When Bob Dylan wrote “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” he was reminding us that the process of life is subject to occasional revision.

When I started this business, most of the work involved attending live events and capturing the sounds on open reel tape. There were club and coffeehouse performances, speeches and seminars. An economics symposium at the Federal Reserve Bank in Philly required two recorders, two days and an entire carton of tapes. There were piano concerts at the Philadelphia Art Museum, a variety show at the Academy of Music and a violin concert at New York’s Lincoln center. Closer to home, recording the late John Denver at a local club was a special treat.

At the same time, the studio began attracting a growing number of musicians whose work ranged from bluegrass to jazz to classical to rock.

Then, slowly, gradually, the nature and texture of the business began to change with an increasing number of requests for restoration and preservation of vintage original recordings, both on vinyl and on tape. Over time, restoration would expand to include videos, photographs and   documents. Now, restoration constitutes the bulk of the business, and I’m busy all the time.

Restoration/preservation work is delivered here in one of two ways. The safest, most secure method is done in person, by appointment  – with a mask on, of course!

On arrival, ring the doorbell, open the door, step in and deposit your materials on the bottom steps. The door will be secured immediately after you leave and your materials will be taken either to the control room for audio or the graphics room for video or photo work. Your instructions can be easily confirmed by phone or email.

If in-person delivery is inconvenient, the U. S. Postal service has proven remarkably dependable. Over the years, materials have arrived safely from Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Hawaii and Munich, Germany.

To ensure safe shipment of your materials, package them carefully. Original disk recordings can be sandwiched between double layers of corrugated cardboard, with the grain in alternating directions for maximum rigidity. Tapes can be bubble-wrapped and sent in a padded envelope or carton. Crumpled newspaper will cushion carton contents nicely.

Hint: Always send by Certified Mail. This requires me to sign a postcard acknowledging receipt. The signed post card will be returned to you. Always send to the post office box for maximum security.  See above.

is an exciting and engaging novel by James C. McCusker describing the rise and fall of a fictional New Jersey crime boss. It’s exciting due to the violent activities of the characters. It’s engaging because the author keeps the reader moving forward through the pages to find out what happens next.

Assigned the pleasurable task of producing an audiobook from more than 300 printed pages, I found myself faced with a challenge – and some decisions to make.

• The printed page doesn’t always convert well to the spoken word. Should I take occasional liberties with the text?

• With more than two dozen characters, should I just read their dialogue as it appears on the pages? Or should I give them individual voices?

• And should I use my acting skills to put meat on their bones and give real life to a highly emotional story? In a demonstration of extraordinary trust, I was given free rein to use my own judgment.

Minor editorial adjustments were easy. Not so easy was keeping track of the different voices of the characters. Since “Vinny,” the lead character, was short and pugnacious, I gave him a high, nasal, strident voice. “Lorraine,” his long-suffering wife, would be a mellow alto. “Alberto,” the family consigliere, would be basso profundo. And “Uncle Phil” would have the slow, ponderous baritone of one of comedian Red Skelton’s TV characters from the 1950s. The rest would find their voices as I went along. When it got too confusing, I made reference CDs of each.

Luckily, in a story of this kind, several characters were killed off as the story progressed. I could then skip a chapter or two and reassign their voices to new characters as they appeared.

It took time. Beginning in June, I was able to wrap up just before the December holidays.

As I submitted each completed chapter for review and approval, Jim served as editor letting me know where corrections or revisions were needed.

Oh! This was fun! I love acting! Planned for release in the spring, Atlantic City Nights has been a labor of love for the two of us. We think you’ll enjoy it. For details, go to

Q: Narrating Atlantic City Nights must have been a demanding project. In addition to giving each character a distinctive voice, you also demonstrate an exceptionally wide vocal range. How do you maintain that?

A: I’ve worked as a professional singer for more than fifty years – until the pandemic forced me to cancel my concert series. And I study operatic vocal technique.

Q: In the studio, do you read directly from the book?

A: No, I work from a customized printout of the complete text. I reformat it to suit my needs and print each character’s dialogue in a different color.

Q: What part of the project was the most fun?

A:  The emotional scenes! I loved the arguments between characters. In the studio, all alone, I could really let myself go! And the application I used allowed overlapping the characters’ voices slightly so that the exchanges sounded real.

Q: When would you like to start another audiobook?

A: What time is it now?

The original photo had been printed on matte paper, then patiently hand-tinted by an expert. This method of producing a color image, begun before the advent of color film, was still in popular use into the 1940s. It also relied more on talent than on technology.

When copies were needed for family members, the photo was brought here. As the size was larger than my scanner capacity, I used an outside expert to produce a high-resolution digital file.

With that in my computer, I could retouch a few small blemishes and produce the first copy. Then, comparing the copy with the original, I could make what adjustments were needed to closely match the colors. The required number of copies were printed, and an archival disk made of the digital image.

None of these techniques was covered when I was attending U.S. Air Force Photography School!

The original and copies were then carefully packaged and returned to the client by Certified Mail.

When I went to Disney World in 1972, time restraints prevented me from seeing and doing everything I wanted to. I’ve always wanted to go back, but current conditions don’t allow it. Luckily a client took his family there when it was still safe to travel and captured their adventures on 35mm color film slides. My, how it’s grown!

(Remind me to order more popcorn!)

The most enjoyable part of tape and disk restoration is being able to listen to the stories of those who lived in an earlier time. Here’s another favorite.

An old open-reel recording from long ago provided me with a real challenge. Recorded many years ago and stored in a poor location, the tape was covered with mildew! Once the tape surface was made playable, several defective splices had to be carefully redone. The reward was well worth the effort. In an unusually clear recording, I learned all about what railroad travel was like – in the 1920s!

All locomotives were steam powered, noisy, and generated huge volumes of ash and soot. Those who could bought tickets. Those without funds would make “other arrangements.”

For example, underneath the typical freight car were rows of steel rods running the length of the car and helping to support the load. For the daring traveler it was possible to get a free ride by climbing under a car and lying on those rods. Incredibly dangerous, the practice became widespread during the worst of the Great Depression. During the winter months, a number of men would be found at the end of the line– frozen to death on the rods.

Hearing these real-life adventures described by someone who lived them was exciting! Old photographs are static; people’s voices have movement, and are far more interesting.

Whenever I take the local train into the city, I take a moment to appreciate the ease and comfort of today’s comfortable, air-conditioned rail travel.

Check out https://emmetrobinson.com/Reading-Room/

Nineteen original articles have been posted thus far, with a new title to be added each month.

There was a time in America when we documented and preserved our special people, places and events with 35mm color film slides.

Now, in the absence of projectors, millions of those slides remain unviewed, tucked away in boxes in closets, attics, basements or garages.

How many do you have?

And what will you do with them? And the memories they represent?

Consider having them professionally scanned and converted to a video DVD or flash drive.

• Hand scanning allows for correcting for reversed images and mixed

formats – portrait vs. landscape.

• Dull, lifeless images can be greatly improved. *

• Flaws in the images can be reduced – or removed altogether. *

• For maximum flexibility, your video can be on disk or flash drive.

• One extra DVD is provided at no charge.

• Another free DVD is retained here as backup.

• Your original digital file remains available for 30 days.

• Your backup DVD remains available for 10 years.

• All this for the flat rate of $.95 per slide. *

If you invested time and money in capturing and preserving your important memories on film slides, wouldn’t it be nice to see them again?

Have then converted to video.

Why wait? Call now!

In business, and in life, no one knows everything (although, when I was twelve-years-old, I did!)

Useful, helpful – and sometimes entertaining – information can come from unusual sources.

A recording studio, for example.

After more than forty years of writing articles for professional publications across the country, I’ve decided to make some of them more accessible by posting them online. Which of these titles appeals to you most?

            Volume-01 “What happened to my job?” ……………………………………………………            $1.00

            Volume-02  “Fireproof” ……………………………………………………………………………..            $1.00

            Volume-03  “Fond Memories” ……………………………………………………………………            $1.00

            Volume-04  “Great Expectations” ………………………………………………………………            $1.00

            Volume-05  “Time Moves on” …………………………………………………………………….            $1.00

The above titles are just the tip of the iceberg. There will be many more to follow. Don’t see what you want? Ask. It might already be written.