It’s been far, far too long since last I posted an entry.

I’ll hide behind the excuse of pressure of work, and yes – things have been very full-on, what with building Snap Studios

http://www.proaudioeurope.com/229/october-part-15th

advising and equipping studios on the four corners of the earth (Beijing, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Italy, Norway, the US and more) and trying to maintain a little quality time with my two cats, but the reality is I’ve let things slip.

In the meantime, much has been exercising my mind, such as…

Michael Jackson shuffled of his mortal coil after a sad decade when his former splendour paled into the Fantasy Island of somewhat squalid delusions of grandeur. He was not unique in allowing fame to turn his head and indulging in every base desire, carnal or narcotic, and neither was he alone in choosing to surround himself with self-interested ‘yes’ men, more concerned with not derailing the gravy train than in attempting to steer it back onto some form of straight and narrow.

Jimmy Scott (of Pretenders fame) was once an employee and tehn a close friend. Indeed, I played a role in his joining the band. My last conversation with him was a heated row, when I tackled him about his cocaine habit. He was furious and told me to fuck off and mind my own business. For months I agonised at my presumption at having crossed the line between addressing issues of concern and accepting a friend, faults, frailties and all. It was a moral dilemma…had I let my concerns go unvoiced, the friendship would have continued. But would it have been a true, an honest, friendship if I failed to voice my concerns? I guess I felt guilty at having raised the subject until…
Jimmy died, aged twenty four, after choking on his vomit following a cocaine binge. The world lay in his magic plectrum, with the promise of everything a guitar freak like him could ever dream of. And the best was surely yet to come.

Had I not spoken out as and when I did, I doubt that I could have ever looked myself in the mirror again. My only regret is that my words fell on deaf ears…

Rest In Peace, Michael. You had precious little in your last few years.

Despite the tragedy of his premature death, Jackson’s passing moved me less than that of Les Paul. Here was a man who shaped the lives of all those who love electric music and recording. Apart from his virtuosity on guitar, this man single-handedly created multitrack recording, the tools for modern rock music and much more. Despite his achievements and success, he remained modest throughout his life, driven by a love of music and an inquisitive nature. If he imagined new techniques, he locked himself away and found a means to realise his dreams. In the process, he provided the rest of us with the vehicles to realise ours.

I firmly believe Les Paul died with a chuckle on his lips. A great, great man.

Vera Lyn came from a similar generation, and is thankfully still with us. In her own words, the woman was an entertainer who was surprised at her success. She regarded herself as fortunate to have enjoyed such a dazzling career. Another modest champion of popular music.
Recently, a compilation of her best known recordings was released and raced to number one, keeping remastered Beatles albums off the top of the charts. But having been recorded more than fifty years ago, dear old Vera hasn’t received one penny, one red cent, one measly groat in royalties. Copyright in performances and recordings expires after fifty years, meaning they can be recopyrighted by anyone fast and mean enough to steal them one second after midnight on the fateful day.

So despite the fact that her face is on the album cover, that films of her performing were plastered over our TV screens and she did the newscast rounds with dozens of charming interviews, not one penny generated by her talent found its way into her bank account.

And did the fat cats at the record company decide to give her a slice of the dosh that her labours had generated? Come on, folks – this is a record company. A r.e.c.o.r.d c.o.m.p.a.n.y, or, to use another phrase, a bunch of legal thieves. Vermin of the worst kind.

So when the major labels start to whinge and moan about internet piracy, stop and think; who are the biggest bloody pirates of the lot? Yup – you got it. Those nasty, snivelling, talentless crooks in their ivory towers with bloated expense accounts and high end Mercedes Benz’.

Screw the artist.

And given half a chance, they will.

Eccentric

If you're tuning in once more, please accept my appologies for a prolongued absence. It wasn't entirely my fault, however.
Some bright Silicon Alley big shot Cybercompany ate up the small blog hosting site I use to post my rambling thoughts. As seems to always be the case in our brave new world, Mega Corp decided to employ hundreds of bright Cal-tech computer wizz graduates to update, modernise, capitalise, utilise, prioritise, fuckmetize and generally phaff about with the quaint old site to make it ultra modern and hyper-profitabale.
And the result?
Utter bunk. For months I;ve been trying to get back on to post without success. I've quantised, changed my password, my askword, my emailwoird, my gender, my date of borth, date of death, date of insanity and the rest. Eventually I went out and hoiked a five year old off the street who fiddled with a few parameters, typed a string of code into the ethersphere and restored access.
So I'm back on like...(is this the correct hip vernacular?) Annd please bear with me if some pf the forthcoming posts are well out of date, but they've been accumulating during the long, dark night of my absence.
Hello again.
Eccentric

A few days ago I received an email asking my opinion of the difference in sound and facilities of an SSL 4000 and the new AWS.

hi,
i'm watching your website and i'm interested in the ssl
4000 24 channels,i never had an ssl consolle,so i
have 2 questions for you:
1)can i have more details pictures of this consolle
and also where is possible to see it.
2)wich one is better in sound quality the ssl 4000 or
the new aws 900+?
thank you

I answered honestly as follows;

There is no comparison between the real SSL and the AWS. In comparison,
the AWS is like a toy.
Differences are;
1. The SSL has full in line monitoring, giving 48 channels on mix.
The AWS is very simple 24 channel.
2. The SSL has dynamics on all inputs (24 x compressor/gates) plus
the classic 'quad' compressor on the mix bus
The AWS has one compressor that can be assigned.
3. The SSL is fully modular, meaning that if a channel goes down, a spare
can be used while it is being fixed, or alternatively that channel can be
removed for fixing, leaving 23 in use.
The AWS has chanels in blocks of 12, so if one has a fault, all 12
channels have to be removed for fixing.
4. The SSL is easily repaired and serviced, as eq, dynamics etc are on
internal cards and are 'discrete' (i.e., easily repaired components)
The AWS components are 'surface mounted' (i.e. stamped onto the PCB
by machine) which requires special tools to remove and resolder. It
is really only repairable in the factory.
5. The SSL has an external power supply which can either be fixed or
replaced if it has a fault (all our desks are supplied with completely
rebuilt power supplies which are guarranteed for a year and will last
for decades)
The AWS has a built-in switch mode power supply. If this developes
a fault, the entire desk must go back to SSL to be fixed.
6. The SSL sounds like an SSL - full bodied and positive.
The AWS sounds like an AWS - much less powerful than an SSL
The SSL cost in excess of £150,000 when new (at a time when £150,000
was worth far more than it is today). It is innevitable that the build quality and
performance are far higher than a desk costing £37,000 today.

On the downside, the SSL requires more installation, will need occasional
servicing and draws more power. However, it will last far longer than an
AWS and is a fully professional piece of equipment.
Best Wishes
Mark

Now, I think this is a pretty fair assessment. You may dissagree, but we all have our opinions. Equally, though, I can't see my comments about the ASW as being particularly negative. It is what it is, we sell quite a few and for a whole variety of modern day useage, it's the perfect tool for the job. But come on - the AWS is to a 4000 what a Smart Car is to a BMW. You get what you pay for, and SSL made their reputation with the 4000, which is a beautifully designed, engineered and sounding console.

The point of this blurb is that it seems that my email found its way into the hands of the sales department at SSL, who were offended, outraged, pricked. Now, quite apart from the fact that I am miffed when an email of mine is circulated without my consent, I see nothing in any way offensive in my comments. Actually, I'm pretty laid back about my mails doing the rounds; I'm always honest in my comments (whether in private or on the website), express a fair opinion and am happy to stand by that. I will never say one thing to one person and another behind their back. With me, what you see is what I am (a blunt northerner, I guess).

This anecdote is symptomatic of the age we live in, sadly. When I first became involved with the industry, the monthly bible was a magazine called Studio Sound. All my fellow engineers turned straight to the reviews section to read about the latest recording equipment. And we believed what we read. Why? Because the reviewers were honest. If a piece of gear sucked, they said so. If it shone, they said so. If it sparkled but lacked lustre in certain areas, they said so. And when we got our hands on that bit of kit we found...the reviews were spot on. In the interests of fairness, Studio Sound allowed the manufacturer or distributor the right of reply. But what often happened was that the manufacturer took these technical reviews seriously and rectified the faults, making their gear fit for purpose. Thus Studio Sound were in no small way responsible for much of the excellent vintage gear still happily in use or trading hands today.

Now, compare this with the modern review. I can tell you as a fact that the more filthy lucre a company spends advertising in the 'Pro Audio' rags, the better will be the reviews for their products. We call this 'Advertorial' and it's an open secret in the trade that these days, to all intents and purposes, good reviews and purchased rather than earned. Indeed, I can quote a number of new products that we've had in our hands with serious design faults - mics that are inherently noisy, compressors that distort if the threshold is set above one, eq's that don't eq - yet these units have received five star ratings in so called respectable magazines.

Yes, bro, integrity went out of the shop window years ago.

And this is why I stand by the comments I make, when asked, in correspondence with customers. I won't gild the lilly. I won't polish an electronic turd to generate a sale. I am an opinionated snob and proud of it. Because audio gems deserve the highest praise and sewage deserves none.

I like SSL consoles. I like the mind that conceived them, the skills that made them, the ears that use them, the ethos that sustains them. Strangely, I also like the AWS900, even though on day one, when a company representative showed me the mock up, I pointed out a series of shortcomings - the lack of even simple in line monitoring, the lack of dynamics, the switch mode power supply, the non- modular construction, the surface mounted components. And the rep's response? He agreed with every damned point, but added...'It's not supposed to be a proper SSL. It's built to a price.'

The AWS is a valuable tool for modern recording. But it ain't an SSL 4000. And if those within SSL take the hump at this simple truth, then I pity them. They should take pride in the history of the company, in past acheivements and in the fact that so many of their great desks remain in daily use rather than nosing around in private correspondence.
SSL is dead. Long live SSL.
Eccentric

Cool... we need to talk economics... I have been reading Wall Street
Journal daily and am convinced that Wall Street hype is ficticious wealth
created on paper only, by CEO's, investment banker types making $35M a
year and a fucking bonus on top for company's they put into the dirt. It
is all bullshit... capitalism at its worst.

Have a good day.

Best regards,
___________________
michael nehra

Mike,

I'm an old fashioned commie bastard (actually, an anarcho syndicalist) but I must leap to the defense of capitalism (also being a capitalist pig by virtue of my businesses).

What went on in the last decade is fraud, not capitalism. Rather than a free market, the market was distorted by an unregulated banking system that invented ways of turning thin air into massive profits by the simple expedient of lending money that didn't exist to people who couldn't repay. You, I or my brainless cat could do much the same just so long as a) we didn't tell the outside world what we were up to and b) we wore slick suits, kept a confident grin on our faces and hid behind the facade of respectability.

These bankers knew exactly what they were doing and were very well aware that the whole pack of cards would collapse one day; it had to. But until it did...they pocketed massive 'commission' bonuses on fantastic paper profits (liken Enron, these profits were not actually banked, but rather represented potential future profits over twenty five years, all booked into the year when the deals were written rather than the long term when the capital and interest was paid and actual profits generated). They didn't care that it was a scam; the loopholes in the system allowed them to get away with it, and get away with it they did, becoming billionaires in the process. Indeed, there are still thousands of fat cats making millions through 'hedging' on collapsing stocks and currencies and doing their utmoset to perpetuate the phoney doom and gloom that fills the media.

I have two concerns; firstly, that these rip off merchants won't be bought to book. The system will protect them. There are most definitely many that should be behind bars for fraud. Secondly, western government policy is designed to try to recreate the economic falsity of the last ten years by printing money and mortaging our futures to prop up a failed system.

That economic model didn't work, hence our current woes. So why try to recreate it? Why prop up car manufacturing plants (for example) when quite obviously the world doesn't need so many new cars? Vehicle sales have fallen by 50% in the last year. Who is hurting? So you and I squeeze an extra year or two out of our existing motor (in fact, I drive a £300 1992 BMW 320 and wouldn't change it for the world). No...we can get by. And so I resent mortgaging my kids future to subsidise car plants to make motors that no one wants or needs. The excuse is to avoid unemployment. Great. So why not make tractors and combine harvesters and GIVE them to the third world? It will cost us the same, but would bring real benefit to whole populations who could then increase crop production, improve their standards of living and buy UK made compressors and mixing consoles when their economies flourish down the line.

Mike, we all got screwed. To quote The Who...'We won't get screwed again...' Or rather, to quote Gordon Brown, we will.

We're about to experience a Groundhog Day as the spivs regroup to embark on a second round of fraud.

A plague on all the politician's houses.

M

It’s depressing to see the New Year kick off with another bout of man’s inhumanity to man.

Pictures of twenty-first century war machines raining terror on trapped civilians in Gaza leaves me feeling numb and wondering just how far civilisation has come in the last ten thousand years.

Irrespective of anyone’s political views, I can see no justification whatsoever for the indiscriminate carnage currently being waged in Palestine.

Two wrongs can never make a right. Additionally, such brutality is surely counter-productive and must lead to another generation of (rightly?) embittered terrorists. More than anything, though, I am sickened to the pit of my stomach by the implied lack of value placed upon an Arab life in relation to an Israeli or American (or European?). All life is precious – by far the most precious commodity on this ravaged planet of ours. I can only hope that within my lifetime I see equal weight given to the hopes, dreams, aspirations and lives of my third and second world brothers and sisters as we currently bestow upon our immediate neighbours.

Closer to home, we enter a new year of economic madness, and this concerns me. Maybe it is part and parcel of the distorted value system propagated by the media (as witnessed in their attitudes toards the Middle East and parts of Africa), but we run a serious risk of losing a rare opportunity to rectify the mistakes of past decades.

Let me elaborate…

We are experiencing the collapse of mammon, in the form of the discrediting of a financial system that feeds on greed. For twenty years, since the Thatcher/Reagan ‘revolution’, the free market has run riot, untrammelled by regulatory constraints or moral concerns. Profit has been the be-all and end-all of finance, to the point where fortunes have been made by manufacturing phoney margins from non-existent deals. First Enron collapsed as strings of spurious accounting paperchains unravelled, and now we see a slump in consumer confidence following the widespread realisation that the dodgy commercial instruments invented by banks and hedge funds – derivatives, inflated asset values and speculative gambles – have no more substance than the hot air promulgated by our political masters.

My concern is that measures are being taken in our name by our representatives that are not designed to deal with our economic problems, but rather to restore the discredited status quo. Billions of pounds are being pumped into banks around the world to enable them to continue as before. Huge subsidies are being offered to automobile plants to enable them to continue to produce vehicles that we, the public, no longer want to buy. Efforts are afoot to force banks to offer loans to house buyers (and most obviously, Rackmanite buy-to-let landlords) to force property prices back up to previously inflated levels.

The reality is that we’ve rumbled the pointlessness of this false economic model. We want banks to be somewhere safe to invest our wages and to make modest profits by carefully lending any surplus to secure borrowers. We don’t need a new 4x4 every year. The old car is good enough to last for a few more years. And we’ve decided that a flat or a house is somewhere to live rather than a sky-rocketing investment to make property speculators into overnight millionaires. In other words, we see that we were flogged a dream that didn’t measure up in the cold light of day.

We won’t get fooled again.

So let these profligate bankers and hedge funds go to the wall. And if Ford, GM and Chrysler can’t sort out their businesses, let them fold. And if this makes hands idle, how about growing food on fallow land to replace the costly imports that deny impoverished farmers abroad a local market. If I need a car, I’ll keep the one I have alive. And if the property market goes into free fall, why, hopefully the government will snap up a few hundred thousand bargains and let them out for an affordable rent, just as councils did back in the old days.

The unregulated market has failed. In any event, we were never players in the get-rich-quick game, but rather two-legged lumps of product for the Masters of the Universe to manipulate.

There is another model that I much prefer. It is a system that puts the needs of society before those of the privileged, a system that regards homelessness as a scandal and greedy landlords as profiteers. It is a system that cares more about the careful use of resources than unbridled consumption. It is a system where money is the product of endeavour rather than a poker stake for the rich.

We have seen the financial and consumer experiments of the last twenty years collapse in abject failure. We should be given the option of a new philosophy, a more inclusive way forwards, a plan for the future that is based upon partnership with the third world and the just division of our limited resources. But no…instead, we are being asked to mortgage our children’s futures for another dose of more-of-the-same.

I am not happy with decisions being taken in my name and with my money but without my consent.

Stop and think about what’s going on. And don’t believe the media when you’re told that there is no alternative to Gordon ‘Chubby’ Brown’s profligate plans. After all, who controls the papers and our TV screens? Yes – got it in one… those same fat cats who have benefited so greatly at our expense in recent years. And of course they want a return to how it was then.

If music be the food of love, play on. After all, it may be the only food you can afford in years to come.

Oh…and Happy New Year.

Eccentric

Methinks Guy ‘Fingers’ Hands has problems at EMI. Big, big problems.

If so…yippee.

Hands made billions (this year’s favourite word) from buying up old fashioned companies, sacking half the staff, parachuting in overpaid, jumped-up management, squeezing the margins until the pips squeaked and then doubling his money by flogging the shell onto gullible stock exchange investors.

Sorry, did I say his money?

No…these flashy arbitrage merchants borrow dosh from shady investment vehicles – hedge funds and merchant banks – who want in on the glorious action.

But Hands’ ego took him a bridge too far. Not content with wanting a collection of Beatles albums, he eyed up EMI, outbid all his more experienced rivals and lashed more than a billion bucks too much on the creaking carcass (this, by his own admission). He then arrogantly told us all how the music business should be run, instituted his theories, bought in the usual pack of know-it-all top brass and…has been losing dosh hand over fist ever since (no pun intended. Damn it – yes, every pun intended)

EMI have both feet in the grave. With two months to go to replace the massive loans from Citi Bank that funded the buyout, there isn’t a Cowell’s chance in hell that Hands can bridge the massive gap between what he owes and what any prudent lender will advance for his ailing business. The company will be divvied up, the parts flogged off and the last UK major record company will end up as a logo on a cheap Chinese toaster.

You’re a real swell guy, Guy. Here’s hoping you go bankrupt along with those thousands of banker mates (that’s banker with a capital W) whom you ponce around with.

The downside is the human carnage this man’s ego will wreak. And it’s started already.

On Monday, the staff and tenants of Olympic studio were given two weeks notice to vacate the building. As of the end of December, this world famous facility will be no more.

In itself, this is sad, sad news. I hate to see any studio close, let alone one with such an historic pedigree. To be honest, though, it’s been on the cards for a while. And this makes the manner of the closure all the more outrageous.

Hands’ management style is straight from the Gordon Gecko school of Greed Is Good. There are ways and means of dealing with such a sensitive issue, but the way the EMI top brass have handled the studio closure is puke-making in the extreme.

Almost all the staff at Olympic signed on the EMI payroll when Hands was stuffing his lardy face in the Tuck Shop at prep school. Most certainly, all the tenants of the dozen or so producer suites at the studio were making great records when Hands was raping Autobahn service stations in Germany to make his first billion (and causing massive unrest by replacing the traditional menus with high margin junk food).

So what did he do? Be honourable and pop down to the studio for a chat with his long serving staff? Arrange a meeting with the producer tenants?

No. The tenants of the various white rooms at Olympic have received a terse legal letter advising them to vacate the building within two weeks or else… Oh, and a note adds that should they leave any equipment in their rooms, EMI reserves the right to sell it without discussion or recourse. The equipment doesn’t belong to EMI. It belongs to the tenants. The tenants have leases, summarily ripped up by Hands and his hatchet men.

Theft plus Rachmanism equals the brave new free enterprise economy.

So the staff go on the dole, the tenants are thrown out on the street and their worldly goods sold off to fatten the depleted coffers of this dashing entrepreneur.

Happy Christmas, folks.

Nice Guy…does he remind you of anyone?

Maybe the name Scrooge comes to mind?

A plague on all his houses…

I lost a guitar this morning – one of my prized collection – but thankfully tracked it down tonight. I must stop lending so much of my gear out.

And then we got hammered with a five figure sum for duty and freight for new US made a console purely because the manufacturer had failed to follow our detailed shipping instructions, as a result of which the fees were twice what they should have been. And this means that we’ve put nine months hard work into a deal (with installation and commissioning to come) for a negative payback. Let’s hope the government spends their undeserved bonus on something worthwhile rather than another junket to sunny climes for one of their ‘Summit Conferences’ (otherwise described as a jolly back-slapping jaunt).

One of the few fallouts of the credit crunch then bit us in the bum as a regular client got in touch to apologise for a lengthy delay in paying for an SSL we’ve been refurbishing for him. It seems that his life savings were invested in an Icelandic bank and he’s still wrestling various authorities to retrieve his dosh. He’s been offered a truckload of herring as compensation, but that’s not going to liberate his desk from our workshops.

Oh, and then there’s all yesterday'se budgetary nonsense as the UK government comes up with more ill-conceived panic measures to resolve economic problems of their own making.

Firstly, there is a loudly trumpeted reduction in levels of UK VAT, from the dizzy heights of 17.5% to the subterranian low of 15%, the upshot of which will be…bugger all. The majority of retail outlets won’t vary their existing VAT inclusive prices for the simple reason that all their wares are already rounded up or down to the nearest quid. And what real difference does two and a half percent make, anyway? No. The reduction will just sweeten the margins of the high street chain stores, and add to their bottom line. Joe Public won’t see any difference. Of course, our prices don’t include VAT, so any reduction is automatically passed on. But then we’re a pretty transparent bunch. With Funky, you know what you’re paying, and what you get.

If Gordon ‘Chubby’ Brown really wanted to pump money into the consumer economy, there is a simple measure he could have taken to inject cash straight in the tills – reintroduce student grants.

If every student in the country was given an annual grant of ten grand, the cash would be spent in the flicker of an eyelid in bars, gigs and shops up and down the country. At a stroke, the government would have fulfilled the twin advantages of giving students enough dough to scrape through the year and injecting cash in the jugular of the economy. This windfall wouldn’t be invested abroad and it wouldn’t be stuffed under mattresses. No, it would be splashed about immediately on necessities and get the high street tills ringing overnight.
It’s a thought…

I've been off air lately, for which I appologise. It's just that...

I've been riveted by the US election coverage, channel flippig between the newbunnies and teletotty of CNN, Foxx (for some whacky utterly biased McCainery) and even the grizzlies on BBC (why does Kirsty Wark dress like a hooker these days?)

Tonight wil be a late one for me, glued to the goggle box.

I guess this is probably the most seminal election in my lifetime. I really do feel that for once, the US could be guided by someone with a genuine understanding of the world outside the narrow confines of America. And that might - just possibly - bring the most powerful economy the world has ever known into the twenty first century. And we need this desperately. Within a decade China will be the new powerhouse with India close behind. The latent resources of Africa promise a revolution in that blighted continent. And if we have a leader in the West with the vision to understand that resources and energy must be put into resolving conflicts, whether in the middle east, Africa or Eastern Europe, there is hope for our children and our children's children and...

What happens tonight may shape the world we live in for the better.

We can but hope.

Eccentric

A note from Funkyville...
For my sins I rarely visit these pages, but made an exception during a recent idle credit-crunch moment.
This thread displays much of the confusion about shopping for equipment that I encounter frequently, which is hardly surprising. After all, no outlet can ever claim to be all things to all men; one size doesn't fit all, whatever the marketing nurds might want us to believe.
Customers want different things from their suppliers. There are those who merely want the lowest price and of course they can google forever, saving a nickle here and a dime elsewhere. That's a valid approach. Then there are those who want advice on a particular link in the chain. Always remember that any such advice is ultimately opinion (albeit based upon experience not merely of using a wide range of equipment but also knowledge of how the gear performs over a period, which is crucial; we see more broken equipment in our service department than any other dealer in Europe or possibly the world, and believe me there is a lot of very poorly made but sexy looking kit out there...)
Companies such as Funky, KMR and the others mentioned in these threads do our best not merely to offer impartial guidence but also to stress the important of trying before you buy. After all, it's ultimately how the musician or engineer perceives the sound that matters more than all the Slutzwords or sales-blurb in the world.
But there are other considerations that perhaps don't perculate into the buyers consciousness, but which are, from an experienced seller's standpoint, equally crucial.
There are items of equipment that we at Funky don't stock, and moreover which we won't stock. We take our after sales responsibilities extremely seriously; indeed, we spend over £100,000 a year maintaining a service department staffed by some of the most experienced techs in Europe to give our customers unrivalled support. After all, our clients are professionals who rely upon their gear for their living, so if a piece of equipment goes down, it is our responsibility to get it working immediately. And we've learnt over fifteen years that there are makes of equipment too troublesome to sell with any confidence. So we don't sell them. Sure, we won't slag them off - it's for the buyer to learn the lessons him or herself - but we can live without that level of grief, and prefer our customers to lead an equally hastle free existence.
We experience more problems with the new equipment we sell than the used, in no small part because our service department is efficient in carefully refurbishing the used gear that comes through. However, the unsuspecting musical public would be alarmed at the high proportion of new gear that is 'dead out of the box', particularly from some of the more expensive and boutique manufacturers. Many readers will know exactly what I mean. So selling equipment is only part of the story; offering prompt, professional support is, in our book, the be-all and end-all of equipment supply. Our clients appreciate this, and we're fortunate in having a large and loyal professional client base. And yes, we may get a little dispondent and appparently lackadaisical when we get callers concerned first, last and foremost with price. And of course we know that plenty of callers will ultimately buy directly from Mike at Vintage King or Fletcher at Mercenary in the belief that they'll save a few bucks, and why not? This stuff is expensive (I can't afford to buy the gear I sell!) But...if readers could see the volume of new or nearly new equipment sent to us for repair that has been directly imported, they'd realise the risks they run.
Of course, we can't finance our service department and sell equipment virtually at cost, but then this isn't our business. Ultimately we offer a service that includes keen prices, experienced advice, large purpose built demonstration facilities and comprehensive after sales (with over £80,000 of spare parts, to say nothing of £30,000 of state of the art test equipment). It's horses for courses. I won't claim that everyone wants or needs what we offer, and equally I won't criticise those with a different business model (but next time you speak to you usual supplier, just ask how many service techs he has ON STAFF; not freelances available at a few days notice, but in-house techs on hand for an immediate fix).
So it's important not to compare like with like. If you know what you want and are happy to take a risk, by all means shop wherever you can to get what you perceive to be the best deal. I have no problems with that. Alternatively, Nicky and Keith at KMR or many of the DV guys will offer a combination of good prices and good, professional advice (as, of course, do we). Vive la difference - long live competition. It keeps us all on our toes. But if you aspire to something a little more and want a bespoke rig, a room designing, building or kitting out, then there is an altogether different infrastructure of professionals who have spent a lifetime doing just this. It's an area where experience and technical qualifications are everything, as we find constantly when called in to resolve problems caused by bluffers who profess to be room designers or installation engineers.
Ultimately, the point of this rather too wordy note is to confirm everything that has gone before in this post - there are just as many levels of service as there are customer requirements, from box shifting to (say) the design and outfitting of a major new theatre in Nigeria or advising on a business plan, includng the refitting, of an international studio in South Africa (both of which projects I'm currently consulting on). In between, and every bit as important, are the needs of a musician in Rochdale going out on a limb to build his first modest recording studio or the guy in Croydon wanting to spice up his home recording rig. Alll are important, all warrant the same amount of time and attention and all are spending what is (for them) a huge amount of dosh on a project that they cannot afford to fail.
One size does not fit all. No company (or musician, come to that) is perfect. And just as there is no right or wrong way to record a vocal (up to a point) there is no perfect way to satisfy a customer's demands. All I would say is that every dealer I've seen mentioned in this thread is honest, is conscientous and does their utmost to offer the client the best equipment he or she can at the most affordable price.
We are all part of the same tight community of recordists, united by a love of music and a passion for audio quality. And I don't doubt that from time to time we all make mistakes. Equally, I have no doubt that we all bust our guts seeking to rectify these, lying awake at night worrying if a customer loses a single minute in downtime.
I am saddened by the culture of slagging gear, people, producers or dealers off on so many chatrooms, which is why I probably log on so rarely. Rather than revel in mean spiritedness, I much prefer to praise the generosity of so many in this industry who have taught me over the years, shared their tips and techniques and gone out of their way to encourage and assist my own musical journey. We are, as I said, all lucky to be members of such an open and generous community.
So shop around, my fellow Slutz. Decide what you want and need and you'll find someone out there able to supply. But is ain't a competition - the Gear Olympics. We sell creative tools for a creative job done by creative people and by and large, I'm honoured to fulfil that role.
Eccentric

I make no apologies for the somewhat theoretical nature of my last few posts. After all the collapse of capitalism and the end of the world as we know it doesn’t happen very often, does it? Er…not that it’s actually happened now, despite all the hysteria filling the front pages and the gleeful hand-rubbing manifested by a host of round the clock rolling-news stations.

A few weeks ago, I made the case for the government taking shares in financial institutions rather than merely handing over our financial future will-nilly (just as a year ago I pointed out the logic behind nationalising Northern Rock to ensure the valuable mortgage assets were protected and allowed to mature, to the advantage of all). Similarly, my last post argued for the reintroduction of stringent controls and oversight of the banking and related sectors.

Hey presto – and so it came to pass. But as Gordon ‘Chubby’ Brown smugly basks in the glory of saving our financial souls, I feel it only fair to point out that if smeggy muso in North London can spot the logic behind such moves, our government can hardly claim to be either visionary or radical in pressing the only buttons that realistically should be pressed. In other words, the scandal is that any alternative options should ever have been considered – that there should ever have been a debate about what steps to take.

If you stand on the railway tracks watching an express train bear down on you, it is hardly innovative thinking to jump out of the way. That so many argued in favour of staying put in case the inevitable disaster might be avoided by, say, the express dematerialising prior to the point of impact, is a condemnation of the paucity of economic and political common sense. Of course we had to step aside. There was no option.

By the end of the year, the ‘banking crisis’ that has so preoccupied the media will be a fading memory. We will, however, be facing something altogether more real – a problem that will start to impact each and every one of us, a crisis moreover that has been brewing for a decade (and one which I drew attention to nine months ago) – a recession marked by rising unemployment and inflation.

By and large, we no longer make anything in this country that the rest of the world particularly wants. This is no accident. Rather, the UK has quite deliberately fostered a spiv economy in recent years.

London has grown to become the world’s leading financial centre. The skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and the Carbuncles dominating the City skyline are home to just those Slick-Willy operators who have traded derivatives, written dodgy mortgages and splashed out cheap credit cards, which lie at the root of our current financial ills. But those days have gone. We are now entering a period of payback. We are already seeing a degree of financial caution enter the economy as you and I reduce our extended credit cards and overdrafts, stop borrowing against the inflated value of our homes (if we’re lucky enough to own one) and generally become more cautious about debt. Oh, sure – there’s plenty of dosh available for those who want to borrow, despite claims of credit crunch and frozen liquidity. After all, we have a fat, inflated banking sector that relies upon lending to justify its existence and generate the obscene profits required to cover its massive overheads. Easy money still slops around the system, the big difference being that we, the people, won’t get fooled again.

It’s payback time – literally.

Hmmm…therein lies a pretty big problem for Chubby’s hard-pressed exchequer. Because the UK economy is now driven by the financial sector and the easy taxes skimmed off their massive profits. Once those profits turn to losses and the financial sector shrinks to more sensible proportions, the government will have a massive black hole in its coffers. And how do we fill the gap?

By borrowing. A nation already in hock will lurch ever deeper into debt.

Manufacturing industry has been sacrificed over the last twenty years in favour of a strong pound (required to attract money into the country, or rather the City, from foreign investors). Education has been geared towards the so-called service industries (another euphemism for banking, insurance and the like). Indeed, our schools and universities now turn out more economists than engineers, physicists, chemists or linguists combined – a deliberate policy to feed the insatiable needs of the mushrooming banking industry. And a fat lot of good they've done us. Closer to home, it is not just factories that have closed. Where has the tax relief for the UK film industry gone? Why have we never seen any government support for the record industry, one of this country’s most successful export industries? Indeed, our creative industries have been increasingly run like banks, relying upon easy money from repackaging back catalogue or the ticker-tape of publishing receipts rather than investing time, talent and resources into developing the next generation of long-term creative talent required to bring precious foreign currency back to the country.

We are entering tough times, my friends. We have exported our manufacturing industries to the US, to China, to the Tiger economies of South East Asia. And in return? In return we’ve allowed financial services to drive the economy with their opaque sharp practices and dodgy derivatives.

The recession will be altogether more severe in the UK than in mainland Europe. It will bite deeper and will last longer. We’ll suffer higher unemployment and greater inflation than our trading partners who kept banking regulations in place, true to traditional lending and borrowing criterea.

Those who’ve spotted the signs will realise that if anything, I’m an adherent of Keynesian economic theory. Simply stated, John Maynard Keynes advocated that in difficult times, governments should borrow in order to invest in the national infrastructure – roads, schools, hospitals, education and suchlike. The upshot is the creation of jobs, which in turn ensures that consumers have continuing incomes to ensure that the economy stays buoyant while at the same time creating long-term assets of value which will generate the funds required to repay the debt. Sure, that’s a simplistic overview of the great man’s thinking, but it is relevant to what we’re about to face. Because with shrinking tax revenues, an explosion of expensive government debt resulting from the non-productive bank bail-out and a fragile manufacturing base, we will need all the help we can get to sustain our economy and maintain employment. A programme of state spending on public services is the only viable answer.

The problem is that we’ve already committed ourselves to borrowing billions to save the profligate lifestyles of the bloody bankers. Money that could have been invested in education, the NHS, roads, flood relief and a score of other essential projects has been used to buy shares in the Royal Bank Of Bleeding Scotland. So to raise additional funds brings great risk, and most particularly the risk of inflation.

The only way to realistically raise the money we need is to effectively print the stuff. This will have an immediate side effect of reducing the value of the currency, and as the pound sinks against the Dollar, the Yuan, the Yen and the Euro, imports will cost us more, including food and essential raw materials. Oh, of course this will mean that our exports will be correspondingly cheaper abroad but…what the hell do we have left to export? Cars? Forget it. Intellectual property? See my comments about record companies and movies above. Brainpower? Not now our education system is so far behind the rest of the developed world.

No, we must combine forthcoming economic measures with help for manufacturing industry, particularly exporters, and massive well directed investment in education - in traditional skills and trades rather than yet more feeble academic cop-outs such as Media Studies, Photography and Muffin Munching. Because unless we can reap the benefits of a falling pound by raising productivity and renewing our manufacturing base, we’ve had it. The economic decline will be long term. We will have sacrificed our children’s standard of living in return for a ludicrous short-term fix for the banks.

I could write at even greater length about the current crisis, but will do what I can to move on. In particular, I have a thousand questions welling up about the state of our recording industry at present, the impact of new technology and the means of delivery, possible ways of rebuilding what remains a uniquely creative and positive branch of UK industry and the extent to which access to the means of production (in other words – gear) is resulting in a revolution in the provision of high quality production values to musicians and engineers at an affordable cost.

These topics are linked to the overall state of our present and future economy, and the way that the unique and extraordinary talent we produce on these shores offers a very real role for the UK in the world economy of the future. I’ve been luck to have received several exceptional CD’s lately, made by artists in their homes or by their friends. What is missing is the business infrastructure required to add an extra level of production values and then deliver to the market on a basis that will provide a reasonable return and allow these artists to make a living from their music in order to devote the time and resources required to take their talent to the next level.

We have an extraordinary amount of musical talent in this small island. It is a scandal that the greatest music industry in the world has for so long turned its back upon such outstanding ability in favour of short-term, fast-buck returns.

There must be another way forwards, and I believe there is. Hopefully I can generate some ideas and stimulate a debate that might result in a community of original thought to address the double-edged problems of developing Internet technologies and transforming moribund business thinking. Perhaps together we can offer some radical solutions to basic problems that the modern music industry so woefully fails to address.

In other words…onwards and upwards rather than backwards and downwards.

Eccentric