www.psneurope.com
December 2013 l 05
Less red tape, more red ribbons says Peter
seasonalbusiness Peter Janis’ 12 Days of Christmas
PSNEurope asked the president of studio gadget specialist Radial Engineering what he’d like his true love to send him this festive season...
DAY 1: LESS RED TAPE Tremendous time, effort and expense is required by everyone when we move goods across borders. Protectionism, taxation and other forms of barriers make it difficult to do business and the end result is higher prices for consumers and less money in the hands of producers. We should be doing everything we can to promote free trade (not free-er trade for me) so that we can all benefit.
DAY 2: STANDARDS THAT ARE ACTUALLY STANDARD Way back in the 1990s, we anticipated fibre-optics would completely take over audio and render our custom cable division obsolete. Immunity to RF, no more ground loops, 24-bit 96kHz sampling... perfect audio for all. Although we made great strides, we soon came to the conclusion that if a Yamaha console cannot speak with a DiGiCo, analogue splitters would still survive. Twenty years later, we are still wishing for a universal standard!
DAY 3: MORE INDEPENDENT DEALERS Creativity and innovation comes from those that are excited about being in the business. This often begins on the retail sales floor where guys like me started in this business. With the trend away from person-to- person communication, to
online ordering at-the-best-price practices, we are heading towards a ‘vanilla only’ future. My wish is for more small independent shops to rise to the occasion.
DAY 4: FAIR TAXATION With internet shopping comes tax evasion. We can blame the Romans for inventing both tax and evasion – they have been doing it for 2000 years. But when a far-off jurisdiction can beat the local competitor by avoiding tax, it makes it impossible for the local company to thrive. A fair playing field for all our customers is another wish.
DAY 5: AN UNDERSTANDING OF ACOUSTICS How many times do you see folks putting in bigger PA systems or more speakers into a gymnasium in an effort to improve intelligibility when the room has so much echo, it is functionally useless? How I wish that the audio community would stop with the madness and actually pay attention to the room acoustics. Putting up acoustic panels is actually easier than installing speakers! And it will produce better results.
DAY 6: SOUND QUALITY It always amazes me that folks will spend huge amounts of dollars, Euros and Yen to buy a great car with an awesome surround system and then listen to audio through a terrible hi-fi
or low quality ear-buds. With such amazing technology at hand, better sound should be at the top of the agenda!
DAY 7: RECORD ONE OF MY SONGS I would love to have a top artist record and perform one of the many songs I have penned, but never had the time to promote. I got into the business playing piano at the age of seven and have had a guitar or keyboard to hand almost every day since then. How about enough time away from the office to record a few of them and send them off to see what happens?
DAY 8: STOP THE WORLD FOR 24 HOURS It seems that these days, we are so busy that we do not take the time to smell the roses. So please Santa, how about a switch that lets me shut everything down until I get caught up?
Peter meets Santa (or is it producer Bruce Swedien?)
DAY 9: GOOD ONLINE MAGAZINES [AHEM… – ED] I would love to see quality online magazines that had well researched articles written by professionals. Today, it seems the majority of what is being published are stories written by PR companies pushing a particular brand of speaker, console or wireless system. If PR articles are to rule the world, then they should all be about direct boxes because everyone knows
“I would love to have a top artist record and perform one of the many songs I
have penned...” Wouldn’t we all, Peter...
If only real Christmas trees came with DIs...
that a good DI is more important than anything else! Well – right up there with beer.
DAY 10: RTFM! OK, this may be far-fetched, but another wish would be to have people actually read the owner’s manual before they send us an email on how to use a given widget. Way back in the 1980s, Rane set itself apart by writing superb owner’s manuals that both informed and educated. At Radial, we do our best to do the same. Please Santa, give spectacles and initiative to all to read these documents!
DAY 11: WORKING WITH MOTIVATED STAFF I remember going into a music shop north of Chicago where the guy behind the counter that I was
speaking with was playing chess online during my presentation. I recently had a meeting in Texas where the person in front of me took 15 phone calls during the 45 minutes we were there. Suffice to say, manufacturers and reps take great pride in visiting customers and getting attention and respect is truly appreciated.
DAY 12: A USEFUL CHRISTMAS TREE Instead of the old tired globes, tinsel and lights I would like to see Radial DI boxes and Reampers hanging from the tree instead. With all the colours we have, it will make for a fabulous looking tree! Best part is after the celebration, the DIs could be used for the New Year’s Eve gig!
www.radialeng.com
Photo: © Gilead Limor
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