.Wav Files and Recording Studios

Plotnik spent the morning recording voice-overs for The Perfect Pitch. Here's how it works. His partner and the engineer are in the recording studio in Denver and when they need something they email Plotnik a .wav file of the track Plottie is to use as a background to record over. Plotnik listens to the music on headphones and records his part into his digital recorder. He is listening to the background track so his rhythm is the same as the track's. When he's done recording, he makes another .wav file of the new recording, going from his digital recorder into his computer, and then emails the new and the old back to Denver and they plug it into the software and then patch it into the show.

What happened to the misery of recording studios? Where are the drummers who have to go out for a cigarette and then come back four hours later? What about the pleasure of doing Take Number 27 when you thought Take Number 1 was just fine? And all the time the clock is ticking and you're paying for each minute? And the smell...nervousness and exhaustion and frustration all blended together? Oh, and the Engineer just broke up with his girl friend and he stopped paying attention half an hour into the session and he's ready to start a fight on any pretense?

The new way may still seem crazy to Plotnik, but it sure beats flying to Denver.

His partner David's wife works for the airlines, so Dave can fly for free -- if. The 'if' refers to how there has to be available non-revenue space on the plane so he can fly standby. Last Sunday Dave got to LAX at 9am to fly home to Aspen. The problem was Sunday was also Easter. So he waited at the airport until finally, at 7pm, they told him the last flight was full and he'd have to come back for the 6am flight the next morning. When he got to the airport at 4:30AM Monday to catch the 6AM flight, there were 100 seats available on the plane. By 6AM there were only two left, but he did get one. He has vowed to never fly standby again on Easter, which is probably not such a bad idea.