joaoveludo@gmail.com

I love Tape Op. I can’t believe you got
Al [Schnier, of moe., Tape Op #102]. I was at a
music festival a few weeks ago and somebody
mistook me for Al because we have the
same receding hairline. Thank you.
Tommy McKaughan
My wife and I drove 18 hours back from our
vacation in Florida to our home in Ohio. We got in
at 3 a.m. Our son had put the mail on the floor, and
before we went to bed I saw the newest issue of
Tape Op. My wife said, “Come on, we have been up
for 20 hours.” I said, “I will be in there in a little
bit.” I couldn’t put the latest issue down! I read it
from beginning to end, and finally crawled into bed
at 5 a.m. Honestly, that was my favorite issue yet,
and I am going to do some recording tomorrow.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Kevin R. Bowdler
On the one hand, I completely agree with Mr.
Baccigaluppi’s recent back page. I am constantly
ranting that I want Cubase and Pro Tools finished,
goddamnit! I want them to be like real musical
instruments: perfected. Sure, one violin or piano
sounds different from the next, and there’s always
room for improvement; but they all work the same
way. Same goes for everything, from Stratocasters to
drill presses. At some point, the consensus was, “This
thing is fully baked.” On the other hand? I can’t
stand where DAW is today. None of them are what I
imagined when I started 15 years ago... which is a
desktop music publisher. None of them are as flexible
as video or desktop publishing programs, in terms of
simply manipulating objects the way Word, InDesign,
or Finale let one cut/copy/paste. None have
particularly great undo. None have version control.
None have an import/export worth a shit. And none
offer any reasonable guarantee that you’ll be able to
open an older project cleanly. I think we are still
stuck in this mental paradigm (which your magazine
promulgates) of “mixer,” “engineer,” and “musician.”
Sound is acquired in one discrete step, mixed in
another, and then mastered in a third. No author in
any other medium thinks in such a formal way
anymore. We’re all constantly creating and editing, all
at the same time. But DAWs continue to be modeled
after tape recorders and mixing desks. In short, I look
forward to the day when there is a simple DAW that
allows me the same flexibility with audio, MIDI, and
notation that I have with words in Microsoft Word;
something that isn’t held back by the look and feel
of a mixing desk.
JC Harris
12/Tape Op#103/Letters/(Fin.)
While I too dream of a
DAW that needs no
upgrades and stays
stable for decades, I
disagree on the criticism
of the “mental
paradigm” that you
believe we “promulgate”
with Tape Op. I think that
many times the division of labor on a recording project
can be a good thing. Sure, a blurring of the lines
constantly occurs (I regularly engineer, produce, mix,
and perform on my studio sessions); but when it comes
to the tasks involved in record making, often hiring an
expert can vastly improve the project. Bringing in a
better guitarist than myself is an obvious win. Hiring a
mixing or mastering engineer with more experience
than oneself can improve tracks immensely. Sometimes
records are made in isolation by a single person, and
this can lead to some fantastic, unique results or it can
result in an unbridled mess. Some records are made by
selecting the proper group of talented individuals. But
even inferring that there is only one way to record
music is to miss the point of all the opportunities that
are out there. -LC
I enjoyed John Baccigaluppi’s hammer analogy.
[“Give Me a Hammer” Tape Op #102] I would only
add that the carpenter’s clients probably don’t ask
which brand of hammer he uses...
Frank Dickinson
Issue #102 showed up in my email yesterday. I
love your gear reviews, so I went there first. In my
latest project I have been struggling with two
guitars recorded through a Line 6 Pod 2.0 amp
simulator that seemed okay when I cut the tracks,
but are harsh sounding as I mix. I can barely tame
the sound with compression, EQ, and de-essers. It’s
either too harsh, or too dull, plus the rhythm and
lead guitar have the same frequency range of
splatter and were tough to balance. I read the
review on bx_refinement and within the hour it was
downloaded and in operation. Even my wife could
hear the difference. While I’ll be wary of using the
Pod in the future, I now have a valuable tool that
can really clean things up. Thanks for the
heads up on a great product. It came
along at the right time to rescue my mix.
Jer Hill
I adore this plug-in, and have been using it a lot
to help my recent mixes, even on some tracks I’ve
cut myself. I’m very happy to have turned anyone
on to this fine product. I recently met bx’s
developer, Gebre Waddell, at Summer NAMM, and
am glad to report that he’s an awesome and
interesting person to boot. Expect more miracles
from him in the future. -LC
Send Letters & Questions
to: editor@tapeop.com
I read several issues ago about Larry Crane
wishing that CDs came with credits in the metadata
for the engineer, producer, studio, etc. When I
create a PMCD [PreMaster CD] for pressing purposes
there is no place except the comments block to add
this information, which is character limited, so
only a fraction of the info I edit in is retained. Also
other info, such as publishing, copywriter, etc. is
not retained after burning the PMCD (I use
MediaMonkey). Is there any other way to add this
info to the metadata that will be retained after
burning the disc? Or am I just pissing up a rope?
Jeffrey Simpson
You are not alone in wondering about metadata on
CDs. Although it is possible to add credits in the comment
section, there are some limitations to this approach. First,
CD Text data is only seen when a disc is played in a CD
Text-enabled car or home player. Portable players and
computers do not read information from the disc (they
pull data from databases, such as Gracenote). The
second, and perhaps more important concern, is that
there is no guarantee that a disc manufacturer will “carry
forward” all of the metadata from the submitted master.
While many plants do pass CD Text through to the
production copies, it is not a universal practice. Even if
you manage to stuff all the comments in, it may not
make it to the finished copies. Presently there is no ideal
solution. This explains some of the recent attempts to
launch album credit sites. The best advice I have is to find
someone who is a Gracenote partner and have them enter
the data for you. Some labels, mastering engineers, and
publishers have enhanced access to production fields in
the Gracenote Database. While anyone can submit song
titles and artists names, via applications like iTunes,
Gracenote Partners have enhanced access to data fields
(e.g. native language, band website, record label, subgenres,
etc.). In particular, we can enter musician,
engineering, writing, and production credits for entire
albums, or even individual songs (very useful on a
compilation release). I believe feeding production credits
into Gracenote is currently our best bet. Even if AES,
NARAS, or some other body manages to push standards
through, online vendors such as Apple, Pono, or Streamerdu-Jour
will more than likely want to pull from an
established data source. In summary: not only are you
pissing up a rope, but you have to get in line to do so.
But so do the rest of us.
Garrett Haines
As always, I was delighted to get the
latest Tape Op [#102]! Right away it flipped open to that
super-sexy shot of Tom Werman standing in front of those
[3M] M79s.Hell yeah! But I'm really writing to express
how impressed I am to see the cover of Family Fun In Tape
Recording used with your opening editorial! This was an
extremely important book for me – please see attached
the review I wrote in 1965 inside the front cover.
“This is a great book! Given November 15, 1965 on my
11th birthday.”
Mitch Easter
joaoveludo@gmail.com