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Missives

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  Not A Lot of Words

  Monterey Bay, Monterey, California   I’ve mixed the audio for thousands of TV commercials. One of my favorite campaigns, from …

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  Purring Clicks

  El Porto, Manhattan Beach, Califonia   In the early morning sun, drinking deep the cool, fresh air, I release the …

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  Pop Songs and a Screwdriver

  Jettenbach, Germany   One fall afternoon, I went out to the garage to put new license plates on my car. …

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  Gnomes and Flamingos

  I saw a raven sitting on a garden gnome. I’m not the kind of person to put a gnome in my …

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  Stones and Equilibrium

  Phoenix Sculpture, by Steve Thomas, Nepenthe, Big Sur, California   As I head up the path, sounds of the city …

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  Mild Distortion and Hungry Ducks

  Spreewald, Lübbenau, Germany   As the boat eases along, I stare into the water. Dark green with fish and guppies, …

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  A Matter of Doubt 

  Zomewhere, Berlin, Germany   Maybe you know what it’s like: I can’t do this. I’m just fooling myself. Who the hell …

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  Mental Curation

  Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum of Contemporary Art – Berlin – Germany   Did you know, Gambel’s quail, which lives in …

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  Hissing Clicking and Purring

  Pacific Grove, Califonia    Early this morning, I was cruising along on my bike, trying to think of a missive …

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  My Secret

  A million years ago, in the late ‘70s, I moved to Hollywood to work in the recording studios. I had …

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  Homespun Delightful Things

  Levitated Mass,” by Michael Heizer, LACMA I think what the world needs now is a store called, Et Cetera & …

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  Oh No Not Holly’s

  Pacific Grove, California I just found out that our favorite breakfast and lunch place, Holly’s Lighthouse Cafe in Pacific Grove, …

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  Ravenswork Studios, Venice, CA

  Ten years ago this week, I closed the Ravenswork Studios facility in Venice, CA. We supplied sound services for thousands …

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  The Waitress’s Eyes

  Donna’s eyes through a kaleidoscope, The Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin, Germany  We ventured out to one of our favorite lunch …

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  Juggling the Heat

  Highway 1, Central California Coast All-day long, I pulled hot plastic parts out of a plastic injection molder. It was …

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  Claude and the Fawn

  Nepenthe, Big Sur, California When I was a child, I saw a black and white photo of my grandfather, Claude Redenbaugh, …

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  Ships Not Seen

  Asilomar State Beach, California There’s a famous story of Christopher Columbus landing in the new world. Even though he anchored …

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  The Detour

  Monterey Bay, Monterey, California I went out for my Sunday morning romp. It was chilly, the good kind that wakes …

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  Compression and Balance

  Via Paraiso Park, Monterey, California  There’s a piece of audio equipment called a compressor, a powerful tool with many uses …

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  Pete’s Magic

  When I was a kid, we had a neighborhood bike shop named Pete’s. It was in a dirty white house on …

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  Common Beauty

  Avila Beach, California This morning I peered out our bedroom window. The sun was angling across the yard, lighting up …

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  Ara’s Garden

  Monterey, California Ara lived down the street in one of those houses that sits way back from the road with …

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  A Murder of Crows

  Joshua Tree National Park, California I was walking next to a park several blocks from our house when I saw …

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  The Shapes to Come

  Berlin, Germany This morning, I walked through the yard of the Monterey Museum of Art and came across a pair …

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  Our Mutual Relative

  Venice Beach, California I’m walking through the Park. Spring’s starting to look like summer with leaved trees, a warm sun, …

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  The Green Button

  Otari MTR-12 Mastering Tape Machine I sat down between the speakers and pushed the green play button on the remote. …

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  Metaphorical Binoculars

  Clearing Storm, Monterey, California So what do I do now? I remember the SAG AFTRA strike of 2000. The strike …

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  Welcomed by the Sun

  Pacific Grove, California I love spring. Everything’s coming alive, waking from a long sleep, welcomed by the warm sun, flowers …

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  Vintage Apothecary

  Tuolumne, California I have my version of this, a way of carrying myself that helps me fit into the world. …

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  Slow and Easy Float

  Desert Hot Springs, California Last week we drove out to the Mojave Desert to a 1940s motel with a natural …

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  Hairy Legs Stomping

  Mission Bell, Monterey, California I had a girlfriend, Ann, who owned a horse sixteen hands tall. She named it, Freedom, …

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  Applying the Future

  The Fourth Floor, Monterey, California They’ve been painting the trim on our office building. What does it feel like to …

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  Generous Nuances

  Window Shopping, Monterey, California I had an attorney named Allan Stamm. He was over 70 years old when I hired …

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  Infirm Adherence

  Somewhere, California I’ve been thinking about the word integrity. Merriam-Webster defines it as: firm adherence to a code of especially …

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  Message In a Bottle

  Anywhere, California I walked into a public restroom and found beautiful white and violet flowers sitting next to the sink …

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  Shaded in Yellow

  Monterey Vista, Monterey, California With a cold winter chill in the air, I walked up a hill towards our house; …

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  Garish Plastic Flowers

  El Carmelo Cemetery, Pacific Grove, California Early one morning, I was out for my Sunday morning romp on my bike. …

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  Pokers and Paper

  Asilomar State Beach, Monterey, California Early last Sunday morning down at the wharf, we saw an older woman with a …

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  Groovy Ruts

  In-flight, Monterey, California The twinkling lights are coming down, and the eggnog is going sour. Everything seems the same as …

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  The Flame of Intention

  Highway I-25 north of Chugwater, Wyoming The week between the holidays has a feel. No other week feels quite like …

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  Space and Silence

  Berlin, Germany The sun felt warm, friendly, and inviting on my face; I just leaned up against the concrete wall …

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  The Beauty of Use

  Multivox Premier 100R Guitar Amplifier The Japanese have a word, wabi-sabi, which means finding beauty in the imperfection of life and …

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  The Blank Wall

  Black Sand Beach, Sayulita, Mexico What should we do with the blank wall in our living room? Yes, we could …

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  Morrie’s Alchemy

  First Rain, Monterey, California Thanksgiving evening after dessert, our host passed around paper and pens and asked us to write …

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  Surface Tension

  Berlin, Germany When I think of surface tension, I’m usually thinking of bugs skipping across water. It’s the attraction between …

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  A Healthier Bondage

  Somewherezig, Germany I saw a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. A long butt more than half a cigarette, and I …

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  Slow Moving Sideways

  Tiergarten, Biergarten, Berlin, Germany It’s a Sunday afternoon in the beer garden with people laughing and munching wurst, drinking beer …

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  An Accent with Quiche

  Somewhere in Germany, coordinates unknown, and who the hell cares anyway I was in the Paris Bakery, sipping an Americano …

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  Happy Accidents

  Big Sur, California I’m fascinated by the creative process. There’s nothing, and then there’s something; ideas and feelings clash together, …

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  A Problem with Porridge

  Kindergarden, Berlin, Germany When I was five years old, one of my older brothers taught me how to ride a …

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  Fresh Cashews Old Songs

  König Galerie, Berlin, Germany I never know how I’m going to feel. I go to the river expecting a good …

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  A Crockpot and A Wig

  Jettenbach, Germany A woman down the street had an estate sale. I met Sandra as soon as I walked in …

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  Wisping Symbolism of Sound

  Fiscalini Preserve, Cambria, California I stepped out of the house in the middle of the day, and it was unusually …

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  Two Hands Up

  Desert Hot Springs, California I drove down the road with both hands on top the wheel, thumbs touching one another, …

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  Chainsaw

  Fiscalini Preserve, Cambria, California I went for a walk in the forest. As I left the house, I heard a …

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  Bright Tone Lightning Runs

  John Dotto Fish Sculpture, Monterey Conference Center  I had a close friend, Ron Harmon, who played sax, tenor mostly but …

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  Beach Board Arm Head

  Asilomar State Beach, Monterey, California I stood and watched the beach, the sun reflected off the rough surface of the …

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  Bill’s Old Jacket

  Municipal Pier, Monterey, California I was out walking in our old Venice neighborhood one afternoon. I turned the corner to …

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  Knife on the Right

  Fishermans Wharf, Monterey, California A few years ago, I started experimenting with different ways to set the table. Silverware on …

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  Maria’s Super Power

  Nepenthe, Big Sur, California We employed a woman named Maria Martinez. She came by once a week to clean and …

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  Meditation Slut

  Millennium Bridge Sculpture, Commons Park, Denver, Colorado There are many different types of meditation: mindfulness, movement, mantra, Zen, Transcendental, Taoist, …

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  The Magic of Azi Feduoi

  Azi Feduoi, Fishermans Wharf, Monterey, California At the entrance to Fishermans Wharf, which is mostly a tourist attraction selling chowder …

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  Mary Jane & Ice Cream

  The Peace Fence, Monterey, California It was hard to get. You had to have connections. If you looked right, long …

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  The Clean Fish

  Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey, California Late one afternoon, it started to rain, a soft, cold mountain rain, and my dad went …

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  An Altar of Nothing

  San Carlos Cathedral, Monterey, CA An Altar of Nothing I was in a meditation group for over a decade. The …

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  Gear Myth and Berries

  Neve 1066 I still have a bunch of old analog audio gear. Some of it keeps going up in value, …

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  Missive 52: Flight

  San Jacinto Wilderness, California I’ve been writing my weekly missive for a year. I named them missives because I didn’t …

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  Listen to the Crows

  Del Monte Forest, Monterey, California I was walking on a path through the Del Monte forest when a crow flew …

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  Lost in Process

  Municipal Pier Monterey, California It was a bright mid-tempo rock song, and everyone wanted to get it right. We were …

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  The Banyan Tree

  Banyan tree, Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii They look like tattoos. The tree’s over a hundred years old, and the writing is …

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  A Little Thinner for Toast

  Scully 280B 8-Track Tape Machine Early in my career, I worked with a Scully 280B 8 track tape machine. It …

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  Touch vs Feel

  I recently spent some time in Mexico with an old friend, Galen Wathen, a chiropractor turned bodyworker. During our conversations, …

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  The Missing Gorilla

  In a recent study, a number of radiologists looked at a series of X-rays as if they were looking for …

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  In the hand of a Dream

  Shure PE50SP Vocal Microphone This Shure PE50 pictured in the photo belongs to Donna Rawlins (my wife). She used it, …

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  Hiding in Silence

  Photo of original wall, San Carlos Cathedral One of the fascinating things about seeing paintings by the old masters is …

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  Earth Day, 49 Years 

  Haleakala Sunset, Maui, Hawaii I remember the first Earth Day in 1970. We used different words back then: water pollution, …

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  2285

  When walking through a forest, I’ve noticed certain unique trees, usually located some distance from each other: they are larger, …

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  Saving Grace

  The summer I was sixteen, I thought, this may be my last summer to goof off because I’ll probably have …

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  Craft Meets Art

  On a recent trip to Mexico, we met a woman who worked on a foot-pump Singer sewing machine with hand-tooled …

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  Process and Time

  Years ago, I was walking through the halls of a small record company in Hollywood and bumped into the CEO. …

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  A Shade of Aesthetic

  My dad hated rock music. He tolerated it, but mostly he scoffed at it, even the Beatles. We were watching …

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  Antiquated Music

  Sonic expressions have been tumbling out of humanity for a long time. We have archeological evidence that humans have been …

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  The Rise and Fall of Inspiration

  Staring at an empty garden space in a yard, at the blinking cursor on a computer screen, or a musical …

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  Music and Cheese

  At my first real job in a recording studio, sitting in sessions and watching the producers, engineers, musicians, and singers …

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  Woven into the Fabric

  One of the things I’ve always loved about working in the studio is walking in, flipping on the equipment, opening …

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  Loud

  Volume gets everyone’s attention. It’s powerful, and all too often, it can’t be ignored. But it’s also a cheap trick. …

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  Guitar vs. Drum

  I read an article the other day that stated, “In the digital era, guitars no longer rule popular music.” Yeah, …

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  Order and Chaos

  The minds propensity to construct order out of chaos is unavoidable. It’s an undefinable idea and extremely difficult for the …

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  Quality vs. Popularity

  Donna and I went into a popular restaurant in Palm Springs, and because it was crowded, we thought, “it must …

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  The Ability to Find Beauty

  The ability to find beauty is an exciting, desirable skill. The first thing pressing on my mind is: what is beauty? …

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  The Creative Process

  I’ve always been fascinated by the creative process. There’s nothing, and then, there’s something. Many books and courses are available …

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  Audio has Attitude

  When I recorded guitars for rock bands, I hated those little effects boxes guitar players love. I preferred instead to …

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  A Deeper Focus

  I love to photograph rain puddles, focusing deep into the water to reveal the trees, clouds, and sky from a …

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  Balance and Craft

  I ordered a sandwich the other day at a local shop; they make great sandwiches, but some of the workers …

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  Is art instinctive?

  Instinct is defined as a natural propensity, an intuitive way, an innate behavior, from Latin: instinctus, which means “impulse.” Art …

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  Now

  Now There are only 26 letters and a handful of dots, lines, and squiggles, and with that, we can represent …

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  The Magic of the First Take

  It happens before anyone is expecting anything good, so it’s free from the poison of self-consciousness. As a recording engineer, …

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  Is it too cold this morning?

  It seems like it’s always a little too cold, doesn’t it? Or it’s too hot, I’m too young, too old, …

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  The Color of Distortion

  In the early days of recording, distortion was the enemy, and it was difficult to avoid. In the late 40s …

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  Compromise vs. Collaboration

  In response to my post last week on Artistic Integrity, I received a reply from, Lily Yu. Her comment, “collaboration …

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  Artistic Integrity 

  In the film industry, it takes hundreds of artists to produce a movie; it’s the same for all of the …

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  The Danger of Underbidding Freelance

  In the early 1980s, a studio owner came to me and said, he had a guy on the phone who …

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  Essence

  “There’s the whole Buddhist thing about the essence of a bowl being its emptiness—that’s why it’s useful. Its emptiness allows …

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  Software Illusion 

  I’ve spent a lot of time and effort learning software. I think we all have. To some degree these programs …

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  Adjust to Taste 

  EQ (equalization) is a professional version of the tone controls on your stereo. It’s the most basic and simple tool …

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  Being good at anything is knowing a lot about what doesn’t work

  The success of failure is a popular topic these days, but there’s a more subtle version of this, more persistent, …

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  Psychoacoustics

  You can park a film on a frame and have a discussion about it, point to the different aspects, everyone’s …

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  Alchemy of Design

  Putting a frame on anything has a way of validating it. Even a lousy song or film benefits from good …

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  Altruistic Framework and Making a Difference

  Many years ago I thought, maybe I should give up my work as a recording engineer/mixer and do something worthwhile …

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  What are the metrics of a good mix?

  What are the ranks and ratings of sound design and mixing? What variables matter? Maybe it’s about, can you understand …

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  Five Reasons to Take a Freelance Job

  I have worked freelance or owned my own business for most of my life.  From time to time I found …

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  Is Listening an Art?

  There’s an education to listening, an understanding, a willingness to attend.  Like the simple tuning of a guitar or the …

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  Getting Started

  It’s natural to want to have it all planned out first, but it’s impossible to see around corners.  Often, you …

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  Design Dodging 

  I worked with Andy Johns (producer, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones), we were recording a band, and I kept reaching up …

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  Don’t think

  Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.  It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy.  You can’t try to do …

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  Harvesting Random Elements

  There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock’s (the film is complete in the director’s mind) and Coppola’s (which thrives on …

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  Creative Exposure

  The creative process contains an uncomfortable element of exposure, like taking your clothes off in front of strangers… www.ravenswork.com

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  Morning Ritual

  I walk into the room, usually, in the morning, I’m always the first to arrive so, for now, I’m alone. …

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  MAKING A SCENE

  I had the pleasure of mixing an interesting project recently. Every year, The New York Times Magazine produces a video …

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  Apple Keynote

  I think I’m finally rested up after a great and unique experience spending 10 days (long ones at that) at …

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  “The Beauty Inside” wins 3 Cannes Grand Prix Gold Lions

  An episodic social film that I sound designed and mixed last year titled “The Beauty Inside” won 3 Grand Prix …

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  RAVENSWORK 3.0

  RAVENSWORK 3.0 pay to do my essay Welcome to the new Ravenswork Website. It’s been in the works for a …

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