Members Bruce Swedien Posted August 29, 2010 Members Share Posted August 29, 2010 Craig..... How are we doing?????....... Bruce Swedien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted August 29, 2010 Members Share Posted August 29, 2010 Craig..... How are we doing?????.......Bruce Swedien Great! So glad you're feeling well enough to hang out. So now I'm going to throw a question at you that relates to the thread title: "How are we doing?" - by that, I mean the music industry. Do you think it's dying? Vibrant? Re-trenching? Mutating into something else? There's one thing I've noticed that intrigues the hell out of me. As you may know, I do a lot of mastering; projects run the gamut from classical pros to teens in a bedroom studio. I have to say I have been AMAZED at the music that a lot, not just some, of these people are making. And what I like the most is, to steal your phrase, it's "music first." The songs are catchy, or emotional, or just plain fun. Now, the big problem is that a lot of these people aren't really well versed in the technical end of things. I hear problems with mixes and such that are rookie errors. Many of them can be fixed in the mastering process, which is gratifying for me - to take something okay and make it sound good - and of course, makes the clients really happy as well. So where is this music ending up? I don't know. I'm sure some of these people will never get heard, never get any kind of positive reinforcement, and eventually, just give up. This would be a real shame. Overall, I think there's a new generation out there that even if they don't have a command of the tools, have something to say and know how to say it. And I always would rather listen to good music recorded badly than bad music recorded well. My crusade now is to figure out how to write articles and post comments on sites that help them with the recording end of things so that the music sounds great before it gets to the mastering stage. I bet I've heard more good music from these unknowns than if I'd picked an equivalent amount of CDs randomly from the shelves of a Virgin Megastore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted August 29, 2010 Members Share Posted August 29, 2010 Yup. I keep saying that if you are not finding good music these days, you're just not looking very hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted August 29, 2010 Members Share Posted August 29, 2010 I find new music everyday. Even though most (not all) of it is from decades past, it's still new to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hush Posted August 30, 2010 Members Share Posted August 30, 2010 My crusade now is to figure out how to write articles and post comments on sites that help them with the recording end of things so that the music sounds great before it gets to the mastering stage. To this end I would like to make a suggestion or request for EQ mag. I subscribe to EQ and every month I keep wishing that the articles had more meat to them. Compared to something you find in Tape Op (the only other magazine I subscribe to) EQ articles always feel abbreviated. Would it be possible that you have a least one article a month that goes a little deeper into recording/mixing technique than the one page 5 steps to better drums, guitar ect...? I'd be real interested in learning other engineer's recording and mixing philosophies and why they do things a certain way. What was it that made them place the drums in that spot in the room? What are the listening for? Thank kind of thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted August 30, 2010 Members Share Posted August 30, 2010 To this end I would like to make a suggestion or request for EQ mag. I subscribe to EQ and every month I keep wishing that the articles had more meat to them. Compared to something you find in Tape Op (the only other magazine I subscribe to) EQ articles always feel abbreviated. Would it be possible that you have a least one article a month that goes a little deeper into recording/mixing technique than the one page 5 steps to better drums, guitar ect...?I'd be real interested in learning other engineer's recording and mixing philosophies and why they do things a certain way. What was it that made them place the drums in that spot in the room? What are the listening for? Thank kind of thing. I'm with you 100% on longer articles. For that we need more pages, and for that, we need more advertisers because magazines run a fixed ad/edit ratio. However...we are trying to get more of that kind of "engineering philosophy" material into the artist coverage. I pretty much have nothing to do with the artist coverage aspect, so I see those articles with fresh eyes each month. While some are fairly standard, some authors know how to ask follow-up questions so that when someone says "I use an XYZ" mic, the interviewer knows enough to ask "why?" and then ask "and why do you set it up that way?" Those I find very interesting. Today EQ gets a new Editor, Sarah Jones, who some of you may be familiar with from her work at Mix. She's definitely into getting authors to do more follow-ups, and plans to write a fair amount of these articles herself - this is a good thing. So, stay tuned for further developments... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted August 30, 2010 CMS Author Share Posted August 30, 2010 Today EQ gets a new Editor, Sarah Jones Cool! I've always liked Sarah's work and it's good to see that she's going back to being an editor/contributor. Maybe she'll let me write a long article some day. I've been complaining about the short word count almost since I started writing (and, it seems, have stopped writing) for audio magazines. When I was first invited to write for Recording about 15 years ago, I told the editor at the time that I wanted to write articles that were as detailed as I thought they should be, and he let me do that, though often they got split into two or three installments. Now, even the stuff that I've done for a couple of on-line magazines has been (by request) shorter than I'd like. I'd thought that on-line space was enough cheaper than print space that length didn't matter, but apparently people reading technical articles on line get tired after a few minutes so they have to be short. I can't quibble with that - I hate reading magazines on line and only do it to look up things of interest, not for general learning or enrichment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted August 30, 2010 Members Share Posted August 30, 2010 Sarah is as cool as they come, and she really, really knows audio. EQ will definitely benefit from her presence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted August 30, 2010 Members Share Posted August 30, 2010 Sarah is as cool as they come, and she really, really knows audio. EQ will definitely benefit from her presence. It already is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted August 30, 2010 Members Share Posted August 30, 2010 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members veracohr Posted September 2, 2010 Members Share Posted September 2, 2010 apparently people reading technical articles on line get tired after a few minutes so they have to be short. I can't quibble with that - I hate reading magazines on line and only do it to look up things of interest, not for general learning or enrichment. I've noticed that about myself, whether it's technical or not. I generally find it hard to finish a long article online that I wouldn't have any problem with in print. I just get bored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted September 2, 2010 CMS Author Share Posted September 2, 2010 I've noticed that about myself, whether it's technical or not. I generally find it hard to finish a long article online that I wouldn't have any problem with in print. I just get bored. And just try swatting a fly with your monitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 3, 2010 Members Share Posted September 3, 2010 I've noticed that about myself, whether it's technical or not. I generally find it hard to finish a long article online that I wouldn't have any problem with in print. I just get bored. I don't like reading long articles online, but I think it has more to do with the presentation than boredom. I just don't like doing in-depth reading on a computer monitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted September 3, 2010 Members Share Posted September 3, 2010 Might at well ask, why doesn't EQ switch to a Tape Op type format? Will the ad market only support one magazine with that model? Just curious, because it seems EQ could triple the content and their distribution all in one swoop if they switched to the Tape Op way of funding a magazine. Inquiring minds wanna know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted September 3, 2010 Members Share Posted September 3, 2010 Oh yeah, plus I'd free subs to EQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted September 3, 2010 Members Share Posted September 3, 2010 Might at well ask, why doesn't EQ switch to a Tape Op type format? Will the ad market only support one magazine with that model? What exactly do you mean by a "Tape Op" model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted September 3, 2010 CMS Author Share Posted September 3, 2010 Might at well ask, why doesn't EQ switch to a Tape Op type format? Will the ad market only support one magazine with that model? What's that? Don't pay the authors? If they did that, Craig would have to get a real job if he wanted to continue to write articles. I appreciate that Tape Op is still in print, but I wish it had more pages so the print didn't have to be so small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 4, 2010 Members Share Posted September 4, 2010 Might at well ask, why doesn't EQ switch to a Tape Op type format? Will the ad market only support one magazine with that model? How does Tape Op differ from EQ? Do they differ as far as advertisements go? I don't see the difference, especially if youa re talking about advertisements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 4, 2010 Members Share Posted September 4, 2010 Oh, never mind...you two beat me to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members michaelhigh Posted October 30, 2010 Members Share Posted October 30, 2010 Go to the Internet Archive, select music, or search flac if you're into hirez files. There's tons of free music there, circlesandlines records comes to mind. Ambient electronica that's in the public domain is there if anyone needs off-the-wall synthingies or digs this stuff.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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