May/Jun 2004
Welcome to issue #41 of Tape Op.
Right after turning 40, we're putting out our biggest issue to date, and there's no shortage of strong opinions in this one. Walter Sear's thoughts on DIY recording might ire lots of long time Tape Op readers, while Walter's and Jay Bennett's take on gear will probably have some manufacturers pissed off. But remember, Tape Op is about presenting a variety of opinions on recording music. Any advice is good advice and learning from those who have been there is as important as learning on your own. Plus, few would deny the creative and great recordings made by Jay, Walter, Sigur Rós, Pauline Oliveros, David Minehan, Joel Hamilton and Tony Maimone.
This issue comes out right before the Third Annual TapeOpCon in New Orleans. I'm excited to visit this special city and moderate interviews and panels with Cosimo Matassa, Jim Dickinson, Tony Visconti, Mark Bingham, Joe Chiccarelli, Billy Anderson, John Vanderslice, Don Zientara and others! I'm already nervous. I went through a list of the panelists while putting bios together and was overwhelmed by the amount of talent that we'll be presenting. It will be a blast — plus in New Orleans you can drink in the street. Who knows what insanity will prevail?
Many people have asked if we will be making audio or video versions of the conference available. No plans are set yet, and to be honest the current workload makes it difficult to consider taking on this money and time- intensive project. We'll see, and you'll know if we do. Just keep in mind the amount of work and risk involved in doing TapeOpCon and be sure to buy Craig Schumacher a beer if you can get him to hold still for a second!
See you in New Orleans, Larry Crane
P.S. Sometimes it's really hard to get good photos for interviews in Tape Op. It seems like a lot of engineers just don't think visually and give us some pretty weak graphics for their interviews. This is one of the main reasons why some interviews never run. And then we sometimes get a plethora of great photos like the ones in Walter's interview and the photos that regular contributor, Jodi Shapiro, took for Tony Maimone and Pauline Oliveros. In fact, we weren't able to use all of Jodi's photos of Studio G, so that's why we're running two more of them: The photo on this page and the front cover photo.
