ahhhh..... who are you?
BASE stands for BAY AREA STUDIO ENGINEERING.
what else ya do?
what don't ya do?
ya got specialties?
what don't ya like?
ya haven't given your phone number...
how long ya been in the business?
what's the future of the Audio Business?
ya gonna spiffy-up this web stuff...?
We're located in San Francisco.
whadda ya do?
BASE repairs pro audio equipment.... and we've been doing it since 1981
as an independent facility.... before that our Chief Tech ran the
Tech Department at Fantasy Records in Berkeley....
and before that he worked for CBS Records....
BASE installs facilities...
and does custom modifications and all that kind of stuff.
We don't work for irritating people.... and we don't work on consumer junk...
Yes, I guess so...you might say we know analog tape recorders intimately.
and old consoles too...and lots of that nice sounding vintage gear...
Even tube gear....
we like old equipment a lot, it just sounds so damn good!!!
I'm not a great fan of digital equipment.... I like the analog sound.
Yes... We used to fix DATs, but I gotta say that
for overall sound quality I love the warmth and fatness that
analog gives. I mean why does everyone have to use tube this and
vintage that to make their digital recordings "sound good"...
Ya'd think if the technology was up to snuff, it would already
sound good...but it doesn't. You get greater ear-fatigue with
digital. Ya get a thinner sound. Ya get a 'flat' sound.
But it's the current technology, and it's never going away.....
Yep.... And we're mighty busy as it is. E-mail us.
If you're in the San Francisco area, sure you'll get the number...
Or ask some of the other folks in the business about us.
But we can't sit and talk you through a problem over the phone,
so for now e-mail's the way to go... if I have free time I'll
try to help, though I'm always overworked...
I mean I get calls from Alaska asking for help.... (true!)
About 23 or 24 years now....
My my my.... more digital. Hopefully the sampling rate will go way up
soon...to 192k or even higher, with a few more bits. Studer is
ending it's analog tape recorder production sometime this year (1999)
and I don't think Otari's far off. Though we all agree that analog
is the best sounding way to record, people cut corners by going
digital. Most engineers are overwhelmed with the bells and whistles
of digital that they forget what's most important: the sound, the music.
Frame accurate punch-ins sure sounds good until you realize that it's
making the music sound more and more sterile.
I'd rather take a live sounding performance with a few mistakes
anyday than a "perfect" but lifeless one. But digital tape's
cheap, 3 ADATs cost less than a used 2 inch recorder, and the
maintenance is less on the digital units. Everyone's got a
computer, and now anyone can master a CD at home....
But so much sounds so damn bad.......
Yep.... gonna get a domain name, the whole www thing. We got
a good selection of Ampex parts, some MCI stuff and lots of
odds and ends hanging around that we'd like to put into the
hands of people who need it..... besides there's lots of
tips and tricks that I want to share with everybody about
those old analog recorders that I've learned over the
past 20 years......