It was great to have the AES convention in San Francisco last weekend. Lots to see, although, no major surprises.
From the production side, it’s fun to be the audio field when it digital audio is on an evolution fast-track. I don’t think digital audio is anywhere near it’s apex like analog audio was in the early eighties. But it’s clear that we are learning how to create software that does really cool stuff with audio and can do it while sounding good. Or, should I say, while sounding better than…
On the consumer side of audio, specifically music, I had a realization that consumer distribution channels are coming closer to being exclusively electronic. Yes, I can now see a day not to far away when the only way music fans can hear artists they enjoy will be via downloads or streaming audio. No CDs, tapes, or anything physical.
While that may seem fairly obvious and like kind of a non-event, I will miss full resolution audio.
I think many forget, or never realized, that almost all electronically distributed music is data compressed at about a 10 to 1 ratio. That means there is about one tenth of the information in a song purchased on iTunes that there is on a CD of the same song. One tenth! The difference is fairly perceptible back to back, but we’ve gotten used to the sound of downloaded music, and more importantly, the speed of access. We love the fast access to tunes!
It was only about ten years ago that people were still arguing that CDs didn’t sound as good as LPs (for those of you who remember LPs).
So I’m glad to be in the audio production business. I will get to listen to high resolution audio for a long time to come. Much higher than CD resolution even…! And it appears that while the music distributed to consumer channels will sound lesser and lesser, the tools on the production side will sound better and better. That will certainly entice me to stay in the engineering and production seat.
I’m really enjoying my first full day in San Diego. Most of the day was spent in the Balboa park area with the kids. A perfect day by all counts! Especially in contrast to yesterday, which was a travel day.
I’m not complaining, mind you… But I WILL rate air travel with 2 kids as high impact. Certainly, the focus of the day is limited to the logistics of transferring multiple bodies to a new location. Not much time or energy for anything else…
So tonight I’m catching up on email and working on some new screen designs for the PeopleAggregator. I’m sitting by the pool working as long as Apple will let me. (I’m sure it won’t be the 4.5 hours of battery life they tell me about in their technical specs.) But it’s still a gorgeous scene in the beautiful 85 degree evening. (And it seems so mod. Yes, mod as in Mod Squad.)
But as I work, I notice something about San Diego: Finding quiet spaces in any kind of populated area what-so-ever is next-to impossible. Fans, air conditioners, pool pumps, refrigerator motors and more. There is a constant whirring here. Motors and motors and motors, all in a gigantic effort to keep things cool.
I haven’t decided if I really dislike this whirring yet. It’s still in the observation stage. I think it may end up blending in. Like so many forms of white noise in our lives.
After a few days of use, I’m beginning to think Twitter is pretty cool. It’s a new social network app dsigned for the mobile phone scene by the folks at Odeo. The Baking Fairy turnned me on to it and now we always know what eachother are up to.
Dan had me over a few weeks ago to help out with a remix for The Killer’s new album. We got something pretty great but he’s been tweaking it more… until today… It’s off to the label.
From the sound of the track, the new release will be worth the wait. And, IMHO, from the sound of the remix, we’ll get more of them to do too.
I thought I’d leave a picture of the SoundWorkshop up in the header for just a while longer while the studio gets it’s makeover.
We do have the new monitor system up and running for the most part. It sounds FANTASTIC!
Doug Lanza was in with his family a couple days ago to do some overdubs on new material. We recorded a bunch of guitar overdubs with brilliant results as well.
I pray that these are a good indication of what’s to be expected with the completion of the redesign.
