So, just done with the Feb 22 session of Tape Camp at Welcome to 1979. Great session, a lot of learning/re-learning and meeting of minds. I think my expectation was that it would be a bunch of gear head know-it-alls and above my head but it really was way more down to earth. Every participant, mix of men and women, young and old, experienced and total novices, added a different perspective of how they were intending to use the knowledge gained during the session.
On the downside:
It was a little loosely planned and organized. The owner made several comments that it was intended but I really kinda felt it was just laziness.
There were no handouts or take-aways. As a 27+ year veteran in marketing/advertising, and as a graphic artist, I would have expected something planned and printed to take with us for the money they are asking us to pay… on top of hotel and air.
There were a few moments I felt some push back from the instructor/owner, Chris Mara, for those of us with some prior experience. And quite rudely sometimes. I get it, it’s HIS class/workshop, but his attitude took away from the experience quite a bit, to pay this much for something like this that was poorly planned and then to get shunned at times by him. At one point, he just point blank told me that the equipment I own (Tascam M-520, Tascam MS-16) was shit no matter what condition it was in and that I’d only have headaches unless I owned one of his precious machines. Go Figure! That said, I really enjoyed the other attendees with prior experience and their thoughts on the matters at hand. They also suffered his wrath. So, I figured pretty quick to just keep my mouth shut unless it pertained to what was being discussed.
On the upside:
They have a great place with lots of cool vibe. It’s not polished, its actually rather dusty! There were many times I thought I was in my the old studio from 76 that I worked at in the 90s!! he got lucky with his space, it just sounds good for recording with very little sound modifiers. I walked away with a lot of thoughts that will save me money by waiting until I hear my space and then making my own bass traps, diffusers, etc.
At the end of it all, I learned and I enjoyed myself a LOT!
They are much more than just tape recording. He embraces the full aspects of recording… everything goes to ProTools eventually.
But they have the whole record lathe, electroplating and stamper creation there on site. They win grammys for their mastering abilities and they transfer just about any tape format to digital.
If you go to one of these, you will enjoy yourself. You will learn some things (as long as you’re not a currently working analog recording engineer). The record part was fascinating but I wasn’t really that interested in it. it took up a lot of time that I’d rather have been talking about analog recording techniques, gear set up, and more.
