Redshirt rules lead to interesting decisions for Franklin | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Posted: 24 Sep 2019 09:07 PM PDT

A bit of a bombshell dropped in the college football world Monday when Houston's standout senior quarterback, D'Eriq King, announced he was ending his season so that he could use this as a redshirt year.

King has played in four games this season — Houston is just 1-3 under new coach Dana Holgorsen — so the quarterback can still redshirt because of the NCAA's new four-game policy that went into effect last year.

While King, who accounted for 50 touchdowns last season, said he plans to return to Houston for his senior year, there is heavy speculation he ultimately will enter the transfer portal. If he does, King would be one of the most sought-after players in the portal — a dynamic, playmaking quarterback with a wealth of experience, a la Russell Wilson during his one season at Wisconsin.

Rewind to one year ago this week, Clemson starting quarterback Kelly Bryant announced he would be transferring after losing his starting job to Trevor Lawrence. Bryant had gone 19-2 as a starter, but Lawrence was one of the most celebrated quarterback recruits in history, so coach Dabo Swinney made the switch, and Lawrence led the Tigers to the national title.

Bryant had played in just four games last season, so he still could count it as a redshirt year. He wound up transferring to Missouri, which is off to a 3-1 start.

The King and Bryant stories may sound like highly unusual outliers at this point, but the reality is they are precedent-setters which could signal the beginning of a big change in college football.

The four-game redshirt policy was designed to provide coaches with an opportunity to give more guys and younger guys some experience without the risk of losing an entire year of eligibility.

But as the King and Bryant situations have shown, there are a lot of unexpected consequences to the new rule. Yes, coaches have the power to decide who plays just four games and then redshirts, but players also have gained a great deal of leverage in the process because they are able to maintain the year of eligibility and can do so elsewhere if they feel like they weren't treated well at the current school.

Penn State plays its fourth game of the season Friday at Maryland, which means decision time for coach James Franklin and his staff. They must determine which players will see the field for the fourth and final time this season, thereby preserving the redshirt, which ones will keep playing the rest of the way and which ones may be held out and play their fourth game later in the year — such as the bowl game.

"We just had some discussions on some guys that we had played the first two games or three games, and we have to decide: Are we going to play in this fourth game or not?" Franklin said Tuesday. "A lot of the guys, we've kind of held on that we're going to save this fourth game for later in the year for injuries or whatever it may be, or they are just not ready and the coaches are not comfortable with putting them in in a tightly contested game at this point."

Franklin also was asked if the four-game redshirt rule is good or bad for college football.

"The rule, I think there's benefits to it for the players and I think there's benefits for the program. There's no doubt about that," the coach said. "But I think with all these rule changes, there's unforeseen consequences to it. A few years back, the NCAA was all about deregulation, deregulation, deregulation, and all those rules are in that book for a reason."

The hard part, Franklin continued, is when things occur that could not have been foreseen by people who made the rules.

The King situation from Monday certainly would fall into that category.

"You make changes to rules that were in place for a reason, and there's unforeseen consequences that probably aren't thought about by everybody on the front end," Franklin said. "So it's hard to say whether (the rule is) good or bad.

"I think the intentions are all these rules are good for the student-athletes. I think all these intentions are good for college athletics. But it doesn't always play out that way because it's very sophisticated, it's very complicated and it can be messy. And messy not in a good way for the student-athlete or college athletics."

Here's one example of how the four-game rule could impact Penn State:

The Lions are playing four running backs — Journey Brown, Ricky Slade, Noah Cain and Devyn Ford. Brown is the only one who already has redshirted. The other three can only play in one more game apiece and still be able to redshirt, so that could come into play with how the coaches use them starting next week.

On the flip side, if one of the running backs does appear in just four games and then redshirts, he would have that extra year of eligibility as leverage should he decide to enter the transfer portal.

As Franklin noted, there certainly are positive elements of the four-game rule, most notably it gets a young player some experience so that he learns what it takes to compete at this level.

"I do think the four games helped a whole lot because you can kind of get your feet wet and see what it's like," PSU cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields said. "And then if you're ready, you're going to play and if you're not, you're just going to have to wait till the next year and keep building your body and things like that.

"It's how you approach it, if you redshirt, if you attack it or not. And you do get the four-game experience for the next year, which I think is really good versus not playing at all and just redshirting."

TC Electronic Finalizer Review - MusicTech

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:47 PM PDT

Price $199/£160
Contact TC Electronic

Sometimes, products enter our collective consciousness to such an extent that they become synonymous by label or design: so say the word "Fender" and I bet most people would say "Stratocaster", or the word Mini might be followed by "Moog", which says an awful lot about the way us tech-heads think (we don't immediately think BMW!). So it's even more remarkable that when you say TC, many professionals would probably not say "Electronic", being a highly regarded brand, in favour of shouting "Finalizer!"

History repeating

It was back in 1996 that TC Electronic released its groundbreaking box, the Finalizer, which was built on the shoulders of its forerunner – the M5000 multi-band compressor. It was an immediate hit, sharpening the focus on mastering, which was a process that many were not really sure about, but the reality was that the Finalizer delivered a host of very useful tools, explicitly designed to allow studio-grade mastering in a one-box solution, at a price that – although quite high – was not completely terrifying.

It offered three-band compression, limiting, EQ and even analogue tape emulation through use of its Digital Radiance Generator (DRG), by adding second-harmonic distortion to a mix, but it wasn't all plain sailing. It was very easy to employ the abundant onboard presets to add that sheen to your track, but overcook things and it would deliver something terrifyingly bad. I often had to use my own bespoke setting, on the back end of my mix chain, just before the mix went to DAT or disk. But as a television composer delivering several mixes a day, it was like having a second set of ears and became a highly prized and valued piece of kit.

With so much history to call upon, you have to wonder why it has taken TC so long to develop a contemporary equivalent in software form. But now it has, it's time to lift the lid on the new Finalizer incarnation.

Through the big window

The first inescapable point to make is that this is firmly a standalone product. It literally offers a big window on the world of mastering, which is uncluttered and simplistic to view. This is beneficial, as when you're in the mastering domain, it increases focus and arguably offers less distraction.

TC Electronic Finalizer

As perfect an ideal as this is, it might not win fans with anyone who enjoys the luxury of placing mastering plug-ins on the back end of their DAW signal chains and I'm specifically thinking of media composers and producers who regularly deliver stems, although TC assured me that its main concern was with transparency, both in processing and use – and the company has engineered ways of ensuring that delivery of multiple tracks remains consistent.

Much like the original Finalizer and other mastering concepts, we are dealing with a sum of parts, so the first thing to do is load in a track for consideration. The joy of working within the 'large window' environment becomes very apparent pretty quickly, as a degree of analysis takes place – resulting in the whole track being displayed in its default amplitude/timeline waveform at the bottom of the screen.

Three options for degrees of spectrum analysis occupy the bulk of the left-hand side of the window and it's this area that offers the real information-laden visual element. This display can be a basic static display, confirming the maximum, minimum and 50% dynamic element of each frequency band, or can be switched to a real-time display, where the graphic dances to represent what you're hearing at that moment, immediately providing valuable visual feedback on the entire track.

Of course, working visually without audio feedback is pretty unlikely, which is why the Real Time Spectrum, as TC describes it, could become such a valuable tool. It easily allows for dipping in and out of the track at any point, by way of audible and visual audition.

EQ and compression applications are also reflected visually as they occur. TC has kindly supplied a number of presets, with clear and concise descriptions of what can be expected. It's a nice touch that each of these can be previewed aurally, before committing to the business of loading the subsequent mastering elements, so once you're happy with the general sound of the preset, it's a simple case of clicking the tick icon in the module chain area, which is located to the right of the visual.

The Module Chain list is located centrally onscreen and is where you have control over which mastering device will take effect, in which order. It's a simple but effective concept, while the selection of a given module, whether it be EQ or Compression, will result in the detail displayed in numeric form right next door to the visual. Changing any value will immediately be reflected on the graphic, while the graphic also offers beautiful click and drag control of all parameters.

It takes a little while to get your head around the acronyms and icons, but once you're familiar, you find yourself selecting modules from the extensive set of EQ, compression and limiting options and simply dragging them in to hear how they colour the sound of your track.

Operation stack

As mastering can yield results which might not match your initial concept, there are a couple of uniquely handy features to allow self checking. Firstly, A/B'ing tracks is as simple as selecting A, which is unprocessed, or B, with all mastering effects applied. You might also find yourself wanting to match reference tracks, possibly for an entire album, in which case it's possible to load in material and hear them in an untreated state, as a reliable benchmark.

TC Electronic Finalizer

There is also an extensive database available through the Finalizer Web Portal, where a free analysis engine can help you compare your music to that of commercial tracks, or an ever- growing database of styles and music, which can offer useful clues. This will be especially helpful if you struggle with your listening environment, as the tools should offer reliable feedback that a home-based mixing environment might not.

Output

Exporting is the final part of the process, which is again made simple thanks to an elegant interface, which underlies the whole point of Finalizer. TC has clearly really worked on the aural neutrality of the product, providing an interface which is elegant and simple. There is the slight limitation that you are restricted to the use of the TC effects and mastering modules and there's a lack of effects such as tape saturation, but all of the other main mastering contenders are present and with plenty of choice within each effect area. Saturation can also arguably be obtained with limiting or compression, albeit a different colour.

Personally, I like the concept of moving away from the DAW to master, as it focuses the mind and the ears. However, TC is always keen to listen to customer feedback, so who knows where the Finalizer may go. To mastering… and beyond!

Do I really need this?

If you're the kind of producer who wants to put an element of sheen across a track, or even an entire album, TC has developed a really enjoyable product to work with, which arguably takes you away from the DAW, forcing you to listen to music in stereo, without distraction. In an ideal world, we would all like to do that; however, many working professionals may yearn for the flexibility to plug in the same suite on the back end of their DAW, especially if mixing and matching stems for export.

The prospect of leaving the DAW and working in another environment will add another unwelcome element to the process, so choosing Finalizer may well come down to workflow and workflow alone. It is however, a very effective product, which gives both instant results and the capacity to move way beyond presets, which lends itself well to both home and professional users.

Key features

Pro-grade mastering suite
Standalone package for simplicity of workflow
Compiled algorithms from the legendary System 6000 platform
Numerous compression, EQ and limiting elements are available
Facility to compare and contrast reference material
Free online Analyzer, allows immediate comparison to commercial tracks
Requires iLok account for authorisation

Alternatives

iZotope Ozone 8 Standard

iZotope
Ozone 8 Standard $249

iZotope has a great reputation for quality plug-ins, and its Ozone suite offers three levels of product. The Standard edition is the middle of the three, offering standalone and plug-in based mastering, with all the usual FX that you would expect.

Eventide Elevate Mastering Bundle

Eventide
Elevate Mastering Bundle $199

The Elevate bundle offers several tools, in plug-in form, for mastering your mix. These can heighten the punch and clarity of a mix very quickly, but also offer a great deal of flexibility, as duties are shared across plug-ins.

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