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...
ya do any warranty work?
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 beautiful San Francisco.
Goreski is a nickname that comes from a group of friends who
went skiing often up at Lake Tahoe. When we would call each other up
for a ski trip we'd call each other by our 'snow "ski"' name...
Roger became Rodge-ski, John = Jonski, and I became Goreski.
I like the name so I use it!
whadda ya do?
BASE repairs pro audio equipment.... and upgrades and mods gear when needed
and we've been doing it since 1981 as an independent facility....
before that our Chief Tech (me) ran the
Tech Department at Fantasy Records in Berkeley....
and before that he worked for CBS Records....
BASE installs facilities...
from giant corporate sites to home studios
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.... nah, let's be honest...
I HATE DIGITAL!! I like the analog sound. Real sound.
Yes... 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"...(they never do)
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. All sorts of phasing.
Horrible frequency responce that even the worst Analog unit
would never never allow. But it's the current technology,
and it's never going away..... And it's killing music in some senses.
Few now seem to be able to play their instruments skillfully
and with inspiration. Folks who are second-rate guitarists
now record their own drum tracks, because they can edit this and
loop that little part they accidential played correctly. With
Digital you can pitch-correct a singer who can't sing, or edit
a player who can't play 3 chords in a row correctly.
There's no 'air' in digital. No depth. No soul.
I used to cut records for CBS Records.... yep, cut masters on a
Scully Lathe with a Westrex cutting head. I love the way
analog tape sounds and how records - not CDs - sound.
You might say the sampling Rate of analog is infinite...like
Eighteen Quadrillion Billion Godzillaion times 10 to the billionth power.
Just like the strings on a guitar or violin. Just like the way your ears
respond to sound. Analog is not sampled, it 'IS'.
Digital - even the best out there - sounds like crap when
compaired to the actual instrument. There's not one top
engineer that I know of who will say digital sounds as good as analog.
They just say "I don't care anymore.. Digital is easier"
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 and Australia asking for help.... (true!)
Nope.... did some a while ago but stopped.
About 30 years now.... since 1981 when I started BASE.
Been in the Professional Audio Business since 1975..... CBS Records, Fantasy records...
My my my.... more digital junk. Hopefully the sampling rate will go way up
soon...to 192k or even higher, with a few more bits. Studer ended
it's analog tape recorder production in 1999...
and then that will be the end of new machines. Studer managed to sell
the last brand-new A-827 tape recorder they made in late 2007.
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. Too many edits, too
many 'fix it in the mix' things. Too many bad musicians.
An engineer friend of mine told me he had a "singer" in that was so bad
they were editing syllibles - not just words - trying to make her unlistenable
and out of pitch "singing" sound good. And they did it.
I think you should tell the shitty 'wanna be' singer to learn
how to actually sing before they make a CD. Or tell them to go
home and practice until they're ready.
I'd rather take a live sounding performance with a few mistakes
anyday than a "perfect" but lifeless one. But digital's cheap,
and the maintenance is far less with digital units.
Everyone's got a computer, and now anyone can master a CD at home....
But so much of what I hear sounds so damn bad.......
Also what hurts is that new engineers don't have any place to go
to learn and work with Analog equipment. Most new engineers
go out and buy their own digital rig as cheaply as possible
and never get to work in a 'real' studio. No one hires 'second
engineers' anymore. There are too many kids wanting to be
recording engineers so any begining slot that opens up is full
with hundreds of kids who want that one job.
So engineers and musicians never get the chance to work with
top professional analog gear and great engineers of the
'old school'.
And to add to our misery, the only way you now get to buy music
is in a digital format. It's bad enough to listen to CDs...
but with the popularity of mp3s one wonders how low the quality
will fall... mp3 is a rotten algorithm.
Yep.... I have 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 30+ years......
BUT.... it takes a lot of time to update pages already up on the site,
and longer to make new ones... scanning pictures, making diagrams,
typing instructions or tips for a particular machine...
hours of work and of course it's all free for users.