Re: [ARSCLIST] The lowly cable puller [was Re: [ARSCLIST] audio help]

[Steven Smolian <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my experience working with "regular" engineers, the issue has alway been
one of attitude as well as skill.

Good attitude involves the concept of being as true as possible to what the
original would have sounded like, and that's part experience, part musical
and aural sensitivity.

Bad attitude involves making it "better" so it contains the thumbprint of
the engineer.

Keeping the ego out of the audio is the botom wavy line.

I believe Miss Ryver's past postings to this site place her firmly in the
"good guys" group, sometimes enchanced with technical insights others had
not addressed.

Alyssa, please keep up the good work.

Steve Smolian

.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alyssa Ryvers" <alyssa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:55 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] The lowly cable puller [was Re: [ARSCLIST] audio help]


> Gee, what to say!
>
> I'm glad we're regarded by some as good ground loop finders and cable
> pullers; I wonder if my dog would be a good truffle sniffer? Gotta try
> that sometime. She's pretty good with sheep, though.
>
> We are paid for our ears. I can simply hear things that others can't
> [consciously]. But let me tell you, there is a marked difference
> because people can hear the difference between where I put a microphone
> (for example) than where someone else does.
>
> Computers are tools. They do not replace ears and experience.
> Especially when you're dealing with material that you are likely to get
> the best audio quality from on the first pass - one would think then,
> that a heightened sense of hearing and an developed intuitive sense of
> sound and audio technology might be of value? Especially on Folkloric
> material where the living tradition is no longer in existence: seems
> critical in my opinion.
>
> Before one believes that all transfers are equal given _even_ the same
> equipment, one might consider comparisons. Certainly I can hear the
> difference.
>
> Miss. Ryvers
> www.fundamentallyhuman.com
>
> On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, at 01:54  PM, robert wasserman wrote:
>
> > Yes, I agree that many archivists are ignorant of audio, so that is
> > why we
> > need trained engineers to work with them. There is usually some
> > audio-heads
> > available on any campus that would be happy to help out part-time on
> > archival projects, some even willing to volunteer if the subject
> > interest is
> > there. We have to be careful to not make the same mistakes as in some
> > other
> > fields, such as land mapping where it is assumed software can replace
> > trained cartographers, and the output is a hard to read map without a
> > proper
> > key or scale or low resolution data is mistakenly used for high
> > resolution
> > work. By bringing more engineers into archival work is a very good
> > thing for
> > both professions.
> >
> > Robert Wasserman
> > WI Historical Society Sound Achives
> > rawasserman@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> And for Alyssa's comments about sound engineers. I'd like to hire
> >> one, but
> >> I think that for many institutions it is a stretch just to hire
> >> somebody at
> >> the curatorial level with expertise in audio media let alone an audio
> >> engineer. We do have an audio engineer in the library that I consult
> >> with
> >> regularly, but she works for another branch. In my experience,
> >> training as
> >> a sound engineer does not qualify one to do archival work, though
> >> audio
> >> people are not nearly as ignorant of archival issues as the video
> >> people
> >> are. (Why aren't you burning everything to DVD? I get that at least
> >> once a
> >> month.) The audio training is great for pulling cable and getting rid
> >> of
> >> ground loops all sorts of other important things that many archivists
> >> are
> >> terrible at, but an archival sound technician/engineer needs two
> >> kinds of
> >> training to do their job right.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >> David Seubert, Curator
> >> Performing Arts Collection
> >> Davidson Library Special Collections
> >> University of California
> >> Santa Barbara, CA  93106
> >> (805) 893-5444 Fax (805) 893-5749
> >> mailto:seubert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/pa/
> >
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