The UK association for recording professionals is the APRS (Association of Professional Recording Services). It's counterpoint in the USA is the SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services). The APRS has been operating for over 50 years, the SPARS for over 30 years. Both allow overseas membership.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been several Akai, Teac, and Sansui quadraphonic tape machines for sale in Christchurch on Trade Me. A collection was being sold off. I bid on a couple of them but didn't get one as the price went too high. I didn't think they would go for much but they did prove to be popular. I'm not sure why as they are not as cool or well-speced as the 2 track machines. The quad machines date from the early to mid 70s, with the later ones having the Simul-Sync (synchro-record) feature. This was added when the manufactures realised that quadraphonic was not likely to take off. Eventually the whole idea of quad was dropped so the channels were renamed 1-4 (instead of FL,FR,RL,RR) and the musicians 4 track reel-reel recorder was born. I used to have one; a Sony 788-4.

I checked out the Peavey KB100 against the Marshall Valvestate 8080. And the winner is? Click on my Keyboards page to see the full results.

Today the EQC guys are assessing our property (yet again), so I thought it timely to post an update. Work at MAINZ has changed a bit; soon after the Feb 22 I got busy putting classes on-line for my students. By the start of May we had some temporary premises organised. There are six of these and they are spread out around the city. As well as this I have set up an office at home. At this stage we are hopeful of getting back into the CBD for next year, but who knows? News today is that the Town Hall will not reopen for 2 and 1/2 years. Here is a photo of my office in the city. As far as I know there is no structural damage, just a lot of mess and some damaged equipment downstairs.

For a one-stop shop of audio forums visit Audio Asylum. http://www.audioasylum.com/index.htm

Starting a band but having trouble finding a name? (ah, the irony - good names require creativity!). Just type 'band name generator' into Google, and it will show several websites designed to come up with suitably random names. Problem solved.
Or, to get you started you can find out how bands chose their names in the old days. Wikipedia has a page of band etymologies at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_band_name_etymologies. It is not a complete list (surely ZZ Top should be the last entry, and why are The Beatles missing?). 

I came across this old radio on Trade Me and couldn't resist. There were no other bids so I got it for $20. It is a 1948 multiband (ie it covers MF and HF bands) Empire brand. It lights up but there is no sound. The output valve is dead - it's a 6V6GT, so if anyone has a spare... Interestingly, 1948 was the year the transistor was unveiled (also the year Israel became a nation, but that's another story). Valve radios of this style started in the mid 1930s (after the Cathedral designs), and were still being made into the mid 1950s, the only updates being a permanent magnet loudspeaker, and miniature valves.

With yet another aftershock this morning (a 5.5 magnitude), it is nice that this time-lapse video was taken to remind us what Christchurch used to be like.
 

TripAdvisor is a handy website for the traveller. It has reviews on accommodation and activities from all over the world. One of the really good things is this map where you can keep a record of where you have been. As I have been travelling NZ-wide, and overseas since the early 1970s, I was starting to forget some of the places visited, so here they are: