November 2012 MIX
Zen and the Art of Audio Everything
eddie ciletti
When my editor suggested this issue's theme, I downloaded
the e-version of the classic book to which this column is referenced. Then
I wondered what my editor had in mind. Should I read this book in hopes
of improving my writing? Writing is a bit like songwriting. Sometimes I
wake up in the middle of the night and the words just pour out as if the
column were writing itself. Other times it is a struggle to find the right
words and organize them into cohesive thought.
Within the first 120 pages of 'Zen,' there were several
'chatauquas' or philosophical observations from which parallels could easily
be drawn between the book, motorcycles and life within our own niche audio
environment. The story begins as the author / narrator Robert Pirsig is
riding from the Midwest to California. He has a vintage bike that he maintains
along the way while John, his riding partner has a new bike and no interest
in knowing how it works, no matter how thee author tries. Thus the two
opposing views – Classical and Romantic – the Zen man-is-one-with-the-machine
style of DIY maintenance versus the hands-off 'professional' service preferred
by John.
In our world, it doesn't matter if the discussion
is recording, mixing, design or repair – there are as many tools as there
are ways to get results from them. Some users are technicians whose approach
is organized, methodical and scientific while others create their art from
a more emotional, random and even haphazard way. There is no black and
white - everything is a mix of art and science - plus that essential bit
of business sense to get products to market and remind us how important
it is to stay in the black, even if just barely. Our business is proof
that happiness is found in the journey and not necessarily in the collection
of wealth – although all donations accepted!
In 'the process' of getting the job done, we are
constantly zooming so far in that it can be a struggle to zoom all the
way out. That happens when mixing, mastering, troubleshooting, writing
code and sorting out what is essential to this column – how much detail
do YOU need? How perfect does it need to be?
There is a discipline required to distill a topic
and its necessary tangents into 1200 cohesive words – it is the 'album'
when compared to Blogging's 'single.' The latter being easier because the
focus is singular with no target word count other than being as concise
as required to get the job done. At minimum, feedback confirms that our
work reached its target audience and better yet, helps us to fine tune
and improve. That said, you might think a real-time classroom environment
might be the best way to get instant feedback, and yet I have to push students
to speak up and ask questions in order for me to know whether they get
it or not.
ASK EDDIE
My most recent experience in the land of endless
detail was when a friend, Jason Miller, purchased an Otari MTR-90 24 track
recorder for about the price of one headstack! Despite the obvious sonic
preference for analog or digital 'storage,' initial interest in analog
tape recording is often a reaction to the 'formula' currently being applied
by those working in the box – record to click, edit to grid, make it perfect.
A thousand technical questions followed, from 'where to buy quiet fans'
to correlating VU meter level with digital's peak metering as well as the
ever challenging machine calibration and alignment. I did my best to answer
as many questions as possible only to realize there is a limit to how much
can be absorbed, not matter how 'smart' the receiver is. I get it!
Motorcycles and Tape Machines have 'user performance
preferences' in common. There are so many tweaky options that the real
answer to Jason's questions is TIME. It takes time to learn a machine or
software well enough to know how best to work around or best exploit its
idiosyncrasies. This is liberating for both the user-student and the teacher-mentor
because is simplifies and paces the questions – in modern parlance, we
may be unaware of software's 'default preferences' until we learn it well
enough to have preferences of our own. In 'Zen' Pirsig points out that
two motorcycles from the same factory will feel completely different after
years with their respective owners. It's the same with tape machines and
tools!
STANDARD TOOLS
Being an audio person has always been a multidisciplinary
effort – the major delineations include live sound, post, studio and road
warrior. Each has their own standard tools and spare parts kits. I am not
a musician, but as a recording engineer, I own a drum kit, electric bass,
acoustic guitar, small bass and guitar amps, a drum key and a piano tuning
kit (hammer, felt, rubber wedges).
A standard student tool kit should include a pair
of needle-nosed pliers and flush cutters with emphasis on their use for
'light' electronic work. Each kit should also include a large and small
screw driver set with flat and Phillips tips (#2, #1 and #0 , #00, respectively).
It's worth spending the extra bucks on a temperature controlled and regulated
soldering iron like the Hakko FX 888 (link below), with 1.6mm, 2.4mm and
3.2mm screwdriver tips (sold separately). There are Solder options too
that have - or determine - which flux and flux remover to use, de-soldering
braid, plus standard cleaning chemicals (alcohol, acetone and a contact
cleaner / de-oxidizer / lubricant).
ACTIVE SUMMING NETWORK
The long and short of it is that we are all in the pursuit of putting
our unique stamp on what we do. I see it in people like George Massenburg
whose equipment reflects his mixing style – clean, crisp, punchy, tight!
The way George uses his tools is transparent - as if he's not using processing
– possibly because he knows exactly what he wants and how to get it.
I recently had the good fortune to connect with Bones Howe online. Like
many engineers, he gets asked lots of questions about how he made classic
recordings with Elvis, BB King, The Turtles, The Association, The Mamas
and the Papas, to name a few. While I am still compiling details, I got
this excerpt from his website... "I was never an engineer's engineer,"
he says. "I was always happier on the other side of the glass, out in the
room with the musicians. I think that a great deal of my success was due
to the fact that I played on some records and I knew what it was like to
sit out there."
Howe took pains to ensure musicians were comfortable, so he sat them
close together, using the directional characteristics of microphones and
room acoustics to enhance the sound, rather than recording them separately
and mixing it all together at the end. "As someone very astutely said,
'If you do it one instrument at a time, then it's a ham sandwich and a
cheese sandwich, not a ham and cheese sandwich.'
Another cadre of examples is on the tech side. Larry Janus (Tube
Equipment Corporation), Dave Hill (co-founder of Summit.
Founder of Crane Song and Dave
Hill Designs) and Dan Kennedy (Great
River Electronics), are multidisciplinary nerds on so many levels.
Larry makes a very high percentage of his products onsite – metal work,
paint, engraving, circuit boards PLUS software analysis for vacuum tube
sorting and transformer analysis. (He's also RF literate.) Dave customized
his manufacturing equipment so he could control more production on-site,
he has a surface mount pic-and-place machine that he makes custom component
carriers for. In addition to analog and digital hardware, Dave also writes
code for plug-ins.
All of these guys do their own circuit board layouts and I have personally
watched Dan as he 'corrects my work.' There is easily as much science as
there is art and aesthetic to the layout process. All of these people and
so many more are as much artists as they are technicians – all are Zen
masters! Like so many recording engineers and mixers, our boutique manufacturers
put a piece of their souls into their quality products, stand by them and
build them in the USA despite the Harvard Business School mentality that
puts profits over quality...