Thread July 26, 2014 editorial: comments

The Wires are Winning

I vividly remember an incident years ago when a band I was in hired an engineer to come and record us playing at our rehearsal space (we didn’t have our own recording gear at the time). This engineer had been recommended to us, but let’s just say it turned out he wasn’t destined to be the next Eddie Kramer or George Massenberg.

The hapless fellow experienced one gear problem after another as he tried to record us, and the session was going nowhere fast. Finally at one point he looked at us sheepishly and said, “The wires are winning.” Although I long ago forgot what songs we were recording that day, I still remember that memorable phrase.

The thought of the wires winning allows me to segue to this question: Is it just me, or do headphone cables have some sort of innate talent to get tangled up in your chair? I know it sounds trivial, but I swear, practically every time I put on my headphones they seem to end up wrapped around the casters of my chair or the leg of a stand — or both. On a couple of occasions, I’ve even stood up with my headphones on, not realizing the cable was wrapped around something, and accidentally caused a mic stand or guitar stand to crash to the floor. At such moments I've found myself wishing fervently for a quality pair of wireless headphones.

So where am I going with this admittedly trivial train of thought? Nowhere, really.  But having just discovered once again that my headphone cable was wrapped around my chair leg in a fashion so devious that it caused me wonder whether the wire is truly an inanimate object, I felt inspired to share it with you.

Do you have a pet peeve from your recording experiences? Let’s commiserate about them in the Studio and Home Studio forum.

Have a great week.

Mike Levine

U.S. Editor, Audiofanzine