[Lachlan Davison] > ... from a dance music making perspective i'm not sure if i > understand this customer concept. Does your fav rock band use > "best practice" and professional conduct? are they not professional?
[Dave Phillips] > I'm a music professional. I make my living teaching music, writing > about music software, and performing music (classical guitar, rock, > blues). I have no other job, I pay my bills from the money I make > as a professional musician. Yes, many musicians today can rightly be called audio professionals in the sense that they use audio production equipment that was the specialist domain of trained audio engineers not some many years ago. But this does not mean Audio professional == Musician. In both examples at hand (my fav rock band, and Dave), the people involved essentially work with their own material only. If they screw it up, they will be the only ones to blame and to suffer. Also, the professional audio work they do is limited to their own requirements, and they set their own standards. But not all audio professionals work in these favorable conditions. When the files on your hard disk are not related to your own musical (or other) activities but represent the (often considerable) investment of a customer, you can't afford to take a cavalier attitude. To answer Lachlan's question "Does your fav rock band use best practice and professional conduct?", the answer is probably no, but the PA firm they hire to support their tour, and the studio they pay to record their next CD will, and know why. And I'd be surprised if Dave would allow his students to work on the same machine + login that he uses to write his articles, do his acoounts, etc. (Dave ???) [Tim Orford] > although "pros" have some valuable knowledge, one of the funny > things about them (and i am guilty of this) is that they all > think other pros are like them, which is not remotely true. > There are big differences between pros in different professions, > and even within the same discipline. The differences are not > overcomable, and i think you would be better off trying to analyse > and accomodate the differences rather than underplaying their > existance. Wise Words (but I suspect you wanted to write 'not *un*overcomable') -- FA