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 <strong>com</strong>pletely 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 <strong>com</strong>es 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 <strong>com</strong>pression, 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.<strong>com</strong> 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 <strong>com</strong>ments 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 <strong>com</strong>ment 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 <strong>com</strong>puters 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 <strong>com</strong>ments 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 <strong>com</strong>pilation 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 <strong>joaoveludo@gmail</strong>.<strong>com</strong>
<strong>joaoveludo@gmail</strong>.<strong>com</strong>