Fantastic! I use to have a Theta D/A, and still have the Moffat-designed Angstrom 200 Director. The one product they talked about that seems unlikely to me is the processor that will, allegedly, allow the vocal in a recording to be adjusted in time. If you have a vocal isolated on one channel of a multi-track tape, then sure. But if it is already mixed with instruments, the frequencies involved with vocals are also involved with instruments. How can a vocal be separated from the instruments in a recording?
Moffat’s discussion of performer timing was interesting. Whenever I start working with a singer or band, if I hear a problem with the timing, I take a sheet of paper, draw a horizontal line across it, and then a V-shaped "pothole" at regularly-spaced distances on the line. Each of those potholes represents the 2/4 backbeat. I explain how one (or more) musician(s) or the singer is not using the bottom of the V, at it’s greatest depth, as their timing reference. The bottom of the V, right in it’s center, is the absolute middle of the "pocket". Keith Moon was known to play ahead of the beat (aka the middle of the pocket), Charlie Watts behind it, and Ringo dead center.
To hear what a "deep pocket" drummer sounds (and feels) like, take a fresh listen to Roger Hawkins. He is on all the recordings Jerry Wexler made in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, using The Swampers (aka The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section) as his band. Those recordings include Aretha’s Atlantic albums, as well as those of Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, and Solomon Burke. Also Dylan, Levon Helm (not a bad drummer himself ;-), Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, and many others. Other artists with albums containing Hawkins’ drumming include J.J. Cale, Boz Scaggs, Greg Allman, John Prine, Glenn Frey, Traffic, and a whole lot more. A great, great drummer.
