Trent Reznor Challenges Music Norms

alset_tech writes "Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) has released the new single from NIN's upcoming album as a GarageBand file for fan remixes. Though by no means the first time a major-label artist has released a track to the public for remix, this is the first time such a project has been as open to the common user. The repercussions to 'traditional' IP views in music could be beneficial to all. Note that the license agreement does not allow commercial use of the included sounds. From the download text: 'What I'm giving you in this file is the actual multi-track audio session for 'the hand that feeds' in GarageBand format. This is the entire thing bounced over from the actual Pro Tools session we recorded it into. I imported and converted the tracks into AppleLoop format so the size would be reasonable and the tempo flexible.'"

Comments

Re:Is this what you might call...

[nocomment]

Not it's not OSS.

Here's the EULA when you try tomount the .dmg.

End User License

Please read the terms of the following software License Agreement before downloading this product. By clicking on the link below and downloading this product, you agree to become bound by the terms of the License Agreement. If you do not agree with the terms of the License Agreement, do not click the I AGREE button below. Interscope Records ("Licensor") guarantees that the downloaded product has been created and recorded specially for this project and any similarity to any other recording is unintentional.

1. The sound samples recorded on these CDs remain the property of Licensor and are licensed, not sold, to you for use on your sampling software or equipment.

2. A right to use the enclosed sounds is granted to the original end-user of the product (Licensee) and is NOT transferable.

3. The Licensee may modify the sounds but MAY NOT USE THE SOUNDS, MODIFIED OR UNMODIFIED, FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WITHIN MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS. Licensee must obtain a separate license from Licensor in respect of any intended commercial uses.

4. This license expressly forbids resale, relicensing or other distribution of any of these sounds, either as they exist upon downloading, or any modification thereof. You cannot sell, loan, rent, lease, assign or transfer all or any of the enclosed sounds to another user, or for use in any competitive product.

5. Licensor will not be responsible if the contents of these discs does not fit the particular purpose of the Licensee.

6. Use of the included sound sample in isolation such as, but not limited to, video game soundtracks (where they appear in isolation or as sound effects) is not permitted without first obtaining a separate License from Licensor.

7. Use of the included sound samples in 'library music' (also known as 'production music') intended for commercial exploitation, is not permitted without first obtaining a separate License from Licensor.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © 2005 Interscope Records.

Re:Audio and Apple

[antifoidulus]

Uh, you don't even have to RTFA to find out that Reznor didn't use GarageBand to create the track. It says right in the blurb that the garageband tracks were exported from the ProTools project they used to create the track. GarageBand is a lot less powerful, but a lot more accessible to the common user, so thus GarageBand it is.

Another First

[malraid]

This guy was the first big artist to record the soundtrack for a computer game (remember Quake 1?)
Now he's the first one to release a song as a GarageBand file.
He brought industrial music (or something like this) into the main stream.
Be brought forward some new huge bands like Marylin Manson and Filter (I'm not arguing if they're good or bad)
But he is just going to release his fourth album in almost 20 years of career.
There's even a WHOLE movie that's based off the images of the video for "Closer" (Ok, so the movie sucks and the video wasn't Trent's work, but still)
For me, this guy is the most influential musician of the last 15 years.

Re:Another First

[Kesh]

Which movie's this? I'm curious now.

Well, that depends on what he's meaning. There's Closure, a two VHS set that came out a long time ago. There was supposed to be a DVD release this year, but it's been indefinitely shelved due to debates between Reznor and the label.

What he was probably talking about, though, is Broken, a movie where a young man is kidnapped, tortured and forced to watch NIN videos. It was produced by Reznor and features a performing S&M artist named Bob Flanagan. It was never officially released, and the video for "Happiness in Slavery" (taken from this movie) was banned from MTV. You can, however, download the video to HiS on the official NIN site.

Rumor has it that the movie was intended to be included in the DVD release of Closure, but we won't know until that project gets back on track.

Re:Pitchshifter did a similar thing

[Shawn Parr]

Of course this was 1996 so there wasn't ProTools

Hm, I guess I must have imagined working on a Protools III workstation in 1996 then. Strange.

Just because it wasn't cheap enough for joe sickpack to have laying about his hard drive, doesn't mean it does not exist.

From The Man...

[metalligoth]

Note from Trent in the .sit file:

Hello all-

For quite some time I've been interested in the idea of allowing you the ability to tinker around with my tracks - to create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what's there. I tried a few years ago to do this in shockwave with very limited results.

After spending some quality time sitting in hotel rooms on a press tour, it dawned on me that the technology now exists and is already in the hands of some of you. I got to work experimenting and came up with something I think you'll enjoy.

What I'm giving you in this file is the actual multi-track audio session for "the hand that feeds" in GarageBand format. This is the entire thing bounced over from the actual Pro Tools session we recorded it into. I imported and converted the tracks into AppleLoop format so the size would be reasonable and the tempo flexible.

So...

You need a Macintosh and you need GarageBand 2.0. If you have a newer Mac, you already have the software. The more RAM you have the better. I did this on a PowerBook 1.67 w/ 2G RAM but it has been running on far less powerful systems. Drag the file over to your hard disk and double click it. Hit the space bar. Listen.

Change the tempo. Add new loops. Chop up the vocals. Turn me into a woman. Replay the guitar. Anything you'd like.

I gave this to my crew and band to test out and all work effectively stopped for a while - it's fun to mess around with. I've now heard a country version of the track as well as an abstract Latin interpretation (thanks, Leo).

There are some copyright issues involved, so read the notice that pops up. Giving this away is an experiment. I'm interested to see what comes of it, what issues are raised and what the results are.

Have fun-

Trent Reznor

April 15, 2005

Performance tip for non-G5 users

[Logic Bomb]

People who won't use GarageBand much may not have noticed that by default, new tracks are created with both Echo and Reverb plugins turned on and their values set to 0. If you get errors during playback saying "too many plugins or effects" for your system, go through track by track and turn off Echo and Reverb. Even though their values are set to 0, they seem to still occupy CPU cycles. Made the track playable on my 1 Ghz G4 iMac with 512 MB RAM.

Re:Is this what you might call...

[Leviathant]

Hi there, just thought I'd comment on this, I run a big fat nine inch nails website... We were concerned at first about the license, especially the bit about "other distribution of any of these sounds, either as they exist upon downloading, or any modification thereof." This amounts to a cover-your-ass clause... the band and Interscope are encouraging people to remix or whatever with this file. Interscope suggested to the band that they hook up with MySpace for fan distribution of the glut of remixes that will come out, but for one reason or another, that (and the notion of doing this as a contest) didn't happen. So if you do soemthing with these files, you are welcome to host them without fear of the record label coming at you -- otherwise what would the purpose be of doing this in the first place? That being said, I have a PC, and I just extracted the AIFF files... never saw the license ;)

Not the first time

[G3ek]

This is not the first time Trent has done something like this.
Right after The Fragile [amazon.com] was released, Trent and David Bowie both put a song online from their new albums to be remixed by the public but you had to use a proprietary web based application.
it was really fun getting to mess with the tracks, and I applaud Trent for this venture. I 3 NIN.

Re:Oh, the possibilities...

[Oinos]

"Closer to Hogs" by Nine Inch Richards.

Re:The inevitable question

[delire]

legacy hardware aside you might get some mileage out of this:

http://ardour.org/ it's about to go 1.0 any day and has served me well. Linux for now, soon OSten.

Getting this to work with Windows!

[PenguiN42]

First, you need to extract the .sit file: I got the demo of stuffit expander

Then you need something that can burn the .dmg file, or something to convert it to an .iso: I used dmg2iso (the perl script seems to work better).

Then I burned the .iso, but it's a mac file system, so you need something that can read mac filesystems. I grabbed the demo of macdrive.

With that I can grab all the .aif files from the "The Hand That Feeds 1.0.band\Media" directory and import them into my audio program of choice! I couldn't find anything to convert the garageband "projectData" file into another format (it's xml, but with a weird encoded data block), but the .aif files are a good enough place to start playing with the sounds.

I'm sure there's equivalent utilities for linux, as well, but I don't know about them.

Re:Eh, not really breaking ground.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Second Quarter Results 2005

Apple shipped 1,070,000 Macintosh® units and 5,311,000 iPods during the quarter, representing a 43 percent increase in CPU units and a 558 percent increase in iPods over the year-ago quarter. (emphasis added)

I am guessing Apple shipped more Mac computers last quarter than you have dollars in your bank account. The increase in CPU sales comes as a direct result of the introduction of the Mac mini. Ordinary folks are the ones buying this new computer.

Re:Is this what you might call...

[Leviathant]

Publishing this stuff in this format under this license looks more like sowing the seeds for some nice future lawsuits than anything else.

You'd be hard pressed to be more paranoid about this kind of situation than me -- I was once named in a lawsuit by Universal Australia for sending someone an MP3 of a Reznor remix. (nothing ever came of it...) I also had some unhappy dealings with Trent's previous buttwipe management, but that's another story.

I was assured that if any such lawsuit against a fan were to arise, Trent Reznor has veto power and would certainly use it. Otherwise, what's the point of doing this in the first place? Trent did not post this file just so he could get his fans sued.