From: metlay@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu (metlay)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth
Subject: BANDWIDTH (was Re: Tounges & Interpretation (was Re: Problems!!!!!))
Summary: This is long and Team Metlay-related. Dave and Paul hit 'n' now.
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:52:08 GMT
Organization: Atomic City

In article <1680209@hpsadlu.sad.hp.com> smithj@hpsadlu.sad.hp.com (Jim Smith) writes:
>>"It seems that in all countries, our single greatest problem is, how you say,
>>'BANDWIDTH'?"
>See, Mike?  All around the world, people are waiting to hear, how you say,
>'BANDWIDTH!'  What has become of the poor antiquarian beast?

I'm going to kill you, Jim. With my teeth and fingernails. It'll be painful
and messy and I'm going to love every juicy bite....

*ahem*

The 'poor antiquarian beast', as you put it, has had the following history
since the basic tracks were recorded in December 1990. This is, in fact,
a lesson in and of itself....

DECEMBER 1990: Team Metlay meets in Pittsburgh. Much fun and games. Rothwell
nearly has a nervous breakdown, Rossi's kid (John 4) plays Casio MIDI horn
on one track, everyone eats too much, 44 minutes music recorded, all go home.

At this stage, BANDWIDTH consists of a set of raw stereo mixes on PCM tape.
It suffers from (in no particular order) level mismatches, both from track
to track and on one song between left and right, a few clam notes that 
couldn't be fixed, and a lot of hiss.

FEBRUARY 1991: Rossi, with the aid of John Curtis (John 0) at Terra Incognita
in Dayton, remixes the stereo tracks, doing some EQ and NR but having a bit
of trouble with level matching. Copies of the mixes are sent to all Team 
members on cassette, having been dubbed from a VHS HiFi tape. Response is
universally lousy. "It sounds like shit." Rossi insists that the original
PCM sounds great except for some zipper noise and the problems are the fault
of the VHS HiFi used for the dubs.

It is decided to attempt remastering in the Spring, so that the CD can be
made during the summer.

MAY 1991: Metlay's thesis advisor is shown a copy of Metlay's article in 
the Computer Music Journal, and calls Metlay into his office for a little
chat about Metlay's priorities and probable future as a scientist. Metlay
is rendered a gibbering wreck for the next six months as he frantically
tries to salvage his career. Metlay's wife and friends, worried for his 
life and sanity, try to get him to give up on his Ph.D. Metlay, stubborn
as usual, ignores them.

BANDWIDTH sits on a shelf in Metlay's basement, gathering dust.

NOVEMBER 1991: The heat having blown over and the thesis now in progress,
Metlay and Rossi take a weekend in Dayton to remaster BANDWIDTH. The zipper
noise is discovered to be an artifact of a mismatch between Rossi's VCR and
Metlay's tape, which was recorded on a shitty recorder. Single-ended NR,
some judicious EQ, and a little bit of level tweaking later, the remastered
tape is auditioned in the studio and on a stereo system, and sounds GREAT.

The Team are not able to hear it because no dubs are made due to time 
constraints.

DECEMBER 1991: Some friends come over to play with Metlay, and listen to
BANDWIDTH. To them, and to Metlay as well, the master suddenly sounds 
very trebly and harsh. Rossi's copy sounds the same way. Much screaming 
ensues. The issue of a mastering house and album art are raised; nothing
gets done. Metlay begins preparing for his defense, and all work stops.

APRIL 1991: Metlay receives a CD from a friend, mastered in a small
digital studio in NYC. It sounds GREAT. Metlay calls the friend to
congratulate him, and the subject of BANDWIDTH comes up. The friend
volunteers to use his copy of Sound Tools and his rare Sony PCM-601ESD
(the only PCM encoder with 44.1kHz digital outs) to make a digital
dump of the questionable-quality PCM to a DAT (Metlay shudders and
demands a safety copy), along with creating a master list for Optical
Media International to use in creating a CD from the DAT. He also says
he'll give the tape an objective listen and see if there's anything he
can do in SOund Tools to fix any problems still outstanding.

Metlay, one month from his defense and mentally in tatters, agrees.

---

And that's where it stands. This fellow in NYC is basically going to
give it a listen as he does a straight dump from PCM to DAT (which
many more mastering houses prefer these days) and see what, if
anything, it needs.  Once that's done, I'm going to use the Mac IIsi
in my wife's geological mapping lab (with a scanner and both
Illustrator and Freehand) to do the separations for the album art
myself. This will probably be after my defense (i.e. in June
sometime).  Money is not a problem right now, so if we can get these
last few things licked better than they were in the past year and a
half, we should have a CD that no one will want to hear because it's
such a total anticlimax by the summer's end.

My friends in the Team have been calling me regularly to prop up my
rapidly failing psychic defenses, for which I'm grateful. I hope I
don't let them down in the end.

Thanks for letting me rant, I really needed it.

--
metlay    | "Muppapa gninng vun gddang K2000 wer "Harris-burp" gergrunt.
@minerva. | Muppapa de wonna donga vor Alesis S5 wer "Hrrrrr-moble-eeeble" 
phyast.   | gergrunt."                                     -- Nick Rothwell
pitt.edu  | "Harg!  Glub Blug dip woot-boof wammie!"    -- Patrick Robinson