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
THERE OUTTA BE A TRADESHOW FOR TRADESHOWS, where all these organizers can all meet and coordinate their dates for the upcoming year. Just about anybody who goes to a lot of audio tradeshows can remember those years when Musikmesse overlapped NAB, etc. And it never seems to end—next month’s IBC (the big European broadcasting show) overlaps PLASA (the big U.K. live sound show). Whether you’re attending or exhibiting, such intertwined schedules can really complicate your life.
But sometimes, there is some good news. Over the weekend, InfoComm and NSCA announced that they would combine their expos into a single event next year (June 18-20) in Las Vegas. Both organizations should be applauded for this move, which should really reinforce (no pun intended) and help build show attendance and the depth of the workshops/ancillary activities surrounding the expo itself. Faced with two similar (but certainly NOT identical) events, many showgoers–and many exhibitors as well–simply selected one or the other each year, leading to two competing events just a few months apart. After years of complaints about the situation from exhibitors and visitors, both organizations decided to take action and work together for a common good. Bravo!
And after a three-year absence, Summer NAMM is returning to Nashville in 2008. Indianapolis and Austin are great towns, but the only place where Summer NAMM seems to work these days is Nashville. As with other cities where Summer NAMM has been held—such as Austin, New Orleans, Chicago, Atlanta, Atlantic City—Nashville is also a great music town. But Nashville is a major recording center—another plus, with a great downtown convention center with affordable nearby lodging and is in the center of a huge population circle within a one-day’s driving radius, making it convenient as well. So far, so good. Unfortunately, Summer NAMM 2008 is June 20-22, and this timing overlap with the new, powerful, merged NSCA/InfoComm will create some tough decisions for a fair number of pro audio exhibitors in picking which show to attend/support.
The very real issue of overlapping tradeshows actually hurts everyone in the industry, especially in today’s tough business climate. So far, we have two steps forward, and one step behind. Maybe someday, in that perfect world where all these organizations do a little more coordination, this wouldn’t happen. The solution could be that “tradeshow for tradeshows” where all this occurs, but until that day…
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
AFTER A LOT OF GLOOM/DOOM SCENARIOS for the future of pro audio wireless, a few streaks of blue are starting to break through the crowded clouds of RF. The problem stems from the February 2009 end of analog television and the possible loss of frequency bands for wireless mic use. Since pro wireless never had an “official” frequency allotment from the FCC, we’ve typically “borrowed” unused “white space” frequencies—essentially the guard-band easements between analog TV channels.
As digital TV has no such guard-band requirements, a cash-strapped FCC looks toward auctioning these unused frequencies to other industries, with a keen eye toward the burgeoning wireless Internet market. Once analog TV goes dark, vacant frequency bands in that region will be available as well, but to who is anybody’s guess.
Earlier this year, the congressional bill “H.R. 1320, The Interference Protection for Existing Television Band Devices Act of 2007″ was introduced by Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) to protect the needs of pro wireless users in the face of possible interference from wireless Internet devices. The good news is House members Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) have pledged their support for the bill.
It’s a start, but the pro audio community needs some more help. Encourage YOUR local representatives to support bill H.R. 1320. Best of all, it won’t cost you a dime and it’s even fun! Just go to www.house.gov/writerep, enter your state and zip code and an e-mail form pops up with your representative’s name. Let ‘em know that the possible loss of frequencies for wireless microphone use represents a major loss to users in the broadcast, sports, film/TV production, live entertainment, house of worship, business, government and educational markets.
AUDIO-TECHNICA SPECTRAPULSE
At InfoComm this week, Audio-Technica unveiled one possible solution to the white spaces issue. Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology has been used in military and government communications for years, and now A-T has applied this to offers near hard-wired performance without concerns about RF competition, frequency coordination, white space issues or infringement from other wireless sources.
Recently licensed for commercial use by the FCC, Ultra Wideband technology allows the wireless transmission of data in extremely short-duration pulses over a wide spectrum of frequencies. Rather than using conventional channels and carrier frequencies, UWB uses a series of short nano-second pulses that occupy an instantaneous bandwidth of 500 MHz within the 6 GHz frequency spectrum. In precisely timed sequences, the signals result in the reliable transmission of information at near noise-floor levels. And latency—always a concern with any digital system—is said to be a low 2ms.
A-T’s first UWB system is the SpectraPulse Ultra Wideband wireless microphone system, designed for conferences, courtrooms, corporate events and more. The first SpectraPulse products ship this fall, but there’s more information and a detailed white paper available at www.audio-technica.com. Check it out!
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
YOU’VE HEARD THAT OLD ADAGE “WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN” a million times, but you probably never did. But maybe this time you should, especially if you’re a user of pro audio wireless systems, whether for mics, guitars, IFB, radio intercoms or in-ear monitoring. You see, with the upcoming shift to DTV broadcasting less than two years away, analog TV over the airwaves is gonna disappear. So who cares, anyway? I get cable at home… Well, you better care, because, some very large, well-financed players are looking at picking up a lot of soon-to-be unused frequencies for new uses, such as portable Internet devices.
So what does any of this have to do with audio? Plenty. Because unlike CB radio and maritime navigation, pro audio never had any official allotment of frequencies from the FCC for wireless use. We rode on the coattails of broadcasters, first using unused VHF TV frequencies and later mainly moving to the middle and upper UHF bands. Now here’s the rub: DTV operates with more precision than analog TV channels, which require large areas of “white space” padding around each frequency to avoid interference from adjacent channels. And that white space offered a mostly safe haven for wireless audio users. So with no white space requirement, DTV’s arrival leaves a whole lot of ex-analog TV spectra, which a cash-strapped FCC is more than willing to reallocate to deep-pocketed companies such as Sprint Nextel, Verizon, ATT/Cingular and others who see boon times ahead for wireless Internet.
Meanwhile, Senators John Kerry and John Sununu are offering separate bills mandating the FCC allocate the vacant spaces for wireless broadband. Wireless Internet is a wonderful advancement in technology and good for the nation as a whole. However, some key issues must be resolved. Firstly, portable wireless products are two-way devices, operating as both receivers for downloading data, as well as transmitting e-mails, text messaging, baby pictures, etc. As the market expands, ensuring adequate testing so these devices don’t interfere with existing products operating in the white spaces–such as wireless mics.
With that in mind, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush introduced H.R. 1320, “The Interference Protection for Existing Television Band Devices Act of 2007.” Rush’s bill doesn’t seek to negate the Kerry and Sununu proposals, but would allow some white space use for gear such as wireless mics, while asking the FCC to require interference testing of portable broadband devices.
The long-term effect of any frequency reallocation remains unsure. Will your wireless gear work after the changeover? Maybe, maybe not. It may come down to losing certain frequencies or having a shorter operating range, but at least the Rush bill gives our industry and the general public the best shot at maintaining high-quality wireless communications in the years to come.
But’s it’s not quite law yet. Currently being examined by the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, H.R. 1320 is a balanced approach and audio pros should encourage their local representatives to support this bill.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Get involved. Just go to www.house.gov/writerep, enter your state and zip code and an e-mail form pops up with your representative’s name. It couldn’t be easier. As the bill is in committee right now, the people to contact are the subcommittee members, listed below by state. Let them know how important wireless audio products are in both your day-to-day work as well as the industry as a whole. It doesn’t require an essay, just a quick note, like an e-mail. The best part? It won’t cost you a stamp. It’s even fun, and while you’re at it, encourage your colleagues to do the same, particularly if any subcommittee members represent your districts.
CALIFORNIA: Mary Bono, Lois Capps, Anna Eshoo, Jane Harman, George Radanovich, Hilda L. Solis
FLORIDA: Cliff Stearns
GEORGIA: Nathan Deal
ILLINOIS: Bobby Rush, J. Dennis Hastert, John Shimkus
INDIANA: Baron P. Hill
MASSACHUSETTS: Edward J. Markey
MICHIGAN: John D. Dingell, Fred Upton, Bart Stupak
MISSISSIPPI: Charles “Chip” Pickering
NEBRASKA: Lee Terry
NEW JERSEY: Mike Ferguson, Frank Pallone, Jr.
NEW MEXICO: Heather Wilson
NEW YORK: Eliot L. Engel, Vito Fossella, Edolphus Towns
OREGON: Greg Walden
PENNSYLVANIA: Mike Doyle
TENNESSEE: Bart Gordon
TEXAS: Joe Barton, Charles A. Gonzalez, Gene Green
VIRGINIA: Rick Boucher
WASHINGTON: Jay Inslee
WYOMING: Barbara Cubin

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 November MIX hits the streets next week and has our annual listings of recording schools/programs—it’s a great resource for anyone seeking a starting place for a career in audio. Once upon a time, someone who was motivated could get a job sweeping up at a studio and eventually apprentice to becoming a recording engineer. Well, those days are long gone and education is essential to getting anywhere in the audio biz these days.
But simply possessing a degree or certificate is not enough to get you in the door. For example, let’s consider two job candidates, both with similar academics. Both of these people know how to push every button on an SSL and can recite a Pro Tools manual from memory. Now assuming that both candidates can form a coherent sentence, wore clean t-shirts to the interview and don’t smell bad, there are other factors to consider. Beyond a prospect’s ability to show up for work on time, employers are looking for other skills that may not seem glitzy, but will get any applicant serious consideration–anytime, anywhere: Can you fix stuff?
There are a lot of individuals trained in button pushing, but what happens when you push the button and nothing happens? For example, two identical engineers enter identical studios to do some emergency voiceovers on a holiday weekend when they’re the only ones in the facility. They set up vocal mics, fire up the console, patch the feed into the DAW and there’s no sound. The engineer trained in signal flow takes two minutes to determine the problem is from a defective phantom power switch on the console modules, patches around it and the session resumes. An hour later, across town, the button pusher is still swapping mic cables and wondering where the problem is, but it hardly matters anymore, as the client left 45 minutes ago, vowing never to return. Which engineer would YOU hire?
And sometimes the key to getting THE right job in pro audio has nothing to do with sound. Can you configure a LAN system for interfacility networking? Can you troubleshoot audio and/or computer gear? Do you understand multimachine synchronization issues for film/video/broadcasting? Are you fluent in web design or DVD authoring? Skills like these, combined with a solid education in audio, electronics and computers will make you highly desirable to employers.
Experience is also important. Yeah, at one point or another, everyone in the biz has faced that “can’t get a job without experience–can’t get experience without a job” routine, but surely there are local places where you could work with upcoming bands or clubs, churches, community theatre, local access cable, public radio or TV and volunteer your time while making connections and building your skillset in the real world.
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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FORUM:
So what’s the “best way” to break in to the biz?
How important is formal audio education?
How did YOU get started?

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By George Petersen
Spent the other day down at Apple Computer’s “campus” HQ down in Cupertino—just outside San Jose. The multi, multi-building complex was packed and busy as a beehive. No signs of any slowdowns with those dudes, that’s for sure.
But the reason for my trek was to check out the new Mac Pro CPUs and getting a closer look at Panther, the next iteration of OS X. According to the MapQuest, the ride would take 57 minutes. Strangely, that estimate turned out to be nearly spot-on, mostly because I ignored the first half of MQ’s directions which were largely nonsensical.
Arriving at Building 3 (evidently, this is where the audio, music and media production types hang out) I was ushered into a dark conference room. Inside was Logic 7.2.2—the current update on the 7.2 jump to the Universal version for Intel-based Macs—running on a Mac Pro with twin 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors. On screen—a 30-inch Mac Cinema HD monitor, of course—was an MIDI orchestral session with 50 instrumental tracks (some 400 virtual instrument voices) and four CPU-hungry Space Designer plug-ins and the CPU usage meters were barely hitting the 50% mark.
Then they kicked in Motion—another nastily CPU-intensive application for designing 3-D animated graphics—and the meters jumped, but still had another 33% of remaining headroom, even while viewing Logic in the real-time notation display. Power to spare, that’s for sure…
From that point, we moved on to get a close-in look at Mac OS-X Leopard, which doesn’t ship until next Spring, so everything’s subject to change. I’m not really the sort of person who gets excited about operating systems, anyway. in fact, I’m always skeptical about whether many of the “features” they really offer are really of any value to anyone except people who are enthralled with the concept of new animated thingies that spin on the desktop and maybe make funny noises in the desktop.
True to form, Leopard had plenty of that stuff, like the Photo Booth feature in iChat that allows you to do silly morphs on your face when video chatting or changing the background behind you to insert some tropical beach when you’re sitting in a dorm room. What would be more useful is being able to change the incoming picture (like when you’re talking to your boss or some whiney A&R punk at the record label) so that they appear onscreen a tiny little elf jumping around in a jar. Now that would be useful… But sans the cutsey effects, iChat could be pretty useful for video conferencing during long distance sessions, etc.
Leopard’s Mail 3 will include templates for creating your own professional-looking e-mailed party invites. Oh-weeeeee—the world will never be that same… But what really got me was Time Machine, an automated backup system that simplifies the process of recovering and restoring lost/misplaced/deleted files, with a fast, easy to use interface (certainly a first for any backup/restore program) that could be a real lifesaver in the studio, particularly when working in post, where multiple versions of multiple versions are the norm. The speed and versatility of Time Machine alone makes we want to upgrade my OS, and if they provide me a simplified means of deleting all the “essential” frills in the system, Leopard will be wonderful. Besides, if I ever want them back, I ‘m sure I can just “Time Machine” them into the system again…
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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