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..if someone likes the tune and looks us up, comes to a show, or buys a disk that is great.

I think that if the RIAA is pissing about not getting enough royalties then they should implement a limit to the number of times a particular song gets played for a given period of time before royalty charges go up. So if a song is played 6 times in a twelve hour period then big royalties should be paid on scale...the more asongs gets played the higher the fee. Oh imagine that...I can see it now. VARIETY would return to broadcast commercial radio as they would stop playing that song once the limit was reached. And the public would of decided they were going to by the disk or not based on if they liked the song, not because it was shoved into their ear with a ice pick every hour for 6 months and it is the only song played on the radio.
If a radio station profits form playing the same seven songs over and over again then they can afford to pay the fee. Don't penalize internet radio for having a different business model.
That would save internet radio as nothing would change. Variety is already the name of the game on the internet radio streams. Commercial radio sucks off the sheeple tit by playing the same songs over and over again. It works for crappy commercial pop station that pre-teens listen too. sucks. Rather than kill off internet radio for being "different" make commercial radio pay for flooding the market with the same five songs over and over again.
http://soul-amp.com/

http://soul-amp.com/freebies/

House of Guinness April 27th Waukesha WI. 10:30 - 90 minute, improvised non-stop jam.

If I was smart I would make a page and sell ads on it...I will get hundreds of hits because of this message.

This highlights the transition...direct music sales will be secondary for bands as the music is used for backdrops to all sorts of other activities. Already many bands make more money from music used in Ads, or sold as a package of "music" for public environments. CD sales and even singles will become a small part of a diverse lineup of revenue streams.

Buy a t-shirt for $15, get a free disk....no one wants to just buy a disk and get a free t-shirt anymore...

That is the difference between CD and Analog. Analog is continuous and smooth it is real sound. Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) attempt to introduce and smooth the digital approximation...really good quality DACs are constantly being developed and there are many really cheap, bad sounding ones out there.

For vinyl, how fequency range is a factor of how tight the track is cut. Packing more time onto a disk results in a narrower frequency range. Also how much surface area is used for a given period of time of music. 15" 45 rpm disk sound fantastic on my vintage pioneer stereo.

Having engineered both digital and analog music recordings certain aspects of analog are *STILL* trying to be replicated in the digital environment. Hence the oodles of plugins, pre-amps and all sort of gadgets to saturate the digital info with a facade of analog tone.

The biggest influence on vintage analog recordings presented on vinyl is that the entrie process was done from start to finish to produce a vinyl product. the recording process, artist performance, mixing, editing, mastering all contribute to the sound. Digital recordings are awesome and have brought the capabilities of recording ot millions of musicians. ONe thing is for sure the 7" revival is a product of nostalgia and cetainly is promoted by labels becasue they still have the technology and talent to produce vinyl well. Artists like the White Stripes have long used "low tech" analog recording techniques (8-track analog tape ) So presenting the that recording is well suited to a vinyl product. Mastering for vinyl is a black art that few really know how to do well...

On my bands CD we recorded digitally. In the mastering process we bounced the 24 bit 48 Khz multitrack mix with mastering plugins on master faders, to 1/4 analog tape. Then brought that back into two track, 24 bit 48 KHz digital, one more EQ touch and the two track master was all dumbed down to 16 bit 41 KHz and dithered.

We made side by side blind comparisons listening to a burned CD and picked the tape bounced version for it's musicality and smoothness...it simply sounded better when the music had some true tape saturation introduced.

As long as musicians and recording artists care about the virtues of analog. It will be around. I for one sometime feel I can here the stuttering steps of a digital approximation of a sine wave. Certainly our brains are hearing it and that translates into listening fatigue. Common in CDs....

I think it is great to have new 7" vinyl around still. I have a 7" of a band I was in the 80's somewhere....I haven't listened to it in ages...hmmmmm....gonna have to dig around, I forgot completly about that...

http://soul-amp.com/

Make "Strip Mall Heaven" a hit record...

http://cdbaby.com/soulamp
Free stuff here:
http://soul-amp.com/

Prove the analysts wrong...and make an obscure album by a obscure band made up of a Middle School Custodian, a Oracle DBA and Notes Programmer a hit...by simply popping for our disk on line. After all who wants all that money going to Ashlee Simpson or some American Idle clone.

It's 100% BuG FoG

"By Geeks for Geeks"
If you do we can make another one and maybe play a show in your town, clean your bathroom, Upgrade your Oracle 7 DB to 10g RAC and do what ever Lotus Notes freaks do. (I still don't know what he does and I have known him for years) Ok I suppose I should SAY SOMETHING about the article...Big corporate propaganda. The Long Tail freaked the wigs out. The old 80/20 business model is being melted by a 14 year old with a bic lighter and a iPod...Yeah baby destruction derby time...(I know you built car models and made dents) So they respond with a Jedi mind fook: "This is not the long tail you are looking for, move along." type of article. So all is well in Wellsville.

Ashlee is waiting.

Go to her now.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/Digital Music News

Paul Resinkoff has a very good commentary on Apple's negotiations.

Snip:
Looking through the business lens of Apple, any other result would be foolish. Apple is ultra-protective of its consumer, and that approach has resulted in rich dividends. The major labels, on the other hand, have a highly contentious and acrimonious relationship with many music fans and artists. Sure, generalizations can be dangerous, though the characterizations are not too far off. And why would Apple want to take cues from the labels, who have alienated a large number of buyers while stumbling in the digital transition? Jobs feels strongly that a uniform price point is the path towards customer satisfaction, and nothing is going to disrupt the sacred iPod+iTunes cow. Certainly not the labels, especially following waves of consumer adulation and affirmation for the Apple digital strategy.

I read this guys site on a regular basis. Always a good source of interesting news and commentary on Digital Music...as for my take. In the end, until then Labels stop acting like they are the reason music exists and become more of a service for artists they will continue thier slow death spiral. The music and artists will always be there so will the fans. Do we really need a label to make that connection anymore? $.99 dowloads across the board is perfect in my books. And an advantage for the independant artist and small labels that service them. Higher percentage of that $.99 goes directly to the artist. That is why the labels want special treatment. To differentiate themselves from independents. Why would an established artist release to a major and get $.02 of that $0.99 as opposed to $.72? That is the real danger labels see in the future, that they will be become a disadvantage to the artist. Though right now major labels still have huge marketing budgets and "star" making power.

But that is changing.

Watch...I will connect you directly with artists from SE Wisconsin, all on or soon to be on iTunes, no major label needed and this alone will generate a few sales for the following bands:

Soul Amp (mine) http://soul-amp.com/
The Dammitheads http://ourdamnwebsite.com/
Hayward Williams http://haywardwilliams.com/

Hayward is not on iTunes yet but is slated to be soon.

Now that IS success.

http://soul-amp.com/

Oh BTW there is a new tune up if you were one of the several hundred who visited last time I posted a "shameless self-promotion link post".

We wrote and recorded "Setting Traps" on Saturday.

I used mostly bad HTML...in developing the site...(so old school). So not only is the site basically ugly....but for the pictures. But so is the code.

If cd's are preferred then cd's might have a higher margin than the downloads. Then it makes us wonder why cd's cost so much in the first place.

CD's are still preffered by not only the labels but more importantly by the artists as well. For two main reasons: First, there is still a desire to have a tangible "object" to sell. Something that can be held with content exclusive to the packaging. Booklets, liner notes, artwork etc. These objects have a perviceved longevity. A CD or LP still has a easily assigned "value" to it because it physically takes up something more than simply ones and zeros. The creation of music is really about leaving some little piece of yourself behind for future generations to discover and enjoy. And a tangible object like a LP, Analog Tape or CD is the prefferred method of that archive.

Seccond is the "bundle". Since The Beatle's "Rubber Soul" recording artists work to put together a collection of songs or pieces to satisfy the need to present a more complete picture of who they are and what they are about For many musicians a digitally released single simply doesn't present enough information to the listener. The "album" will always be present in some tangible form. It may be CD, LP, DVD or what ever new package technology comes up with. Artists and a significant percentage of music consumers will still want the "bundle". The single is simply a "loss leader" for the album. Single only releases will remain the exception rather than become the rule.

My biggest fear as a musician is that the day will come when ALL music is simply a stream of random songs piped into your ear with no tactile interaction, visual queing or control. (The Big Brother Muzak from hell...satellite radio)

The other day I bought Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits LP at a thrift shop for a dollar. The album was a second pressing from 1969 release and had the original poster and album sleeve. My daughter wanted the poster and thinks that it is so cool that things were "so big" then. At 15 she wants her own turntable and stereo in addition to the required iPod so she can buy "really cool" records. She already has made her own CDs and sold them to her friends. http://www.myspace.com/notpicturedhereyo

That made me feel good for the future for recording artists. There will always be the desire by the listener to have control, choice and a object to hold and read while the music plays. And the artists will always want to present a collection of music on some physical media with a extended vision of what the music is about.

It is difficult for non-musicians to understand what it is like to first hold their finished CD. Be it a home made burned and ink jet printed version or a commerically produced, printed and shrinkwrapped bar coded one. It is the culmination of countless hours of practice, writing, recording, mixing and working with creative professionals to present a image of the music in the form of the graphic design and photograghy. A Mp3 is simply a minor step in much bigger creative process.

http://soul-amp.com/

Try listening to a 24bit/48 or 96 khz datafile recorded using high quality DACs.

Flat out the frquency range and resolution is so above the dumbed down 16bit CD audio quality.

Sony's SACD is incredible, the detail and "air" is amazing. Not siince I was in a 32 track analog studio listeing to the mix play back direct form grand master have I heard that level of detail. But that is likely dead (4 good reason beyond sound)

If you start with 16 bit and encode a 128 Mp3 for pete's sake you are gonna hear high end attenuation. If you listen close. (warble) Plus with today's mixes being pumped up to the highest levels, bands are tossing in "garbage" into the mix to keep it musical. Distortion and noise of all kinds is introduced. Anything goes now as long as it is musical and is not fatiguing to listen to. So on high end equipment you start to hear these artificial noise floors from audio dithering and other effects like tube pre-amps, room modeling and harmonic exciters...

We encode 192 kbit Mp3s direct from 24/48 khz master AIFF files and they sound pretty darn good on my vintage Pioneer silver face receiver running through nice AR bookshelf speakers. Not high end but better than most stuff around now a days. http://soul-amp.com/.freebies

Also a new service touting high quality.
http://musicgiants.com/

Still I applaud apple. It's a new age in music. Long gone are the days of a little 45 case and the GE Wildcat portable. The quality is coming. Everyone in the recording industry tech pros are really anxious to see 16 bit depth 44.1 Khz sampling rates go away. It simply like making a sculpture and then grinding away 1/3 of it..

Everyone else - 100,000

Soul Amp (My Band) 6

Actually I am stoked about iTunes/Mp3 and iPods....as a indie musician, self producing with a home grown label, iTunes allows us to collect 65 cents per song. Direct to the the band...

Unfortunately without the big money for PR and payola (yes Apple probably takes payola too...despite claims otherwise, I think they call them marketing fees or "services") We are relegated to being just 13 songs in a sea of millions. Thus sales have been slow. But...that can change in a heartbeat as anyone who listens to music can see.

So...feel free to scope iTunes and search for Soul Amp...I need another guitar amplifier (VOX Ac-30 or Matchless) and a leslie for our 1958 Hammond M3 organ.

Also for people who refuse to pay for music until guilt finally takes hold after scamming every song ever recorded, we have tracks of tunes we are working on for our next disk on our website. Hep yer self...I say whay wait until a rash breaks out from the guilt of free downloading...by indie music from iTunes. The bands actually get the bulk of the money. 65 cents of 99 is pretty damn good. Most bands that get mp3 blogged are on iTunes.

http://soul-amp.com/

We don't need no stinking control room....

I've had issues when doing PC recording with the fan noise bleeding into sensitive condensor mics. Silent power supplies are great because they will allow more flexible design on home recording studios with the ability to keep the system in the room with you. A longtime issue fo DIY bands.

Right now I use a FW800 MDD Mac Dual 1.0 G4 which still has a siginicifant amount of fan noise. But much quieter than my first recording box which was a cobbled Frankenstien PC in a old Gateway case.

Right now our "control room" is in the studio with us. I can turn around and set up takes and start the recording...The Mac is quiet enough that the negligable and the seperation of the keys, guitar and drums is far enough so as not to be picked up. Vocals and acyustic guitar tracks will still be an issue. But I have panels to isolate the mic from the computer fan noise....

We've been tossing around the idea of putting together a PC for recording as well (keyboard player has been a PC user for recording and has a load of software we could use)

For you music junkies....grab some free tracks:

http://soul-amp.com/