An unreal space and an amazing engineer/producer.

It creates, or allows you to create, ambient type music on your iPhone or iPod touch. It's well thought out and a blast to mess with. It's nice to see people creating instruments for a platform which don't attempt to emulate "real world" instruments. Hit the iTunes store to learn more. Only $3.99.

Book Reading - 3pm-3:50 p.m.
Panel Moderator - Words Are Music (songwriting panel) - 5-5:50 p.m.
with Willy Vlautin, Charles R. Cross, Jonathan Coulton

As you may know Willy is from the band Richmond Fontaine (and a fine author as well). Not only have I recorded many past works with his band, I’ll be working on their new CD this winter with JD Foster producing. Charles is known as a Seattle music journalist and has written six books. Jonathan is a clever, geeky songwriter guy. Should be fun!

http://www.wordstockfestival.com
At The Portland Convention Center, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.

PS: I think I signed up to be available for The Night of Literary Feasts. You could have dinner with Larry Crane, or just look for me in a dive bar downtown later that night.

You can still purchase Tape Op: The Book About Creative Music Recording Vol. II

About Wordstock:
Wordstock is an annual festival of books, writers, and storytelling in Portland, Oregon. Wordstock features ten author stages, a book fair with over 150 exhibitors, a special children’s area and children’s literature stage, a series of workshops for writers and for K-12 teachers, a special broadcast of LiveWire!, the popular public radio variety show, featuring writers from the festival, and more. Although it only began in 2005, Wordstock is already the largest celebration of literature and literacy in the Pacific Northwest, and is one of the largest festivals of its kind in the nation.

John Baccigaluppi’s 2008 AES Surf Report
This year’s AES show in San Francisco was a lot of fun. The day before the show, I drove with our UK publisher Al Lawson and his wife Nadia to Pacifica, a small coastal city just south of San Francisco. The surf was good, consistent waist to chest high, glassy and not very crowded. I got some good waves on my 6’ 8” twin fin fish I’m still trying to figure out. I think I like that board.
Friday night after the show, Larry, Andy, Laura and Count (Tape Op 59) went to see Sigur Rós at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The Greek is one of my favorite places to see a band and this show was great. The forecast was for rain all night, so we had our raincoats but were hoping for the best. I figured a little bit of rain would suit this Icelandic band’s music, but being drenched would be a drag. I saw Radiohead here a few years ago and fog was drifting in and out throughout the evening adding to the vibe an already great show. The weather is definitely part of the experience at The Greek. The rain held off until the last song of their encore, when it began to drizzle lightly. The louder the song got, the harder it rained, until at the peak water was pouring off the big awning over the stage. As the band left the stage, the rain let up to a light drizzle that lasted the rest of the evening. Amazing band, amazing show, good timing with the rain.
On Sunday, I managed to leave the show early to get out to see part of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that was going on all weekend in Golden Gate Park.

Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy, Elvis Costello and Iron and Wine were all playing within a three hour block on Sunday afternoon. I got there and found the stage Will Oldham was playing about 10 minutes before he went on. The place was packed and the security tried to send me to the back, but I talked them into letting me stand in the last available square foot which was about row seven. His set was great with a seven-piece bluegrass band. You could tell they were having a great time being at the festival and on stage.

The line for the porta-potties was about 200 people long, so by the time I got out of there I’d missed the beginning of Elvis Costello on the main stage. It was so packed, the closest I could get was about 100 yards from the stage.

It sounded great, but I realized that if I wanted to see Iron and Wine, which I did, I needed to get back to the previous stage. I got there as Greg Brown was finishing up his set, and it took me nearly 15 minutes to slowly make my way through the crowd back to the front of the stage. Somehow I was able to reclaim my small piece of grass and was right up front again. Iron and Wine (a.k.a. Sam Beam) is one of my favorite musicians and his set was amazing. Just him solo, and again, obviously really enjoying himself.

The crowd was super into it and as far as you could see back there was a sea of people. The stage was in a natural gully, about 50 feet deep and both sides of the hill and behind the stage was lined with solid people. There were even people in the trees! Joints were rolled and passed and the show definitely had a San Francisco vibe. I forgot to mention that the entire show was free! Some wealthy software engineer pays for the whole thing every year.

On Monday, we went to Santa Cruz to visit Universal Audio. Here's Bill Putnam Jr. with the vintage 610 console.

Neil Young’s engineer John Nowland drove up Neil’s 610 console up and Will Shanks of UA was recording the UA house band. See Will's report here.

The band and the console sounded amazing and I got to play around with it, muting things, and changing levels a bit to hear the different mics being tracked live to two-track.

There was even a speaker/mic combo in the bathroom for reverb.

Later that day I surfed some solid chest to head high waves with my friend George Samuel and Tom Der from Soundcraft, who drove down from the show to catch some waves.
Definitely one of the better AES shows in a while!
-John B.

"I wanted to point you to a project I've currently wrapped up. For 16 weeks, every Wednesday, I've brought 3 very different musicians from different backgrounds to the studio. They never know who else will be coming until they arrive. Over the course of an evening, they are charged with the task of getting to know each other, writing a song and recording it. I then mix it and make it available for download by the morning. My favorite session blended The Weakerthans' John K Samson with a glitchy electro artist and an Inuit throat singer." Check it out!

"The Record Of The Week Club is a weekly recording session featuring musicians from diverse musical backgrounds. Never knowing who their co-creators will be — an incognito and disparate group of musicians meet at MCM Studios in Winnipeg, Canada every Wednesday evening. Over the course of one evening they are charged with the task of getting to know each other, arranging, rehearsing and recording a piece under the guidance of Mike Petkau. The song is immediately mixed and uploaded and made available for download that same night. Jazz drummers are being paired with punk guitarists and opera singers; classical violinists are being paired with taiko drummers and DJ's, folksingers are being paired with sound collage artists and trombonists. The combinations are endless. And to top it off, we've invited local filmmakers to document the process."

Exiled Records
4628 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR 97215
(503) 232-0751

They just opened up an online store, which is run by studio client and pal of mine, Sam Coomes of Quasi. Drop by and sign up for his mailing list and see what's for sale.

Tape Op will be at the AES show in San Francisco Oct 3-5 at the Moscone Center. Come down, here's yer pass: AES Invite

Where: The Hangar Studios, Sacramento, CA

What: The first Audio Underground Roadshow

What’s that and who will be there: Demos of gear from AUG manufacturers;

Ryan Hewitt (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182, Tom Petty, John Frusciante) who was profiled in Tape Op #61 will be doing demos of the Tonelux modular mixing system along with Tonelux designer, Paul Wolf.

George Massenburg probably doesn’t need an introduction as he was interviewed in Tape Op twice! (Issues #54 and #63) George will be demoing his GML gear throughout the day.

Former Blues Magoos drummer and gear designer extraordinaire Geoff Daking will be demoing his console, mic pres and compressors.

Peter Montessi of A-Designs, David Bock of Bock Audio Microphones and Tim Spencer of TRUE systems will be doing recording workshops on drum, guitar and vocal recording with Kris Anaya and James Neil of the band An Angle. Tim will also be doing an M/S recording workshop.

And in the mastering room, Brad Lunde will be demoing the ATC monitor line.

And, Tape Op will be giving away free back issues of Tape Op! Tape Op’s publisher, John Baccigaluppi will be on hand as well as the Hangar Studio crew. It’s gonna be a fun and educational day and it’s free!! Hope we see you there!

Space is limited, so send an email to todd @ transaudiogroup.com (remove spaces!) for a personal invitation and directions.

Here I am at Powell's City of Books in Portland doing the book reading. Quite fun to get up and make an ass of myself in a book store. Thanks to Leigh Marble and Ben for playing sweet music, to Kevin Sampsell for arranging this for Powell's, and to Jenna Sather for arranging this on our end. Buy the Tape Op book, Vol. II!

XXXXXXX,
I'm not sure if you've read Tape Op before, but we don't do many articles like this. I prefer to keep with interview format pieces, or some articles about certain subjects or persons. We've interviewed XXXXXX before, and we don't do repeat interviews. I hate to have to say it, but folks like XXXXX and XXXXX have worked on some of my least favorite music of the last few decades. I know they have platinum records and Grammies and all, and maybe they're just doing their jobs, but in my eyes they've also helped mid-wife a lot of junk into the marketplace. In Tape Op we're looking for folks working on timeless, lasting, interesting and unique recordings. Sorry to be blunt about it, but it's just the way we decided to approach this 12 years ago, and our status as the second largest magazine in this field, and one not owned by an outside publishing company, leads me to believe I've made the right choice.

I also find it odd to have an article about drum recording from people who replace and/or reinforce most of their drums with samples in the mix. As an engineer/producer myself I love the possibilities these techniques open up, but the bland, homogenized sound we hear on the radio these days is part of what is killing the music biz in my mind.

I wish none of your clients any ill will, and I hope they enjoy their work, but it just isn't of any interest to me. I hope this isn't too negative, or you walk away thinking I'm some sort of asshole, but as you can tell is see this magazine as more than a place to get some press for engineers and producers and as a forum for the art of recording.

All the best,
Larry Crane, Tape Op Magazine

I am a recording artist, who tracks and mixes my own recordings, and sometimes help others. I am not a recording engineer. While some of my friends are recording engineers, a few lies I have heard over the years, might explain why I am reluctant to involve them in recording projects.
1. Lets spend two [days] weeks getting drums sounds.
2. Let's compress everything, in tracking, then compress the mix, then compress in the mastering room. That'll sound great.
3. Let's close mic loud instruments, squash them with compression, then add EQ to them.
4.The mixes sounded good in the room, these self powered monitors cost over $3000, so it must be your fault the mixes sound bad everywhere else.
5. I'm a producer too.
6. I'm a musician too.
7. Doing live sound in the clubs for over five years hasn’t affected my hearing in the least.
8. It sounds great out in the room but it doesn’t sound good in the control room because you don’t have the right, [very expensive] mic, board, processor, etc.
9. Recording is all about compression and EQ.
10. Your project doesn’t sound good because, you didn’t have enough of a budget to record for more than two weeks.
12. You need at least eight tracks and just as many mics, compressors and noise gates to record a drum set well.
13.There is no difference between the sound of digital and analog.
14. Digital sounds great! Ugh!
Arthur Nasson

"On this album let's not listen to what the label says and just focus on making a great record instead"
"we can always fix that in the mix"
"yeah, I can get the Cold Turkey drum sound no problem"
"This transient designer sounds fucking great!"
"The mic's are in phase"
"once we play this to your manager he is gonna freak out"
"yeah we can work late tonight"
"tomorrow let's try and make it an early start, I will be here"
"I will buy the cigarettes tomorrow"
Soren Christensen

Here are some more:
"We should be done by tomorrow"
"It's getting better - one more take and we'll have it"
"Don't worry about the room - we're close-micing everything -it'll sound great!"
"That'll be fixed in mastering"
"You're right. You DO play better high."
"The vocal's on key - the harmony's off."
"Don't worry, I'm really good at creating dynamics (substitute 'space', 'warmth', 'depth')"
"I love your music."
"The bleed won't be heard in the mix."
"That distortion's coming from the amp."
"I'll work on the edits tonight while you're gone - they'll be done when you come back."
"The final will sound WAY better than this rough mix."
"I can fit all your mixes on one CD as mp3's - it'll sound the same."
"No, I haven't been drinking."
-Andy Ryder