August 2000 - $10.00 £5.00 THE INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL AUDIO MAGAZINE FOR RECORDING, POSTPRODUCTION AND BROADCAST EXCLUSIVES Marantz PMD300- series Lindos Electronics LSC24 Universal Audio UA 1 176 Microboards StartREC Sennheiser MKH800 Mx -2424 n n Manley monobloc m n s v -_ ,._ _:_ _ Lucid SRC9624 o u. EA E DAS Monitor 6 : -_a EEEEE_ hi --= - EEEE-- g s 11,1 L..' 1.-11 Is M. 01111.111111 ..q. Y. j s.. .rn. If G /- -, NOr WWI ... fa. 1; "- 1.7 F-44--- !1- 1 TASCAM MX -2424 roes this change everything? BROADCAST AUTOMATION: HANDS -OFF CONTROL The FUTURE COMPUTER:THE EVOLUTION OF THE PC STEVE SURROUND SOUND: MIKING FOR SURROUND POWERHEADPHONES:CANS IN CLOSE -UP Interview iii 9 7701 44 59403 1 www.americanradiohistory.com Forgive and regret OUR LOOK AT THE TASCAM MX -2424 serves to remind how delicate the relation- ship is between intermediate and milestone technologies. As someone who can remember DASH and ProDigi being dismissed in the 1980s as intermediate Studìá technology I could be forgiven for waiting for this machine for what has been an eternity. Of course 'intermediate' is a word that is frequently confused and misused by those of shallow pocket who then proceed to power out of their personal hand- Incorporating Broadcast Engineering brake turns as soon as they can afford to. Digital tape was, and is, an intermedi- August 2000. Vol 42. No 8. ISSN 0141 5994 ate, but it hasn't stopped DASH representing the high -end interchange format in United Business Media, for music recording or the DA-88 serving as an established post mix medium long 8 Montague Close, London Bridge, for shrewd operators many times over. enough to pay off the financing deals London SE 19UR, UK. What wide -scale technology adoption patterns all have in common is that they either facilitate efficiency and convenience or they are simply so cheap Fax: +44 (0)20 7407 7102 and simply make too much sense to ignore. The acid test of business plan jus- tification and qualification generally throws up a lowish risk, no- brainer deci- Email. studiosound @unitedbusinessmedia.com sion that slots in seamlessly alongside existing systems and work methods that Net www.prostudio.com/studiosound have to be consigned to scrap. don't immediately Editorial The MX -2424 is not the first to offer affordable high track numbers on hard Executive Editor- - Zenon Schoepe disk, but it remains significant in doing it quite so well for quite so little. We live in an increasingly disposable society and a major attribute of many recent Email: zschoepe @unitedbusinessmedia.com 'milestone' developments has been a lack of emotional involvement and depen- Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8513 dence for the user. It's why we can recount and indulge ourselves in the finer Editor: Tim Goodyer points of analogue master tape machine ownership in this same issue despite Email: tgoodyer @unitedbusinessmedia.com the fact that we are unlikely to ever enjoy a similar attachment to the early incar- Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8578 nations of DTRS or, for that matter, early attempts at DAWs. Production Editor Peter Stanbury That change continues is not the surprise and not the issue, that is discards Email: pstanbury @unitedbusinessmedia.com in so quickly takes it predecessors, themselves milestones their own day, quite Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8523 of attitude and a hardening of outlook. Increasingly we are being an adaptation Secretary Eileen Sullivan stripped of the technological crutches that have previously tied us to the world. Email: esullivan @unitedbusinessmedia.com We are left instead with our own transferable crafts and skills as the truly sal- +44 7940 able commodity. The most important thing you take into the room is what you Direct line: (0)20 8524 Watkinson have in your hand. Consultants Francis Rumsey; John Zenon Schoepe, executive editor Columnists: Dan Daley; Barry Fox; Kevin Hilton Bench- testers: Keith Holland; Paul Miller Covering fire Regular Contributors. Jim Betteridge; Richard Buskin; Simon Croft; COMPARING MUSICAL NOTES with Philip Newell in Spain recently threw up Ben Duncan; Dave Foister; Tim Frost; an interesting difference of opinion. Where I had always regarded the term 'cover version' to apply to any reworking of another artist's song, no matter Yasmin Hashmi; Neil Hillman; Rob James; how greatly it differed from the original, Philip considered it applicable only to Caroline Moss; Philip Newell;Terry Nelson; a fairly faithful copy. To illustrate his point he quoted Cilla Black's 'Anyone Who Stella Plumbridge; Martin Polon; Had a Heart' as being a legitimate (read 'near identical') cover of Dionne War- George Shilling; Simon Trask wick's original, while Joe Cocker's interpretation of the Beatles' 'With a Little Help from My Friends' was another proposition entirely. I had to agree that he Advertisement Sales had a point. Group Sales Manage Chris Baillie Returning home, I chanced across a copy of Ann Harrison's book Music: The Email: cbaillie @unitedbusinessmedia.com Business (Virgin Publishing, ISBN 0 7535 0433 2), whose glossary contains the Direct ne:+44 (0)20 7940 8517 following: 'Cover version: a song written and recorded by someone else, that an artist records a new version of.' As the book is subtitled The Essential Guide Deputy Ad Manager Phil Bourne Email: pbourne @unitedbusinessmedia.com to the Law and the Deals, I thought Philip should know... My email prompted a fax reply that closed 'Joe Cocker took a weak insipid Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8542 ditty... and rearranged it into a monstrous rock classic which wiped the floor Classified Sales: Peter Lawn with the original. That, to me, is not a cover version but a huge development Email: plawn @unitedbusinessmedia.com of the song -a new original interpretation'. Philip was sticking to his guns. Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8518 So whose definition of 'cover version' were the scriptwriters of The Patriot Advertisement Production Denise Walshe and U-571 working to when they decided to rewrite history? For those not in Email: dwalshe @unitedbusinessmedia.com the know, in telling the story of the American war of Independence, The Patriot e +44 (0)20 7940 8539 (directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Mel Gibson) inaccurately casts the Direct British as a murderous bunch, massacring their enemies in the manner of the Nazis. U -571 (directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Matthew McConaughey, Associate Publisher-: Joe Hosken Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi), meanwhile, transfers the credit Direct line +44 (0)20 7940 8602 for the capture of the first German Enigma machine and code books from the Circulation r:.rr,r,e, Lucy Howard British to the Americans during WWII. Direct line: +44 (0)20 7940 8591 In this case I defer unconditionally to Philip's view; the films might be cast PA to the Publisher: Lianne Davey as the development of a theme, but a good, old -fashioned cover version would Managing Director: Doug Shuard infinitely preferable. Tim Goodyer, editor have been Publisher: Steve Haysom 4 August 2000 www.prostudio.com /studiosound Studio Sound www.americanradiohistory.com uo,vuMfEu Great Studios Of The World , I E1111111111111111111--- Since installing the first SL 9000 J in France, in 1995, leading international studio Guillaume Tell in Paris has gone from strength to strength. 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