Recording Magazine
Ethan Winer wrote:
I agree, R-e/p was the best. I've thought many times about starting my
own audio magazine, and inviting knowledgeable writers like Mike
Rivers and Scott Dorsey etc to contribute. But I'm not sure how many
people actually want to learn about recording and the science of
audio.
That's a lot of the problem, yeah.
The great thing about RE/P is that it talked about the science of audio
as it was being developed. So reading it was a learning experience,
but it was learning something that was new and therefore exciting.
Now all that stuff is pretty well figured-out, so it's not exciting and
people don't feel enthused about learning it.
I assume the audio magazines poll their subscribers to know
what they want, and the result reads more like fan-boy rags than
techniques and education. It's the same in the hi-fi world. Look at
successful Stereophile versus the past failed attempts at science-
based magazine such as The Audio Critic.
From my experience, the editors tend to ignore what the subscribers say
they want. Folks call into a magazine asking for more DIY articles, and
the editors say that "Readers of DIY articles are a tiny minority, just
a really vocal and annoying one." Recording is actually better in regard
to listening to their subscribers than most of the magazines.
A lot of the magazines treat the advertisers as the customer, rather than
the subscriber. They view their job as delivering eyes to advertising.
When you're giving most of the magazines away for free, it's hard to do
anything else (which is part of why I am so impressed with Tape Op in
that they manage to give away the magazine for free WITHOUT doing this).
It seems the majority of
audio people want to be bull****ted to. They'd rather hear some well
known 20-something grunge rocker blab incoherently about technology he
doesn't understand than read an article giving solid tips and advice.
That's why I think the number one job is to educate the 20-something grunge
rockers so they can give coherent and informative interviews.
Again, the great thing about Tape Op is that they go out of their way to
interview informed people who actually understand the technology. They do
interview a lot of clueless people who spout nonsense as well, too, but
in an industry where most people are spouting nonsense it's hard to avoid
that.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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