Change is, once again, in the air. There has been so much happening in the past month or so, and so many things in flux that I am finding it impossible to put it into any kind of coherative narrative (I know, that should be coherent, but it just sounds so much cooler the other way…), so I think the best approach this time is just to throw out a bunch of bullet-point ideas and see what makes sense in the end. ITEM: While proofing pages of the EPD (which many of you will be receiving with this issue of FOH) I came across, under the heading Outboard, not a list of signal processing boxes, but these words: "Pro Tools plug-ins." I only saw it once this year, but am betting that by next year, it increases frequency by at least 50-fold.
ITEM: I am writing this on the last day of February, shortly after Apple announced its new media center minis. All of us Mac minions knew that something was to be announced on Feb. 28, but not exactly what. And I did not have to wait until after the event to find out or tune in to some Apple-hosted video feed and get the approved, corporate version. Instead, I could go online and watch as a group of Mac faithful did a live (updated every minute) blog from the event. By the time the event was over and before the news went live on Apple's site, I knew most of what was announced without any PR spin to it.
ITEM: We found out a couple of weeks prior to this writing that the UK corporation that owns the lion's share of magazines in the pro audio and musician markets has put the whole kit and kaboodle up for sale. This includes titles of possible interest to FOH readers including Pro Sound News, System Contractor News, Rental and Staging as well as guilty pleasures like Guitar Player, Bass Player, Keyboard and the once-great EQ. (In the spirit of full disclosure, for those who don't know, I once worked for that company doing a magazine called Gig. They canned me, hired a kid at a third of my salary, told everyone in the industry that I had quit to "start a competing magazine" and killed the book I had built in less than a year. But I'm NOT bitter. Really.) Anyway, they are asking an obscene amount of money, and it means that the most likely scenario is that the group will be split up with the parts bought by folks in those businesses who can afford one or two titles, or the whole group will be bought by another corporate behemoth that cares squat for this industry.
ITEM: Nearly twice as many TV viewers tuned in to American Idol as were watching the Grammys. But when you get right down to it, how much difference is there between some of the train wrecks on Idol and that Sly Stone nightmare on the Grammys? (Given the choice, we covered the Grammys 'cuz it is way cooler from a sound perspective even if the ratings sucked. Story is on pg. 20.)
ITEM: While shooting pics for the Hairspray install story, I failed to notice that the once gated-off stairwell that went from FOH to the area under the seats had been changed and was now ungated and partially covered. Stepping backwards to better frame the shot, I stepped into the hole and hurt myself badly enough that I am still limping two weeks later.
Let's take a shot at tying all of this together, shall we? The world is changing and the pace of that change is getting faster all the time. If we don't look around and take note of the change, we take the chance of falling on our butts like I did into that stairwell. Publishing is changing at least as fast and as deeply as the live audio world, and I have been telling anyone who will listen that as magazine people, we could easily be the functional equivalent of the monks who were hand-copying Bibles while Herr Guttenberg was building his press. Not a pretty thought, but one we have to deal with if we are to face, survive and thrive in the future.
How about you–are you aware of how the business and your local market are changing? Are you still doing things and using the gear you had two decades ago because that is just the way you have always done it? Do you mock the young, hungry guys scraping to start their own businesses, or do you try to learn from them and, heaven forbid, give them the benefit of your knowledge gained through years of experience?
Something to ponder while you are looking around for open stairwells to avoid.
