Mixmasters is a group of people who exchange audio tapes, technical hints, and occasionally emotional support for the sole purpose of helping improve each others' home recording and mixing production values. To join, you can use our cool new Web interface...just enter your email address and click the button below:

Or to join the list "by hand", send a blank email message (not in the Subject: line) to the address mixmasters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

To unsubscribe, just send a blank message to the address mixmasters-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Or just go to the complete Yahoo Groups Web interface at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mixmasters/ and you can read all the messages on the Web and never clutter your inbox!

Buy the Mixmasters Compilation CD or hear a few free samples!

How It Works:

You write to the list (at the address mixmasters@yahoogroups.com) telling everyone about what kind of tape you've made (in terms of music genre, or whatever the subject of the tape is), and then privately correspond with whoever shows an interest in receiving it. The people who get the tape listen to it, then post their comments to the entire list. It's kind of like a do-it-yourself version of Michael Laskow's "Reader's Tapes" column in Recording magazine, except that none of us are Michael Laskow (who knows, maybe we can get him in for a cameo one day :-).

Opinions, as everywhere else on the net, may vary. Some of us may love your work and others think it's distorted, noisy, and unintelligible. But if we keep to specifics (i.e. "I thought the guitar sound didn't work in that song because there was too much reverb" rather than "that track sucked") we should get some valuable feedback from other people doing the same kind of thing.

The rules:

0. No SPAM. No kidding.

1. No flaming. Call someone an asshole just once and you're out. The whole purpose of this list is to provide a safe, non-public environment for comments before you (gulp!) expose your work to the outside world.

2. No money. If someone has a tape they're selling commercially with 12 tracks on it, they're past the point where our advice can help them anyway (at least they should be :-). Nobody should be asking for money for postage/media/handling; if you want people's advice, you're going to have to pay to send them the tape. That's little enough to ask.

3. No slackers. If people are going to the trouble of asking your advice and sending you a tape (by your request) then please follow through and report back to the list within 7 days.

4. No value judgements. Since you're asking to receive a specific tape in the first place, it's silly to ask someone for a grunge music tape (for instance) and then criticize it on the basis that there's not enough classical music on it. We're here to improve our mixing and recording skills, not put down other people's taste in music per se (if you can't understand a word of the lyrics, that's another thing).

5. Everyone reserves the right to send out tapes or not. I don't want people feeling obligated to send out 300 tapes to all and sundry, especially halfway across the world. Besides, what would you do with 300 opinions? But please tell people once you've already sent out whatever you feel is your limit of tapes, so they understand.

• Here's an Excel spreadsheet (right-click to download it) to calculate modal frequencies from room dimensions, courtesy of Nicholas J. Enright. Or calculate them online here (requires Java-enabled browser).
• To go to other music-oriented links, click here.
• The 4-track FAQ!

05/24/2001 15:56