By George Petersen
YOU CAN TELL IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress are considering the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, which would require the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program material they accompany.
The text of this proposed legislation (bills H.R. 6209 and S. 3154) states:
“Within one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission shall prescribe pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) a regulation that provides, in connection with any video programming that is broadcast or that is distributed by any multichannel video programming distributor, that—
(1) advertisements accompanying such video programming shall not be excessively noisy or strident;
(2) such advertisements shall not be presented at modulation levels substantially higher than the program material that such advertisements accompany; and
(3) the average maximum loudness of such advertisements shall not be substantially higher than the average maximum loudness of the program material that such advertisements accompany.”
Click on the link for more information about the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act.

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com/ariel.html and check ‘em out.
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By George Petersen
I HAVE MASTERS–LOST MASTERS–ON MY MIND THIS WEEK. A couple days ago, I got a blog reply from a guy named Tony Vick, who once upon a time, was in a band called “The Din.” So far so good, but the bad part comes in because the group was signed to Rocshire Records, a label funded entirely by money embezzled from (aircraft giant) the Hughes Corporation. Tony had read an archived copy of my “How to Make a Million Bucks in the Music Biz” AudioBites column (July 2007) and was wondering if I had any leads on how he could get access to his masters.
Unfortunately I don’t have any leads to help him–maybe someone out there knows where the FBI keeps master tapes that were seized as part of criminal investigation 25 years ago, but my guess is that the odds aren’t in Tony’s favor on their survivability today. And IF anybody does know, please drop me a line and I’ll get the word out.
Anyway back to today’s story… A month ago, I wrote about walking through URBAN ORE, the local recycle/reuse store three blocks from the Mix offices, across the border in Berkeley.
During my lunch hour today, I went by to peruse their latest offerings. Every once in a while, this place has something surprising–by the way, that Neve/Necam 96 power supply is still on the shelf there–but what I saw today was both odd and sad: Hundreds and hundreds of reel-to-reel tape masters–analog and digital (probably Mitsubishi)–which mostly were marked with notes/track sheets from Fantasy Studios, although some had Hyde Street Studios markings. There they were, quarter-inch, half-inch, 1-inch (probably ProDigi 32-track) and tons (literally) of 2-inch analog reels–piled up high on pallets and rolling freight carts. Most seemed to be mid-late ’80s and ’90s–and mostly Ampex formulations.
How did they get there? This one’s easy. Most studios offer tape storage for clients’ materials, and over time, people forget to pick up their masters. And with the recent ownership change at Fantasy Studios, somebody figured (and rightly so) that they weren’t really responsible for master tapes from sessions going back two decades or more, so after being degaussed, these abandoned masters went off to the recycle store.
Warning to the wise: If you have masters that you’ve been storing at some studio–any stiudio–from years back, you might just look into getting them back–before they disappear.

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com/ariel.html and check ‘em out.
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RESPONSE FROM FANTASY STUDIOS
Nina Bombardier, the previous studio manager, tried for 1-1/2 years prior to the changeover of ownership to contact the rightful owners of the tapes. While many people did respond and pick up their masters, there were many who did not. I personally witnessed her day after day try to contact people via phone, email, and letter.
Feeling that more than the “best reasonable effort� was made to contact the owners of the tapes, Concord Records, the previous owners of the studios made the decision to donate the remains to Urban Ore for recycling.
All tapes had been degaussed before and after donation.
The state of California states that it is a courtesy not an obligation for a studio to store the works of an artist more than 30 days. (This is something that we stress to clients).
Many of these tapes had been there 20 or 30 years. Having to clear out the vault for a new tenant forced the decision.
I share this to give a more complete picture to the situation.

By George Petersen
LAST WEEK’S MIX NASHVILLE EVENT WAS AWESOME. Two jam-packed days of seminars, panel discussions, hands-on product demos, music performances and fun. Interestingly, one of the more unexpected highlights was a mostly informal get-together party after the first day’s conclusion. With free beer, food and cookies, it was a great chance for all the attendees to talk, do a little networking, make a few industry contacts and check out some great local talent. One of the more unexpected things was that for a “local” event, I talked to people who had come from Colorado, New England, Atlanta, New Mexico, Los Angeles and even Indonesia–and all of them said the trip was most worthwhile. For some highlights, click on MIX NASHVILLE and check it out, but the bottom line was everybody said the event was great. It’s definitely gonna happen again next year–be there.

If you wanted solid advice on recording and live sound, there was plenty to be heard at the Mix Nashville seminars. I was hosting three different panels —on using plug-ins live, studio design/speaker optimization and placement and “Recording the Band,” a panel about tracking during live shows. During the latter, veteran Robert Scovill offered this suggestion: When you’re on tour and recording lots of shows, make sure that along with your multitrack files, also include a 2-track mix with your archive. This way, weeks, months or years later, someone who may be going through dozens of shows (or more) won’t have to load and re-create an entire mix session just to determine which song performances to use. Even if you’re pressed for time, a board mix on CD-R will do as a quick reference. And make sure you label and document everything.
Sometimes it’s the little touches that can make your life a lot easier down the road–even when you’re off the road.

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com/ariel.html and check ‘em out.
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By George Petersen
THERE’S SOMETHING COOL, HIP AND INHERENTLY GREEN about recycling and every now and then I go by this very cool (and very Berkeley) place called Urban Ore, which is just a couple blocks away from the Mix offices. This is a locale where people bring old furniture, leftover building materials and obsolete technology stuff to be resold, reused and otherwise redistributed to people in the know. It’s essentially a huge old warehouse and outdoor sales area brimming full of STUFF of every sort (and well sorted), ranging from consumer electronics, plumbing/electrical supplies, picture frames, desks, sinks, tubs, windows, doors, slightly overused–meaning really beat up–musical instruments and occasionally (but alas, not too frequently) even PRO AUDIO.
But today in the electronics section–among the piles of Kodak Ektagraphic slide projectors, 1970s-era slide programmers/dissolve units (in case anybody is old enough to remember olde-style multimedia/multimage), Mac 8600s, vintage PCs, turntables, cassette decks and piles of Jaz/Zip/Bernoulli drives–was a more unusual item.
A Neve/Necam 96 power supply.
Unfortunately, no other Neve gear was lurking about, but at a mere $50 buckaroos, you could have this monster of monsters: About six rack spaces high, it must have weighed about 100 pounds–they just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. What awesome construction!!! I was even tempted to bring it home and adopt it myself for resale or some future project, but this was like the big one you toss back into the pond, hoping that it will make someone else’s day.
But the real mystery in the back of my mind was what tales this thing could tell. Where did it come from? What great projects did it once supply (pun intended) the juice for? Some things I may never know, so if anyone DOES know, let me know and help me finish this Unsolved Mystery for the rest of the world…
I hate telling you this, because, for one, I don’t want anyone to be misled and think that among the porcelain toilet tanks, printing presses and dictaphones that haunt this place, there are boxes of dusty Neumanns in every corner–which there aren’t, although today, they had a 15-inch Peavey Black Widow woofer (untested and missing its aluminum dust cap) for $12, a solid-looking single-15 cab in faux wood finish–empty, but sporting road handles and dual front ports for $25 and an empty (but extremely heavy) dual-12 cab–it was a generic roadcase-looking box (no handles)–for $20 or so. Yet at the same time, they were trying to sell some heavy black/chrome older steel Atlas speaker stands (NOT MIC STANDS) priced about $260–I’m not sure who came up with THAT price!
So you never know what to expect. Besides this week’s Neve PS, they also had a Sony SDDS 35mm projector soundhead for $25–not bad if you need one–and an Ampex 35mm mag stripe stereo reader (the “penthouse” style) also for $25, but it will be a while before that one moves… Oh, and if you happen to need to need some 35mm exhibition reels, they have both 6,000 and 13,000 foot versions in stock this week.
Just another day in Berkeley…
Click here to visit them online: URBAN ORE.
When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com/ariel.html and check ‘em out.
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By George Petersen
IT AIN’T EVERYDAY, BUT ONCE IN A WHILE I have the pleasure of talking to Fletcher, the founder/audio cult leader of Mercenary Audio, MercenaryAudio.com. And while we don’t always agree, I definitely respect this guy for his audio saavy–which is most impressive. He’s occasionally been the center of controversy, such as the time that the centerpiece of his AES booth was an Alesis ADAT and a Mackie 1604 mixer, held high for all to see–impaled on a huge metal spike. I think he referred to that as an art project, but later acquiesced to pressure from the AES to take it down as it offended certain showgoers.
Another time, some bozo was trying to sell replacement speaker cable kits with a pair of standard household AC plugs wired to 1/4-inch connectors. The idea was that if you needed a 100-foot speaker line for a live gig, you’d just attach these adapters to an orange AC extension cable and you’d be set. Well, set for electrocution–in case someone accidentally plugged one end into a 110-volt outlet while the other was in your amp/mixer etc. Great concept, perhaps, but a VERY BAD IDEA. Anyway, Fletcher offered his own protest by outlining a body silhouette (it might have been Eveanna Manley’s) on his booth floor in yellow tape, looking much like a crime scene right after CSI-AES arrives.

Anyway, we chatted for a while and somehow got on the subject of the weirdest calls we’d ever received. I recounted one I got from some guy who couldn’t find original Shure SM57 mics. He called a half dozen retailers, who only sold SM57-LC mics. What happened to the real thing–the classic that everyone uses on everything from snares to Fender Twins? I’m not sure if he was saddened or relieved when I simply told him that the “LC” designation simply meant “less cable,” meaning it didn’t come with a cord. The guy’s response was simply: “Oops. sorry…” [click].

Fletcher laughed, and then recounted a tale of some guy who called him a few years ago, looking for an original “blackfaced” ADAT. Given the Mercenary boy’s history with ADATs, he figured someone was putting him on, because even if someone did want an ADAT tape machine, they’d most certainly opt for one of the later versions with the improved electronics and transport. This guy went on to explain that he’d read about people printing rhythm tracks to tape as an effect, had tried it with an ADAT and really dug the way it “warmed” up the sound… This guy was certainly off his rocker, but had done the near-impossible, something that few have ever accomplished, leaving the quick witted–and highly opinionated–Fletcher himself speechless. The story is almost unbelieveable, yet Fletcher swears that it’s true. Ask him sometime.

When not working on MIX stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com/ariel.html and check ‘em out.
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By George Petersen
HERE WE ARE AND AES IS JUST A MONTH AWAY! It doesn’t seem so long ago when we were at AES (at least the San Francisco show) and now AES is upon us once again. If you haven’t done so already, now–or at least 21 days before the show to get those advance-purchase fares–is a good time to lock in those cheap plane tickets. Or if you’re really lucky to live within a manageable distance—train tickets.
Or to steal the lyrics from a song about another U.S. city, “GONNA TAKE A BUS. GONNA TAKE A TRAIN. EVEN IF I GOTTA WALK, GONNA GET THERE JUST THE SAME…
New York AES is the place to be if you’re an audio pro. By all indications, the show’s gonna be great, with hundreds of exhibitors hawking the latest hoo-hahs and a great selection of workshops, papers and events to keep you way busy on October 5, 6, 7 and 8th.
But the magic of AES isn’t necessarily the show itself, but a gathering of the tribes and often the best place to find the real action is late night, at the bar of the Marriott Marquis or any of the dozen other official AES hotels. In fact the number of products on the show floor that are directly attributed to sketches made on rum-soaked cocktail napkins from last year’s AES is just as staggering as the comical gait that many attendees have when exiting the bars at closing time.
If you’re really smart, call the Iridium Jazz Club (212/582-2121) and snag a couple tickets for one of Les Paul’s shows, Monday night October 8th. Les is really an American icon and in a day when the word “living legend” is bandied around to apply to nearly anyone, Les is the genuine article. The shows start at either 8 or 10 pm, but it’s best to get there early to get good seats, as there are no reserved seats and it’s first come, first serve. Check it out at www.iridiumjazzclub.com.
If you’re really, really smart, bring something for Les to sign after the show. He’s usually pretty nice about such things, unless you walk in carrying a Strat. In that case, you’re on your own, and you certainly don’t want to mar your New York experience by needing to drag yourself into an emergency room to have a (Fender) guitar neck extricated from one of your body cavities. My advice? Leave the Strat at home, bring a CD, LP or your ’58 gold top Les Paul guitar to get signed. And watch out, because Les sometimes “forgets” to return your pen after he autographs something. In any case, a performance by the Les Paul Trio is a wonderful and unforgettable experience that’s well worth the $45 ticket price. Don’t miss it!
And if you really need a great reason to attend NYC AES, just say the words “Ray’s Pizza” three times and you’ll be magically whisked to the doors of the Javits Center. But if that fails for some reason, just grab a cab… from anywhere. And for more info about the AES show, visit www.aes.org. You’ll be glad you did!
When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Click here www.jenpet.com and check ‘em out.
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By George Petersen
YOU DON’T HAVE TO WANDER FARTHER THAN YOUTUBE.COM to notice that video’s making a big impact on the web. Sure, the ‘net is filled with lots of funny clips, animations and occasionally even interesting bits, like the torture test of the Unitron waterproof computer keyboard. But there’s a serious side too…
On the Mix front, we’ve been incorporating video into our site for years, ranging from Seminars on Demand on topics such as Kevin Becka’s excellent series on studio miking techniques or technology previews like Taylor Guitars/Rupert Neve Expression Series or going backstage with the crew on the 2007 Snow Patrol tour. Just go to http://mixonline.com/video/ and you can find all this and more—including video highlights of past trade shows—AES, NAB, NAMM. And with the opening of Pixar’s Ratatouille, we’re going online tomorrow morning with an exclusive chat with the film’s sound designer extraordinaire Randy Thom—neat stuff!
There’s a whole lotta video going on around here with a whole lot more to come. That’s good. The bad part is trying to shop for some fairly simple HD camcorders that we can dole out to our editors for events like tradeshow coverage, where we need something lightweight, easy to use and capable of good quality picture and sound. That’s the ugly part. Picture-wise, there are plenty of low-cost models available that can handle the job, but getting decent audio from a consumer camcorder is like pulling teeth: Real ugly.
Today’s low-cost models tout features like 20x optical zooms (and the all-too-bogus 200x “digital” zoom functions), onboard effects, 720 HD picture quality, and storage to DV tape, hard disk, mini DVD and all manners of removeable media cards (SD, CF, Memory Stick, etc.) Yet at the same time, the attention to audio is deplorable. Here, I’m not even getting into the nuances of digital filter design or sampling rates or the quality of the onboard mics—or an almost total lack of manual controls for audio level. [Besides, there's something VERY cinema verite about that blast of noise that appears when an AGC circuit pumps up the hiss or background noise during the pauses between sentences of dialog.] But what really kills me are the places where manufacturers locate these onboard mics. For some reason, the favored locations seem to be along the rear of the top panel–didn’t these companies ever consider putting mics on the FRONT of the camera, like maybe under the lens?
One model I looked at had the mics mounted on the back side of the flip-out viewscreen. On first glance, I thought this could be cool–the backside would form a quasi-boundary, giving you a semi-hemispherical pickup. However, it could get real ugly when the user tilts the viewscreen downward for low-angle shooting (pointing the mics at the floor) or when your hand partially covers the mics when holding the camera. Ugly, for sure.
Of course, it’s all fixable with an external mic, but finding a low-cost camcorder that has an external mic input (even 1/8-inch unbalanced) is not easy. But at least if you do, there are options, such as Rode’s VideoMic or Sennheiser’s MKE 300 shotguns or a simple Audio-Technica Pro 24 cardioid X-Y stereo. Yeah, I know there are much higher-end mics, but at least simple solutions like these will put you way ahead of the audio quality game.
And XLR inputs??? Fuggettaboutitt–at least in the sub-$2000 range. Certainly, there are other options, such as the cool XLR-to-minijack adapters from www.beachtek.com or the vintage PASS MD Report Jr. unit I’ve used for years. Heck, you could even go double system, and pack your fave location recorder, mixer, sound cart, booms, fishpoles, radio mics, shotguns and lavaliers. Sure, it’s a little bit of overkill when you’re shooting the kid’s birthday party on a $400 camcorder, but maybe that’s what real sound is all about…
When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.
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By George Petersen
ONCE UPON A TIME, WAY BACK IN THE 1970s, I was part of the independent filmmaker’s scene. I used to live, breathe and exist for the whole concept of the filmic art, working on my films, crewing on other people’s productions and (at least partially) supporting myself teaching at local schools. At the time, the availability of low-cost 16mm and Super-8 cameras allowed anyone with a vision and a modest budget to cinematically express their feelings. Suddenly, short art films were the rage and campus screenings, film festivals and local cinema societies all offered at least some outlets for independent filmmakers.
Compared to the bulky, low-res video equipment available at the time, film offered a means of generating broadcast quality color images—even using a simple spring-wound 16mm Bolex camera. Meanwhile, better gear, such as Arriflex and Eclair cameras, were available at affordable rental rates in the major markets and many a budget producer did weekend shoots, where a complete camera package could be picked up on Friday night and returned Monday morning—all for a one-day “Saturday” rental fee. The main drawback was that sync sound was a complex process, requiring a team approach—or at least a second person to run the Nagra and hold the fishpole boom.
After the shoot, the independent then had to weave a tangled web of lab work—ordering edit workprints from the original film, resolving the 1/4-inch location audio tapes to sprocketed mag film, editing the separate picture and sound rolls, preparing multiple rolls of mag for the audio mix and finally conforming the original picture footage into checkerboarded A/B (or A/B/C…) reels for release printing. The process wasn’t exactly easy—on the sound or picture side. Compared to those Neolithic days, DAW-based audio post-production is a breeze–you still need talent, but the process is whole lot easier now.
Today, low-cost HD format DV camcorders provide better than broadcast quality video and digital audio recording in easy-to-use, compact packages. Combined with desktop Mac/PC editing software digital video production has transformed the independent video scene in the same way that ADATs and DA-88s revolutionized digital audio 15 years ago.
DV offers a high degree of instant gratification—where a simple point-and-shoot approach can yield a remarkable image. That’s not to say that everything’s easy: Just because an image shows up without lighting doesn’t mean a shot is well-lit and just because sound is picked up doesn’t mean you’ll get a useable track from an on-camera mic that picks up LOTS of room tone. But for those who are willing to take the extra step of learning some of the basics (yeah, I know, that’s the boring part), the DV medium can yield remarkable results–you just have to work at it a little. And if you actually know something about audio, so much the better.
The tools are cheap and plentiful. For a ridiculously small investment, you could have all the tools required to create great looking/sounding projects—shorts or features. You do need a great script, and the world is filled with great stories to tell. Is the revolution really limited to YouTube clips of people riding bicycles into swimming pools or cats that play the piano? Not that there’s anything wrong with funny little snips, but where’s the revolution? Sure, there are people taking advantage of the technology to do serious work, but with all this technology available, the movement should be pandemonium and not a trickle.
BRING ON THE REVOLUTION!
When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.
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By George Petersen
THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH WAY TOO MANY COINCIDENCES and is getting smaller everyday—at least thanks to the Internet.
A couple months ago, I got home late at night and was still wired from doing a session earlier that evening. Doing a little web surfing to wind down, I decided to do a Yahoo search on some names of a couple bandmates I hadn’t seen for decades. Trouble is, if you type in a name like “Tim Walker” (a real name—where are you, Tim?) you’re gonna get a huge response that you’ll never filter through, especially when the last time you saw them was loading gear out of a club at 3:00am back in 1968, in Naples, Italy (my actual hometown).
I figured I’d start with a name less common and typed in “Bob Lewellyn” and “guitar.” Sure enough, there was one obscure reference to Bob playing lead guitar on his younger brother’s Les Lewellyn’s album and said brother has a website (www.preyinglizardmusic.com) he uses to promote his band Dixie Lizard. A quick e-mail to Les verified that was the right brother and he remembers his brother Bob’s band back in Italy: Hey, it was only 39 years ago. Score one for the web!
Going onto Les’ site, I was blown away by what this guy–singlehandedly–is doing to promote indie music. Back in 2005, he started his series of Pirate Radio Shows, with multiple three-hour streams of new, interesting music and new shows each week—a great downloadable fix for your iPod (or mobilized to your cell phone), especially for anyone who remembers what FM radio USED to be like.
Now, Les has expanded with daily and weekly podcast shows, including the Hot Sheet Mon (hard rock); The Chill Pill Show (soft-er rock); InstruMental Madness (instrumental rock); Preying Lizard Music’s Road Rash Blues Show (blues); and No Man’s Land (all-female rock performers). As a bonus, Les also includes cover art, band links and a new online reviews section. To make sure he never sleeps, he also hosts Eclectic Pod, the top-rated music podcast sponsored at www.towerpod.com (an arm of Tower Records, which after downsizing its brick and mortar empire, continues online at www.towerrecords.com).
I might have stumbled on Preying Lizard Music through odd happenstance, buy hey, there’s plenty of great unexplored new music to hear, explore and download. In these days of big-money, corporate radio, here’s somebody who’s doing it right. Check ‘em out, tune in and enjoy. Best of all, it R-O-C-K-S! Thanks, Les! www.preyinglizardmusic.com
When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.
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