Fixing HC's NAMM coverage: a suggestion

[aclarke]

Ok, the coverage here pretty much sucks. The daily update videos have very little practical information (eg: "martin has a new Eric Clapton model, it's the seventh or ninth one they've done (end statement)". or "PRS has a new line of expensive acoustics, and they sound expensive (end statement)" ) and the dedicated videos thusfar are limited to one small corner of the industry: digital recording.

For the text-based coverage, HC has dropped the ball again. Most of the product release info on the main page right now was posted pre-NAMM.

So. A suggestion for summer NAMM:

The operators of this site have at their disposal an internet forum. The #1 Online Community For Musicians.

Get a blackberry. Or several.

Wander through the place and make a quick post to the NAMM forum. Something like:

Martin has another new Eric Clapton Sig model. Here's a picture. For more information, go to www.mguitar.com.

Pretty much the same thing you're doing in the vids, but there's less post-production involved. There's actually a lot more information, if you've got a pic and a link.

If you can swing the passes (and given the connections of HC on the corporate end, I'm sure you could), you could even go so far as to select a member from each instrument-related forum to represent that particular area. They pay expenses, you give them a blackberry and turn them loose on the floor.

Thoughts?

[Thamel]

It's a simple matter of priority and putting people on the job. I think to cover a show like NAMM really well with all the news etc. is no easy feat. Also it happened during the weekend, which means you gotta force people to work during the weekend. I dunno the inner office politics at HC, but some people have lives and families on the weekend and NAMM is less important.

I think, personally for me, I consulted several online sources: the biggest forums like gear slutz, kvr, hc, sonic state. Also youtube, audio fanzine for videos, individual companies' websites, and indie bloggers. It makes for well rounded coverage.

[MikeRivers]

Show me the money. Pay my expenses and I'll cover audio and recording products thoroughly. Don't pay my expenses and you'll get a quick summary. Where are the sponsors when we need them? ;)

Someone else can take guitars and amps.

[Anderton]

Ok, the coverage here pretty much sucks. The daily update videos have very little practical information (eg: "martin has a new Eric Clapton model, it's the seventh or ninth one they've done (end statement)". or "PRS has a new line of expensive acoustics, and they sound expensive (end statement)" ) and the dedicated videos thus far are limited to one small corner of the industry: digital recording.

That's because I was the one pretty much covering digital recording, and I was doing them back in the hotel room at night on a laptop, staying up until 4AM and then getting up at 9AM to go do breakfast meetings and grab more footage. Each video takes about an hour to produce (not counting rendering - a real time sink - conversion to flash format, and uploading to the server) and there's transfer time as well. I managed to get 11 videos done while I was at the show, which considering that I also attended the show and left Sunday afternoon, ain't bad. Since the show, I've edited and posted almost 50 videos.

For the text-based coverage, HC has dropped the ball again. Most of the product release info on the main page right now was posted pre-NAMM.

We have to get the press releases before we can post them. Many products are announced only at the show, and some are not announced at the beginning of the show, but rather later to tie in with a press conference. Many, if not most, press releases are embargoed until the show actually begins. If we ran them before the embargo date, we would never get press releases from that company again.

So. A suggestion for summer NAMM:

The operators of this site have at their disposal an internet forum. The #1 Online Community For Musicians.

Get a blackberry. Or several.

Wander through the place and make a quick post to the NAMM forum. Something like:

Martin has another new Eric Clapton Sig model. Here's a picture. For more information, go to www.mguitar.com.

But then we wouldn't be spending time grabbing video for the more detailed videos we do after the show. I think what you're saying is you'd prefer quick hits of news at the show rather than the more extensive post-show coverage; we can't do both. But if that's what people want...

Doing the math is instructive. We have two video entities, me doing the "grab and go" short videos with my camcorder, and a two-camera crew with Jon acting as the interviewer who do a lot of the artist interviews. The show lasts 111,600 seconds and there were 1,505 booths. Assuming we don't eat and can teleport ourselves instantly from one booth to another, and that the people at the booths drop everything the second we show up and pay attention only to our needs, that gives us 148 seconds per booth. But things like artist shoots can take 15-30 minutes, thus limiting the amount of time we can spend on all booths. And our download stats show the artist videos are very popular.

If you can swing the passes (and given the connections of HC on the corporate end, I'm sure you could), you could even go so far as to select a member from each instrument-related forum to represent that particular area. They pay expenses, you give them a blackberry and turn them loose on the floor.

NAMM was very strict about letting in people who did only web coverage, rejecting most of them, and limiting the number of passes available to companies. Odds are most of any people we sent would have been refused admission. Another issue is that Blackberry footage is often unuseable for audio, due to the high ambient noise levels. In my videos, there's a huge amount of post-processing to get the audio useable, and often, even when using a hand-held mic for the person talking, the noise is too high for the voice to be intelligible. Ditto lavalier mics. The MusicPlayer people had a goal of getting up 25 of your Blackberry-type videos per magazine per day, and only one magazine came even close. And don't forget with 85,000 people or so milling around, shooting conditions are difficult, to say the least.

If you want more info and a pic, then the press releases reference that. I don't know how many were up at the end of the show, but there sure are plenty now.

From a technical standpoint, it is NOT easy to cover a NAMM show. Compare HC to other sites for both quantity and quaity of videos, and you'll see what I mean. In fact, a lot of the major retailers that used to do video coverage of the show have just plain given up and aren't doing it any more.

If we could just get rid of all the attendees, though, it would be a piece of cake :)

[MoreGuitars]

In past years your coverage has been great. This year I would give a grade of F. Absolutely terrible.

Other websites have surpassed you, and I think Harmony-Central's day of the go to website for music info is over. This should be a great embarrassment to everyone in this organization. If it was my dime, heads would roll.

Craig, you are probably the most respected journalist in this industry, but what was relayed by this outfit you represent was very sub-par. I hope your group takes assessment of this for future shows.

[Anderton]

In past years your coverage has been great. This year I would give a grade of F. Absolutely terrible.

Other websites have surpassed you, and I think Harmony-Central's day of the go to website for music info is over. This should be a great embarrassment to everyone in this organization. If it was my dime, heads would roll.

It would be helpful to have some specifics as to what made the previous years great and this year's terrible. In previous years, we had far fewer videos and press releases posted during the show or after the show than this year. The pace of getting both up was faster this year than at any other time in HC's history, and a lot of the effort we expended was to get this kind of coverage up as fast as possible.

As I type this here are 64 videos in the theater (with four more about to go live) and it's been only three and half days since the show ended. I really don't think that's an embarrassing rate for editing, producing, rendering, converting, uploading, and making them go "live." Sure, we could eliminate the musical themes, the cutaways, the cleaning up of the audio, etc. and get more up there; but we'd like to think most people would prefer a produced video that takes a day or two longer to go live than just slamming footage straight off the camera. Then again, maybe we're wrong and people don't care all that much.

If the argument is that we should spend more time doing things at the show then collecting footage for assembling after the show, then that's a different matter altogether and I would welcome more discussion on which people prefer. However, one reason why we've gone with the approach we have is because the "tail" on the downloads is really long - people are downloading these videos months from now, and use them almost like a reference. It would be harder to do those kinds of videos if we concentrate on quick hits at the show (which would preclude getting the footage for the more extensive videos, unless we sent more people).

We're interested in specific suggestions rather than just "things suck" because otherwise we don't know specifically what people want. The first post had some interesting ideas and maybe I should forget about doing the quickie camcorder videos and try to make the Blackberry thing work, while the other crew does the more polished videos. In any event, it gave a concrete suggestion that we can evaluate, and gives an idea of at least what one person would prefer. Given that we've done pretty much the same thing this year as the past two years only with more speed in getting them up, I dunno - maybe what people want has changed. That would be useful info, too.

It would also be interesting to get people's take on NAMM vs. AES vs. Frankfurt videos, as they all have somewhat different approaches.

[MoreGuitars]

First I would do a Google search for NAMM coverage. Several sites have great info.

In past years you had daily updates with timely cometary. The stuff you did with Jon was great. Time to print in news is money, and Harmony-Central was not the place where the news came first. You were scooped.

[Anderton]

First I would do a Google search for NAMM coverage. Several sites have great info.

In past years you had daily updates with timely cometary. The stuff you did with Jon was great. Time to print in news is money, and Harmony-Central was not the place where the news came first. You were scooped.

Okay, but I'm confused...this year was actually the first time ever the daily commentary/updates actually made it to the site the morning after the day we did them (and the preview one I did Wednesday would have gone up Thursday instead of Friday if it hadn't been for Vista #$^& issues that didn't let me render). Jon and I did commentaries every day...is the problem that it's hard to find what we are in fact doing? If so, that's something we definitely need to fix.

Also don't forget there are three components to the NAMM coverage: The press release section, the videos, and the discussion forums. A lot of the hot new stuff ended up in the forums, which is our "real-time" place for news. The press release section is designed for browsing and giving links for more information, and the videos are more for those who want to spend the many hours it takes to go through them all and digest the show.

The bad news, of course, is that VBulletin is limited as to how far we can take things in a forum format. But the good news is that when HC 2.0 kicks in, we'll have a forum structure that gives us MANY more possibilities. One of those might be shifting at least a portion of the video presentations into a more real-time type of thing.

I did Google "NAMM Coverage" and HC was on top, and a lot of the other top items were from 2008. There were several examples of companies posting their own material on YouTube, which is cool is you want to go deep with a particular company. But the only time a couple people said to me we were "scooped" was about Melodyne DNA. Only problem is, we gave it extensive coverage in our Musik Messe 2008 coverage. In fact, quite a few of the "new products" other sites covered at NAMM were products we had already covered at the 2008 AES and Frankfurt shows.

[Anderton]

And one other thing...I got a chance tonight to stop editing for a few minutes and take a look at all the great photos and videos y'all have been posting. I think if we do anything to change the way we do show reports, it would be to make it easier for the HC community to post, rate, and share videos. We can't be everywhere at once, but wow, you guys have really filled in the gaps. In fact, I think I'll post an announcement and thank everyone...

[MudFlaps-1]

Speaking only for myself. I care more about the press releases with photos than about the videos. I can wait to hear a product when the manufacturer has the time and/or inclination after the show to post their own sound bytes or demo videos. It is probably not H-C's fault by any means, but where is the Traynor press release for their new bass amps, the Gibson press releases for the Bloomfield, Kreager, Gary Moore BFG, etc guitars, the press releases for the new Epiphones, and Danelectro has new 'Dead On' guitars on their website, I don't see the press releases here. I think I read somewhere about a new Dunlop MXR/CAE wah pedal too. I saw a photo about guitars with Kevlar - who/what/where, no press release. I think I also spotted photos for Atomic Guitars - where is their press release? Shame on them for not having them I guess, but I'd rather see a greater coverage of simple press releases with photos, than videos.

[d. gauss]

info came very very slow on this site. in an age of instant texting, camera phones, and blackberries, seems quite possible to at least post something right from the convention floor with a more detailed followup later.

i.e. "just stopped by the Stanky Vibes booth. they're showing a wild, new plugin that promises to remove all human element and feel from a recorded performance. expected to cost $5000 bucks. shipping in june. the demo i saw instantly turned james brown's 'sex machine' into cold sterile, muzak at the push of a button. more later..."

[Lymon]

Premier Guitar premierguitar.com has a sh*tload of vids posted!

[Anderton]

Yes, they've posted some great videos at http://www.premierguitar.com/namm/ and they've also posted several in our NAMM discussion forum (thanks PG guys + gals!). I like the fact that the videos are easy to find, and of course, they're focusing pretty much exclusively on guitars/amps. Even though they haven't posted as many videos as we have, it's a great resource for guitar players.

[Anderton]

info came very very slow on this site. in an age of instant texting, camera phones, and blackberries, seems quite possible to at least post something right from the convention floor with a more detailed followup later.

Well, that was the purpose of the highlights. The advantage of doing highlights is we can sort of filter out the important stuff from the noise, and they're posted the next morning anyway so the lag time is pretty minimal.

However, I hear ya about wanting instant stuff from the show floor. As long as everyone understands that the quality won't be as good, and if we're doing that there will be fewer post-show videos, we can make it happen.

[lazaraga]

quality isn't that good anyhow

[Guitzilla]

The one thing missing (to me at least) are more shots of the gear that would have meaning to working musicians...shots of the controls...shots of the rear panels. A little less "here is what it sounds like'" and more "here is what sets it apart, here is what it can do." Although this type of reporting is probably harder to do in a setting like the Namm show.

Brian

[Anderton]

The one thing missing (to me at least) are more shots of the gear that would have meaning to working musicians...shots of the controls...shots of the rear panels. A little less "here is what it sounds like'" and more "here is what sets it apart, here is what it can do." Although this type of reporting is probably harder to do in a setting like the Namm show.

Brian


There are now close to 100 NAMM videos posted in the theater. Many of the ones I did lay in stills and cutaways with detail shots of the gear.

Craig

[MikeD]

I greatly appreciate the coverage by H-C. I wouldn't say it's so much that your quality has deteriorated, but rather that you have a lot more competition. Affordable production tools makes it much easier for others to get into the game as well.

Suggestions I'd make for production:

a) Shoot 16:9. 4:3 just looks dated now. I don't know what you're using to shoot your video, but there are many excellent HD cameras out there that have great low light ratings and whatnot for under $6k (XH-A1, HVX200, Z7U). If that's beyond your budget look into rentals.

b) For interview subjects use a wired cardioid lav mic. The talent can still use the stick mic (and to look classy you could throw an H-C mic flag on there - check out markertek (http://www.markertek.com/SearchProduct.asp?off=0&sort=prod&skuonly=0&search=blank+flag&pagesize=0)) but you don't have to do the annoying 'pass the mic' bit. Going wired will also remove any problems with interference on the tradeshow floor.

c) use a monopod and/or a stabilizer rig (fig rig, merlin, etc). Not as big of a concern, but it makes a difference.

For post-production:

a) I prefer less cut-ins of product shots. I want to feel like I'm at the show, not like I'm watching a commercial.

b) I really dislike the "theater" approach to housing the videos. You are wasting a huge chunk of horizontal real-estate in the player area. I also have no idea what's new, what I've seen before, etc. If you are going to do it this way at least sort them by the date they were added.

c) I especially enjoy the interviews with C.A. and all the big names at the show - I'd like to more interviews and to see longer versions. I'm sure you have access to folks that your competition does not so you should milk that for all it's worth.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

[Agreed]

The oddest thing this time was that HC apparently broke embargo on at least a few products. They appeared, then disappeared, and then reappeared later at the appropriate time. It just seems like there was a general "wonkiness" to HC's coverage this year, where really interesting stuff got kind of glossed over and less important things got more attention than necessary. You were still my source for NAMM updates, but I will be looking at other sites for next time to view in tandem with HC in case the coverage is slack.

[Anderton]

I'd be really curious about what you feel got glossed over. The one thing I can say for sure got glossed over so far is the Roland V-Piano and keyboards, they're the last videos I have to do (although they did get mentioned in the highlights). I saved the V-Piano for last because it's a really long video - I could turn out five others ones in the time it would take just to render the V-Piano.

The more specifics we have, the more we can tweak the coverage to what people want. Bear in mind that there's no way any site can cover the entire show (well, until we can send 10 video crews instead of 2!), but we can choose our priorities. For example, if we get a sense that people are much more interested in, say, floor pedals than recording, we can act accordingly.

[Agreed]

I'm not trying to bust your balls. I think you, personally, did a good job doing what it was you were supposed to do. I'll try to think on it and offer something more specific and constructive. Remember that everyone is going to have their own pet gripe since everyone watches NAMM for different stuff; I'm a reviewer and I love guitar software and pedals, etc., so it chaps when all that gets covered are the biggest of big names. But then, who else cares about seeing innovations from the littler guys? I wouldn't ask you to make HC's NAMM coverage The Agreed Channel or anything like that. But I do know that when I was discussing NAMM with other forumites elsewhere, people who weren't watching HC seemed to have a better handle on the news than those of us getting out info from HC. It does seem like you guys were scooped in some big ways, perhaps because you were focused more on trying to get a good "post-show" experience for users. I would venture a hypothesis that users care much more about the excitement of the "now" during NAMM than having a bunch of videos afterwards, but that doesn't mean your approach isn't valuable or useful now that all the cats are out of all the bags and people are trying to find out more than what's just in the press releases for these products.

Also, and here I risk being very uncouth, but it seems that there might be a real correlation between products MF and Guitar Center are selling or even pushing, and what gets space on HC's NAMM coverage during the show.

[Anderton]

Also, and here I risk being very uncouth, but it seems that there might be a real correlation between products MF and Guitar Center are selling or even pushing, and what gets space on HC's NAMM coverage during the show.

That's a point well worth bringing up, so let me give you some background.

First, no one has ever told me what to cover or how I should cover it. In fact, a major part of my gig involves going down to Hall E and finding the "mad scientist" products (if you haven't checked out the 33-minute "Hall E: Madness in the Basement!" video, you should). My sense is that these products aren't in the MF/GC repertoire, but honestly, I don't know. They might all be, or none of them might be.

OTOH the main video team (i.e., the ones with the big cameras!), while pretty much an independent entity, takes advantage of the fact that vendors will often let large companies like MF know what's coming up at NAMM before the public, or even editors, know. As the shoot schedule for the main video crew has to be set up weeks and sometimes months in advance, knowing that company XYZ is going to have a cool product demoed by a particular artist is valuable advance knowledge. It also allows us to shoot more videos in less time, which is a priority. So, in that sense, there is a connection between products carried by MF because the crew has access to privileged info from those companies, giving them a head start on the show coverage. However, there are also times at the show that are specifically not blocked out in advance, so that when someone says "Wow, have you seen this cool gadget?" there's a slot for doing those kinds of shoots, which may or may not have anything to do with MF.

Finally, it's getting harder to find things that MF doesn't carry. I was shocked to find they have over 60,000 SKUs. As you may know I review products for the HC newsletter, and again, no one tells me what to review. But after a while, I started to notice that everything I reviewed was something MF carried. I was concerned that the perception would be that the newsletter was reviewing only products that MF sells, so I started looking for some little companies with products that had a sufficiently broad appeal they'd be worth covering, but weren't carried by MF. I thought CEntrance's mic port would work - no, MF carried them. Finally, I found one: Tanager's cool little Chirp virtual keyboard for laptops. Success! Except for one little problem: People at MF found out about the Chirp and between the time I got a review copy of the software and the time the newsletter appeared, MF started carrying the Chirp.

After that I just gave up and decided to review what I wanted to review, and not worry one way or the other what people thought.

[Agreed]

Then that fear seems unfounded. Thanks for clearing it up, and thanks too for not getting incensed at the suggestion.

I'm going to pipe down now and check out the state of HC's NAMM post-coverage, thinking carefully about whether I care more about seeing releases during NAMM or seeing more in-depth coverage on a broader base of goods post-NAMM. I don't know where I will ultimately fall. Now that NAMM's over it's easier to think about the latter, but I felt partly blind during NAMM all the same.

[Anderton]

Then that fear seems unfounded. Thanks for clearing it up, and thanks too for not getting incensed at the suggestion.

No problem. With everyone and his brother selling out these days, it's kind of logical to assume that the concept of editorial integrity is defunct. But that's not so. I'd rather people bring up the topic so it can be discussed for two reasons: first, I think people SHOULD demand editorial integrity. It shouldn't be the exception. Second, when my Sound, Studio, and Stage forum made its exit from MusicPlayer, I received seven offers for it. I went with HC because (aside from the fact that they truly "got" the web) they promised me 100% editorial control. They've delivered on that promise, and I'm all too happy to give them props for that.

I'm going to pipe down now and check out the state of HC's NAMM post-coverage, thinking carefully about whether I care more about seeing releases during NAMM or seeing more in-depth coverage on a broader base of goods post-NAMM. I don't know where I will ultimately fall. Now that NAMM's over it's easier to think about the latter, but I felt partly blind during NAMM all the same.

Well, the solution is to do both! The "real time" stuff would probably become my responsibility, which would definitely cut into how much shooting I could do for the post-show videos (I edited 70+ videos within a week of the show ending - not fast enough for some people I'm sure, but VERY fast by the standards of anyone who edits video!!). But this thread has gotten me thinking about whether there's some kind of workflow that will allow me to do both.

In any event, as in past years, I'm the only person being sent to Frankfurt, and I can do whatever I want. What I might try is a compromise between the usual videos and the "instant videos": Bring my phone along with me, and shoot video footage from it as I wander around. Then I can just take the SD card, put it in my computer, and upload that raw footage - no score, no titles, no cutaways, none of the production stuff that we've done in the post-show coverage. But it would greatly reduce the time-to-air. As the show is four days, I could do real-time material the first two days, then go back the second two days and do more organized shoots. Yeah, that sounds like a plan...

[mchad]

I too appreciated HC's NAMM coverage. It's my main source. Has been since HC started...way back in the mid nineties. Hell I'm several thousand miles away from Anaheim and not able to be there in person. I'll take what I can get and luckily HC is top notch. I don't want to sound like an old fart but NAMM news (prior to the interweb) used to be limited to Guitar Player - the May edition! And then we used to get that in Australia in July. Winter NAMM news just in time for Summer NAMM! Great. :-(

All I wanted more of, in the current coverage, was info on the smaller innovative companies and their products. Guitar orientated stuff that is. I can't seem to find that sort of coverage anywhere. But then again NAMM must be so vast that time and resources must be very tight. Two pieces of gear I heard about that pricked my ears was the Zoom R16 recorder/interface/control surface (for US$399!) and the Stringport guitar signal to USB convertor. But I couldn't see the press releases in the HC coverage.

For what it's worth, thanks Craig and the HC team for a difficult job well done. I look forward to the Frankfurt coverage.

[MudFlaps-1]

Small gripe here - there must be an easier way to search through the videos on the main Winter NAMM 2009 page than grabbing that little box on the right side and scrolling with the mouse. The thing jumps ahead (and backwards) too much, you have to really finesse your mousing. How about a video link beside the manufacturers name on the Coverage page where the press releases are? I can more easily get to what I want to see and skip the videos I'm not interested in.

Thanks!

[Phil Degrave]

I agree with MudFlaps-1's touchy scrolling point, it would be cooler if there was a more user-friendly alternative.

[Phil Degrave]

Question for Craig:
Previously in this thread you mentioned that you improved the audio quality of your NAMM videos as you prepared them for uploading. I'm sure there are many of us on this forum that have recently begun fooling around with video. Can you share some post-production audio tips that will help us improve the sound of our YouTube videos, etc.?
For example: When you prepared your NAMM videos, did you apply EQ with small computer speakers in mind?
How about compression and such?
(Prebuttal: Yes, I know this isn't a video forum, but audio is audio, right? And we're all here because we dig audio, right?)

[Anderton]

Two pieces of gear I heard about that pricked my ears was the Zoom R16 recorder/interface/control surface (for US$399!) and the Stringport guitar signal to USB convertor. But I couldn't see the press releases in the HC coverage.

For what it's worth, thanks Craig and the HC team for a difficult job well done. I look forward to the Frankfurt coverage.

There's a video on the Stringport in the video coverage, scroll down to Keith McMillen (it's listed with the M entries). As to Zoom, they always have a big presence at Frankfurt and I'll see what I can get on the R16. And yes, it is a difficult job just because of the sheer volume of gear! Maybe someday we'll get to send 20 people...

[Anderton]

Question for Craig:
Previously in this thread you mentioned that you improved the audio quality of your NAMM videos as you prepared them for uploading. I'm sure there are many of us on this forum that have recently begun fooling around with video. Can you share some post-production audio tips that will help us improve the sound of our YouTube videos, etc.?
For example: When you prepared your NAMM videos, did you apply EQ with small computer speakers in mind?
How about compression and such?
(Prebuttal: Yes, I know this isn't a video forum, but audio is audio, right? And we're all here because we dig audio, right?)

There were two main ways of improving audio.

The most "brute force" method was simply having the person talk into an M-Audio Microtrack II, holding the mic close. I could then fly this in behind the video with a lot less crowd noise. But lots of times, this isn't possible because the person doing the demo wants to use two hands.

So, when I pick up someone talking on the floor (where the noise level is excruciating!!), I keep the camcorder as close as possible to the person so I pick up as much vocal as I can. When editing the video, I use a 24dB/octave low cut filter to take out everything under about 200Hz - it gets rid of a lot of the "rumble" and bass players playing in the background. I also take out everything above about 6kHz. In both cases, there isn't a lot of vocal energy in the high and low frequencies.

Then, I apply a fairly narrow boost around 2-5kHz, depending on the speaker. Bringing out the sibiliants makes the voice more intelligible. Then, I do volume maximization so that the audio cuts through better on small computer speakers.

Hope this helps!

[Phil Degrave]

Thanks for the tips, it's reassuring to know that the principles of quality audio apply regardless of format.
And thanks for your quality NAMM videos too, sure beats the disgracefully rough videos some other "professional media outlets" are uploading.
—And some people think you just plug the camera into the computer and this stuff all happens automatically...

I'm still trying to crack the code on why your NAMM videos sound so good...
Do you use the camera's automatic gain control when you record your show videos or are you monitoring the levels manually?
I'd like to know which method you think has the most potential for the best sound when there's a lot of ambient background noise (and when you're also surrounded by distractions).
I don't hear any AGC gain pumping on your videos, but I'm amazed you can manually monitor levels while you're also conducting the interview.
One last question and I promise to stop diverting the thread: Can you expound a little more about your use of "volume maximization?" (That you mentioned previously.) I'm not really sure what you mean by that.

Thanks again for sharing the benefits of your decades of audio mastering experience. I'm sure it will continue to be relevant in this new age of homemade video and limited bandwidth uploads. Good sound will always be good sound.

[Anderton]

Well, there are actually two separate video teams, so I'm not sure if you're referring to the videos that Bill/Aaron/Jon do, or the ones I do. If you could give some specific examples of which videos you're referring, I can get the right people to answer. FYI all Frankfurt and AES videos are mine, if that helps.

You might also be interested to know that I'll be doing a final video called "The Making of an HC Video" that tells all about how I do my videos.

[Agreed]

Oh Mr. Anderton, haven't we navel-gazed enough for one day? :rolleyes:

(seriously though I really want to see that video, I used to be into video editing and of course working with audio is a daily thing for me - I'm going to start putting together video reviews and I'd like whatever tips you can offer!)

[Michael0ne]

Then that fear seems unfounded. Thanks for clearing it up, and thanks too for not getting incensed at the suggestion.

I'm going to pipe down now and check out the state of HC's NAMM post-coverage, thinking carefully about whether I care more about seeing releases during NAMM or seeing more in-depth coverage on a broader base of goods post-NAMM. I don't know where I will ultimately fall. Now that NAMM's over it's easier to think about the latter, but I felt partly blind during NAMM all the same.
I covered NAMM for HC a few years ago and I was given a VERY STRICT list of vendors to cover. Anderton is lying when he says he was "never instructed to cover only certain vendors." I was to cover only vendors that advertised with HC and Musician's Friend/Guitar Center. I did 3 videos outside of my list and they were never shown. Dean guitars, Coffin Case Pedals, and the Coffin Case Fashion Show. I ended up quitting my position with Musician's Friend (who is owned by Guitar Center - as is Harmony Central) because of the personal attacks levied at me by the management at HC to my superiors at MF. I bought all new video equipment instead of the shoddy crap that HC tried to sell MF - hence the starting of the harassment by HC management towards me. HC will be surpassed in their coverage of NAMM (if they haven't already) and they will fall by the wayside.

[Jon Chappell]

Anderton is lying when he says he was "never instructed to cover only certain vendors."

Here's the quote from Craig's previous post (bold emphasis mine):
First, no one has ever told me what to cover or how I should cover it. In fact, a major part of my gig involves going down to Hall E and finding the "mad scientist" products (if you haven't checked out the 33-minute "Hall E: Madness in the Basement!" video, you should). My sense is that these products aren't in the MF/GC repertoire, but honestly, I don't know. They might all be, or none of them might be.
Craig is being 100% truthful in the above statement. I have covered five NAMM shows with Craig at HC, and the directive -- from the very top on down through the ranks -- has always been the same: "Craig, you do your roving journalist thing. We trust your instincts." And that's that.

I can't speak to the veracity of the rest of your unhappy story, but to say someone "is lying" in print is serious stuff. Craig is telling the truth. Strictly speaking, you never actually refute Craig's claim. You make an accusation, but in the next sentence proceed to tell another, different story about your own (not Craig's) experiences.


Jon Chappell
Editor
Harmony Central

[Anderton]

I covered NAMM for HC a few years ago and I was given a VERY STRICT list of vendors to cover. Anderton is lying when he says he was "never instructed to cover only certain vendors." I was to cover only vendors that advertised with HC and Musician's Friend/Guitar Center. I did 3 videos outside of my list and they were never shown. Dean guitars, Coffin Case Pedals, and the Coffin Case Fashion Show. I ended up quitting my position with Musician's Friend (who is owned by Guitar Center - as is Harmony Central) because of the personal attacks levied at me by the management at HC to my superiors at MF. I bought all new video equipment instead of the shoddy crap that HC tried to sell MF - hence the starting of the harassment by HC management towards me. HC will be surpassed in their coverage of NAMM (if they haven't already) and they will fall by the wayside.

I stand 100% by my statement that I was "never instructed to cover only certain vendors" and defy you to show me any shred of evidence, however slim, to the contrary. Your calling me a liar about something that is not true calls into question the credibility of your entire post, and also gives some useful insights into your character.

Since from a logical standpoint it's not possible to prove a negative, I'll do the next best thing: Blow your argument out of the water. I think it would be logical to assume that if I was instructed to cover certain vendors, they would be ones whose products Musicians Friend or Guitar Center carries, right? And they certainly wouldn't instruct me to give coverage to their competitors, right?

Then look at the Hall E video, and tell me which manufacturers you think I was instructed to cover. There are also plenty of companies on the main floor I've covered, like PSP Audioware, i3 software, Koblo, Radikal Technologies, UBK, Cycling 74, Keith McMillen Instruments, Microsoft, etc. whose products are carried by neither company. I do interviews with Mitch Gallagher from Sweetwater at nearly every show. Do you really think that someone at MF or GC is giving me marching orders to give coverage to the editor in chief of their biggest competitor?

:facepalm:

I will concede, however, that while HC's management never instructed me to cover certain vendors, they did instruct me to "have fun." I feel that I complied with their wishes fully :)