Hi Phil!

Thanks for the kind thoughts. I'm glad it all worked for you. Nice how the whole thing ties together so well, isn't it?

Best regards,

Dave

Dave,

It is great to see many of my classmates have signed your guest book. M,P &E 1989.
As a clinical chemist going to Berklee and having you as a teacher really solidified music for me. Then years later finding the Schillinger System and putting math and music together really made music click.

Peace,
Phil DiTullio

Mr. Moulton,

I can't thank you enough for this website and all of your wonderful information! I will be buying/reading your book.

Sincerely,

Mike Nelson

Hey Dave,
I'm an audio engineering student at NESCOM. I'm a big fan of your book, it's a great resource, very readable, and I keep re-reading it and getting more out of it.

This summer and over the course of the fall semester, I will be producing, recording, mixing, and mastering an album for a string quartet for my senior project. I'd like to know what your experience has been for stereo and/or surround recording of similar projects. If you could point me to articles that you or other people have done on the subject, that would be great

I've gotten to try out some of the stereo techniques you list in the book, and so far the one I like best is mid-side, but I'm not sold on any one technique(I'll be doing some more tests to try to make up my mind). I'd like to try out some kind of surround recording set up too, and I'm also thinking about setting up a dummy head to try out binaural recording to see how that sounds. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, Jake

Hi David!

Is there anyone in Fredonia that would be willing to help my 86 year old Father-in-Law set up a new turntable? I set him up with a new Numark TT with SPU cartridges for stereo and 78's from KAB. It looked to be plug & play but there is some wire attachments and setup adjustments. He has been in touch with a store in Buffalo to do it but he will no longer drive there alone. He is an interesting fellow, a music and jazz (pre-bop) anthologist with an archive of vinyl that may be of interest to the University after he is done transferring his favorites to CD on the recorder we just bought him.

Thanks for your attention, alan

Hi, My family also attended Juilliard. Maybe we played in the School Orchestra ? My dad had a small recording studio AC Recording and Electronics, He is now retired. ,,,,Great Articles. Thanks. 'JoJo' Chen

Hi Steve!

Thanks for your kind thoughts regarding Mid/Side thinking. Actually, you need to thank Bob Ludwig, who turned me on to it as a way of thought about stereo, as opposed to just a trick used for a certain coincident stereo microphone configuration. Also, thanks to IzoTope, for a beautiful implementation of the concept in Ozone4.

Thanks Bob! Thanks Izo!

Best regards,

Dave

Mr. Moulton,
I meandered my way over here from an article of yours that was posted on iZotope's web site concerning Mid/Side thinking, and was compelled to comment. I'm about as green in the art/science of mastering as can be found, and have thrown myself head first into this adventure mainly through the necessity of mixing and mastering a demo album for my rather diverse 4 piece modern rock band.

The many marathon reading sessions on the subjects of mixing and mastering have taught me quite a lot. However, your article on Mid/Side thinking really struck a chord (no pun intended). It eloquently put to words what I've been chasing for decades, since my first home-made analog circuit I assembled on stripboard back when I was 16 that essentially amplified the difference signal and cut out the Mid content! I've been making mix tapes and CDs for personal listening using this 9V gadget of mine (and a recent C++ all-digital adaptation) and suddenly I feel vindicated! No more shameful sessions of digging into commercial mixes spanning 30-40 years listening for deep-buried details! I've been a closet Mid-Sider for decades and have suddenly seen my affliction given an official name, and I can now be proud of it!

I'll no doubt be spending a great deal of time on your site soaking up as much knowledge from the multitude of articles, so I'll issue my thanks in advance. In the meantime, I have some fresh Stereo material to go listen to... digging into L-R material no longer seems as illicit and forbidden as it used to. LOL!
All the best.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Rob! I'm glad you're finding the website and articles useful. That was my hope!

Best regards,

Dave

Dave,
Thanks for all the great information. I think I've learned more from reading your papers, as well as those of your associates, than I have from the many books I've read, classes I've attended and the evening internship I did some years ago. Your articles have cleared up a lot of conflicting information I've acquired over time and they translate well to real world application too.

Best wishes,
Rob

Thanks for the kind thoughts! I'm glad my efforts have proved useful for you! Keep smiling, and remember, up is still louder.

Dave

Dave,

I'm neck deep in cables and wire, soldering iron in my hand... and the pink noise emanating from the mixing stage next door makes me think of those days back at Berklee nearly 20 years ago, taking your ear training classes in the evenings in that small little classroom with the super green shag carpet... Loved that carpet!

Roger Fearing and I are currently wiring the new mixing stages and classrooms for the new Cinematic Arts Building at USC, and often your name has come up in conversation... The things we've learned from you are still saving our butts to this day. I can't possibly thank you enough for making our audio education so fun and inspiring! If you ever get to see the mixing rooms in the George Lucas Building, just know that your wisdom helped Roger and I make it through that installation! Thanks Dave!

-Ken Miller

Hi Dave -- long-time follower and big fan. I love "Total Recording", "Golden Ears" "Relative Pitch" and "Perfect Pitch... I have them all. I'm currently trying to hunt down a copy of Volume 1 of the Platinum Series lectures. Can you sell me one? Thanks!

And Happy New year!!!

Dave,

I spent New Year's Day reading your ear training tutorial posted on the AES website, and your many informative and enlightening articles here. "So Ya Wanna Learn About Audio?" brought back memories of my first week at Brandeis U, which permitted undergrads of the liberal arts to design their own major. I always loved music and science, so I promptly went to the admin building an announced my intention to concentrate in Acoustics, combining courses from the music and physics departments. The advisor looked confused, and after some further discussion concluded that the best thing for me would be to transfer to MIT or "some other technical school."

Happy New Year to all!

Dave,
What a kick to see and hear of your successes. I always knew you would be the ultimate music-geek.

Your article in the Dec 3 TV Tech was very interesting but you left out one point that ticks me off. The LOUDNESS of some commercials. The producers must be living in the 1960's.
They forget that we now have remotes and can either lower the sound or MUTE it with out getting off the couch. I have my remote near me at all times
I do enjoy reading your thoughts
Happy holidays and a healthy New Year to you and yours.
Gene Karlin

Dave, It's been so long and we have gone so many different ways, though both taught at one SUNY or another. I still listen to and play the recordings I made with you at Dondisound around 73-74 or so and still appreciate the work you did. Thank you. After a long hiatus I am back to playing and songwriting and hoping to get part of the career I gave up to teach.

My very best to you.

I just wanted to drop a line to say how much I'm loving reading all the articles on this site. It's such a wonderful thing to read thoughts and comments that go beyond the usual journalistic mumbo-jumbo. Insight just never seems to be a popular attraction.

I'm just a home enthusiast, dying to learn more about recordings and how to record better and all the cool arcanum of recording, most of what I read here is beyond my scope, but I love to learn by osmosis.

Thanks for making all this available!

Dave,

I was an MP&E student 1987-89, during which you took over the reins for Don Puluse. In addition to being a disciple of Wayne Wadhams and Robin Coxe-Yeldham,I also remember you fondly as someone with an unquenchable passion for the craft we were there to study. Perhaps my favorite memory was your signature closing in a message to the MP&E student body (was it a newsletter, or something like that?). Your favorite quotes -- most or all of which I suspect were yours. Things like, "Remember up is louder . . . " still stick with me, though I wish I could acquire a compendium of them all.

Anyway, I happened across your site in a journey "through the neighborhood." I hope all is fine and well with you.

Best regards,

Curt Johnson
Class of '89

Dave,

I just finished reading your recent article titled "The Great Lip-Sync Dilemma" in TV Technology. Based on my experiences as a station engineer you seemed to be right-on-the-mark.

One of the problems I have run into is the uncertain and variable video delay in HD video monitors. I have seen them range from 1/2 frame to 2 frames in the stuff currently being flogged to broadcasters. The home sets are a whole different story.

In an attempt to quantitatively measure lip sync in our studio plant on the cheap (one must be mindful of the reality of budgets) I created a 1 hour DVD full of single frame bars and tone - 14 frames of black and silence, one frame of bars and tone, etc. This makes it real easy to actually measure lip-sync errors using a dual channel storage scope. For studio cameras, a monitor playing the DVD was placed in front of one along with a Lav mic for audio and the results were compared at various places through our production and distribution chain.

At that point is became a simple matter to dial in audio delay. One surprising result was that the analog output of our Wheatstone D-9 required a slightly different delay as compared to the AES outputs.

Until some sort of magical, 100% reliable, auto correction device becomes available I can state that, at the very least, we are not making things worse by passing content through our plant.

Bob