Well, it’s that time of year again, and there is plenty of stocking stuffers in my Christmas wish list. A lot of these tid bits I already have, but as the famous song lyric states, "if I had to do it all over again, I would do it all over you."


1) Pro Control from Digidesign. Maybe a little big for the stocking, but the gift certificate should fit nicely. Mix projects with million dollar budgets right in your bedroom.

2) StudioSuite 4.0 from AlterMedia. This s a FileMaker Pro system for studio paperwork control. Billing, work orders, inventory control, tape and CD labels, engineer scheduling, studio booking, track sheets, and equipment recall sheets. I thought it was so cool that I gave Alter Media all of my recall drawings to add to their collection.

3) MSP 5 from Dave Zicareli and Cycling 74. For all of you Opcode MAX fans, MSP allows object control over DSP functions so you can be creative with the audio as well as MIDI information. You can easily build your own plug-ins, and with the aid of Pluggo, run them under Cubase VST, Vision DSP or Logic Audio.

4) VocAlign software from Synchro Arts. Syncing up double vocals and chorus harmony parts just became routine. Pick the reference track, pick the destination track, and let-er-rip. Week’s worth of work completed in minutes. Good job!

5) Yamaha 01V, the world’s least expensive digital consoles. Digitaql I/O. built-in reverbs, automation, total reset of all parameters. I just got back from Buenos Aires, and an act I went to see was using one to provide their own mix, and send a feed to the house P.A. I am using one for "more me" headphone applications (a memory for each song), and another one for reverb returns to my 02R.

6) Garmin has come out with more cool GPS receivers. The Street Pilot has all of the numbered highways in the US and plug-in (see, everyone uses plug-ins) cartridges for each major city that includes all streets, motels, food, gas, but no recording studios. Then there is the GPS III pilot that I have mounted on my bicycle. All of the numbered highways, plus all of the airports with runways over 1000 ft. I was using it on the flight to Buenos Aires and the pilot came back and took it away from me. He said he wanted to play with it. He did give it back, after we landed. There is going to be a new one, the GPS III plus, that will allow you to download map data from CD-ROM into the unit. WHERE’s MINE!

7) Waves Gold Bundle. If you had a choice between a Playmate under your tree, or all of the best plug-ins on the market, which would you choose? The Waves Gold Bundle is much cheaper than a divorce lawyer, won’t run off with a richer guy, and can do a lot more for making your mixes sound great! Waves uses a dongle for copy protection so you can take your bundle with you, plug in the dongle and mix on someone else’s Pro Tools. When you pull out your dongle (isn’t that what Clinton is getting impeached for?), the plug-ins quit and your friend has to buy his own.

8) Opcode Vision DSP. The thin line between MIDI sequencing software and audio based recording with DSP plug-ins has vanished. The sequencing software of choice for the Steely Dan guys.

9) Did I mention Pro Tools 24 Mix and Mix Plus? Half the number of card slots for three times the power. You can now have 64 tracks with 32 I/O channels in a three slot Mac G3. If you are a PC fan, the whole system works flawlessly under Windows NT, so you don’t have to waste a Mac.

10) TC Electronics’ new reverb engine is about to be shipped. The M3000 uses new digital reverb algorithms to up the ante for all of the other reverb manufacturers. TC electronics has laid the corner stone for reverb building blocks of the next century.

11) Anything from Sweetwater Sound. The best service and emergency replacement police in the country. They’ll practically send you the new one BEFORE your old one breaks.

12) You know I had to throw in a watch. Breitling has a version of their Aerospace called the Emergency. It has a built in ELT (Emergence Locator Transmitter) that can be directly picked up by satellite and rescue crews dispatched anywhere in the world. It has been approved by the FCC, but none of the US dealers will carry it for fear of liability if a customer accidentally sets it off. It makes me want one all the more.

13) Need eight mic preamps in a single rack space for your Pro Tools system? Try the Precision 8 mic preamps by True Audio Systems. Balanced in and out, phantom, switchable DI on inputs 1 and 2, adjustable peak meter settings, and I almost forgot. It sounds great feeding those 24 bit converters.

14) Apogee has a new two channel 24 bit 96k A/D & D/A converter in a one rack space package. It has ADAT I/O, bit splitting so you can record those 24 bit mixes to an ADAT, and UV-22 noise shaping if you have to print your mixes to 16 bit media. I have every Apogee version ever made. I even have an extra Apogee AD-1000 that I carry with me wherever I go. You never know when someone will ask you to whip out your Apogee.

15) Acoustic Sciences, maker of the famous Tube Trap system now has the ATTACK WALL. A plethora of tube traps that you place around your mixing console to turn any spare room into a great mixing environment. I’ve tried it and it works great. Don’t buy them all, though. Leave some more for me.

16) Yamaha gets in here twice this year with their D-24 8 track Optical recorder. It will record 16 bit, 24 bit, 2 track, 8 track, just about anything you want, at a price that will knock your socks off.

17) Anything from Rane. They still don’t know that they charge to little for the quality of gear that the produce. Get some before they figure it out.

18) Marantz has a new CD recorder, the CDR-630. It is a stand-alone recorder that will record from AES, optical, coax, or analog inputs directly to CD-R or CD-RW. It has a built-in sample rate converter so that you can record CDs digitally from your 48k DAT or ADAT tapes. I use one for printing safety mixes. If you use CD-Rs, nobody (read; second engineer) can accidentally erase your mix.

19) What about the Caravell CDR-N820S SCSI CD recorder. It records CDs at 8x. That means you can crank out a 74 minute CD every 10 minutes. For most cases this means you can get by with one 8x machine instead of buying two or more 4x machines for multiple copies. Owning a dozen 4x machines doesn’t make one CD-R any faster than one 4x machine.

20) I just got another Titanium bicycle from Ernesto’s Cyclery in Miami. If you notice the prices going up, it must be because I am cornering the market. Titanium looks good between my legs. Also blow up rubber manikins, but that is another story.

21) I have talked about the sound system in my Lexus that I tuned up with my Meyer SIM machine. Well, my lease ran out and I couldn’t find another car with a stock sound system that sounded as good as the ES-300, so I got a brand new ’99 of the same exact car, this time with the Nakamichi upgraded sound system. More power, more speakers, lower bottom end, and it tuned up real nice with the SIM machine. Plug your ears if I pull up next to you at a signal.

22) Since I’m talking about cars, I’ve gotta plug my leasing guy. He supplies all the music business types in Nashville with their wheels. This is my third car from Performance Leasing, and even though I live in Miami, I saved so much money that I flew to Nashville, picked up the new car, and drove it to Miami. Ask for Damon Beard. Ask for your Gear Slut discount. Next year my wifes car lease is up. Maybe I’ll get my next one free!

If I left out some things, it is only because I ran out of room. I could easily fill a whole magazine with the cool stuff I have seen and want to add to my world of goodies. Let me know if you find any cool stuff, like Titanium clothespins, or a Mac track ball that works.