Insights

Recently an old friend of mine made a post on Facebook about how deeply he disliked the music of a new and somewhat well-known underground band. Being a fan, I commented back asking him if he had ever sat down and listened to this group's music. He wrote back "...of course not, I just watched one of their videos on YouTube." When you watch music videos in our distracting web 2.0 world, how often do the tunes really sink in?

Fritz Sennheiser was two years short of his centennial when he died on May 17 in Germany, where he was born. He founded Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG in 1945. Over the decades the name Sennheiser became synonymous worldwide with quality audio products, especially microphones and headphones for use by filmmakers, broadcasters, audiophiles, and consumers. For the latter group, the brand became associated with earphones for MP3 players and noise reduction headphones on airplanes.

In the April issue of Sound on Sound Magazine, Rostam Batmanglij, guitarist of the band Vampire Weekend, stated the following: "I immediately try to go for the finished article as far as possible, because I don’t believe in demos and re-recording. Not in this day and age. You will always try to recapture the magic of that first recording, so I don’t do it.” What do you think? Are demos counter-productive?

Audio waveforms are among the greatest tools that the digital audio revolution has given musicians and producers. But sometimes it's important to forget they're there. It's wonderful that so many audio tools have turned into lush, graphical experiences, but making sonic decisions based on visual information isn't always the best way to go. It's funny, when I'm working on a mix, it often takes lots of will power to pull my eyes away from the computer monitor and just listen...

The year 2010 marked, for better or worse, my fourth consecutive National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention. It was, for the industry's sake, good to see larger crowds than I remember from the past couple years, and, at the very least, there seemed to be more “excitement” in the air. In particular, 3-D was all the rage (and, should you be interested, 2009 was notable for DSLR Video, 2008 for The Great Recession and 2007 for Final Cut Studio and The Red Camera). It was as though most companies had, overnight (post-Avatar), transitioned their entire business model to remodeling your favorite sporting event or video game. I was skeptical at first, thinking 3-D sounded a bit “gimmicky,” but that all faded away the moment I laid my bespectacled eyes on the massive 3-D purposed screen in Sony's booth. It appears the third dimension really does make all the difference.

As should be expected by now, there was yet another article in the NY Times recently that started me thinking (Watch out... this can be dangerous!). The article ('Bringing New Understanding to the Director's Cut', 3/1/10) discussed how the editing of a movie, i.e., the number of shots in each scene, how long they appear onscreen, the pacing, and the order in which they are bundled together greatly affects our perception of the movie. And that includes convincing ourselves we just saw a ‘terrific’ film, even if we didn’t find the film to be all that good. 

Is it Grimace? Is it the Grim Reaper? Nope. It's a prepared location audio professional who is protecting their investment and getting the job done.  This morning on my 10 minute walk from the train to the office, I witnessed a weather anomaly that I'd never experienced before. This is my 18th year as a resident of the Northeastern United States, and I don't know the official stats, but this winter sure seems like one of the worst.