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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.'"
...open source music? I wonder if it was released with a Creative Commons license.
Due to the death of Jhonn Balance (Coil), Trent is going to need some new talent for the inevitable re-mix album following "With Teeth"
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
Trent Reznor, great musician, got his idea from http://www.davidbowie.com/neverFollow/ David Bowie
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Another reason for all you Winblows users to switch a different os. If Mr. Reznor himself uses a mac....
Care to explain why?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Acid Pro is the Windows equivalent of Garageband. In fact some of the guys who wrote Acid worked on Garabgeband for Apple.
Brian "Head" Welch" (the ex-Korn guitarist who found Jesus) allegedly recorded his new album entirely in GarageBand. Maybe he will release his stuff too, being that's the Christian thing to do and all.
Since we're on the topic of shameless plugs, I might as well link to DGuitar, a Guitar Pro style program written in Java. I use it on my FreeBSD system to read .gp3,.gp4 files. The project is only a few months old but already has the ability to read the files and play them in MIDI.
The World is Yours.
for apple sales to the college crowd...
when I was in college, it was mostly Macintosh, <disclaimer> it was an art school</disclaimer> though we did have Irix and AIX stations for 3D work (and even an amiga for video.) I understand that things have changed since then ( I haven't really been paying attention,) to be mostly a windows thing. (It is for the college I currently work for, (though I was lucky enough to be given a mac to work on instead.))
do you all think that the mix of iPod, iTunes and now GarageBand are enough to grab a reasonable share of the impressionable, fashion-conscious, future buyer? Or do you think that Apple might cave, and put out GarageBand for windows? (though guessing its dependence on coreAudio might make that port a more significant challenge.)
(iNote with some interest that the spell checker in panther passes iPod and iTunes with out a pause, but fails with GB and iNote. It will be interesting to see the dictionary in Tiger to see what iThings will pass the spellchecker... note that it does not offer iPod as an alternative spelling, it just doesn't mark it as misspelled.)
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
I think it is great that Reznor is doing this and I think it is great that it is getting some visibility. It should be noted that many electronic music artists have provided similar "full access" to their music for remix competitions in the past. BT actually made 4 tracks available for all to tinker with.
What I love about this most is not the remix potential. I teach at an arts high school, and I plan on bringing this in to class.
I loaded the file into GarageBand and gave it a listen. What I love is that you can "solo" any of the tracks (listen to just that track and nothing else). Trent has done a nice job labeling all the tracks (there are 17 of them in all). Some are especially subtle, and it is great to hear just the "Ambience" track, then put the whole mix back on and listen for it.
This gives students a chance to better understand how much creativity it takes to make what basically sounds like a simple rock song.
Remixes are also a great use of this technology, but the ability to break complex media down to their components and discuss how they enhance our experience is really priceless. I'd love to have this with "A Day in the Life" from the Beatles, too (hear all those grand pianos at the end one by one)! Someday...
It's not as cool, but it does work in GarageBand 1.0 - Just be advised, you need to click through a seemingly endless string of warning dialogs.
anyone else remember downloading XM and IT files, and loading them in and looking at the samples and the song structure...? ah.. those were the days. Learned so much about music that way.
Although, interestingly, NIN has been using Macs to assemble their music since the beginning; "Pretty Hate Machine" was put together by Trent Reznor on a Macintosh Quadra back in '89.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
Trent is fairly well known as a devout Apple fan. Releasing in the format he has can be seen as a deliberate act in support of Apple. There's nothing wrong with that - Trent seems to have gotten a lot out of Apple over the years (using Apples for most of his work), so there's no reason not to give something back. Besides, the aim was to release something fans could play around with (hence the use of Garageband instead of ProTools etc.) not to give professional remixers everything they want.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Death really only influences a very small subset of death metal bands, especially those that gravitate towards (and draw from) the Florida Death Metal scene. Their small foray into progressive experimentation, and later return to technical death metal (which was very overrated) isn't exactly the best resume to declare Schuldiner as influential as, say, Kerry King of Slayer (whose fingerprint is evident in nearly every genre of metal), or even John Petrucci of Dream Theater. This is not to say that Chuck Schuldiner, or Muhammed Suicmez (who is essentially Yngwie Malmsteen doing death metal) were in any way untalented; simply that they aren't as influential as you say they are.
especially when being compared to Trent Reznor.
he's not exactly the father of industrial music (that label could either be attributed to any member of Throbbing Gristle or Al Jourgensen), but Reznor done more to push the genre into mainstream. his influence on most popular music (good or bad) has been striking; everyone from Nu Metal staples to Emo/Screamo kids list NIN as one of the main musical influences. most contempory mainstream metal bands (Killswitch Engage, Cradle of Filth, etc) will tell you they have a large NIN collection. I even read Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers list NIN's "The Fragile" as one of his top 10 albums of all time.
This is what differentiates Reznor from the two you have listed: Reznor transcends boundaries of genre. he may not have the most complex melodies, but his style is unique. even if Suicmez is satisfied with his new band, he'll never be accessible enough to truly further music.
I know you were being funny, but you were also being truthful. And the thing is, with popular music being delivered in the pre-mixed, ready-made forms that it is these days, artists who release their music files like this are -almost- bringing us back to the days of sheet music. After all, back then many more people could pick up and play a piece of sheet music; now a (likely) similar number of people can pick up and play with these files.
So this is a good thing.
Long time pianist and electronic music tinkerer/enthusiastic here... I just downloaded the NIN file and gave it a listen. I honestly have to say that the experience of messing with Trents tracks (!!!) was on par with my first hearing of Tomita's interpretation of "The Planets" or Wendy/Walter Carlos "Switched on Bach". It was like a whole new expanse of music was openned up to me... Wow! It's one thing to kind of know that, in principle, you have the tools to produce something on par with "The Hand that Feeds" (i.e. a computer, a program like Garageband), but being presented with a finished product like this song to mess with is amazing. (I certainly don't claim to have anything even slightly on par with the talent of Trent Reznor or other pro musicians; I am just excited by the democratization of the whole process and the creative opportunities of it all).