Straight Arrow Recordings is nearly ready to open for business in our new location. Please feel free to correspond to michaelbix@straight-arrow.ca or michaelbix@gmail.com for updates on our rate sheets and services. In particular we will be available for assessment, mastering and location recording. Our mailing address is P.O. Box 517, Montpelier, VT 05601 and our business fax line is 802-322-5062. Please leave messages at 802-380-6408. ...read more

Working recently on a client project - transferring more than 35 video clips from DVD and VHS into the hard drive and then trimming, timing and logging/labeling each one - I was once again reminded how "simple" is not simple. To create an elegant and seamless presentation... during which you (the client) can click to the next scene or still and actually go there flawlessly... requires having an "address" on the menu; a mapped location that corresponds to that address where the appropriate (trimmed) video clip or still image lies in wait; and the correct identification or "tag" (including a menu display to be written) that you can click on to actually go there - during your own show. This miniscule steps (about six per clip) plus the actual rendition or "writing" of the frames that appear as your clickable menu screen are each worth about 5-15 minutes per clip... plus the time to trim, identify/name/log, and time the clip itself.   Then the entire sequence must be put into correct 1-2-3-4-5-6... order. So when establishing a time budget for your own production, try to leave plenty of room for the actual post-production details that make the show actually work.  Each step is absolutely necessary, and each clip requires all those steps. You can create a smooth set-up and work flow by having all your own clips identified with start and stop times on the original DVD or VHS, having the VHS pre-cued if possible; having as close as possible a running time in minutes and seconds; having a unique 28-character identifier for the clip; and having the name-date-publisher of the original source film/videotape used as a source. All video clips must be copyright cleared if the re-play of the edited production is used in any other context than your own selected/illustrative clips for an educational lecture within an educational/non-profit setting (familiarise yourself with federal and state Fair Use restrictions if you haven't read these rules in the past).   No such re-edit from commercial or copywritten video or film sources can be duplicated or distributed to students.  The one copy made in my studio (and a safety backup against damage) is for situational teaching purposes - and can't be shown for any other reason. Once these basic parametres are met, the final project can look just as good as any "commercial" DVD in order to make your points as clearly as possible.  Lots of a beneficial outcomes are possible. Best regards Michael ...read more

One especially relevent outcome of working with good equipment is that the recordings continue to sound good.  While the tape medium itself declines, many of our older sessions are just fabulous to listen to... so I'm going back through older sessions now (like those illustrated in our photo album) looking for treasures. Our thirty years of session and location recording included hours upon hours of concert stage recording at folk festivals with some of the best names in world and folk music ending up on our digital or top analog tape.  People like U. Utah Philips, Eric Bogle, Dougie McLean, Inti-Illimani, Libana, Norman Kennedy, Pierre Bensusan, Kathryn Tickell, The Oyster Band, Real Steel, Grupo Aymara, etc... musicians who either hired us; were part of multiple weekends' worth of recordings we made and then just put away into storage; or were willing to let us record "on spec" in return for having an un-releasable copy of the performance... which neither of us ever got back to turning into a public product.   Beyond that is also the marvelous variety of location ambience and sound-effects recordings of everything from dawn choruses, gentle streams and beaver ponds to roaring hurricane surf, thunderstorms, and fireworks displays - all in breathtaking SASS stereo. Some sounds went on tour (as with Frank Zappa) or into film soundtracks... others never made it off the original digital tapes. So as I dig out the nicer session photographs of chamber music festival recordings, chorus and gospel music, kirtans, Haitian and Zairian drummers - I'm also making an increasing long list of those "to die for" music performances of which digital tapes just have to transferred to computer, then edited, and finally be made available to the world.  There is just SO much good stuff here. Michael - at Bread Box Studio, May 2010 ...read more