I have done some work in sound studios and post facilities. The tech support setups are a little different, and the users are much more aware. So, if you want perspective from the creative side of things, here you go. Here are stats for some facilities I have worked with:
Recording studio: 7 Macs(MOTU, ProTools), 2 Win98(no internet, dedicated, running sampling software only). Time: 1 person (me) 10-15 hours a week to cover all computer maintenance, upgrades, hardware installs (including audio interfaces and drive arrays), etc.
University facility: 5 Macs(ProTools LE/HD) Time: 1 full time studio manager, spends about 10%-20% of his time in front of a computer.
Post production division of a large production facility: 16 WinXP(Avid Media Composer, Nitris), 5-7 Macs(Final Cut, Shake), 2 SGI(Smoke), 1 Windows server(Avid Unity). Time: 1 person full-time doing server admin and all more difficult procedures, and 30-60 hrs/week from the production assistant pool doing routine maintenance/file management, upgrades/updates etc. The XP boxen running Avid Media Composer (Adrenaline) took 75%-80% of the time. Also, they had onsite vendor support for probably 50-75 hours a year.
Smaller/online only post facility: 8 Macs(Avid Media Composer, Final Cut), 3 WinXP(Nitris, ??), 2 SGI(Da Vinci, Smoke) Time: 1 full time person who manages ALL tech/engineering/IT. Estimates 25% is spent on the computers, the rest is spent dealing with ingest operations, audio/video equipment issues and whatever happens in that back room with 5 racks, a shitload of audio/video switches, 20 tape decks, tens of terabytes of fibre channel storage and related stuffs.
Sorry, I have never managed cassette production. Ballpark dupe costs are $1.10 for retail ready 1000 tape batches, but nobody is mass-marketing tape anymore.
The historical rate started as 2 cents, due to the Aeolian Co. court case. It has been adjusted since then, and is now $.091 for songs 5 minutes or less, or $.0175 per minute or fraction thereof per copy for songs over 5 minutes. Take a look at copyright office circulars, or the Harry Fox agency for more info.
Amazon takes 55% off the top. The remaining 45% has to pay for everything else, including royalties. If that 45% goes to a label, they have to pay compulsory royalties from that 45%, be it to artists or a publishing company. If the artist gets the 45%, they have to pay compulsories to a publishing company if the music isn't theirs, and have the option of taking it as part of their income if the music is theirs.
Remember, we are talking about royalties from CD sales. The artists aren't paying themselves. They are making money from CD sales. Two possible scenarios for part 115 royalties:
SCENARIO 1) The indie artist does a cover. They have to pay compulsory royalties. When Rusted Root did "You Can't Always Get What You Want", they had to pay royalties. Conversly, when I cover a Rusted Root song, Rusted Root is getting 9.1 cents per song per album sold in royalties from my CD sales.
SCENARIO 2) If the indie artist wrote their own music and signed a contract with a record company, hopefully they weren't stupid. If they weren't stupid, the contract included a clause that says something like: ------- 15. COMPULSORY ROYALTIES a. All musical compositions or material recorded pursuant to this Agreement which are written or composed, in whole or in part by Artist or any individual member of Artist or any producer of the masters subject hereto, or which are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by Artist or any individual member of Artist or any producer of the masters subject hereto (herein called "Controlled Compositions") shall be and are hereby licensed to Company:
i. A royalty per selection equal to 100 percent (100 %) of the minimum statutory per selection rate (without regard to playing time) effective on the earlier of (A) the date such masters are delivered to Company hereunder or (B) the date such masters are required to be delivered to Company hereunder. The aforesaid rate shall hereinafter sometimes be referred to as the "Per Selection Rate"; -------
The above was pulled from an actual contract. It allows the artist to earn compulsory royalties on their own work, in addition to sales royalties. This is usually a good thing. As you can see, that is section 15, which is from a 32 section contract that runs 24 pages. This industry is exceedingly, needlessly complex. I wish it weren't so.
Anyway, I hope this is a decent explaination. Remember, royalties are paid separately for both the RECORDING and the COMPOSITION.
Yeah, the grandparent is right that CDs go down over time, but the point is that the raw cost of manufacturing is only a small percentage of the cost of a CD. Sure, that cost has fallen, but it has never been the principle cost driver for the medium. Manufacturing costs aren't what we should be debating. Sorry if I was unclear...I'm not the best writer.
I agree, but for a slightly different reason. I want the RIAA to jack prices through the roof. Our wonderful market economy would then allow indie record companies and artists to undercut the "cartel". That would actually be the best scenario I could think of.
As it is, many of the indie artists I have worked with, and in some cases, recorded, price their records below the RIAA retail range of $16-$22, so they can sell more. A huge number of indie CDs are $10-$15, which is much more in line with what the market will bear.
The RIAA will not make good decisions. They want the market to react to it. They don't want to react to the market. As long as they view the industry that way, they will continue making bad decisions.
What's the cost of a physical CD? let me tell you, since I have managed some commercial releases:
Indie artists who get stuff replicated in 1000 CD batches from OasisCd or Diskmakers pay about $1.70 per CD. These are PRESSED, retail-ready, in standard jewel cases, in color, with barcodes, spine labels and all the trimmings, shipped to your doorstep.
So, a physical cost of a CD is $1.70 or so for non-RIAA indie music. If you go to Sony DADC or another large manufacturing house and order 100K or gold (500,000) press jobs, your cost for a retail-ready jewel case+CD is between $.60 and $.90, depending on printing options. This info is from an actual quote. 10 cents a fully packaged disc is unrealistic. Materials alone are more then that. 10 cents gets you a pressed CD with 1 silk-screened color and a mylar sleeve.
Remember that about 50% of any retail price consists of retailer/wholesaler cuts. Indie artists who sell through Amazon watch as Amazon takes 55% of the retail price, distributing 45% to the artist. Assuming a $12.00 CD, lets break this down: Out of that 45% ($5.40), the artist has to fund: shipping to Amazon ($.25) Duplication ($1.70) 17 U.S.C. 115 compulsory royalties ($.91) low end cost. Producer's standard 20% cut ($1.08)
This leaves $1.46, with which the artist has to eat, promote, fund the next record, and tour on.
Anyway, the point is, CD pricing is complex. The RIAA is wrong though. CDs should cost less, but at the expense of our convoluted, monopolistic distribution system (cartel?), not at the expense of the artists.
Wow. I guess I should have taken another look at Ardour. I used it a couple years ago for a small project. I realize I spoke too soon. It's not often that I get completely schooled in my own field on slashdot, so I apologize.
Before dismissing it again, I will have to give it a decent try. I didn't know you had MTC support. If your V2.0 release supports OMF and Mackie HUI, I will give it a try on a non-critical film mix project. At least then, I will have a decent basis for any criticisms or accolades.
If you had a way to support TDM cards and plugins like Logic and DP, I would run from Pro Tools, since your editing functions are better. That is probably far too expensive to implement though
Yeah, unfortunately, the parent has a point. Having used Audacity, Ardor, and a few others, they are hobby toys. They are GOOD hobby toys, but they are hobby toys. A pro studio would not risk a client's project on any of the current open source options. They just aren't rock solid.
I have recorded major parts of a commercially released CD on a Digital Performer/Tascam 1884 system. That was a few years ago, and about as low-end as I was willing for a commercial project. That system was maxing out at 32 audio+8 MIDI tracks (with effects). I much prefer Digital Performer or Pro Tools on Digidesign TDM cards in some decent Mac.
If the recording/sequencing software like Ardor had some major support behind it, and the hardware companies released linux drivers, then I might give them a serious try in a pro environment. Until then, I might play with OSS at home, but at work, I will be sitting in front of a Control24 desk enjoying Pro Tools. I don't have a choice, if I want to keep clients.
Well, if they insist on ramrodding this through congress, you, me and everyone else trying to release freely distributable content can sue as a class to have this overturned. There are handreds of musicians and filmmakers out there releasing free content, and thousands more who release the occasional free single. Any attempt to wrap my free singles in DRM is a violation of the terms of release.
A first amendment class action is something this country hasn't seen in a while. It's about time.
It also occured to me that the Zune wraps all content in DRM when it is loaded onto the player. I haven't looked at copyleft licenses enough to know if this is a violation. We might already have a class on our hands.
On a related note: Here is hoping that Cox gets his patent.
The Expert would have to get written permission from EVERY copyright owner. Now, for music,this is wonderfully complicated. Each song is copyrighted in two parts:
A) The composition B) The actual recording/performance
In the case of B, this could mean the record company, OR every musician who performed on the track. So, has this expert gotten written clearance from ALL of the concerned copyright holders? If the expert claims that RIAA membership is implicit permission, what about Indie labels and personally held publishing groups?
The probable mechanism for profit would be to short NYSE:WMT just before a viral attack is executed. If that attack were to happen on thanksgiving, just in time for 'black Friday', the profit could be huge.
The long-term is a better strategy in monetary terms, but risk is proportional to time. A single event is much harder to get caught at then a bunch of events. Introducing endemic shrinkage in the credit handling system would require a large number of (potentially) traceable events.
Now watch us all get watchlisted for discussing this...
Related to this, consider trade associations/guilds/unions. For musicians, I know we can get group-rate insurance through the American Federation of Musicians (afm.org) as well as the royalty collecting agencies BMI and ASCAP, or NARAS (grammy.com) if one qualifies.
I am not sure what is provided in the tech field, but I know IEEE provides some group-rate insurance.
I have recorded 10 channels of 44.1 KHz audio at 24 bits simultaniously. That requires a thoughput of 10 megabits a second, while firewire can handle 40 times that. DV25 streams flawlessly...
Firewire is rock-solid. The only problem I have with it is the sensitivity of bridge chips to static electricity.
That being said, I still prefer a PCI solution.
Also, USB is crap for realtime. If I remember correctly, IEEE1394 uses hardware-based buss control, and USB is software based.
Yeah, I have done time in TV studios. You seem to have seen more of it then I. They are even worse then sound studios, because there is fibre, cat5, and related for IP stuff. I remember seeing bundles of BNC carrying composite, SDI, those triplicate YCbCr packs, and some other weird stuff. Then those snakes that combined 50 cables carrying everything from audio to teleprompter feed.
The sound studios aren't as bad, it is more a question of volume. Once everything is at +4 dBV, all is well. The small studio I used to work in had a 144 point bantam bay in 'studio a', and it got fairly complicated sometimes.
The thing that shocks me though are the large multi-operator post audio consoles, with a half dozen 56 bundle MADI inputs, video sync, and feeds to ADR rooms. Intimidating.
I still use pulse dialing, especially if I have to use on of the few remaining payphones, and some ass has stuck gum all over the keypad. I can't whistle DTMF tones yet...I always seem to be missing half of it;)
I hate all the extra charges phone companies tack on. Makes me hope Skype plus WiMax and a nice mesh network might actually be viable...
All the person has to do is learn to whistle. As long as he can whistle two specific frequencies at the same time within.5 percent of the ITU-T Q.23 specification, he can use the standard DTMF menus!
I guess the closest reason would be that you have to wait for something to be reset in the card, and that seven seconds is the xRC value for a capacitor on the card to discharge and allow the voltage across couple transistors on some chip to drop below.7 (or.3?) volts.
The Conyers-Sensenbrenner legislation was crafted specifically with this in mind. The idea is to bring Telco services under the jurisdiction Sherman Act. If the telcos collude to limit service, it is a monopoly action, and thus illegal. For most of us Verizon and SBC customers, we would get net neutrality. However, in a crowded local market, such as the Bay Area or New York, where any number of ISPs will run a T1 directly to your living room, the legislation would already be obsolete, as there is competition in those markets. This seems like the best solution, but it seems to have died in comittee.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of cod liver oil, you reminded me of the best way to cure seasickness:
1 cup cod liver oil mixed with 1 cup of whiskey, taken over 1-2 hours. Works like a charm!
I have done some work in sound studios and post facilities. The tech support setups are a little different, and the users are much more aware. So, if you want perspective from the creative side of things, here you go. Here are stats for some facilities I have worked with:
Recording studio: 7 Macs(MOTU, ProTools), 2 Win98(no internet, dedicated, running sampling software only).
Time: 1 person (me) 10-15 hours a week to cover all computer maintenance, upgrades, hardware installs (including audio interfaces and drive arrays), etc.
University facility: 5 Macs(ProTools LE/HD)
Time: 1 full time studio manager, spends about 10%-20% of his time in front of a computer.
Post production division of a large production facility: 16 WinXP(Avid Media Composer, Nitris), 5-7 Macs(Final Cut, Shake), 2 SGI(Smoke), 1 Windows server(Avid Unity).
Time: 1 person full-time doing server admin and all more difficult procedures, and 30-60 hrs/week from the production assistant pool doing routine maintenance/file management, upgrades/updates etc. The XP boxen running Avid Media Composer (Adrenaline) took 75%-80% of the time. Also, they had onsite vendor support for probably 50-75 hours a year.
Smaller/online only post facility: 8 Macs(Avid Media Composer, Final Cut), 3 WinXP(Nitris, ??), 2 SGI(Da Vinci, Smoke)
Time: 1 full time person who manages ALL tech/engineering/IT. Estimates 25% is spent on the computers, the rest is spent dealing with ingest operations, audio/video equipment issues and whatever happens in that back room with 5 racks, a shitload of audio/video switches, 20 tape decks, tens of terabytes of fibre channel storage and related stuffs.
And the spinny gay-pride wheel of death...
But that usually only happens when an app crashes. kernel panics are not as pretty. Polyglot gray sucks.
Sorry, I have never managed cassette production. Ballpark dupe costs are $1.10 for retail ready 1000 tape batches, but nobody is mass-marketing tape anymore.
The historical rate started as 2 cents, due to the Aeolian Co. court case. It has been adjusted since then, and is now $.091 for songs 5 minutes or less, or $.0175 per minute or fraction thereof per copy for songs over 5 minutes. Take a look at copyright office circulars, or the Harry Fox agency for more info.
Amen! I agree.
In all seriousness, I enjoy the occasional intelligent debates that surface above the usual slashdot noise. It happens all too rarely.
--LRF
Amazon takes 55% off the top. The remaining 45% has to pay for everything else, including royalties. If that 45% goes to a label, they have to pay compulsory royalties from that 45%, be it to artists or a publishing company. If the artist gets the 45%, they have to pay compulsories to a publishing company if the music isn't theirs, and have the option of taking it as part of their income if the music is theirs.
Remember, we are talking about royalties from CD sales. The artists aren't paying themselves. They are making money from CD sales. Two possible scenarios for part 115 royalties:
SCENARIO 1) The indie artist does a cover. They have to pay compulsory royalties. When Rusted Root did "You Can't Always Get What You Want", they had to pay royalties. Conversly, when I cover a Rusted Root song, Rusted Root is getting 9.1 cents per song per album sold in royalties from my CD sales.
SCENARIO 2) If the indie artist wrote their own music and signed a contract with a record company, hopefully they weren't stupid. If they weren't stupid, the contract included a clause that says something like:
-------
15. COMPULSORY ROYALTIES
a. All musical compositions or material recorded pursuant to this Agreement which are written or composed, in whole or in part by Artist or any individual member of Artist or any producer of the masters subject hereto, or which are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by Artist or any individual member of Artist or any producer of the masters subject hereto (herein called "Controlled Compositions") shall be and are hereby licensed to Company:
i. A royalty per selection equal to 100 percent (100 %) of the minimum statutory per selection rate (without regard to playing time) effective on the earlier of (A) the date such masters are delivered to Company hereunder or (B) the date such masters are required to be delivered to Company hereunder. The aforesaid rate shall hereinafter sometimes be referred to as the "Per Selection Rate";
-------
The above was pulled from an actual contract. It allows the artist to earn compulsory royalties on their own work, in addition to sales royalties. This is usually a good thing. As you can see, that is section 15, which is from a 32 section contract that runs 24 pages. This industry is exceedingly, needlessly complex. I wish it weren't so.
Anyway, I hope this is a decent explaination. Remember, royalties are paid separately for both the RECORDING and the COMPOSITION.
Yeah, the grandparent is right that CDs go down over time, but the point is that the raw cost of manufacturing is only a small percentage of the cost of a CD. Sure, that cost has fallen, but it has never been the principle cost driver for the medium. Manufacturing costs aren't what we should be debating. Sorry if I was unclear...I'm not the best writer.
I agree, but for a slightly different reason. I want the RIAA to jack prices through the roof. Our wonderful market economy would then allow indie record companies and artists to undercut the "cartel". That would actually be the best scenario I could think of.
As it is, many of the indie artists I have worked with, and in some cases, recorded, price their records below the RIAA retail range of $16-$22, so they can sell more. A huge number of indie CDs are $10-$15, which is much more in line with what the market will bear.
The RIAA will not make good decisions. They want the market to react to it. They don't want to react to the market. As long as they view the industry that way, they will continue making bad decisions.
So let them.
What's the cost of a physical CD? let me tell you, since I have managed some commercial releases:
Indie artists who get stuff replicated in 1000 CD batches from OasisCd or Diskmakers pay about $1.70 per CD. These are PRESSED, retail-ready, in standard jewel cases, in color, with barcodes, spine labels and all the trimmings, shipped to your doorstep.
So, a physical cost of a CD is $1.70 or so for non-RIAA indie music. If you go to Sony DADC or another large manufacturing house and order 100K or gold (500,000) press jobs, your cost for a retail-ready jewel case+CD is between $.60 and $.90, depending on printing options. This info is from an actual quote. 10 cents a fully packaged disc is unrealistic. Materials alone are more then that. 10 cents gets you a pressed CD with 1 silk-screened color and a mylar sleeve.
Remember that about 50% of any retail price consists of retailer/wholesaler cuts. Indie artists who sell through Amazon watch as Amazon takes 55% of the retail price, distributing 45% to the artist. Assuming a $12.00 CD, lets break this down:
Out of that 45% ($5.40), the artist has to fund:
shipping to Amazon ($.25)
Duplication ($1.70)
17 U.S.C. 115 compulsory royalties ($.91) low end cost.
Producer's standard 20% cut ($1.08)
This leaves $1.46, with which the artist has to eat, promote, fund the next record, and tour on.
Anyway, the point is, CD pricing is complex. The RIAA is wrong though. CDs should cost less, but at the expense of our convoluted, monopolistic distribution system (cartel?), not at the expense of the artists.
The doctors don't squeeze. Investors/shareholders (through HMOs and for-profit healthcare companies) squeeze.
Wow. I guess I should have taken another look at Ardour. I used it a couple years ago for a small project. I realize I spoke too soon. It's not often that I get completely schooled in my own field on slashdot, so I apologize.
Before dismissing it again, I will have to give it a decent try. I didn't know you had MTC support. If your V2.0 release supports OMF and Mackie HUI, I will give it a try on a non-critical film mix project. At least then, I will have a decent basis for any criticisms or accolades.
If you had a way to support TDM cards and plugins like Logic and DP, I would run from Pro Tools, since your editing functions are better. That is probably far too expensive to implement though
Yeah, unfortunately, the parent has a point. Having used Audacity, Ardor, and a few others, they are hobby toys. They are GOOD hobby toys, but they are hobby toys. A pro studio would not risk a client's project on any of the current open source options. They just aren't rock solid.
I have recorded major parts of a commercially released CD on a Digital Performer/Tascam 1884 system. That was a few years ago, and about as low-end as I was willing for a commercial project. That system was maxing out at 32 audio+8 MIDI tracks (with effects). I much prefer Digital Performer or Pro Tools on Digidesign TDM cards in some decent Mac.
If the recording/sequencing software like Ardor had some major support behind it, and the hardware companies released linux drivers, then I might give them a serious try in a pro environment. Until then, I might play with OSS at home, but at work, I will be sitting in front of a Control24 desk enjoying Pro Tools. I don't have a choice, if I want to keep clients.
Well, if they insist on ramrodding this through congress, you, me and everyone else trying to release freely distributable content can sue as a class to have this overturned. There are handreds of musicians and filmmakers out there releasing free content, and thousands more who release the occasional free single. Any attempt to wrap my free singles in DRM is a violation of the terms of release.
A first amendment class action is something this country hasn't seen in a while. It's about time.
It also occured to me that the Zune wraps all content in DRM when it is loaded onto the player. I haven't looked at copyleft licenses enough to know if this is a violation. We might already have a class on our hands.
On a related note: Here is hoping that Cox gets his patent.
The Expert would have to get written permission from EVERY copyright owner. Now, for music,this is wonderfully complicated. Each song is copyrighted in two parts:
A) The composition
B) The actual recording/performance
In the case of B, this could mean the record company, OR every musician who performed on the track. So, has this expert gotten written clearance from ALL of the concerned copyright holders? If the expert claims that RIAA membership is implicit permission, what about Indie labels and personally held publishing groups?
This is a sticky subject...
The probable mechanism for profit would be to short NYSE:WMT just before a viral attack is executed. If that attack were to happen on thanksgiving, just in time for 'black Friday', the profit could be huge.
The long-term is a better strategy in monetary terms, but risk is proportional to time. A single event is much harder to get caught at then a bunch of events. Introducing endemic shrinkage in the credit handling system would require a large number of (potentially) traceable events.
Now watch us all get watchlisted for discussing this...
Related to this, consider trade associations/guilds/unions. For musicians, I know we can get group-rate insurance through the American Federation of Musicians (afm.org) as well as the royalty collecting agencies BMI and ASCAP, or NARAS (grammy.com) if one qualifies.
I am not sure what is provided in the tech field, but I know IEEE provides some group-rate insurance.
The ad was served by doubleclick...
Firefox+Adblock+filterset.g(or similar) does wonders. As an added benefit, the pages load faster too.
I have recorded 10 channels of 44.1 KHz audio at 24 bits simultaniously. That requires a thoughput of 10 megabits a second, while firewire can handle 40 times that. DV25 streams flawlessly...
Firewire is rock-solid. The only problem I have with it is the sensitivity of bridge chips to static electricity.
That being said, I still prefer a PCI solution.
Also, USB is crap for realtime. If I remember correctly, IEEE1394 uses hardware-based buss control, and USB is software based.
Yeah, I have done time in TV studios. You seem to have seen more of it then I. They are even worse then sound studios, because there is fibre, cat5, and related for IP stuff. I remember seeing bundles of BNC carrying composite, SDI, those triplicate YCbCr packs, and some other weird stuff. Then those snakes that combined 50 cables carrying everything from audio to teleprompter feed.
The sound studios aren't as bad, it is more a question of volume. Once everything is at +4 dBV, all is well. The small studio I used to work in had a 144 point bantam bay in 'studio a', and it got fairly complicated sometimes.
The thing that shocks me though are the large multi-operator post audio consoles, with a half dozen 56 bundle MADI inputs, video sync, and feeds to ADR rooms. Intimidating.
I still use pulse dialing, especially if I have to use on of the few remaining payphones, and some ass has stuck gum all over the keypad. I can't whistle DTMF tones yet...I always seem to be missing half of it ;)
I hate all the extra charges phone companies tack on. Makes me hope Skype plus WiMax and a nice mesh network might actually be viable...
No, no, no!
.5 percent of the ITU-T Q.23 specification, he can use the standard DTMF menus!
All the person has to do is learn to whistle. As long as he can whistle two specific frequencies at the same time within
I guess the closest reason would be that you have to wait for something to be reset in the card, and that seven seconds is the xRC value for a capacitor on the card to discharge and allow the voltage across couple transistors on some chip to drop below .7 (or .3?) volts.
Or maybe just voodoo...
The Conyers-Sensenbrenner legislation was crafted specifically with this in mind. The idea is to bring Telco services under the jurisdiction Sherman Act. If the telcos collude to limit service, it is a monopoly action, and thus illegal. For most of us Verizon and SBC customers, we would get net neutrality. However, in a crowded local market, such as the Bay Area or New York, where any number of ISPs will run a T1 directly to your living room, the legislation would already be obsolete, as there is competition in those markets. This seems like the best solution, but it seems to have died in comittee.