Editors Blog
The Man From Atomic City
Recording's Associate Editor, Mike Metlay, Ph.D. (Nuclear Physics -- no, really!), shoots his virtual mouth off about all things musical. Be amazed, be amused, be edified.
Recent Posts
Thoughts from NAMM: Day Four
January 17, 2010
The NAMM Show is over, and I'm soaking my sore feet and relaxing after a very long weekend. The fourth day of NAMM is traditionally a bit quieter and less hectic than the first three; most of the business has been done, last meetings tend to be fairly relaxed, people return to their more interesting meetings for second looks, and the manufacturers themselves g...Read More
Thoughts from NAMM: Day Three
January 16, 2010
One question I get asked a lot at NAMM shows by the folks with whom I meet is, "How is the show for you?" I always find this a very silly question, because no matter what the circumstances in the world outside, the NAMM show is never any different for me... nor, I think, for any other member of the press. It doesn't matter if we're in the midst of a truly pros...Read More
Thoughts from NAMM: Day Two
January 15, 2010
The second day of the 2010 NAMM Show was even more crowded and crazy than the first one, and we're anticipating things getting more chaotic as the weekend goes on. For those of you who don't know how the show works, NAMM is a trade show: you can't just walk in and see it, you have to be a member of NAMM or affiliated with it somehow. Now, unlike magazine edito...Read More
Thoughts from NAMM: Day One
January 14, 2010
Well, the NAMM Show in Anaheim is off to a flying start, and we've spent the day asking questions and shaking hands and learning about the new products we hope to feature in the magazine in the coming months. The overall mood at the show was one of cautious optimism, but of optimism nonetheless. Many companies were reporting significant improvements in busines...Read More
But it was working a minute ago...!
December 14, 2009
There's an old saying that a classic symptom of insanity is doing the same thing again and again in the hope that the results will be different. Obviously the person who wrote that lived in the era before computers.
One of the interesting things about computers is that they are in fact deterministic machines -- if...Read More
So what's REALLY important?
November 5, 2009
Maybe this should go on our Q&A page, but it's got a fair bit of "my personal opinion" in it, so what the heck.
I was recently approached by a young man who was creating a 20-minute audio documentary on the rise of home recording. It was for a journalism class, and no prior knowledge of recording technology wa...Read More
AES 2009: One last word from the Big Apple
October 12, 2009
There's still one more day of the AES Convention here in New York City, but I may not have a chance to blog about it for a while since I have to run to catch a plane after it's over. Let me send some more shout-outs and talk about some fun gear I saw on Day 3.
The mixer in the picture may not have an official name...Read More
AES 2009: It's not all about the gear
October 10, 2009
I should note that some of my favorite experiences at AES have been visiting with people I don't get to see as often as I'd like to, even (especially?) those who aren't showing gear at the show. I got to hang with Malcolm Doak of Korg, who is the mastermind behind the new SV-1 digital keyboard -- which, by the way, is just too cool for words -- and Denis Labre...Read More
AES 2009: Well, here we are again...
October 9, 2009
Just a quick "hello" from the as-yet-empty show floor at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, where the 2009 AES Convention is about to start. The show appears at first glance to be much smaller than in previous years, but those appearances are deceiving; almost all of the usual exhibitors are here, but they have smaller booths.
AES 2009: The Fishbowl Effect
October 9, 2009
Depending on whom you ask about the first day of AES 2009 here in New York, the size and density of the crowd was either a pleasant surprise or a bit of heavy-handed magic trickery. It is true, the aisles were crowded and there was a lot of hustle and bustle, but it's also true that the show floor was about half its usual size. If you wedge a smaller crowd int...Read More
On Being Ahead Of The Curve
September 21, 2009
Okay, first things first. I released a new album yesterday. It's a trio set on the Earth Mantra netlabel, taken from live improvisations my friends Darrell Burgan, David Herpich, and I did back in April. It's called Read More
Sometimes The Good Guys Win
September 11, 2009
On September 9, Apple rolled out version 9 of iTunes. Part of the software update included a reorganization and thinning out of the available streaming radio content that iTunes offers. Several genres were eliminated entirely, with their stations either being moved into neighboring genres or eliminated outright. This included Ambient, Folk, and Public radio st...Read More
I Must Not Fear....
September 8, 2009
In his novel Dune, Frank Herbert created the Litany Against Fear. It went on to become perhaps the most famous quote from this great novel, and has somewhat entered into pop culture here and there, even turning up in random places like the Read More
Folks I Like: CASSIEL
August 25, 2009
Sometimes you just have to roll with it.
Sometimes it doesn't matter how much you plot and plan, how carefully you lay down your strategy of attack, how neatly you line up all your ducks in the metaphorical row — you get thrown a curve and you alter your aim and swing for the bleachers. If you're lucky, you ...Read More
RIP Les Paul, 1915-2009
August 13, 2009
I was saddened to learn of the passing of Les Paul at age 94 from complications due to pneumonia. Most people know him as the creator of the guitar that bears his name,...Read More
Curiouser and Curiouser!
August 13, 2009
I just received an official statement from Avid about the Mackie product I mentioned in my August 5 blog. It reads as follows, and I quote, in its entirety:
"Avid (Digidesign) has not approved or tested Mackie equipment to be interoperable with any of its solutions. Pro Tools M-Powered is only licensed for use wit...Read More
Action At A Distance
August 12, 2009
One of the areas in which I consider myself very lucky is that my work at the magazine exposes me to many different genres of music, and I'm able to help a wide variety of musicians get closer to the sounds they hear in their heads regardless of what those sounds entail. Occasionally I'm asked what sort of music I do for my own pleasure, when I'm off the clock...Read More
So What's Actually IN This Black Box?
August 5, 2009
"DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK", said the ads run by Mackie at the end of 2008, showing one corner of some type of device on an otherwise black page. The rollout for this new product, originally scheduled for NAMM 2009 last January, was delayed until September 9. In advance of the official announcement, Mackie sent out advance units to the press, and granted per...Read More
A Quick DIY Project for the Korg nanoSERIES
July 30, 2009
We'll be reviewing the Korg nanoSERIES USB controllers for laptop-based musicians in our September issue, which will be in subscribers' hands very soon and on newsstands before the end of August. I won't spoil the review by mentioning my findings here, but I will share a pretty cool little DIY project I worked up while doing the review, at a cost of about four...Read More
We Interrupt This Interrupted Life...
July 29, 2009
...to bring you a blog entry or three.
I'd like to start off by apologizing for my long silence here. It's been an interesting spring in many ways, and I've been chest-deep in the reason I never launched a blog of my own on another site: I've largely been too busy living my life to stop and write about it. But a n...Read More
Folks I Like: My Virtual Pal
July 29, 2009
Postcards from China: Part 3 - Welcome to Behringer City!
March 19, 2009
Apologies for the delay in posting this last part, but what I wanted to say and show took some careful thought. Years ago, at a press conference at NAMM, we were given DVDs that showed tantalizingly brief glimpses of the Zhongshan Eurotec facility nicknamed "Behringer City", serving to raise more questions than they answered. Was this really a classic "sweat s...Read More
Postcards from China: Part 2 - The Zhongshan Experience
March 8, 2009
Readers who live near large bodies of water are probably familiar with the concept of the ferry as a practical means of public transport. In the Pearl River delta, in which lie the peninsula and offshore islands that make up Hong Kong, ferries are a very common sight, but they're a bit different than what you might see serving, say, New York City or Vancouver ...Read More
Postcards from China: Part 1 - getting there
March 2, 2009
Well, I'm back from China. It was a whirlwind trip, with me battling jet lag most of the way and coming home to a fairly big chunk of stuff to finish, but the dust has settled and I'm able to talk a bit about what I saw and how it relates to you, our readers.
Why did I go to China? I was invited to a birthday part...Read More
Creative Commons: “Free” is not the same as “worthless”!
February 4, 2009
While we’re on the subject of mind-bending new ideas that mess with your head (were we? In this blog, always!), kindly allow me to introduce you to the strange and wonderful...Read More
"So how was NAMM?"
January 27, 2009
I've been hearing that a lot since I got back from NAMM. I tip my hat to my colleague Mr. Rychner for his daily blogs from the show; when I got back to my room at the end of the day, I was too wiped out to even think about turning on a computer. And once I got back, I dove straight into writing up the show report (Part 1 will be earlier than usual, in our Marc...Read More
Microsoft Enters The Music Composition Arena... Sorta
January 9, 2009
Industry colleague Roger Maycock just sent me the following links, to a Microsoft Research webpage and a YouTube Video of ...Read More
Folks I like: Pamplemoopf
January 7, 2009
Let me set a scene for you: a rain-swept cobblestone road in the dead of night, somewhere in the central Peak District of England, in March of 2002. I'd been driving for hours, a Yank on British highways—sitting on the wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the road, shifting with the wrong hand, inches away from an accident and constantly o...Read More
Folks I Like: The Estimable Mr. Dorsey
December 18, 2008
Once again, as preface to a fun little blog entry, I would like to introduce you to an important member of my personal play's cast of characters: Scott Dorsey.
Scott's is a name that you'll recognize if you've been reading our magazine for any length of time. He's an aficionado of well-made electronics of all kind...Read More
Dr. Suess Teaches Acoustics (badly)
December 18, 2008
Scott Dorsey knows my predilection for weird and wonderful media mashups, so he sent me a link to an audio ad by Dr. Suess in which the great illustrator i...Read More
The Mellotron: Now THIS is a Musical Computer!
December 18, 2008
Another link from Scott Dorsey: here's an infomercial for the Mellotron, the great granddaddy of all our digital samplers, sample players, and sound librari...Read More
The Science, and the Politics, of the Coat Hanger
December 4, 2008
Before we get started: no, there is nothing about Roe. v. Wade in this blog post. So sorry... but if you're interested in recording your own music and you've never been here before, then hey, welcome to my blog and I hope you enjoy the website.
Now, where was I? Oh yes.
Read More
Folks I Like: Dr. Mrs. Dr.
November 24, 2008
One of the things I said in my very first blog entry was that I enjoy the people in my musical life (both inside and outside of this magazine) way more than the boxes I use to make music. I am very lucky and blessed in the people who surround me, and it occurs to me that some of them will be recurring characters in my blogs for one reason or another, and other...Read More
The Politics of Auto-Tune
November 24, 2008
A few weeks ago I was working in the office when I got a call from a nice young gentleman representing the science program NOVA that airs on PBS. He had some basic research questions for an article they were thinking about whipping up for NOVA Science Now, about the use of intonation software... the most famous of which is, of course, Antares Auto-Tune....Read More
Gear Porn For People Tired Of Gear Porn
November 17, 2008
Okay, so everyone loves to hear about gear. We all like to comment on what gear works for us, read about how other people work, yell at one another about how So And So is a genius because he uses Monitor Brand A whereas Such And Such is obviously a cloth-eared moron because he uses Monitor Brand B, and so on. So when...Read More
Well, here goes... everything.
November 4, 2008
For years now, people have been telling me I should have a blog. "You contribute to all kinds of online forums about music, recording technology, and the like. Why not collect all of that in one place, in a blog?"
Well, that's a fair question.
I think what's stopped me before this is that I have ...Read More
