GET A LIFE

Anyone crying “discrimination” (“Letters,” June 2001) from an article focusing on women in the music industry has a seriously inadequate understanding of what discrimination means and what the phrase dominant paradigm means. That person sounds like he has an ax (or ex) to grind. Or maybe the letter was a joke.

Keep up the good work.
Wendy DeWitt
via e-mail

MIXING IT UP

I enjoyed Neil Leonard's “Score with QuickTime 4” (January 2001) very much. I'm writing a score for an independent film, and the article pretty much straightened it out for me. But I'm curious about one thing.

What formats can be used to present the final mix to the director? I know one way is to record everything back to VHS. Would he use the audio from the VHS tape itself? Also, if I gave him a DAT or a CD, how would that lock to the edited video? He's using Adobe Premiere to edit the film, but that's about all I know. I want to be prepared for a variety of scenarios.

Leonard's article shed a lot of light on things, but I'm hoping to squeeze a bit more information out of him. Thanks for a great magazine.
Taggart Snyder
via e-mail

Taggart — There are several ways to submit a final mix when working with QuickTime, so it's important to work out a game plan ahead of time with the director to avoid last-minute confusion. Recording back to videotape is certainly one option, but because VHS is an analog format, transferring audio to and from the tape may degrade the sound quality more than necessary.

Because the director is working in Premiere, you could play back the soundtrack to a small-screen 30 fps QuickTime movie and burn it to a CD-R. That would be cheap, portable, and easy to do. The director could then audition the soundtrack with the picture, extract the audio, and fly the audio into the large-format video in Premiere.

On the other hand, if you use a bunch of external sound modules and processors, it might make sense to mix everything down to a stereo DAT or CD master. Then digitally transfer the master mix back into the computer and save the cues as AIFF files. (Label the cues logically and keep an accurate cue sheet.) The director would then have to realign each cue with the video, which shouldn't be too hard in Premiere. If your workprint and the director's print have matching time code windows, it would be even easier to realign the cues: find the start frame for each cue using the time code numbers. — David Rubin

HOLD THE CHEESE, PLEASE

It's rather cheesy to waste a column of type and a picture on a band that doesn't even have a music sample on its Web site (“Web Page,” May 2001). I give Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers two thumbs down for their site's usefulness. Surely there are good bands out there worth mentioning that let you hear what they sound like without having to buy the CD first.
Jim King
via e-mail

Jim — There are plenty of “good bands out there worth mentioning” in “Band on the Web.” However, we can only cover one per month. In choosing sites for “Band on the Web,” author Peter Drescher and I look for Web pages that stand out in some way from the dozens we look at each month. A musician's site should be compelling on a number of levels.

An artist's Web site is an expression of the artist. Business-savvy musicians design their sites with promotional and commercial intentions, but many band pages we see are stronger in one area than the other. In terms of concept, looks, navigational ease, and balance of promotion and sales appeal, Smith's site was a winner. Although Smith's omission of audio samples should be addressed, a number of clever promotional items kept us at her site. For example, how many indie artists post scrapbook photos of themselves with luminaries on the level of Bill and Hillary Clinton or Johnny Otis?

Smith makes it easy to buy her CD, should you decide to do so without first hearing the music. Click on the album cover you want on the CDs page, and you are instantly transported to the correct spot on Amazon.com. We often find Web sites that actually hinder viewers' ability to make that all-important CD purchase. — Gino Robair

A MIDI WIND CAME BLOWIN' IN

Thanks for the informative article by Scott Wilkinson about wind controllers (“In Control,” May 2001). I'm a full-time musician and have been a wind-controller player since Yamaha introduced the WX7 in the late 1980s. I consider the WX5 to be the best wind controller in the WX series.

Although the article was well written, I disagree with a couple of points. First, when Wilkinson compares the Loose Lip mode and the Tight Lip mode, he says, “This [Tight Lip] mode more closely resembles sax technique, but it's difficult to maintain a steady pitch.” The Tight Lip mode does more closely resemble sax technique, but anyone with adequate sax or clarinet technique will have no trouble maintaining steady pitch in the Tight Lip mode. Yamaha added an adjustable flat spot in the response curve at zero Pitch Bend of the reed to help novices keep a steady pitch, even if their lips waver.

Second, Wilkinson mentions glitching between notes. If the WX5 player has adequate woodwind technique, audible glitching will not be a problem. The glitches are there, but their durations are too short to trigger a note in my sound modules (Yamaha VL70-m, Yamaha TX81Z, and Peavey SP).

I can record my WX5 in a sequencer and see the glitches on the Piano Roll editor. Setting the sequencer to 240 ticks per quarter note and 140 bpm, the glitches are less than ten clock ticks. At ten clock ticks, they are only a few milliseconds. That's shorter than the response time of most synths. Even if they triggered the synth, they'd be too short to be detected by the human ear.

Wilkinson recommends using Slow mode to correct glitching, and he says that it feels more like an acoustic instrument and doesn't seem to impede playing speed. That's bad advice. Slow mode should not be used. It makes fast passages impossible and the response feel sluggish. I can understand why he missed those points — they would get by anyone who doesn't own the WX5.

Setting up the WX5 properly can be a bit confusing. As a contributing member of the International Wind Synths Association and the Windlist, I created a Web page explaining how to set up a WX5. The free instructions are the result of my longtime familiarity with the WX controllers. WX5 owners can go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/wx5.html to find out how to get the most out of the WX5.

Not long ago, the members of the Windlist voted on our favorite freeware patches for the VL70-m. Those patches sound better than or complement the factory patches. They can be downloaded from http://www.nortonmusic.com/VL70-m.html.

Thanks again for writing about my favorite instrument.
Bob Norton
via e-mail

Bob — Contrary to your assumption, I own all Yamaha WX models, and I wrote the review of the WX5 in the June 1999 issue. The wind-controllers article was not intended to be a review but rather an overview of the available instruments, so I suppose I should not have ventured opinions about which modes work better. I admit that I'm not a sax player per se; I do play recorder and other woodwindlike instruments professionally, but I do not have a well-developed sax embouchure, so I prefer Loose Lip mode on the WX5. I can see how Tight Lip mode would work better for a real sax player, though the Pitch Bend range in each direction is less than it is in Loose Lip mode (albeit in only one direction).

As far as the fingering mode is concerned, skillful technique can overcome much glitching, but it also depends on the patch you're playing. Sounds with very quick attacks, such as piano and percussion, can audibly glitch no matter how accurate you are, especially during fast passages. Maybe I haven't found it necessary to play as fast as you have, but I find Slow mode to be plenty responsive for what I play, and it significantly reduces glitching. — Scott Wilkinson

WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK.

Address correspondence and e-mail to “Letters,” Electronic Musician, 6400 Hollis Street, Suite 12, Emeryville, CA 94608 or to emeditorial@intertec.com. Published letters may be edited for space and clarity.