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Yeah, I know, I know—it’s been a long time. Trust me, it bothers me more than it might bother you. Thing is, I could either cancel sessions and work less often, make less money and then I’d have more time to podcast! Oh, wait… maybe not.

I did have a last minute cancellation which was quite welcomed, given my cold and so I did have an unexpected window in which to record this episode—a kind of “catch up” in the studio.

I have to say, when I started this podcast series, I figured that I would do a few such “catching up” episodes but now I’m thinking I might rather do it in blog form. Hmm… maybe I will. We’ll see.

Sooooooo– since last time, I did go to Atlanta for Dragon*Con which was a complete blast. I met so, so many people who were so friendly and were fans of the podcast. It didn’t hurt that I was hanging with George Hrab (http://www.georgehrab.com) and Donna Mugavero (@MsInformation) most of the weekend. I was invited to be on two panels in the podcasting track. It was so nice to finally meet derek & Swoopy from the Skepticality podcast. (http://www.skepticality.com

I couldn’t visit Atlanta and not give my friend, Brian Stevens (http://www.brianstevens.com) a call. We went to lunch at one of those Brazilian steak joints. Wow! I like to call our little meet up a “meat up” because, man—bacon-wrapped chicken, bacon-wrapped beef, bacon-wrapped bacon… It was fabulous to meet Brian in person and I really enjoyed the conversation. Hey, Brian: c’mon, let’s have another episode of the Music Pro Show! (Like I should speak about getting a show out…)

A couple of weeks ago, I flew out to San Francisco for a meeting at Digidesign. I’ve been working with them over the course of a few years to make Pro Tools compatible with the VoiceOver feature of Mac OS X. It’s been a long road and we still have a little way to go but we can definitely see the finish line. For more information on the accessibility of Pro Tools for blind users, please visit
http://www.protoolspetition.org

As usual, I did attend the AES show in New York. I must say, although they tried to spin it in a positive light, the show is so much smaller than it used to be. Hey, I’m glad it’s still around and I’m confident that it’ll grow once again but it really did seem quite a bit smaller than in previous years.

I tried to attend as many workshops as I could. Of course, there are so many good ones that are scheduled at the same time—it’s impossible to see everything one wants to see at these conventions.
One of the panelists with which I was quite impressed was David Josephson of Josephson Engineering. (http://www.josephson.com) David was so thorough in his explanations and so confident that it made me want to just go out and buy a Josephson microphone. David’s an impressive and knowledgeable man with high standards. . No wonder he’s chair of the AES Standards Committee.

I did get to see a bunch of friends and colleagues—some old, some new. I met Sydney Galbraith who came down from Toronto for the show. I know Sydney through Twitter (@sydneygalbraith)—really nice guy with, I’m sure, a bright career in front of him.

Speaking of bright careers, I got to meet the legendary Bruce Swedien. Wow, what a warm and gracious person he is. I think of him as the Walter Cronkite of the audio world. Man, what a giant in the industry and he couldn’t be nicer.

There were a couple of people I didn’t get to see in person and I was bummed about that. I stopped in at the A–Designs booth to see Ronan Chris Murphy of Ronan’s Recording Show (http://www.ronansrecordingshow.com) but he wasn’t around. I stopped in again the next day and missed him again and it appeared that he wasn’t checking Twitter so I didn’t get to meet up with him this time. Also, John Grant of Granelli Audio Labs (http://www.granelliaudiolabs.com) had a whirlwind of a day on Sunday (his only day at the show) but I had to leave early and missed him. Next time…

One of the engineers on a particular panel just rubs me the wrong way to such an extent that it makes me ill. (eyes rolling) He keeps referring to the Sony 3348 as “the didge” which drives me up the wall. First of all, the format is DASH (for digital audio stationary head) and, if anything, the competing format, Mitsubishi’s Pro Digi should sooner be nicknamed “didge.” Further, the fact that this guy uses a 16-bit machine when most people have been using 24-bit for years and years is just inexplicable. Yeah, right, there was a 20-bit version of the Sony DASH as well. Hmm… I wonder if he broke down and stepped up to 20-bit… Anyway, I can’t tell you how nauseated I was by this guy. Honestly, I’m usually quite easy-going but this guy just manages to irk me so…

Since the previous episode, I’ve mixed and mastered ‘Shay Salhov’s record. I would’ve loved for him to have it mastered by someone like Bernie Grundman or Greg Calbi. Unfortunately, I guess it was a financial limitation that led him to having me master it. Alright, I did a decent job but it’s too bad the project couldn’t have been taken to the next level. It sure deserves it.

I sent Carol Sudhalter’s album to be mastered in Rome by Alfa Records. I’ll have to put together an episode regarding Carol’s project. It was really a great pleasure to work on it and the musicians were all delightful. Can’t wait to hear the final release.

We’re done with the tracking and editing for Libby Richman’s album, “Open Strings.” Mixing begins next week. Again, a wonderful group of players on this album.

George Hrab’s long–awaited “Trebuchet” is in it’s final tracking sessions. We still have a vocal intro to record and a horn section on one tune and then we mix. Having begun this project in the Spring, this is the longest period of time from beginning to end for a Geologic record. George says he’s not even sure of everything he has in the can—it’s been that long since we began the recording. Can’t wait to finish it up and get it out there.

Ah, the really bizarre thing I experienced this month was an auction for a voice-over studio in Manhattan that was going out of business. I had gone there a month before the auction because a friend of mine was going to be bidding on the entire studio. Since he’s in L.A., he asked me to go over and have a look at the gear and the space. They had a really nice collection of mics, preamps, some vintage compressors, computers, monitors, etc. Unfortunately, my friend bid too low and the entire studio was auctioned off piece by piece.

I went to the auction to see if I could get some choice pieces. I was quite disappointed to discover that a lot of the gear was already gone even before the auction took place. Apparently, a bunch of it was snatched up by the old employees of the studio. It was slim pickin’s. I did manage to pick up a lot of three Atlas SB36W stands for $90 and four Grace Designs M101s for $225 each. All in all, it was a pretty good deal but, given the amount of time I spent on the whole thing, I’m not sure that it was so extraordinary. Oh well…

I almost forgot—two other things that recently came through the studio door were the Wechter Nashville Elite from Sweetwater Sound and a pair of  Advanced Audio CM-12s.

The Nashville Elite is a really nice, colorful instrument specifically designed for Nashville tuning. I’m not crazy about the glossy finish but I’m really having a lot of fun playing it and I can’t wait to use it on some projects.

The CM-12s are actually fully-modified Apex 460s that I sent to Dave Thomas of Advanced Audio. I did do a quick shootout with a stock 460 and a vintage AKG C 12. I’ll save that one for another episode. For now, suffice it to say that I have a smile on my face

Hey, you know how I’ve said that the show notes can contain some additional/different information than the podcast? Well, here’s a great example of how scatter-brained I can be: I went through great lengths to describe the IAC isolation booths on auction at the ACB voice-over studio and how expensive they are and all. Of course, after all that, I never mentioned the best part—only one person bid on one booth and won it for only $200—a $16,000 booth for $200! Man… I was thinking to myself the next day that I should’ve bid on the rest and simply taken off the doors and interior fiberglass acoustic panels and sold them and on Ebay. Too late. Oh well… next auction.