Because BuG FoG sounded cooler than ByG FoG...does it make sense?
Yeah I know. It doesn't really. Just like "long tail". The problem with the long tail is it gets caught in the door or you can't keep it under your robe.
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.
Basically...this is not uncommon across the software industry.
Most of the companies are not mature and entrenched with bureocracy. Staff probably turns over twice a year now when a decade ago devoted "well paid" developers worked long hours to make sure a patch or update was ready for release.
Now from my perspective, as a DBA responsible for installing and overseeing the installation of software patches on database and application servers, I can't really say this is happening any longer.
I don't simply patch Oracle becasue they say it's "critical". Updates and patching is only done if needed to keep the applcation going and to keep users working. If the risk of not patching comes into play then we patch.
Unfortunately for us, many software makers they have discovered the joys of consulting fees to bolster fading profit and market share, rather than actually delivering quality service and product to existing customers.
Particulary in smaller software makers. Selling the sizzle and delivering the bacon later is all too common now. And many times you end up with something much less than "bacon".
Anyone who works with canned apps in a large heterogenous IS environment knows what I am talking about.
And "we" the customers are partly to blame for allowing software makers to have thier way with us. I for one refuse to "pay" to vendors develop working patches for their software...there are a thousand and one ways for software vendors to take advantage of clients. It is up to the IT professionals to hold them to contracts and simple concepts like the delivery of software, updates and patches that actually work as claimed.
So it is up to us to demand full documentation, and READ IT. Test the systems completely and be more "critical" of the vendors claims...if you have to be hard ass to do so...so be it.
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:
Black Eye Peas hit single $1.25
Black Eye Peas ringtone $2.50
Sending a picture of Black Eye Peas to friends $0.58,
Recieving Black Eyed Peas e-mail $0.10
Text messeging 55 time at Black Eyed Peas concert $5.50
Downloading Black Eyed Peas phone game $12
Signing up for social networking service to become Black Eyed PEas friend $15/month
Cellcasting Black Eyed Peas concert to friend in Iraq $78
Seeing parents reaction to your first phone bill....priceless.
Wow how simple can you get. Databases are not simply "buckets" of data you reach in a scoop stuff up bad GUI's and crappy SQL.
Database are Relational Database Managment Systems. Oracle inparticular has capabilities that 99% of the programmers no desire to taek advantage of. Remeber a application is only as reliable as the database platform is sits on. Misssion critical high trasaction apps need fast time to recovery rates form hardware failure. Many databases fall woefully short in terms of providing the level of granular control and tuning that Oracle does...or the flexibility in recovery.
I don't buy this "commodity" nonsence. But it doesn't surprise me any more as the state of reliability is going right down the crapper thanks to software design that "empowers" the user to screw up the data with a few mouse clicks. And programmers are writing code that bypasses many RDBMS inegrity features. Programmers aren;t concerned with performqnce or reliability when they create applications that give the "joe six pack" user the aility to destroy company data in two mouse clicks.
I've been looking at ERP systesm of late and frankly it is pretty frightening what I am seeing.
The theme thus far is not one of reliability and integrity but of neato ad-hoc query from every screen, Excel like grids everywhere...that will dunmp tens of thousands of rows into excel and access database where bewildered business users will lock ever little buinsess rule into Access and Excel spreadsheets that are undocumented and bizarrely complex.
With application construction going the direction it is who needs a database. Just dump it to a text files and load it into a spread sheet.....hell just open it in notepad.
the day will come when the DBA's are gone and the database stops and no one will even know what that is because it is just a "commodity".
"Hi thanks for calling StoopIDTech Software. You can't access your application data? Run the data recovery wizard from the help menu and that should fix the problem. Thank You. Have a nice day!"
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.
The 12 o'clock commodities report on 1280 a.m. Witchita...
Key Today in the futures market from the Chicago commodities exchange, porkbellies are up three on strong market demand, "Black Eyed Peas" are down 2 on general digust over soiled pants, Winter Wheat is steady and "Cold Play" is up 1/2 on a modest Pitchfork track review, corn is down one half and "Korn" is up 3/4 with annoucement of summer tour. Those are the big movers so far to day tune in at 1:30 for the current action in the futures market. Now back Mark Stephans for today's weather outlook and almanac.
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
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..
Agreed. Gigging is vital to any band. We do gig. We have yet to embark on a three month national tour...not as easy to set up as one might think. They are very expensive, obviously time conuming and really don't pay all that well for emerging artists. So we play in our region mostly. SE WIscosnin and are building a good reputation and are always welcomed back to venues we play. Right now we are hunkering in the studio to catch up on working on work for our second disk. Gigging even the 1 or 2 a month we do takes a ton of time away from recording.
It takes a multi prong approach from lots of different directions. First is writing and recording. Online sales and promotion, gigging as much as possible, puttnig out somekind of "product" all the time, getting music in other media, TV, film. There are boat loads of paperwork to deal with with ASCAP, music licensing, distibution. etc...it all comes together slowly and also take a buzz. As ususal the good music floats to the top. But to do so it first has to be heard....either by word of mouth, gigs or from a music blog...
One thing is for sure...it is really a lot of fun...for a longtime musician and day job computer geek..it is difficult, a sh*t load of work, but immensely satisfying to DIY. It has gotten much easier over the years...and is still as much fun as it was when I was 15. Can't beat that.
I'd be happy to actually get paid::something::::sometime:: in the twenty years I have been making music.
If I can get 1000 people to purchase 1000 songs of our tunes on iTunes that is $650 bucks that I didn't have...
If I can get 10% of those people to buy our CD from CDbaby that is another $500 we didn't have.
Music is such a difficult way to make money I have given up any expectation to be in the "black" in my lifetime. But you do what you must to try and set yourself up to actually make soem money. Actually for musicians this is the best time. Cheap technology, quality instruments and a public that has a continuous high demand for NEW music. In another 30 years we will look abck on these years in awe just as we do when stereo LPs became a standard and 4 track tape machines were invented.
What is dismaying is that so many people have simply given up on the connection between artist and listener because of big labels, big money, big media etc, etc...so here is service that is setting the music business on a new course and one that in my book levels the playing field a little more for those artists who have no expectation of a "corporate handout" in the guise of a "contract". People need to realize there is no going back. Music listening now requires more energy and attention by the fan to sift through the dizzying array of choices. Staduim rock concerts and FM as the major inlfuences of buying habits are gone, gone, gone. One to One interaction, small clubs, independant releases, blogs and online serivces like iTunes are now the major influence in the music industry.
The internet and digital music technology enables independent artists to baypass tradtional music buinsess models and reach out directly to listeners and build rapport on a one to one basis. That activity alone leaves "gate keeping" big media running around STILL trying to put a "gate" in front of bands hoping they will walk through. Crazy thing is artists can now simply walk around the "gate" because the "fence" is gone. The cost of entry has lowered thanks to digital music technology and distribution. Bands have their own studios now capable of producing commercially viable products and a means to reach a worldwide market. In fact because of home and project studios the very techniques and technical sound of music has changed. All the innovation in recorded music is coming not from the big studios and labels, it is coming from independents. There is so much great music being made now it is mindboggling.
What is gone in the music industry is the control they once had as gatekeepers...the money is slowly starting to spread out across a wider range of artists and companies. WHo would of thought 15 years ago that a educational computer company would be a leader in the music industry....certainly not the RIAA, or Capitol Records....maybe Steve Jobs did...
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.
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)
A problem with private sector is that it is driven by profit.
So decisions are not ultimately made to expand the reach of humanity to other worlds or to learn the secrets of the universe. It will be to figure out another way to extract profit from the abundance of life here.
Maybe it has to happen to fund pure science but in some way I am not looking forward to the day when life in space is just a mirror of life in America.
Slashdot Mirror
Because BuG FoG sounded cooler than ByG FoG...does it make sense?
Yeah I know. It doesn't really. Just like "long tail". The problem with the long tail is it gets caught in the door or you can't keep it under your robe.
Cowardly Lion
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.
Basically...this is not uncommon across the software industry.
Most of the companies are not mature and entrenched with bureocracy. Staff probably turns over twice a year now when a decade ago devoted "well paid" developers worked long hours to make sure a patch or update was ready for release.
Now from my perspective, as a DBA responsible for installing and overseeing the installation of software patches on database and application servers, I can't really say this is happening any longer.
I don't simply patch Oracle becasue they say it's "critical". Updates and patching is only done if needed to keep the applcation going and to keep users working. If the risk of not patching comes into play then we patch.
Unfortunately for us, many software makers they have discovered the joys of consulting fees to bolster fading profit and market share, rather than actually delivering quality service and product to existing customers.
Particulary in smaller software makers. Selling the sizzle and delivering the bacon later is all too common now. And many times you end up with something much less than "bacon".
Anyone who works with canned apps in a large heterogenous IS environment knows what I am talking about.
And "we" the customers are partly to blame for allowing software makers to have thier way with us. I for one refuse to "pay" to vendors develop working patches for their software...there are a thousand and one ways for software vendors to take advantage of clients. It is up to the IT professionals to hold them to contracts and simple concepts like the delivery of software, updates and patches that actually work as claimed.
So it is up to us to demand full documentation, and READ IT. Test the systems completely and be more "critical" of the vendors claims...if you have to be hard ass to do so...so be it.
The ones they use I am told open a lot of doors in the entertainment industry.
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.
Black Eye Peas hit single $1.25
Black Eye Peas ringtone $2.50
Sending a picture of Black Eye Peas to friends $0.58,
Recieving Black Eyed Peas e-mail $0.10
Text messeging 55 time at Black Eyed Peas concert $5.50
Downloading Black Eyed Peas phone game $12
Signing up for social networking service to become Black Eyed PEas friend $15/month
Cellcasting Black Eyed Peas concert to friend in Iraq $78
Seeing parents reaction to your first phone bill....priceless.
Will be featured in the script at some point...
If not then the movie will suck.
Not sure if a spelled that right.
"Basically a database is only used to keep data."
Wow how simple can you get. Databases are not simply "buckets" of data you reach in a scoop stuff up bad GUI's and crappy SQL.
Database are Relational Database Managment Systems. Oracle inparticular has capabilities that 99% of the programmers no desire to taek advantage of. Remeber a application is only as reliable as the database platform is sits on. Misssion critical high trasaction apps need fast time to recovery rates form hardware failure. Many databases fall woefully short in terms of providing the level of granular control and tuning that Oracle does...or the flexibility in recovery.
I don't buy this "commodity" nonsence. But it doesn't surprise me any more as the state of reliability is going right down the crapper thanks to software design that "empowers" the user to screw up the data with a few mouse clicks. And programmers are writing code that bypasses many RDBMS inegrity features. Programmers aren;t concerned with performqnce or reliability when they create applications that give the "joe six pack" user the aility to destroy company data in two mouse clicks.
I've been looking at ERP systesm of late and frankly it is pretty frightening what I am seeing.
The theme thus far is not one of reliability and integrity but of neato ad-hoc query from every screen, Excel like grids everywhere...that will dunmp tens of thousands of rows into excel and access database where bewildered business users will lock ever little buinsess rule into Access and Excel spreadsheets that are undocumented and bizarrely complex.
With application construction going the direction it is who needs a database. Just dump it to a text files and load it into a spread sheet.....hell just open it in notepad.
the day will come when the DBA's are gone and the database stops and no one will even know what that is because it is just a "commodity".
"Hi thanks for calling StoopIDTech Software. You can't access your application data? Run the data recovery wizard from the help menu and that should fix the problem. Thank You. Have a nice day!"
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/
The 12 o'clock commodities report on 1280 a.m. Witchita...
Key Today in the futures market from the Chicago commodities exchange, porkbellies are up three on strong market demand, "Black Eyed Peas" are down 2 on general digust over soiled pants, Winter Wheat is steady and "Cold Play" is up 1/2 on a modest Pitchfork track review, corn is down one half and "Korn" is up 3/4 with annoucement of summer tour. Those are the big movers so far to day tune in at 1:30 for the current action in the futures market. Now back Mark Stephans for today's weather outlook and almanac.
Are encoded in IT sweatshops by 10 years olds fededing disks into double spin CD-ROM drives attached to 386 computers.
After you slice the crap out of your mouth drinking from a chipped cermic cup.
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..
::::WATCH THE DANCING BALL:::::
do only as you are told....
listen to only music that has been deemed culturally acceptable by television and large volume sales...
Now speak...
"BaaaaBaaaaBaaaa"
Excellent you are now ready for fleecing.
Agreed. Gigging is vital to any band. We do gig. We have yet to embark on a three month national tour...not as easy to set up as one might think. They are very expensive, obviously time conuming and really don't pay all that well for emerging artists. So we play in our region mostly. SE WIscosnin and are building a good reputation and are always welcomed back to venues we play. Right now we are hunkering in the studio to catch up on working on work for our second disk. Gigging even the 1 or 2 a month we do takes a ton of time away from recording.
It takes a multi prong approach from lots of different directions. First is writing and recording. Online sales and promotion, gigging as much as possible, puttnig out somekind of "product" all the time, getting music in other media, TV, film. There are boat loads of paperwork to deal with with ASCAP, music licensing, distibution. etc...it all comes together slowly and also take a buzz. As ususal the good music floats to the top. But to do so it first has to be heard....either by word of mouth, gigs or from a music blog...
One thing is for sure...it is really a lot of fun...for a longtime musician and day job computer geek..it is difficult, a sh*t load of work, but immensely satisfying to DIY. It has gotten much easier over the years...and is still as much fun as it was when I was 15. Can't beat that.
I'd be happy to actually get paid ::something::::sometime:: in the twenty years I have been making music.
If I can get 1000 people to purchase 1000 songs of our tunes on iTunes that is $650 bucks that I didn't have...
If I can get 10% of those people to buy our CD from CDbaby that is another $500 we didn't have.
Music is such a difficult way to make money I have given up any expectation to be in the "black" in my lifetime. But you do what you must to try and set yourself up to actually make soem money. Actually for musicians this is the best time. Cheap technology, quality instruments and a public that has a continuous high demand for NEW music. In another 30 years we will look abck on these years in awe just as we do when stereo LPs became a standard and 4 track tape machines were invented.
What is dismaying is that so many people have simply given up on the connection between artist and listener because of big labels, big money, big media etc, etc...so here is service that is setting the music business on a new course and one that in my book levels the playing field a little more for those artists who have no expectation of a "corporate handout" in the guise of a "contract". People need to realize there is no going back. Music listening now requires more energy and attention by the fan to sift through the dizzying array of choices. Staduim rock concerts and FM as the major inlfuences of buying habits are gone, gone, gone. One to One interaction, small clubs, independant releases, blogs and online serivces like iTunes are now the major influence in the music industry.
The internet and digital music technology enables independent artists to baypass tradtional music buinsess models and reach out directly to listeners and build rapport on a one to one basis. That activity alone leaves "gate keeping" big media running around STILL trying to put a "gate" in front of bands hoping they will walk through. Crazy thing is artists can now simply walk around the "gate" because the "fence" is gone. The cost of entry has lowered thanks to digital music technology and distribution. Bands have their own studios now capable of producing commercially viable products and a means to reach a worldwide market. In fact because of home and project studios the very techniques and technical sound of music has changed. All the innovation in recorded music is coming not from the big studios and labels, it is coming from independents. There is so much great music being made now it is mindboggling.
What is gone in the music industry is the control they once had as gatekeepers...the money is slowly starting to spread out across a wider range of artists and companies. WHo would of thought 15 years ago that a educational computer company would be a leader in the music industry....certainly not the RIAA, or Capitol Records....maybe Steve Jobs did...
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/
And now $78.12....
'nuff said.
They are already 5 years too late....
A problem with private sector is that it is driven by profit. So decisions are not ultimately made to expand the reach of humanity to other worlds or to learn the secrets of the universe. It will be to figure out another way to extract profit from the abundance of life here. Maybe it has to happen to fund pure science but in some way I am not looking forward to the day when life in space is just a mirror of life in America.
Just use daisy cutters........blow the fire out and level any of that pesky underbrush...
For next gen mega SUVs.... "When GM starts using square wheels we will able to corner the market...." Said a GM spokesperson.
I'm stressed out on ./ first posts