A few times this fall, I've gotten calls from people with old, personal recordings of family or friends they want to digitize. These might be songwriting demos on cassette, or someone's grandmother singing on a direct-to-disc recording in 1947. On my last visit to Wyoming, my dad handed me a microcassette and told me it might be the only known recording of his high school band. (Alas, it wasn't).

These historic (heirloom?) audio recordings are locked on the physical media, playable only on machines that, for all intents and purposes, are obsolete in the consumer market. The contents remain a mystery until I come into the picture with my studio stocked with cassette decks, DAT players, turntable and styli, 1/4" tape machine. I digitize the audio content, clean it up, send it off to be shared with families and friends and given as gifts at holidays.

I love these projects. There's enormous joy in helping someone unlock memories. I think that's why I chose to specialize in restoration, preservation and music reissues. I'm an anthropologist and archivist at heart and an audio engineer in practice. It's a good combo.

So, bring them on! I am happy to digitize and preserve your heirloom cassettes, disks, DATs and reels. Let's find out what's on those tapes.

When you google "beautiful doorbell," the results are all about the visuals: hand carved chime covers, intricate doorbell buttons. But I'm looking for a doorbell that sounds beautiful. I want one that rings with a proper ding dong in the classic major third. Moreover, it must be the proper third, not too high, not too low, with a rich, warm ring and decay. Where does one shop for a great sounding doorbell?

Unrelated - or is it? - one of the things I miss about living in New York City is randomly hearing car horns play "Speak Softly, Love," aka the theme to The Godfather. The vocal version was recorded by Andy Williams, which makes the second time he's made an appearance in this blog in the past two months.

Perhaps I was overly ambitious. I thought I could moderate a panel on archiving, catch a handful of other panels, walk the exhibition floor, meet up with friends and colleagues, tour Iron Mountain, take a shift at the Tape Op booth AND sleep. Alas, I could not do it all.

Michael Graves, Cheryl Pawelski, Jessica Thompson, Steve Rosenthal, Jamie Howarth

I did moderate that panel (AES RP1) featuring the extraordinarily talented Jamie Howarth (Plangent Processes), Michael Graves (Osiris Studio), Cheryl Pawelski (Omnivore Recordings) and Steve Rosenthal (Magic Shop Studios, now known as Magic Shop Archiving and Restoration Services aka MARS). The experience and brain power on this panel was a marvel. We talked about collaboration between archives and record labels, working together to refine best practices around digitization both for preservation purposes and to please discerning music fans, navigating the technological challenges of archival collections that span decades and formats. One big takeaway: simply abiding by technical standards is not enough; we need skilled technicians, well maintained and calibrated playback machines and high quality A/D conversion in order to properly digitize and preserve audio recordings. We all know a 192k wav file can sound like a shadow of its analog self if the playback deck is out of alignment or caked in half a century of grime.

This also got me thinking about deepening my own skill set. I can calibrate an ATR-104 in my sleep, but I also know that there is much I don't know about adjusting headstacks to deal with unusual tape formats, curling tape, damaged tapes. Who is going to teach me this stuff? And, to put it bluntly, who's going to be around in another 10, 20, 30 years to teach anyone this stuff? There are videos tutorials available through ARSC, but nothing beats face-to-face, hands-on training. So... that's on my mind. Stay tuned.

Then I hopped a bus to tour Iron Mountain! We all signed NDAs and swore off our smart phones, so I have no pictures of the facility, the stunningly ornate Art Deco elevator doors, the vaults, the rows and rows and rows and rows and more rows of stored media. But I do have this picture of me and Steve Rosenthal on the roof with the Hollywood sign barely legible in the distance:

This is where my plans to see and do and learn and experience as much as possibly wholly derailed. But, then, sometimes the best part of AES is simply hanging out with fellow mastering engineers and talking about our work, our craft, our art. 

I was thrilled to reunite with the awesomely talented Sarah Register, (seriously, check out this woman's discography!), the engineer I assisted many years ago when I first dipped my toes in the mastering waters. We spent countless late nights together working on records, and what I learned from her formed the foundation of everything I do today. (Thanks, Sarah!) Once, we skipped out of work early - unheard of! - and bought last minute tickets to see Dolly Parton at Radio City Music Hall. Worth it. All of it. Here we are last Friday hanging at the Tape Op booth:

Truly, it was great to run into so many familiar faces and hang with a crowd that's fluent in dither and azimuth. I left feeling inspired and invigorated, awed by the pink LA sunset and palm tree silhouettes, excited to demo the CEDAR Cambridge audio restoration plug-ins. Oh yeah. You know what's next on my gear wish list.