I get angry and depressed by Sound On Sound...

[James Steele]

Thanks for posting the link, Hugh. It actually gives me some hope that SOS hasn't forgotten us. Nice to see ampguimods.com mentioned too. One minor thing-- there's no need to restart DP 7.2 to change themes. I'm anxious to get my print copy for December. Perhaps if people see this review we might add a few users and perhaps get more coverage.

[Shooshie]

I promised I'd report back when I knew which issue of SOS would contain the review of DP 7.2. As it turns out, it was going to press as I wrote...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec10/a ... p-1210.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And FMiguelez, you are most welcome to read as many of our free access articles as you choose -- there's nothing parasitic about it and we would be very pleased for you to frequent our website as often as you like.

Hugh

That's progress, Hugh. That's progress. Thanks for the update.

Shooshie

[SOS Hugh]

Thanks for posting the link, Hugh.

No problem -- I said I would.

It actually gives me some hope that SOS hasn't forgotten us.

You know we haven't forgotten about DP or its user base, we've just scaled back the frequency of coverage in order to expand our coverage of other platforms which are currently more popular with our reader base.

hugh

[monkey man]

Well Hugh, FWIW it gives me hope too. Thank you for following through with that.

I might as well bring this up as it's been bugging me of late; I hope you don't mind:
If DP notes is only on average, say, two printed sides (effectively one sheet of paper), surely the worst case scenario, in order to honour all advertising bookings, would be the necessity of having to print one more sheet of paper per issue? I realise this is probably naive of me to ask; just trying to get some sort of proportional perspective on the scenario.

Obviously, production costs must be factored into the equation/trade-off, but from my limited perspective the DP notes column should, in theory at least, be dirt cheap to produce, at least when measured against such offerings as Mix Rescue (time) and studio makeovers (time, travel, materials). A light smattering of low-res (and subdued colour for some reason - printing?) screenshots, tastefully peppered into Biggie's contribution which, judging by his prowess with DP, is something you'd think he'd be able to concoct in a matter of hours if not minutes, and Bob's your auntie.

As is the case with most things, I've simply assumed that there was a whole lot more to the equation than my limited experience was allowing me to project. Please forgive my inquisition and indeed my naivety. Everyone here knows I've got toilet water behind my ears and that I'm just a punk. What's this immature punk missing though, if you don't mind my asking too much?

Thank you in advance Hugh,
Nicky

[SOS Hugh]

...surely the worst case scenario, in order to honour all advertising bookings, would be the necessity of having to print one more sheet of paper per issue? I realise this is probably naive of me to ask; just trying to get some sort of proportional perspective on the scenario.

It doesn't work that way I'm afraid. The printing is done on huge sheets which cover 16 separate pages, which are eventually folded, stitched onto the other sheets and then cut to reveal separate pages. Adding a single pair (or any other small combination) is prohibitively expensive, and the whole print costs thing is extremely complicated to optimise effectively. Added to which we need to balance editorial pages with advertising pages in an acceptable ratio, so we'd probably need to add three pages in total to justify two of editorial. We also have to factor in author fees and production resource costs, too, of course. The economics of printing magazines is extremely complicated and finely balanced.

Please forgive my inquisition and indeed my naivety

No problem. I totally get why you're trying to understand how it all works. But whichever way you square the circle, the bottom line is always the same: we can only afford a set number of editorial pages and we have to try to achieve a balance of different types of articles, features and reviews within that fixed space. We have a big production meeting every month to arrive at a balance of content for each issue that we think will satisfy the maximum possible number of readers, and it's always a huge challenge with lots of strong items conflicting over space and interest groups and time criticality. But in general, the feedback we get suggests we do get it right most of the time, for most people.... but I appreciate it doesn't necessarily feel that way to you and your friends here at the moment.

Of course, there are lots of different things we could have done to preserve DP Notes every month, but after careful deliberations we decided the optimal way forward for us was the specific course of action that we took, and that's where we are now and for the forseeable future.

As it happens, DP Notes has appeared 4 times in 2010 which is the minimum we said we would do. Had we not had the 25th Anniversary issue this year we would probably have seen five DP Notes columns. With any luck we will see 5 or 6 DP Notes columns next year -- and hopefully having been embarassingly caught out with the 64 bit article the sub editors will be much more on the ball with DP references in general in future.

I should also add that we are launching the first of a series of 'bookazines' in December. This first one is called "SOS Smart Guide: DAW Power User" and it features lots of brand new new material as well as some enhanced existing SOS content. There is also a supporting website featuring a wealth of multimedia content to tie in with it. The bookazine itself presents between 15 and 20 pages dedicated to each covered DAW -- and it includes a full section on DP. It's even got a brief page on SADiE, so I'm happy too

http://www.sos-smartguides.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hugh

[SOS Hugh]

...surely the worst case scenario, in order to honour all advertising bookings, would be the necessity of having to print one more sheet of paper per issue? I realise this is probably naive of me to ask; just trying to get some sort of proportional perspective on the scenario.

It doesn't work that way I'm afraid. The printing is done on huge sheets which cover 16 separate pages, which are eventually folded, stitched onto the other sheets and then cut to reveal separate pages. Adding a single pair (or any other small combination) is prohibitively expensive, and the whole print costs thing is extremely complicated to optimise effectively. Added to which we need to balance editorial pages with advertising pages in an acceptable ratio, so we'd probably need to add three pages in total to justify two of editorial. We also have to factor in author fees and production resource costs, too, of course. The economics of printing magazines is extremely complicated and finely balanced.

Please forgive my inquisition and indeed my naivety

No problem. I totally get why you're trying to understand how it all works. But whichever way you square the circle, the bottom line is always the same: we can only afford a set number of editorial pages and we have to try to achieve a balance of different types of articles, features and reviews within that fixed space. We have a big production meeting every month to arrive at a balance of content for each issue that we think will satisfy the maximum possible number of readers, and it's always a huge challenge with lots of strong items conflicting over space and interest groups and time criticality. But in general, the feedback we get suggests we do get it right most of the time, for most people.... but I appreciate it doesn't necessarily feel that way to you and your friends here at the moment.

Of course, there are lots of different things we could have done to preserve DP Notes every month, but after careful deliberations we decided the optimal way forward for us was the specific course of action that we took, and that's where we are now and for the forseeable future.

As it happens, DP Notes has appeared 4 times in 2010 which is the minimum we said we would do. Had we not had the 25th Anniversary issue this year we would probably have seen five DP Notes columns. With any luck we will see 5 or 6 DP Notes columns next year -- and hopefully having been embarassingly caught out with the 64 bit article the sub editors will be much more on the ball with DP references in general in future.

I should also add that we are launching the first of a series of 'bookazines' in December. This first one is called "SOS Smart Guide: DAW Power User" and it features lots of brand new new material as well as some enhanced existing SOS content. There is also a supporting website featuring a wealth of multimedia content to tie in with it. The bookazine itself presents between 15 and 20 pages dedicated to each covered DAW -- and it includes a full section on DP. It's even got a brief page on SADiE, so I'm happy too

http://www.sos-smartguides.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hugh

[Guitar Gaz]

It was nice to see DP featured again - I just got my latest copy of SOS. Themes is a powerful feature - people like me love to customise so I have pictures of my daughters on the control bar and quite a few colour Themes to change the mood depending on what I am doing. SOS have at least done it some justice (belatedly although I am sure articles have to be ready for 2 or 3 months in advance). DP just looks so much better than other DAWS now, and the function/feature set is really powerful.

I won't be renewing my SOS subscription as this was not just based on the shrunk DP coverage. But glad it has featured DP this month.

[BKK-OZ]

I still think SOS is the best of its kind out there, and I will be re-upping my eSub, and quite often I will still buy the hard copy in the news agent too.
Sure there are a number of alternatives, but they are all so closely aimed at the wanna be Jay Z's* of the world that I lose interest.

*and lest I get flamed, I should add that there is really nothing wrong with wanting to be Jay Z, its just not my thing.

[James Steele]

I haven't come to a place where I can say I'm willing to renew at this time. It will depend on how many more "whoopsies" I see with SOS not even mentioning DP in articles like the 64-bit compatibility one in the November issue. Also, I don't have the citation now, but I was under the impression that Performer notes was going to be every two months... six times per year and it's turned out that it was four times a year. So it wasn't reduced to by half, but by three quarters. The review of DP 7 was cool, and I'm glad they printed it. I didn't know that counts against one of the four techniques slots we have, but so be it.

I'll probably find a newstand that carries it and buy just the Performer Notes issues. I think Fry's might carry it.

[monkey man]

I feel ya, James.

Hugh, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, and so comprehensively at that. Bravo!
Nicky

[n2mpujack]

Does anybody know if the SOS issue with the DP review has hit the US shores yet in a bookstore like a Barnes & Noble? I try and stay away from such places because they're for me like music stroes are - once I go in I'm doomed and the plastic's in for a beating. So I only go when I have a real need

[n2mpujack]

I know it's usually bad form to reply to one's own posts, but I just came back from a shoppinx expedition to both Barnes & Noble and Borders and the December issue of SOS is not on the shelves yet. They did have the November issue however.

As an aside, no Electronic Musician (EM as it's now known) of any month and only 1 old issue of Recording mag.

[bdr]

I know it's usually bad form to reply to one's own posts, but I just came back from a shoppinx expedition to both Barnes & Noble and Borders and the December issue of SOS is not on the shelves yet. They did have the November issue however.

As an aside, no Electronic Musician (EM as it's now known) of any month and only 1 old issue of Recording mag.

I have been in the US 3 times in the last year and couldn't find EM at any newsstand or bookstore. I hear that some magazines are finding it more cost effective to be subscription only than to deal with distribution costs.

[n2mpujack]

I'm a long-time subscriber to EM and Recording so whether it's on a newstand or not isn't a big deal to me. It is, however, available at most Guitar Centers.

[stephentayler]

Don't know if I missed anything about this before, But I think this is very new ...... I just received SOS Smart Guides - DAW Power User.... (it says it is the UK edition, may be only for Europe at the moment)

An entire special edition devoted to Cubase, DP, Live, Logic, Pro Tools, Reaper, Reason and Sonar... with a full 16 pages devoted to DP

here's the website

http://www.sos-smartguides.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Cheers

Stephen