Welcome to issue #39 of Tape Op.

I've been working my ass off in the studio recently, after a mostly slow summer and moderately busy fall. The slow times are difficult — I even thought about taking some other writing jobs to get by — but when it gets busy after being slow the danger is that you'll say, "Yes" to everything and then end up completely slammed with work. It's been doubly hard for me to pull this issue together — many thanks to John and Liz for helping me along! There's nothing like recording for ten hours and then coming home to do editing and writing for another four hours. But I won't complain — I'm enjoying the projects I'm working on and it looks like this issue of the magazine will be chock full of more articles than ever. Hard work, but rewarding results.I hope everyone survived the holidays intact!PS. Just days before we went to press, Tape Op won our first award from the people we care about the most, our readers! Some of our readers sent us the trophy at right which is inscribed "Thank you for the creativity and passion Tape Op has inspired in all of us. The Tape Op Community 2003." Wow! Thanks right back at you. Despite all the hard work, we really enjoy doing the magazine and we're glad you enjoy reading it.

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