generator accordingly.
Of course, if anyone here is planning to use a stand-alone CD-R to
generate a plant delivery master, remember that you _must_ record it
in one shot, meaning that after the CD is running, you cannot stop it
until the end. Failure to do this will cause it to be retured by the
plant (assuming the plant is enforcing specs as they should. DADC
does, for instance).
>From a practial standpoint they also have the
>disadvantage of having to be created in real time, and (at least in our
>house) can't go out the door without a real time 100% playback for QC.
And even after they have been QCed, there are numerous stories of
1630s failing after they arrive at the plant. CD-R is pretty robust
as long as you don't a) scratch it or b) leave it out in the sun.
> I canvassed every CD plant in the states in December to find out if
>they were going direct to glass from DDP-8mm. With two exceptions (one
>of which does galvanics only ... no mastering in-house, and the other
>very near to jumping onto the DDP-8mm bandwagon) they all are.
John Macdonald (chief engineer of DADC) was in town on Thursday and I
asked him what is DADC's position on DDP-8mm. He shrugged and said
that DADC will take them if they have to, but they honestly prefer to
work from PMCD more than any other format, since they now have their
PMCD readers running at triple speed.
While I like 8mm as a format, I do see a few problems with it. First,
no one can listen to it to be sure it's right. Second, all you need
is one strong magnetic field during shipping and you've got serious
problems.
> Audibly, yes (in theory; Bernie Grundman has some other thoughts about
>that). But PQ codes still might be an approximation of how you made the
>CD-R because the TOC (Table Of Contents) data can't be directly read from
>a CD-R for transfer to the glass master. That's why the PMCD (Pre-Master
>CD) came into being ... it solves the problem by explicitly writing out
>the PQ data as audio in an "inaudible" section of the CD. Otherwise it's
>a common b-flat CD-R.
While you're right in practice, it isn't so much that they _can't_
regenerate it from the CD-R, but that they *don't want to*. PQ data
actually exists on the disc itself, but the plants choose to
regenerate it. Data coming off of any media format is subject to
burst errors. Some errors are correctable, and there are many
different E-levels of errors that can occur at the plant and in spite
of which, the disc will be okay. However, one place that you do *not*
want errors is in the PQ frame. So while it is possible to read PQ
from a CD-R, it is safer not to.
Using CD-R w/o the PMCD cue sheet is becoming more and more "okay"
being that the readback systems are essentially automated. The one
thing that PMCD really gains you, however, is *speed*. After the disc
has been tested for integrity, it can go right to the CD-900R/X for
glass mastering without any further modification.
> GET IT RIGHT, RIGHT HERE, so you won't have the
>opportunity to second guess yourself into a hole later on.
Gabe's philosophy of recording is to *get it right before it ever becomes
electricity*. The best mixer is the _air_. Get as much right in how your
music sounds. Follow that trend all the way through the process...doing as
much as you can as early as you can, and you will be happy with the product.
> Nope... *this* is where *most* projects fail! Years ago I cut a set
>of lacquers for a local band and brokered the pressing. As they were
>loading up their station wagon with umpteen thousand records one of 'em
>turned to me and asked me (with a straight face, no less!) "Do you know
>who we could take these to so that they get into the record stores?"
Classic!
Gabe Wiener
Kees de Visser <ako...@knoware.nl> wrote:
>Dear Gabe, I've been using two Sony PCM 7050 DAT recorders for several
>years now and I am very happy with these professional (!) machines. It
>seemed to be possible to squeeze this high performance out of this "bad
>format".
Kees,
While the Sony 7000 series, the Otari DTR-90, and the Fostex D20/D30
all manage to perform surprisingly well, they are enormous kludges,
forcing a little consumer format to work much harder than it ever was
intended to. No matter how good the deck is, the error correction of
the format isn't all that robust, and repeated inserts and shuttling
can lead to massive burst errors, sad to say.
>Especially the Tape Error List makes it possible to check a tape
>for data integrity. This is not possible (at the moment, wait for version
>x.x) with the Sonic PMCD format, which makes it less professional than the
>7050 system.
Have you seen the new Clover Systems disc integrity verifier? Scans discs
for E32 errors, keeps running and average error tallies, etc. Very nice.
Jamie Krutz
> jkr...@meta.burner.com (Jamie Krutz) writes:
> : OK, what kinds of things would a mastering house normally do that
> : would change the aesthetics of the content? Are we talking EQ
> : changes, compression, or what? Why would I want someone to
> : change the sound of a hard earned mix? :)
>
(munch)
> weaknesses). If a project is done correctly through the studio stage
> there's *no* reason to "change the sound of a hard earned mix". Print it!
Makes sense.
(8mm mastering suggestions munched)
What SCSI 8mm drive would you recommend?
> : I am very open to everyone's advice, tips and tricks in the
> : process of creating a CD. Right now, here's my step by step
> : impression of the process. Feel free to add/delete/expound/etc.
> : on this:
>
> Egad!
OK, step 0) Egad!
;)
>
> : 1) Write compelling music, and optionally, lyrics.
> :
> : This is where most projects fail....
> :
> :
> : 2) Work out the arrangements
> :
> : 3) Record inspired performances
>
> Don't be seduced by the lure of a "paint by numbers" approach to
> multitracking. You won't end up with anything worthy of being called art.
I'm not sure what you mean by "paint by numbers."
Do you mean by this that you've had better luck tracking multiple performers
at once than one track at a time? Different artists work in different ways...
> : 4) Mix the songs
>
> All right ... mix the songs *as if you were creating the CD master on
> the spot*. Do your normalization here (your mixing medium has meters,
> no?). Do your EQ here (is this song consistent in sound with the one we
> mixed last night?) Do your dynamics processing (if you really believe
> you *have* to) here. GET IT RIGHT, RIGHT HERE, so you won't have the
> opportunity to second guess yourself into a hole later on.
Makes total sense.
> : 5) Create a CD ready master
> :
> : 6) Market the CD.
>
> Nope... *this* is where *most* projects fail! Years ago I cut a set
This is where most projects fail _to sell_. But I've heard a lot of projects
that were IMHO a waste of effort long before this stage, due to poor writing.
You're right, of course, that marketing is a big hurdle to overcome.
> Sorry to have taken so much of the net's time. What can I say? I saw
> an opportunity to vent....
And I appreciate that you took the time to do so. Further venting is welcome.
Best,
-Jamie
Jamie Krutz
What "not with your finger" methods are available? Do you dump
to the CD-R directly from the SCSI bus (like a hard drive) or do
you have to feed it digital audio in real time (like a DAT
recorder)? If it's via SCSI, can you embed the commands?
Best,
-Jamie
Gabe Wiener
Jamie Krutz <jkr...@meta.burner.com> wrote:
>What "not with your finger" methods are available? Do you dump
>to the CD-R directly from the SCSI bus (like a hard drive) or do
>you have to feed it digital audio in real time (like a DAT
>recorder)? If it's via SCSI, can you embed the commands?
There are a few ways to do it. In a mastering house that is doing a
CD-R dump, chances are it will come right off a Sonic system.
There are other, less expensive ways to do it though. One is to use a
SCSI CD-ROM recorder and dump audio off that way. I have no idea what
the PQ resolution is though.
The easiest way though is to use a DAT machine, Philips-based CD-R
(Studer, Carver, Meridian, etc) and a subcode generator box. These
units, made by HHb and Audio+Design, read DAT subcode and convert it
to CD subcode. The CD-R units have a design flaw that results in a
delay, so the subcode generators let you program in an offset.
Recognize that you cannot write end-of-track marks or indices in this
way, only start-of-track, but for quick 'n dirty mastering, it will
work, if somewhat klugedly (is tha ta word? it is now.)
Dave Stevens
lmel...@uoguelph.ca (Lewis Melville) writes:
> Musicians will still be poor and parasitized by those
> million middle persons who do little work, but who control some small but
> necessary step in the delivery process.
Only musicians of modest talent or exposure will still be poor. Not
all musicians are good, just as not all sound engineers are good. The
vast majority of sucessful musicians have worked very hard to get where
they are. Without the current support structure, musicians could not
make the money they do now. They would make far less.
> Live music is best. Recorded music is a benevolent toss-off we musicians
> provide to others less fortunate than ourselves. We keep them employed
> and off the streets. Let it not be said that musicians have not paid
> their debt to society.
Most musicians I know record because they want their music to be heard
by more people then those that are a car trip away from the concert.
Recording enables a musician to reach far more people with their art.
The real money is to be made in record sales, publishing, merchandise
and the like. Ticket sales for concert tours generally go to support
the tour. Most major tours break even or lose money. Some, however
(Grateful Dead, for example) make plenty on ticket sales.
> Like martyrs we have foregone the vast majority of
> the income generated by the fruit of our labours so that others may eat
> at a table better laden than our own. :-)
> Just out of curiosity, has anyone figured out how much of the money
> generated by music actually goes to musicians? How does this compare to
> other professions?
It is unlikely that any major label recording artist today is getting
the short end of the stick. If they are, they have choosen the wrong
management/ lawyers. I'm not talking about a band at the Holiday Inn or
tavern, but acts that record for indie and major labels. Right now I
personally know more than 20 musicians that are multi-millionares. I
know some that barely scratch out a living. Some have sold their
publishing, chose poor representation and made poor career choices and
just had plain bad luck. These things have nothing to do with, what I
call your "evil money grubbing music biz syndrome". The current
structure of the recording industry rewards musicians better now than
ever before. Talent, timing, image and a bit of good luck is what is
required.
Dave Stevens Internet: dste...@halcyon.com
Touring Audio Production CIS: 71211,1772
Large Scale System Design AOL: Davesound
Applelink: D.STEVENS
Thatcher Ulrich
: In article <053301Z...@anon.penet.fi>,
: BiLL S <an9...@anon.penet.fi> wrote:
: >>If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
: >>a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
: >
: >From this consumer's perspective, variety and freedom of expression are
: >forms of quality, so I disagree.
: Only if you are willing to submit to relativisim, which I'm not. My
: five year old cousin can fingerpaint. That doesn't make his paintings
: great art, even though it's freedom of expression. It isn't quality
: art in any useful definition of the word.
: Of course, if you think that having the freedom of expression guarantees
: quality, then enjoy yourself. You can find lots of quality out there.
: I know I can't.
You're missing the point. The expansion and specialization of the
channel will allow certain audiences access to things that are not now
easily accessible. To take a concrete example, after reading a review
of the new CD from the band Pet UFO (actual name) in an underground
fanzine, I can't just hop on over to Tower Records and buy it (even
though I bought the 'zine there); instead I have to write a check and
send it to the address listed after the review and wait a few weeks
for the CD to arrive. Not to mention the fact that I can't be sure,
having never heard it, that I won't hate it. In short, there are
basic structural realities that discourage me from ever hearing this
CD. Realistically, my local Tower can't be expected to stock a copy
of the Pet UFO CD and the thousands of other similarly obscure
releases that come out each year, because each CD takes up space in
the racks, costs money to produce and distribute, and may never get
bought. Commercial radio will never play it, and college radio
probably won't either, at least during the four hours a week I happen
to be listening.
However, the "infobahn" or whatever we end up calling it, is going to
cause a *serious* upheaval. The fanzine that reviewed Pet UFO will be
on-line and multi-media. It won't be slick or easy to find the way
the way the on-line successor to Rolling Stone will be, but I will be
able to hear a sound clip of Pet UFO by clicking on the review. If I
decide I like it, I will "download" it from Burnt Sienna Records
(probably the band's own label), they'll charge my credit card (or
we'll use a trusted intermediary), and I'll have the music. The whole
process will be much easier and cheaper than it is now. This is a
basic consequence of the coming technology, and it will radically
enhance my access to obscure music, just as the internet now radically
enhances my access to obscure shareware.
Things are gonna change. The introduction of information technology
is never a politically neutral act. I'm not expecting the same utopia
that others have written about, but arguing that the status quo will
continue in a different guise, is, IMHO, *really* mistaken.
-Thatcher
John Stelly
>In article <pbraunbC...@netcom.com>,
>The Bakalite <pbr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Once bands have the technical capability to make great recordings in
>>their home, and we're pretty much there, and once the net will have
>>enough bandwith to support downloading some digital audio, we'll see a
>>whole new market develop.
>
>No, you'll see a new _format_ develop.
>
>Every six weeks or so on rec.audio.pro we see someone come on and post
>more gobbledygook about how "people are going to be able to make great
>recordings in their homes." Frnakly I don't care one way or the other
>if bands record at home or not, as it isn't my end of the business.
>But what I will tell you is that recordings made at home will sound like
>just that..._recordings made at home_. The state of the art always
>increases, and it will never be possible to achieve on a portastudio
>(or even on a Mackie 1604 and a DA88) the same quality that can be
>achieved in a good-sounding studio run by people who know what they're
>doing.
>
I think that we need look no further than the shareware industry for an
example of what _MAY_ happen to the music industry when it becomes
feasible to do quality recording and distribution from your own home.
Currently the dynamic of say the shareware video game industry works this
way:
There are some shareware game companies who everyone knows about, who
make commercial quality or near commercial quality games, for these
people, shareware is really a form of distribution, not a necessity to do
business.
Then there are the garage artists out there who produce homebrew games.
Not many people will even hear about or bother to download these games.
But if the game is good, people will talk about it, and word will spread,
and it will have limited success. There are far too many of these types
of games coming out for most people to look at everything, but some will,
and quality stuff will get word of mouth advertising.
There are also people who gather up lots of this shareware stuff and push
it into the retail channel with really low prices and make their money on
volume sales (and failing to pay the actual authors of the software
anything, although it's perfectly legal, perhaps somewhat unethical).
I could envision the music industry take this form in the future. The
commercial software industry is still there, and is only mildly
threatened by the second tier producers, and both industries do well,
though in general the commercial, retail type guys make a great deal more
money. Also, in general, commercial software is much higher quality than
shareware, though not always.
It seems like a viable channel for marketing music as well - sharemusic:
The first two songs are free, send $10 for a CD with 8 more, or
cripplemusic: no vocals in the chorus until you "register" or nagmusic:
an announcer says, "This song is unregistered" during each chorus in the
free version =8-)
Just a few thoughts.
--
--
Jay Stelly "Gridders, because your brain needs to play."
yu...@netcom.com "Wow! there's something in the basement!"
CHARLES M SEATON
In <2vn5do$h...@panix.com> ga...@panix.com writes:
> In article <053301Z...@anon.penet.fi>,
> BiLL S <an9...@anon.penet.fi> wrote:
>
> >>If you think that a sudden spurt in _quality_ will come through as
> >>a result of electronic distribution, you are very much mistaken.
> >
> >From this consumer's perspective, variety and freedom of expression are
> >forms of quality, so I disagree.
> Only if you are willing to submit to relativisim, which I'm not. My
> five year old cousin can fingerpaint. That doesn't make his paintings
> great art, even though it's freedom of expression. It isn't quality
> art in any useful definition of the word.
What on earth is a "useful definition" of "quality art"?
What would it be useful FOR?
And how do you know I might not want to buy your five-year-old cousin's
finger paintings-- if only I could see them first?
And if you think I'm an idiot for intensely liking those
finger-paintings, what does that have to do with their "quality"?
Somewhat mystified...
p.s. sorry if this is somewhat garbled, my server is making my screen
virtually unreadable...