It's time to revisit the load of letters again and do some Q&A! Keep 'em coming! Don't be afraid to send questions (and even answers) to ev@12RODS.com...

Q: Over the years I've looked around. I've seen things. And of these things I've seen I've noticed something. When something new is made that's new technology stuff, and it's like something that was old, but now it's better because it's smaller! What I want to ask is, is smaller always better? When does small get too small? Am I going crazy?

A: No, you're not going crazy. Smaller can be better with a lot of things. One of the most cliche examples was the computer filling up a whole classroom with tubes and wires and could just do easy calculations. Now we have thousands of times the power in our laps. Is it better? Hell yeah! I can carry around my life's work in a briefcase, play music, see movies, do Internet stuff, etc. and still do those easy calculations.

Musical instruments have changed as well. Hulking, heavy pianos and the like used to be the norm. The mechanics have become electronics, and even the electronics have shrunk, but the only thing keeping it that size is the physical keys themselves. You still have to have the old black-and-whites in order to play, and your fingers aren't getting any smaller...

Recording gear hasn't changed much visually, but on the inside it's a whole new world. You still need to be able to move faders and change knobs - it's a lot easier than tweaking a mouse all day - but the guts have changed from tubes, transistors and cards to a single CPU with some support chips!

Smaller is almost always better - it's faster, takes less power, more convenient, and with the proper machines, easier and cheaper to make. It's _not_ better when we can't put our hands on it and use it because it's been shrunk too small - the HUMAN INTERFACE is the important thing. It doesn't matter how small the guts are - if we can, as humans, interface with the equipment quickly and efficiently, then it's a good thing.