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 | | | | Jan31Written by:Bill Park
Wednesday, January 31, 2001 6:00 PM  So, waddaya wanna talk about?
Procrastination is my enemy. By screwing around, I have been scooped by other writers, beaten by changes in technology, or have just run out of enthusiasm for certain topics.
I was going to write about the big deal issue that was a major concern to the professionals. Watermarking of digital audio has their ranks in an uproar and has got as much discussion on their forums as Napster has gotten on other, less professional forums. But that has now been done by one of the print mags.
I was going to write about DVD-A, explaining it and talking about why we may or may not want it. That, alas, has also been done.
I had a great article all assembled in my head about DVD-A packaging. At one point this was the major obstacle to getting DVD-A on the shelves. (Yawn.) Who cares?
DVD-A should have been a major product release for this Christmas season, and the post from which would pivot major changes in our software, hardware, and delivery systems. It could have been an exciting jump off point for speculation and logical conclusion. Instead it is either seconds away from breathing it's last gasping breath or it is months away from being a viable format.
So what am I going to write about? It really isn't that hard. Just pick a topic, research it, choose a point of view from the research, and state your case. Simple.
Pretty soon, now…
Hmmmm….
So maybe I'll do a little reading instead of writing….
And I pick up the latest issue of "Stuff" magazine from the stack of unread mags sitting on my floor. Now, I'm a red-blooded American male, and I like women. For the most part, I like them all. But I particularly like some of the gamine, lithe women that appear in the pages of Maxim, Stuff, etc. I like the articles too. Let's face it, they are not too challenging to read. After a couple of hours of the AES Journal, Systems Contractor News, Film and Video, and Sound On Sound, I need something a little less challenging. "See Jane run. Run, Jane, run. Run, run, run" is about right, and "Stuff" is seldom that complex. And the accompanying photos of Jane running are… inspiring. Artistic. Literate, almost….
I look eagerly at the cover to see who the ‘Babe" is this month. Well, it ain't exactly a ‘Babe'. In fact, it is a lot closer to a baby than I feel comfortable with. This picture verges on JonBenet Ramsey territory. A very attractive teenaged actress from a popular television show is tarted up to look pretty whoreish.
This starts me to thinking… why do I have a problem with this?
I've almost made them respectable
Well, here it is. You take a popular young actress and make her up to be something that she is not. Whatever she is, whatever she can do, whatever she has to offer that would be appropriate has been compromised. She isn't a highly-sexually charged adult personality; she is an attractive young woman who does not profit from being portrayed in this light. Neither do I. It's a lose-lose proposition.
How does this relate to audio, and recording?
I hate to say it, but it is deception, and it is rampant, accepted, and expected in certain areas of the audio market. It is built on the hopes and dreams of you, my fellow recordist. Needless to say, I am somewhat disturbed by this practice.
When I first started recording, I was presented with the proper information. There was only one way to record, and that was on reel-to-reel tape. There were tape decks, microphones, and mixers, and they all came in two types… the best, and something less than the best.
If you were lucky enough to be able to afford the best, you bought the best. If your budget did not support such an expense, you bit the bullet and settled for something less. Neither the sellers nor the buyers tried to pretend that the lesser quality gear was anything other than what it was… a compromise based upon your budget. No one pretended that the lesser gear was bad, either. It just wasn't as good as the best. Point of fact.
I'll speak to the masses through the media
Somewhere along the way, this concept got lost. Not that truth in advertising has ever been a –law- or anything. Somehow, with the growth of the PC industry and the accompanying ancillary industries, customer objectivity has gone out the window. Customer expectations have gone through the roof, but they have not begun to approach the meteoric heights of sales group promises. At the same time, customers expect to get it all for free, or close to it.
I first noticed this trend back in the original days of the first game cards. I'd been throwing sounds into the computer for a long time, but the results were always far from stellar. But then the game cards got 16 bit converters, and Creative Labs started advertising that their new Sound Blaster card was ‘CD Quality!'. Yikes! I got one, and it was not even close. Turtle Beach saved us by coming out with their original 16-bit audio/MIDI card with the chip of a Proteus One for the on-board synth, and it became possible for you and I to make reasonable sounding music with a PC. Not too much later I bought into the DAL CardD and I got to hear what really clean, clear 16-bit audio sounded like. This card had no bells or whistles. No applications. No synth. No MIDI. It and the companion digital I/O CardD was a very expensive pair. But the quality was unassailable.
Still the hype continued, so I picked up a succession of ‘CD Quality' game cards… the SB 16 and the Ensoniq Soundscape, to name two.., but they never approached the quality of the DAL offering. Was it the chipset? The implementation? I don't know. What I –do- know is that the sound was so much better with the CardD that I was happy to have paid the price for a pro piece of gear.
Then the big thing became ‘tube gear'. Now, I have my own particular feelings about ‘tube gear' that is not germane to this discussion. But if we accept the rationale that the old, high quality audio gear was so wonderful because the pieces were well designed, well assembled, used quality parts, and also contained tubes, well, I'm willing to discuss it. If we create the premise that the –only reason- that the vintage high quality gear sounded good was because the pieces contained tubes, then we're in a whole different area, and it is not one that I can buy into. Still, we got a pile of $1.98 products that promised to provide the tube warmth that was missing from our recordings. How did we know that it was missing? Why, because the guys selling the tube gear TOLD us so, of course.
I'm the Man, who brought you the YoYo
Buzzword after buzzword comes down the pipeline, and we are sitting in the bottom of the poop chute, being inundated with products that claim to solve problems that we didn't even know that we had, or that we know inherently cannot be solved with anything worthwhile under a given price point. It's all sales dooky. It is no longer acceptable to sell a product on it's own merit. Now the product has to be associated somehow with one or more buzzwords to enhance the sales possibilities.
We've seen microphone preamps that don't sound as good as the typical channel strip in an inexpensive board. We've seen ‘24/96' converters that don't sound as good as typical 16 bit converters. We've seen cheap guitars that imitate the look of 1950s and 1960s era vintage guitars, and cheap amplifiers that try to look like 1950s vintage amplifiers.
Kung Fu, that was one of my good ones. What's a few broken bones?
The latest version of this craze is the microphone. The current crops of inexpensive large diaphragm condensers, tarted up to look like something that they are not does us all a disservice. Why? Because the attempt to deceive and misdirect actually distracts from what these products ARE capable of doing. Yes, there is a whole group of young players who are going to be parted from their money simply because of the cosmetic aspects, and they are going to swear that their $200 TurboCrumpus T-86+1 sounds IDENTICAL to the Neumann U-87. Ridiculous. A whole group of us are going to sneer at such offerings…. we already have better choices and these are of no interest and little use to us. But the product does have some merits, does apply to some uses, and could be a valuable addition to some user's microphone cabinet.
What is my point? It's all right not to be able to afford a Mazeratti. It's okay to drive a Yugo, if that's what fits the budget. Driving is better than walking. But it would be darned peculiar to drive a Yugo that someone had tried to make look like a Mazeratti, and all the putty and paint in the world will not make that poor Yugo perform like a Mazeratti.
Now, the most puzzling part of this whole business to me was, "Where is the consumer for this stuff? Who's –BUYING- it?" But the last several weeks of messages on both the Pro Rec discussion group and the other net areas that I go to have brought the answer to me.
You think you're immune, but I can sell you ANYTHING!
It's YOU. The Impatient Consumer, demanding Instant Gratification at any cost. Replies that say in effect, "Waddaya mean, SAVE?!! Are you CRAZY!!! I want it NOW!!!!" Message after message goes by from people in such a hurry to have SOMETHING that they will buy ANYTHING so long as they can buy it TODAY! It's even better if it LOOKS like something EXPENSIVE, or has lots of blinking lights and knobs. Quality? Not an issue. Performance? "Well, it performs, doesn't it?"
My studio is in my basement, and that sets the limits of what it can ever sound like. I have tried to make it look nice, and make it comfortable, but it will never sound like a huge room, and I make no claims that it will. I use an assortment of gear, some of it mid-high end, some of it bottom shelf, and none of it all that impressive. I get a decent sound. I don't need…and you don't need… any tarted-up pantomime gear. But in case you think that you do…
I'm working with the folks at Sosumi International. We'll soon be coming out with a new Terbo Crumpus Vocal Infrisulator. Two and a half rack spaces (BIGGER is BETTER!!!) with a mood-soothing zigzag purple and yellow faceplate, and chartreuse knobs. It'll have tubes, AND transistors as well as ics. It –may- burn coal, in order to satisfy the energy-conscious consumer. I promise lots of blinking lights, shinny knobs. It will be able to make any mic sound like any other mic at the flip of a switch, in real time so dig up those old Unisphere As. AND… if you throw the "Inspiration" switch, FOG is going to come out of the front of the unit! Now, how cool is THAT?
Audio I/O is optional. Mic modeling may or may not work as advertised. Tubes and transistors are not in audio path and may not be connected at all. Your mileage may vary. Coal not included. All sales final.
Place your orders now! Operators are standing by!
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