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there seem to be some misunderstandings about GarageBand.com here. GarageBand.com *does* offer free MP3 downloads. if you are confused about this, just visit their home page, and click on the links for any of the songs. its true, they do also offer realaudio streaming as a second option, but that doesn't preclue you from using the sight purely as an mp3 download sight. interestingly, GarageBand.com claims to have 100,000 bands (not counting the additional 250,000 coming from resurrecting the MP3.com archive). in fairness to CNET, the original posting is slightly inaccurate, although essentially correct. today was not the launch of CNET's "new MP3.com," but their new music download sight ("music.download.com"). CNET has proclaimed that they intend to do something entirely different with MP3.com. however, the thing they launched today *was* their best effort to appease the disenfranchised MP3.com artist community, and it has clearly fallen short. they (CNET) have actually been trying to sign up artists for several weeks now, and the fact that less than 3,000 artists have signed up out of the 250,000 former MP3.com artists is telling. as a former MP3.com artist myself, i have been extremely pleased with GarageBand.com. unlike any other independent music sight out there, the charts on GarageBand.com really seem to find quite good music, and their collaborative-filtering system for determining the charts really seems to work.

Apple is paying for the use of the name "GarageBand" for their music compostion software included with iLife. The agreement was signed in April 2003, according to GarageBand.

So, Apple was working on GarageBand in early 2003?

Maybe they've changed it ... according to this page, you can recover the account, plus three songs, for free, and get additional songs hosted for $6.99 each.

Or, alternatively, you can simply pay a one-time fee of $99 to get all your songs back, no ads on your band's page, and unlimited hosting for all your songs for life.

Well, so says the site, anyway. Can anyone verify if it's true?

Dlugar

Perhaps I was one of the few (out of millions of plays) who liked some Trance music bands like Lagoona but I don't see them there on www.garageband.com or several others I tried. PPK was the only one I found (sounds like Faithless and Scooter? I don't think so...). Is it there yet or ComingSoon(TM)?

Perhaps I was one of the few (out of millions of plays) who liked some Trance music bands like Lagoona but I don't see them there on www.garageband.com or several others I tried. PPK was the only one I found (sounds like Faithless and Scooter? I don't think so...). Is it there yet or ComingSoon(TM)?

Out of the interests of complete information exchange, I thought I'd post this to the /. readers. Even though someone else has already mentioned it, here is a snippet from a press release.

San Francisco, CA - January 7, 2004 - GarageBand.com, the internet's largest legal source of free MP3 music, and Apple Computer have signed an agreement to share the name "GarageBand." The deal was signed in April 2003 but kept confidential by both parties until now.

Under the terms of the agreement, Apple Computer (Nasdaq:AAPL) pays GarageBand.com for the rights to use the name "GarageBand" for its music-creation software, part of the Apple iLife suite launched this week. GarageBand.com (http://www.garageband.com) will otherwise retain its original rights to use the name for a vast range of products and services.

Which, when you think about it, this makes sense. Apple paid to license the whole "one click technology" even though many people said "Yeah, but it's so obvious, how can it have a patent." Apple likes to be very one sided with respect to their legal department. They send enough cease and desist that they don't want to see one come their way so they just pay for it even if it's something that might be "obviously" no where near the same.

plug: Shufflin' Noah

Christ... They oughta remind you to check your links before you post or something... The real link: Trinidad Fiasco

The great thing about garageband is the reviewing process. The way they've set it up, if you want to submit a song for peer review, you first have to review 15 randomly chosen songs from other bands. You can also review extra songs to put your songs up for review next. This way, you can't inflate your ratings by downloading your own song all day, and you can't get your friends to give you great reviews because of the random selection.

So, even though the reviews still depend on the questionable taste of all the other struggling musicians on the site, they're distributed and considered as fairly as possible.

Umm, GarageBand? Isn't that an Apple trademark? Of course, they did register the domain long before (1999) Apple released their product of the same name (2004). Anyone smell a lawsuit coming up?

And that site actually does have a trademark for "GarageBand". Apple trademarked "Garage Band", which is not the name of their product. But I'm guessing they're not too worried about some indy music website putting together enough funding to sue them successfully.

... not a bad model (IMO) for letting the cream rise to the top.

www.garageband.com

mp3.com's main draw was that they built communities and social networks of artists, which I don't think there is any replacement for--yet.

Something like GarageBand.com?

This is an honest question. I didn't use MP3.com much, so I don't really know how it compares.

Given the shut-down of MP3.com, one of the other big winners for 2003 has got to be Garageband.com, which has bumped up to become #1. Garageband.com now claims to be the web's largest community of independent musicians and the largest LEGAL source of free MP3 music (according to their press release -- assuming they are telling the truth).

Given the shut-down of MP3.com, one of the other big winners for 2003 has got to be Garageband.com, which has bumped up to become #1. Garageband.com now claims to be the web's largest community of independent musicians and the largest LEGAL source of free MP3 music (according to their press release -- assuming they are telling the truth).

I hope they don't try to. It's close enough (industry-wise) to these guys that we could have a pretty big battle.

About Apple iTunes... I read an article in the newspaper (here in Ottawa) about how artists are only receiveing one DIME out of each $1.00 download. Apple takes 34 cents and the record company gets the rest. Nice eh? Once again the industry manages to screw the artist out of 90% of the profit. This is why people are downloading illegally online. If I felt that the artist was going to get 50% of the profit I might actually go and pay ITunes a visit. As it stands now the only way to make sure an artist gets any real money is to buy their merch when I go and see them. At least then I don't feel guilty about downloading a song or two because I know I'm not giving it to some fat cat in a suit who could care less about developing a band anyway. (Bassballs)

This link has more, worth a look.... It has a spoof on the "switch" ads...

garageband.com looks like an interesting music web site. Unfortunately, they are mostly RealAudio oriented. Yes, they do have mp3 downloads for many tunes, but not all. Also their radio station is real audio only. This effectively makes garageband.com a non starter for me.

I thought I'd do something more then my usual support independent (or independently minded) artist. There are a ton of artists out there not caught up in the whole piracy debate (since the rise of the net WAY more then most people imagine). CD's at the mall are no longer safe. The industry/distribution giants that have been hand feeding us are no longer (where they ever?) interested in fair practices.

But this isn't really that big a deal, because you can just type your way down to:

mp3.com
or
emusic.com
or
umbrellamusic.com
or
listen.com
or
mp3it.com
or
iuma.com
or
grageband.com
or
besonic.com
or
zebox.com

And it just keeps getting bigger and better out there. Really the only thing that needs to happen is we need to get comfortable with buying online artists. Maybe Rolling Stone will do an online section? *shrug*

I love alternative music, but lately everything has sounded like Creed, or some crappy form of pop-punk.

Here are some starter sites. I highly recommend checking them out.

New Music Canada
Epitonic
GarageBand

Hate to disagree here, but this is pure nostalgia on your part. "Back when I was a young'un, things were so much better". There are a ton of bands with excellent talent today, supported by record labels that are not the massive pre-packaged dreck you refer to. The music market is much more massive than it used to be, with the few top studios releasing fewer artists with more mass appeal, but you don't have to look very hard to find bands with amazing live presence.

Just check out Garageband. Excellent music (and utter crap) is more accessible today than ever, and there's more talent than ever before because the price barrier to entry has been lowered. Get past the romanticized notions of yesteryear, and go check out a few live bands at your local stage. You'll be disappointed a lot, but occasionally absolutely blown away.

On another note... I think it would be excellent if iTunes Music Store had a streaming radio station that played random songs continuously. Not all songs would be played - just those that are specifically cleared for play - and perhaps not all whole songs. (Of course constant 30-second snippets would quickly become annoying.) The majority of people who make music in their basement would gladly authorize iTMS to play their songs.

If you heard a song you liked on the iTMS radio you could go back to the recent playlist, locate the song, and purchase it for $.99 - Bam!

I completely agree. Just having a Napster-like service where you have to pay a fee per-song will probably not work. I like having all of my songs on a hard drive so I can listen to them while I work, make long playlists, etc. However, I would never pay on a per-song basis because there is no percieved value in one .mp3 file to me.

On the other hand, if you had a subscription service where somebody could download whatever they wanted for a small monthly or yearly fee (less that $10.00 per month), and include the other improvements mentioned in the parent post, then you might have something that people would be willing to pay for.

I think a setup like garageband would be a great way to start.

One way to get me to pay would be to offer the files in .ogg format too.

This is in fact an excellent site. It also allows the members to vote on the best songs, which used to get put onto a compleation CD, now I believe that thee winners just get money prizes. Check my band out there: http://www.garageband.com/artist/slow_children or the personal site: Slow Children

Garageband.com has great selections of independent bands. There's a big mixture of quality on the site, but you can find some of the best stuff in the charts there, and check the playlists recommended by bands you like.

They also have a ridiculously cheap subscription service that allows you to get CDs of some of the best tracks on the site on a monthly basis.

mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi who, so far, haven't messed it up too much)

IUMA (based in the USA, but international)

Besonic (based in Germany, but international)

mp3.de (based in Germany, but international)

Soundclick (based in the USA, but international)

(Garageband based in the USA, but international)

France mp3 (based in France)

Vitaminic (free + pay - based in the USA, but international)

Washington Post (yup, the newspaper)

Online Rock (based in the USA, but international)

Peoplesound based England

mp3.com Australia (not the same mp3.com - based in Australia, but international)

Emusic (pay and not really indie per se, but smaller label and re-release oriented, based in USA)

Artistlaunch (based in the USA, but international)

mp3 Poland - (Based in Poland - mostly domestic)

Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, some smaller labels that have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap.

Use Google - many local newspaper sites have mp3 sections for local artists and there are many mp3 sites that are specifically for local talent.

If you're not familiar with mp3.com, it can be daunting in the sheer volume of material (no pun intended). And they accept material of all (musical) quality from absolute crap to incredibly good. They have many genre-based top-40 style charts and new-release charts. Walking through those is a natural first step. One concept they have that can be a big help is "stations" - really a euphemism for fan-generated lists of tunes by various artists. The tunes can be played separately or sequentially. So, when you find an artist that you like and get to their page, click on the "stations now playing" tab. On that page could be one to several "stations" where you might find additional good material that someone else has taken the time to comb out and list. I've seen lists from 2 to 200 tunes long - this can expand your options very quickly.

I have looked for ogg sources and found precious few. Unfortunately, Ogg is still a long way from critical mass.

Check out Garageband.com. You can find tons of local bands in your area, download or stream their music, find out where they're playing, and go watch a show. Bands are broken down into different genres. And the site even ranks songs, so you can find the most popular, national groups in your genre.

If you have your own band, then you can upload your music and gain a much larger, local audience.

http://garageband.com/

mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi, but so far they haven't messed it up too much)

IUMA

Besonic

mp3.de

Soundclick

Garageband

France mp3

Vitaminic (free + pay)

Washington Post (yup)

Online Rock

Peoplesound

mp3.com Australia(not the same mp3.com)

Emusic (pay)

Artistlaunch

Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, smaller labels have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap. I hope that you have a high bandwidth connection. Who needs the big labels? I don't.

As a producer, composer, and general content creator, I think that looking for quality entertainment is the critical concern. There's plenty of stuff out there, the trick is finding the good stuff. And with a few notable exceptions (Ani DiFranco, etc.) you aren't going to find it at your local Best Buy, and maybe not even at your local record store (if any of those still exist). For now, the web is where it's at.

While certainly not a litmus test for quality, you can at least trust that artists that use alternate distribution like CDBaby to provide distribution for self-produced/funded titles at least cared enough about their music to scrounge up the money to press a CD and arrange for distribution.

If you're willing to trudge through some crap (albeit interesting crap in many cases), the big music sites like IUMA, MP3.com, and Garageband provide more tracks than you'll be able to listen to.

One hint for the more commercial sites like MP3.com - skip the charts occasionally. The way the MP3.com charts work, you'll typically get a song at number 1 that stays at number 1 for a long time because everyone's listening to it because it's number 1. A self-perpetuating hit, if you will. Also, ever since Vivendi bought MP3.com out, there have been an awful lot of mainstream artists in the top charts. Still, if you're looking for mainstream, you can at least get a "legal" mp3 of a bunch of stuff there.

An additional hint, you'll find some real gems in the less-traveled genres like film music, darkwave, folk, comedy, etc.

Finally, there are lots of small independent labels/artist collectives like RTFM Records that have quality artists that either got tired of working in the mainstream entertainment business, or were smart enough to try and slog it out themselves. Supporting labels like these is a good way to encourage more of the same.

I don't have much advice for you on the movie side of things - I think with the advent of cheap digital camcorders and products like iMovie and Final Cut Pro, you'll see more of this kind of content hitting the web in the next year or two, though. Especially as more people get broadband, which is more or less required for visual stuff.

One site I can recommend if you're into fan-produced Star Wars stuff is theforce.net which has quite a few short films and trailers of varying quality. There's also an absolutely stunning short film set in the Star Wars universe called Duality that you just have to see to believe.

Finally, I'd like to put a plug in for a new benefit album created by a bunch of musicians from around the world in response to the WTC/Pentagon attacks. The album, September Rising, is now available. It was put together by a bunch of pros, most of whom have never met each other face to face. Complete information is available at septemberrising.org. It's some really great stuff, and unlike most of the benefit albums coming from the major entertainment conglomerates who only donated a percentage of sales, I believe that all proceeds from sales of this album go to the New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund.

GarageBand has an interesting idea - they take unknowns and when the internet fan base takes an interest in an artist they sign them on and try to launch them into traditional outlets. Frankly, I don't see why this couldn't be extended further from the traditonal markets then they have... they have the distribution capabilities to market the music from their servers direct to the fans...

How does the sound of something recorded on a portastudio compare to something recorded on a professional 2" tape machine?

It can sound damned close - and good enough anyway. Definitely comparable. Check out this guy's stuff if you realy want to know. It was recorded on a four track cassette with SM57's. Springsteen cut his album "Nebraska" on a four track cassette and he was already an established star. The quality was good enough.

The revolution did begin with 4 track cassettes. Is it the sonic equal of 2" tape? No, but close enough. Quality vs price in audio gear approaches an asymptote - once you spend a modest amount of $$$, additional money spent results in only a relatively small increase in quality.

Also check out:

http://www.farmclub.com/
http://www.garageband.com/
http://www.live365.com/

ObRIAA/Napster: As a way to access bootlegged music, it's awesome. I do think it's only fair that the artists (directly) receive some sort of compensation for their studio-recorded material. As much as I dislike advertising, why couldn't compensation be derived from tacking on short audio adver-bytes onto the front of every nth Napster-like download? That way the user doesn't have to micro-pay for downloads, but if they want to guarantee no-advert recordings, they have to buy the CD.

(ObPlug: Of course you're more than welcome to listen to our stuff... And cast one vote for Today's High to open for Edwin at Navan Fair. Voting ends today. :-)