The Future of Microsound?

[MMVOX]

I love MicroSound. I've been a user of the system since 1994. I've succeeded in convincing several colleagues in the broadcast industry to purchase systems. When I demonstrated the software to them, they were hooked. When I would train radio station staff on MicroEditor, THEY were hooked. Since leaving broadcasting myself in 1999, I purchased my own system which I used and loved since that time. No problems whatsoever, until 2 weeks ago when a virus invaded my system. As my system is being serviced, I realize that I got spoiled by the reliability of my system and now must purchase a second system for the sake of keeping my business going in the event of another serious crash. Naturally, another MicroSound MicroEditor system is my first choice. Just so you know, when it comes to computers I am a bonehead. I use them, but I have very little aptitude when it comes to dealing with what happens "inside". If I'm reading correctly, the overall message that I'm getting in the forum is that MTU is no longer developing MicroEditor. Is that true? The most elegant and brilliant system I've seen may be coming to an end?

[geezer]

I certainly in no way speak for MTU, but I have to say that I have drawn this conclusion from everything MTU has said and done for a number of years now.

There has been a porting of MicroEditor to the newer OSs, but I have seen virtually nothing else truly new for at least 6 years (if not longer), and any talk of improvements, modernization or upgrades from the users results in either silence or grave concern about the costs versus benefits.....Nothing would lead me to believe that there has been any movement torwards real development.

With their Karaoke business driving the company, this is understandable. I, personally, have gotten way beyond the sadness and despair mode and have been trying for several years to get a little help from MTU and/or users in improving the file sharing capabilities of MTU so that it can maintain a healthy place in my modern studios. Little of this help has been forthcoming, but one can hope.

If you can offer suggestions for prolonging the life of this system, please bring them forth.

[MMVOX]

Hi Geezer,

My suggestions for the prolonging of this system can only be made in layman's terms. If MTU wishes to be involved, it would entail a real promotional and sales effort, so that you would actually see the system in catalogues and magazines worldwide. I find it hard to believe that MicroEditor cannot be an economically viable entity if it can be made to operate on non-proprietary hardware. Do you think MTU would be interested in selling the rights and designs to MicroEditor to another company...or a group of users who may be interested in the further development of the system? I'm no expert in IT or computers....but can't the system be adapted for today's hardware so that anyone...from the kid recording a garage band in his basement....to the big city advertising producer/editor....could have a reliable MicroEditor on his/her computer? I don't know the answer. All I know is that it's been a great system for me and my business and I would love to use it for the next 30 years.

[geezer]

I will reiterate again that I in no way speak for MTU, but....


The central issue for changing MicroEditor always seems to be hiring the original main programmer- Larry- to rewrite code for it. His time is expensive, and he no longer is employed by MTU. (Please correct me if I am wrong about this, Dave!)......There have several times been suggestions from the MTU admin that Larry could be brought on to do some rewriting if the goals and expenses were clearly defined and, perhaps, if enough users would underwrite the costs....I and a few others have indicated more than once that we might be willing to go down that path (i.e.- paying money for specific features), but nothing has ever come of it.


That is why I have taken the tack- more or less continually- of defining a markedly more narrow and extremely inexpensive set of goals having to do with simple file recognition and translation.....I have to tell you that it disturbs me greatly that I have gotten no real response on this front either.

I don't know what else to do. The will to insure some future for this product does not seem to be there in Raleigh. It is a strange market, for sure, but I wish there was a little more information forthcoming.


Again: Dave and Co., pipe up and tell me I am wrong......Or pipe up and tell us something. I have been an almost rabid supporter and promoter of Microeditor since I got the system 10 years ago, but it is increasingly hard to justify this attitude. Product support is what sold me originally and what drove my enthusiasm.

The system is still fast and fluid within its feature set, but that matters less and less if I cannot interface with other modern systems and file structures. I end up defining a smaller and smaller area of my business where the efficiency of MicroEditor makes sense.

[MMVOX]

Hi Geezer,

Well, okay, not really a "sin". I wanted to get back to you, now that a ton of time has passed. Although I've used and loved MicroEditor since 1994, I've been forced to relegate my system to backup status. I've gone to Pro Tools and it's excellent. I would have preferred to stay with MicroEditor, but two things forced my hand:

1) Lack of development and support. To this day I find it hard to believe that MicroEditor would not be supported over the long term by fans such as myself, and those that I've turned on to the system. Granted, this would take a bit of effort on the part of MTU...the software development needed to keep up with the times, and equally important the marketing drive to get the system into catalogues, dealers, etc. so that people are actually aware of its existence.

2) On a personal level: I got ripped off. A while back I contacted MTU about purchasing a backup hard drive and CD burner for my system. I could have bought this stuff anywhere, but I went to MTU out of loyalty, respect, and for their expertise. I purchased FROM THEM the equipment THEY recommended. When the hard drive proved to not be compatible, I requested a refund. They refused because I had waited longer than 30 days after purchase. (It was in fact longer than 30 days...installation of this drive wasn't an emergency or anything so my computer tech was in no rush to get to me.) Although it's not much, I am responsible for at least 10 MicroEditor systems being purchased from MTU between 1994 and 1999. That said, and since it was THEIR equipment recommendation that proved to be inaccurate, I would have expected a refund, or a credit, on the hard drive. Their inaccuracy occurred at the time of purchase, not after the 30 days.

Certainly it's not the money...MTU obviously needed the cash more than me. It's the principle that is important to me.

But it's been a great learning experience. They demonstrated a valuable lesson to me about how NOT to treat my clients, and as a result most of my business is from repeat clients. They forced me to be open minded about embracing and learning a new system, and Pro Tools is great, fun and very well supported. And finally, they showed me that all that wacky religious crap that appears in the MicroEditor manual under "Credits" is nothing but lip service...like most religious zealots, they can talk the talk but cannot walk the walk.

[geezer]

Happy to see you are settled in to a new system.

As I have said elsewhere on this forum, I found my highly affordable, high quality replacement for Microeditor a few years ago with Steinberg's Wavelab. Once I figured out how to use it, it was actually faster than Microeditor and enough of an improvement in quality that I was able to figure out a whole new set of quality considerations with digital audio, and really upgraded my mastering skills for CDs.

I still have 2 functional MicroSound systems, but have actually not powered them up in 2 or 3 years at least.....I should probably pull them off the shelf and spin the drives up to see if I can salvage any of the somewhat important files still in that format, I guess.

....There was a "golden age" of support and development for MTU and Microeditor that, when I think back on it, was actually pretty short for me....perhaps only 3 or 4 years. The amazing thing, though, is that the original product and paradigm were so elegantly designed and forward thinking that the lack of continued development did not kill it completely for maybe 5 years after that. It certainly would have been better for MTU to have been more forthcoming about the dead end they were aimed at, but the quality did ultimately justify the investment, I guess.....even though, in my case, that investment was pretty considerable ($12,500. in 1994, and at least another $3,000. over the next 3 years or so).

Although it would have been nice for MTU to have made the transition into the new age, we are actually living in pretty lucky times right now. All the companies still left standing have managed to come up with very mature, good sounding software packages, and the computers they ride on have lots of power right out of the box.....At least we all have some place comfortable to land after our the wings fell off our airplane in mid-flight. I was definitely a little scared when I heard the engines sputtering back around 2001-2 (after several years of entreating MTU to give them a valve job), but my heart stopped racing when I got Wavelab working....and there are lots of other functional systems now. Whew.

[MMVOX]

Hi Geezer,

Very well said. You are right, we are fortunate to have the choices in software/hardware available to us right now. Many of them are excellent.

I made the move to ProTools in 2004, but I do power up my MicroEditor once a month or so just to spin the drive and see if it still works. And it does. I was just extremely disappointed because MicroEditor was the first DAW that I learned, and it opened up all kinds of possibilities for me in broadcast audio and music production, allowing me to be more productive and creative. Ironically, one of the last voiceover projects that I recorded on MicroEditor was a narration for Avid/Digidesign....makers of ProTools.

[admin]

Well gentlemen, this is an interesting set of posts.

First, MTU IS and always WILL BE the Grandfather of the DAW industry. MIX Mag documented that we were the first in their Sept. 1997 "The Audio Industry: 20 Years" issue. We knew that as we watched everyone else come in after us. I even sent MIX 12 pages of history, some of which they weren't aware of, that proved to their satisfaction that we were the first.

MTU pioneered and defined the "bleeding edge" in DAWs and microcomputers, starting in 1968. We cut the path from nothing. We then paved the road for others to drive on. No matter what you want to think or say today, we did it, and Digidesign and Steinberg benefited from our pioneering work. We were shipping 9 years before Digidesign started their first product, before even their Sound Tools. Steinberg was more than a decade later.

1. Motorola killed Microeditor. Although we had a 5 year guarantee from the DSP Manager, with 3 of his managers hearing (and later attesting to) his promise, 8 months later we received our "last buy" warning on the 56401 Digital Audio chip... which was the clock heart of the Krystal DSP card. We ordered what we thought would be enough for then next few years, based on our sales forecasts and past performance. To redesign Krystal, was out of the question. We had lost our senior engineer to SAS. He was both hardware designer and lead programmer. There was no way to keep him at any price as the DAW market was too volatile for him. Redesigning the hardware would have taken probably $150,000 before we were tested and released. It was not feasible.
   
   
2. Radio producers needed one set of advancements, studios a different, and video yet another major shift. Thus, our markets required diverging technologies.[/b] MTU didn't have the staff to excel in 3 different directions, and you both know MTU never shipped junk! Our "advisors" were pulling us in different directions, and made it clear that unless we did what they recommended, we would not make it. Well, I agreed.
   
   
3. The DAW market shifted drastically within a year. The software only products became usable, and ate the market from below. Lots of sales we used to make for editing work were now going to... Goldwave, CoolEdit Pro, Sound Forge and others. These had no hardware cost like our Krystal card so their retail price was below our manufacturing MATERIALS cost!
   
   
4. The other "high end DAW" systems with hardware, were in the same boat with us. They too had to redesign from ground up to support 192KS/s, add POW-R dithering, change from SMPTE, and more... or die. Most also died with us that were at the "mid range" in price. Digidesign was sold to Avid, which aided their survival and eventually winning the "high end" market.
   
   Steinberg, Syntrillium and Sonic Foundry were sold, and their products survive today. "Small" companies are gone, and the market players are Mega-Internationals now. Simply stated, the DAW market we pioneered... matured. MTU would NOT have made it even if we tried. As President, I made the right decision because unlike most of our DAW competitors, MTU is still around for you to post in our Forums!

Geezer, you were one of our lead "advisors". You pushed the envelope all the time. Your suggestions were superior, and drove us to higher excellence. I can't estimate the massive number of hours I spent thinking about each suggestion you made; implementing many of them as you know. And one of your posts in 2004 said it all: "That is, I would not have realized how to work fast or how fast you can work - and how good things can sound- without having used Microeditor." However, we couldn't afford to go where you and others made it clear we "had to go". After doing my own analysis I agreed. Given the 4 points above, which I clearly saw coming, and with no offer to sell out, we got out before bankrupty.

Markets change  *  Technologies change  *  Companies change  *  The world changed

MMVOX, your request for a full refund was made more than 180 days after you received the drive! And just like you, we didn't need the money... it was the principle of the matter. We all dropped our jaws when we got your first letter demanding we refund and take the product back after so long. Had you requested after 60 or 90 days, we would have negotiated a refund. Also, as I remember, the technical problem wasn't ALL MTU's fault, but its not worth proving it now. We always dealt ethically with you, proven by your own claim that you recommended us from 1994 -1999. We walked the walk. I truly am sorry that you feel you must insult us now. Un-forgiveness destroys a person. It is time to let it go and move on in life.

I'm glad you both have found new audio tools. Enjoy them. I wish you well in your endeavors.

We all worked well together for a Season and a Reason, but not for a Lifetime. Be glad it happened. Don't grieve it is gone.

[geezer]

So, here's a little story from some local work I did today that illustrates what I think the real problem is for updating and resurrecting MicroEditor:

I am transferring some Bach organ recordings for a man that his mother had recorded on 1/4 track tape 48 years ago. After putting a lot of effort into finding a functional playback machine (went through 3 before I got one that works) and a source for splicing and leader tape (only one in the US as far as I can tell), I transferred the recordings successfully into Wavelab. There was a lot of starting and stopping, and the levels were all over the place between different takes. All takes had relatively high 60cycle (120, 240, 480, etc) hum on the right side mostly, which really destroyed the stereo image and was loud enougnh to be beating noticably at times with bass notes from the organ.


On takes that were really quiet, I had the output of the tape machine cranked enough that the combined hum, tape noise and tape machine amplification noise were literally riding as high as -12DBFS!....and were often up at -30dbfs or higher.

I felt relatively sure, since the noise level was pretty constant for each take, that I could at least clean this up some.....If I had done this with the original DOS DNoise, this probably would have required at least an hour's worth of experimentation, then at least 2 passes of an hour's worth of processing for every few minutes of audio.....In addition, I don't know if I actually could have made it work that well for noise levels only 12db down from the max.

I checked through my Waves plugs, and realized I had not purchased their high end restoration tools. Before going on line with my credit card, I remembered that I had really thought highly of the Cool Edit noise removal, so I opened up my mostly idle Adobe Audition 2.0 to see if it still had that function built in.......The long and short of this experience is that I was able to get the noise out of every clip within 30 seconds (including defining the noise section and all processing) with 24 bit audio, and yielding a 32bit file. There was virtually no decision making on my part and no multiple passes needed, and the resultant files have virtually no loss of loudness or fidelity issues. They sound every bit as good (if not better)as the files I labored over all day with Dnoise in '96 or '97...Even the file with the -12 combined noise level! It literally sounds identical to the files with the noise down around -35......It was effortless, and I have never used the program before. I did not have to think at all, and the files are sitting in the same folder I started for the Wavelab project and will go effortlessly into the Wavelab CD Montage.

All this on my 5 year old laptop. How can MTU compete with this kind of software? Adobe Audition costs something like $250 on the street, and has the full multitrack/mixer thing going on.....It still doesn't seem to have the effortless, open-ended thing that MTU has, but Wavelab certainly does.

Am I missing something here? Is there some kind of business hole left for MTU to fit in?

I can't imagine what the Waves noise removal stuff is going to sound like. Yikes.

[Gary Boggess]

Yup, there are various alternatives for noise removal that are more effective than I found DNOISE to be. Although I think denoise works good on many things. But it takes a scientific effort.

I have the WAVES plugins for noise... and it DOES work wonders... but not so hot on complex noises like you find on 78 records.

For that, I recommend DC Seven

http://www.enhancedaudio.com/dc_seven.htm

If their demos are REAL, they have found the Holy Grail
in dnoising. Of course, their program is about $1800.
But it appears to work miracles... literally.
They've got some OTHER software too... and all I can say is,
if I could make money in this business, I'd own all of their
software. But alas... this business is getting more and more
rediculous by the day. After 37 years... I'm trying to figure
out what else could I do for a living. All these schools are
graduating "audio engineers" by the truck load... and by the
time they can't find work, and then start wacking down the
rates, thus reducing the marketplace to non-profit
status... I have to ask what's the point anymore?
CD sales are less and less... and piracy is more
rampant daily. The public now thinks they're entitled to FREE
music and movies. So... where does that leave us?
BROKE... POOR and unemployed.

Hate to dump negative vibes here... but...
we're all in a pickle.

[Rich LePage]

I must have missed a few posts here, didn't get an email that there was anything new but just did now.

Yeah, the Audition noise removal and also its spectral editing are things I've used to great advantage at times, especially with stuff that comes in with problems.

Same deal with the spectral editing, really handy tool.

The new version has been delayed and now won't ship till end of Nov.
Good about the 24 bits, having not done much with that I'm glad to know it can handle it well.

Yes on the Diamond Cut stuff, I've used that too to advantage, but overall I like a lot of what Audition does. The Audition click removal tool is something I use often too. There is also a 3rd party diff type of de-clicker that was written specifically for Audition.

On Gary's age etc stuff-- yeah, we're all of that general vintage and I've sure seen that kinda thing. Folks don't value expertise and experience and yep, you're another guy with a pile of gear. It's become VERY commodity and too many clients don't know the difference -- many don't listen at all either.

In the ad work I did piles of, too often you couldn't pry the client off the phone, much less get them to really listen. It was more of a "camp out in the studio" thing, and very much like the hotel biz. I began to realize that with them it wasn't about the work or the value I was trying so hard to add-- at all-- it was about lots of other stuff, from decor to lunch to their own internal politics.

What I've found in some cases though is that once clients go somewhere else and run into problems- because the competitor just doesn't maybe work to the same standard and try to exceed what's expected-- they come back.
(Not the ad guys as much as others though!) I've had many situations like that, where they realized after the other experience the difference in quality and also just overall easiness of getting the work accomplished in a good manner.

Comments are like "gee, your stuff is so much smoother", or "so much more detailed" or "just flows better" or whatever. Sometimes I'm asked to fix up other's work, too. When that happens, you hear all too often some really big things that anyone should have noticed -- but apparently didn't- or just didn't want to bother with them or whatever. (gosh, maybe that's what their def. of "smooth" is...)


But there are still plenty of people who don't listen. Also with many larger companies, the people who buy the services have totally nothing to do with the people who are closely involved with the actual work-- and so they never hear it at all. They only know if they have heard there are/were problems with something.

Another downside is that sometimes we're never even considered for a project because of being such a small biz. I've heard "well, if he's in the studio getting the stuff laid down, he can't be editing and mixing at the same time and that will affect our deadline". Yeah, but gee, we could have worked that out by just scheduling it intelligently and made that work to their advantage, but too often not given the oppty.

You're right, it's harder than ever. And in what's become a commodity business with everyone under the sun professing to be an expert, I guess it can be hard for the customer to determine who DOES have some expertise - if they don't even listen! I keep trying to hang in, but all the stuff Gary mentions definitely impacts all of us.


On Micro CD, I had an inquiry from another user about newer burners.
One new solution I have found with Golden Hawk apparently going away is that you can still use MicroCD for making images and use Nero (version 7 in my case, prob. works with current version 8 too) to burn them from. Nero will find the MicroCD/Golden Hawk CUE and WAV files and you can burn directly from the CUE file with it.

It came up recently when I couldn't update CDRWIN and couldn't reach Golden Hawk at all. The last version of their stuff we have did not support a new Plextor burner I bought-- found it as a reader, but not as a recorder.
But Nero 7 found it, even though the Plex model was not out when Nero 7 was (now Nero has Version 8). It's a little cumbersome, but it works.

I think NTI's burning programs will also handle cue sheet burning, though pretty sure Roxio for instance does NOT. I had a copy of Nero 7 here and it wound up working. (never opened since bought last year until this, I've used OEM versions of Nero for moving data and doing CDROMs for ages though -it comes bundled with some OEM drives).

Rich

[geggyboy]

And MTU only. My goodness me.. I aint been here for soooooooooooo long. Are we all still alive????

Yep still on MTU....sorry to be that old dino, but everyday, all day, mostly all night as well, MTU Krystal is still going. In fact I type this on the very same machine on which my editor is installed. Of course the computer is a 2 core duo yappiddy whippidy dingly dangly now with a zerabyte of ram.. but still MTU Krystal on board and a twin system in the video suite.
I talk with Jack Parnell quite a bit.. He is way up now in years, more than me even, but still using 2.7 on Win 98 but EVERYDAY threatened to move up. Maybe he did by now, but up to what??? Krystal cards are as rare as unicorn dung now.

You would be surprized what the so-called pros out there are doing. Digital up the ying yang.. The best converters.. the THD better than a vacuum... yet still MOST pro studios using the 'Analogue outputs' of their bog standard computers.. Yes sir/madam!! You would be shocked. Try going studio to studio like we do everyday using ISDN. Here we struggle to stay digital and the kit accepts it.. (Mayah buit in- and Audio TX - with 3rd party sound card), good Lord above.. we find sample rate mismatch 98% of the time with the other ends not having a clue what is going on.. 'BUT IT WORKS WITH EVERYONE ELSE - I'VE RECORDED 6 COMMERCIALS TODAY AND A DOC FOR HISTORY.. ALL FINE.. NOBODY COMPLAINED".... Of course not.. Because they are using analogue. (another reason we'd kill for wordclock on MTU).

Anyway: Got Two Pro Tools systems for the very same reason Rich got his - to be there in case.. Digi 001 and a Digi 003 . I HAVE NEVER EVER EVER USED THEM.you might even see some rough old pix if you go to my web site www.geghopkins.com (I will eventually take some better pix - but these are accurate as such - early 2009)
Got 48 tracks of Alesis HD24s..still - Yamaha DM2000 (like Geezer Jim)
Still got the old Akais 24 track DR16 + 8 in sync.. still work wonderfully.
Got Cubase. It came free with DM2000 Version 2 update.. but we already had it.
Got Audition which we use in the video ALL THE TIME.. But it is fed from the MTU. We record NOTHING directly to it.

Most of the time for music on the fly - I use the Yamaha AW4416 in 24 bit mode @ 48K.. Try beating it.. You cannot.. it is a lovely sound off that... But all digital not analogue in and out - and all cuts, edits and final.. transferred to MTU ..

Nothing touches MTU. If it goes another 5 years... then it will more than likely out live me and there is really NOTHING new out there... it has all been invented.

Anyway.. I came on here really to find out two things. I don't suppose Dave ever got to grips with wordclock for the Kyrstal although it supports it.. (onboard receptical socket) as far as I know the software doesnt... Maybe I am out of touch..

The other thing is.. I am still trying to get the Krystal to default as the Windows sound card, like I did before with the Rev J I think. I can't ever remember doing it with XP --But so many years gone by.. maybe we did.
G

[Rich LePage]

Nice to see Geg is still out there and still using the stuff too.
Also very nice to see these forums back up and running.

Yep, wordclock would be nice, not essential here for my use,
but nice to have.

Enjoyed talking with Dave a month or so ago, too - it had been
ages.

Lately, still using Medit (in fact using it right now) as a first pass
device (also to lay stuff like v/o down with usually) and then I usually move
WAV files made from 1st pass editing over to Audition and pile on the
plugs as needed. Often I use Ozone now, also quite often will go to the UA digital plugs which are very good. We have several of their DSP cards, the old and new ones both. A few of the
Waves plugs often seem to get used too, though less than a few years
ago - I tend to prefer the UA ones for many things and they run well
with Audition.


Also nice to catch up a bit with Jim Smith - it was right around the time
my original mentor Les Paul passed away and so particularly insightful.
I'd spent a lot of time with Les in his last several months, though much of
it was in hospitals, including his last birthday in June.

Medit continues to be a really solid tool for me and very reliable.
Usually I will mix down (digitally mostly) from a multi-track Audition environment to a MTU system too, rather than "render" in the box with
Audition. It's also very handy for some jobs to be able to put in track markers on the fly while doing that and then go back and align them correctly after everything is done. I still use it for making all CD masters - or at least the images the masters will be burned from. Then I take the cue files and WAV image file over to a Nero system (to support the newer burners) and make the masters using that, mostly with late-model Plextor IDE burners.

Golden Hawk - whose underlying code was used in MicroCD- seems to be totally gone now, they still have a website but are not reachable.

The P/Tools gathers dust here. I did hook up the 002 Rack module on a test machine to mess with using Audition, but I wound up liking a TC firewire interface better - lower latency and overall better sound. We have a MOTU one as well that sounds good but seems a bit more of a resource hog so it works better with the higher-end machines, dual or quad core etc etc.

I did upgrade the software to version 7 at one point, played with it for about an hour, confirmed I still didn't like it and put it away. As for comptability reason we originally bought it -- it just has not ever been an issue. Oh well.

The interface (other than MTU) that has been very reliable is (of all things) an old Aardvark Q10- with the only Win XP drivers they ever made for the thing. It's been very rock-solid on a Pent 4 3.2 gig system for a long time,
which runs Audition and usually several of the older UAD1 boards.

What's so curious about that -- is that the DSP chip on their PCI board is none other than the same one MTU used in Krystal. Likely the reason Aardvark suddenly went out of business was same thing Dave faced with Motorola!!

I only ever got Medit happy with Win XP on one machine - the other Medit systems here run on Win98 and WinME- might be ancient now, but they work very well for what they do. The other systems are all XP except one office machine which runs Vista- which for me has been rather quirky. No Win7 boxes yet... though I did set up a Ubuntu machine recently using old junk parts and a Pent 200 and was pretty amazed how well it runs for simple stuff using old - and today really slow- hardware. It has Audacity in it because they have a free version for Ubuntu/Linux. But I just use it for playing around, nothing serious.

Another editor I've been hearing some about over at www.audiomasters.com (which is a Cool Edit/Audition user group) is Reaper. But have not tried it - might when I have a little time though.

I don't record much directly into Audition either though seems to work fine when I do that. I'm just so used to MTU way of working that it works better for me -- besides sounding real good.

Hope all of us stay well and stay working- best regards to all - and thx MTU for putting back this forum. Back to some editing here...

Rich