Much as I love taking all the computer peripherals I can take into the studio with me as I can carry, I would much rather find the mouse as standard so that it is always there.
And although a mouse doesn't weigh much, you kinda want to concentrate on getting the equipment you're making the music with right (ie guitars, synths, samplers etc) and not having to worry about mice keyboards and other computer stuff that you expect to be right anyway!!!
All PCs in studios I work in always have two button scroll wheel mice. MACs almost *never* do.
Personally I really believe that music is the next Killer App on the Internet. Now that labels are starting to embrace the technology - and Apples download agreements for the iPod look very very interesting - this will pull people in due to the convenience of getting singles.
And singles are the driver of Album sales (albeit a loss leader) and priced at the stupidly low levels that they can be set at on a medium like the Internet (99 cents has been mentioned) that is well within the means of teenagers everywhere.
I think this will be a virtuous circle of people putting the singles directly onto iPod mp3 players and the like and then going back for more. This could really change the whole nature of Album sales (often containing more than a couple of duff tracks to make up the numbers) and providing the mechanism for download is both strong enough to be profitable and not too strong as to irritate customers then they could have a winner. Both for the music companies and the Internet as a whole...
I work as a musician and producer and a one button mouse is a right pain when working on the Mac. Although I love OS X and Logic, I would be able to work much faster if Apple would provide some kind of scroll wheel so I could nip around documents much faster.
Although it is hard to know before seeing a real mouse I think the fact that this could be both Vertical and Horizontal will make it better to use than existing scroll wheels. I love the transparent Apple mouse so this would be an excellent improvement...
Now the next step is to get the music software to support it.... So hopefully Apple ownership will speed that up too...
I wonder how you think we should advertise these thing. As we have received no attention and are struggling to make ends meet.
We have been submitted to Slashdot but they deigned not to bother drawing attention to our site at LOCA RECORDS but are happy for some crappy eighties band...
No wonder new music is finding it hard to get an audience as everyone seem to be looking backwards these days...
We at LOCA Records have been experimenting with Free Licence releases since last year. But we actually release the records, so example our ML release is a 12"vinyl release that includes a copy of the Open Audio license (from EFF.org) as part of the record artwork...
The record is getting very good reviews but bizarrely no reviewer has so far picked up on the open license that we are using. It just seems to be passing everyone by.. this is very strange as you would expect *someone* to notice...
One of the problems is that everyone moans about the homogeneity and lack of good music and then instead of going out and buying it they download MP3s fromthe web. Now that is fine *providing* you give something back to the artists and the musicians writing the stuff... sadly this is often not the way...
The majority of buyers of music are in the young teeny market or the older back catalogue and new music is squeezed between these two camps. And hey guess what, most people into new music don't buy, my record label (LOCA) sells very small amounts of CDs and Vinyl *even though* we get emails and good press telling us how good the music is.
And we have had a donate to artists for their MP3s available for twelve months and ONLY ONE PERSON HAS DONE SO... even though we have had thousands of downloads.
Now, perhaps everyone hates the music - fair enough - but I think much more likely people can't get their head around paying for something they have already got on their walkman. That is certainly one of the main reasons I do not copy albums off people, the moment I do, no matter how good my intentions, I do not go and buy the CD. Sure if I grab an MP3 off the web I will as then the quality is poor (for instance I recently went out and got the Electric6 single Danger! High Voltage! after a download).
So what do we the tiny independent labels do about this? Well I'm truly not sure.. The market is sewn up by the majors to extents you would not believe. Generally people *do not like* buying unknown bands, and certainly not if they are not stocked in the major record stores, and lastly if they get the MP3 they seem mostly happy with that...
I would love for an alternative business model to start to emerge on the web but it seems that for all the talk its the same everywhere, the majors can advertise and buy their way into the web review sites by blitzing them with promos, they plug like crazy and they already control the external print market. Goodby heterogeneity, hello homogeneity.
This new 'scientific' method of calculating music singles is the result of laziness and shallowness by the buying public and quite frankly history will judge us that way...
But not too get too depressing, will that stop us writing music and running the label? Nah.. we love music too much..
One of the problems is that everyone moans about the homogeneity and lack of good music and then instead of going out and buying it they download MP3s fromthe web. Now that is fine *providing* you give something back to the artists and the musicians writing the stuff... sadly this is often not the way...
The majority of buyers of music are in the young teeny market or the older back catalogue and new music is squeezed between these two camps. And hey guess what, most people into new music don't buy, my record label (LOCA sells very small amounts of CDs and Vinyl *even though* we get emails and good press telling us how good the music is.
And we have had a donate to artists for their MP3s available for twelve months and ONLY ONE PERSON HAS DONE SO... even though we have had thousands of downloads.
Now, perhaps everyone hates the music - fair enough - but I think much more likely people can't get their head around paying for something they have already got on their walkman. That is certainly one of the main reasons I do not copy albums off people, the moment I do, no matter how good my intentions, I do not go and buy the CD. Sure if I grab an MP3 off the web I will as then the quality is poor (for instance I recently went out and got the Electric6 single Danger! High Voltage! after a download).
So what do we the tiny independent labels do about this? Well I'm truly not sure.. The market is sewn up by the majors to extents you would not believe. Generally people *do not like* buying unknown bands, and certainly not if they are not stocked in the major record stores, and lastly if they get the MP3 they seem mostly happy with that...
I would love for an alternative business model to start to emerge on the web but it seems that for all the talk its the same everywhere, the majors can advertise and buy their way into the web review sites by blitzing them with promos, they plug like crazy and they already control the external print market. Goodby heterogeneity, hello homogeneity.
This new 'scientific' method of calculating music singles is the result of laziness and shallowness by the buying public and quite frankly history will judge us that way...
But not too get too depressing, will that stop us writing music and running the label? Nah.. we love music too much..
I think that the methodology and algorithms should be made Open Source so that they can be seen to be fair and in addition people can post improvements to beat the inevitable Google cheats.
Also it will slow down the slow and steady encrochment of big companies tempting google to upgrade their links (or worse supply details of how to get around the system to their special access, premium paid up clients)...
I am not really sure how useful this will be. We are an Open Source music label LOCA RECORDS releasing tracks onto Vinyl (as well as old fashioned MP3) and the problem is not that of tracknames and tags etc but of distributing the music itself.
A system is needed to be able to allow users to provide feedback (and hence publicity to new music) and most importantly somehow give the artists some money for the work they produce, afterall they need to eat too.
We are a record label and have been experimenting with open media and this whole debate has influenced our music releasing model... We currently use the EFF Open Audio license to release vinyl records for dance and electronica music...
Its not just the technical
on
Why VHS Was Better
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I think this is an important point when creating technical projects - it is not just the technical specifications that sell a product (well for non-slashdot readers anyway;-)
I don't know if anyone has come across the writer Bruno Latour but he argues convincingly that we need a more complex understanding of the way technology projects are started, run and completed in order to understand why certain technical decisions are made. Afterall there can be cost constraints, efficiency constraints, material constraints, management constraints, organisational constraints (ie we don't do it like that here) and so on and on.
The phrase heterogeneous engineering is a great term that refers to the way technical people have to engineer not just, say, the software, but also the managers, other people, organisational lethagy and so on just to get the thing out of the drawing room (let alone the door).
I remember working for a very prestigious and large media company who could not see the value of the Internet whatso ever. No matter how much I banged on about it. In the end I left as it was clear the managers and company were still living in the land of VAX/VMS... Shit they were *still* worrying about X25!
But it is interesting how we as engineers have to have the social skills as well as technical skills in order to move a project forward... and that can be much harder than the technical!
This technology could be a massive boon to poor developing countries in trying to provide technology services and the Internet around their countries. Combined with the cheap 'n dirty homemade wireless links this technology has a *lot* of potential for cheap (or free) Internet access...
I completely agree with the poster. It is vitally important for the Artist to be able to live. And if you are enjoying the music then you should contribute something.
We are experimenting with open media at LOCARECORDS.COM but eventhough we are getting downloads we don't get payment... Maybe that will change but certainly we are getting a more supportive reponse from people who *actually* buy the record itself..
I think this represents an important legal challenge to protect and limit these sorts of activities. I think it is sad that companies feel a need to deceive in order to get business, but at least these class actions can do something to redress the balance.
This is the same argument as war is good for the economy as it means we have to build lots of stuff, smash it up and then build it again... and of course full employment too...
There are *other* human values. For instance some poor kid in Pakistan might be working 12 hours a day in a stinking hot factory poking wires inside the camera but so you can pay a measly $700. That is *not* so great.
Actually if you had spent anytime on the site you would have realised that the record label LOCA is committed to Open Media. That means we are putting all our output into the public domain royalty free - copyleft... Copy what you like, we just love the music...
And as I have said previously, I am not anti-technological nor anti-progess, merely I believe we need to be more sensitive to issues. Rather than, wow a rocket that has a DV camera, gosh, wow, amazing. Yeah right.. amazing waste of money... hardly creative and hardly useful either...
And I have not said stop buying things. The purpose of the post was to raise a dissenting voice and say, hey, maybe this isn't all that great, is that *so* bad??
Why are so many slashdotters so seemingly terrified of a critical question about one of the site posts?
Must we really be robots being fed this information or can we actually say something critical occassionally without the need for abuse?
No-one seems to be proposing outlawing hobbies, and frankly I don't propose to, however some hobbies make less sense than others, for example Saddam presumably thinks he has every right to indulge in his 'hobbies' so why are you American's so keen to stop him? Oh right, yeah, because he is a *threat* to the world, he is 'evil'... oh I see claims to a moral position when it suits the *Americans*....
Or would it be ok if he strapped DV cameras to his rockets and posted them to Slashdot?
Does raise the interesting question of this very useful rocket technology information being posted where Saddam can find it easily...
Secondly, I am not proposing an anti-technological anti-progress position here. It is quite simple, these people are *burning* money for no other reason than there own individualistic selfish satisfaction. And yes, the fuel costs money as does the destroyed rockets, ruined camcorders (lets face it how long can they really last) and all to stick look-at-me videos on the internet.
I am merely stating that when you look around at the world (and the Internet has been enormously useful in helping us to do just that) you see repressive states, anti-democractic regimes, torture, poverty, starvation and unhappiness.
When you start to think you as a nation have absolutely no responsibilies to the rest of the globe (ie as America so often does) then there is a very real danger in the growth of terrorist organisations and anti-american sentiment growing. And if this is allowed to grow unchecked *no* amount of American hegemony or military muscle is going to stop it. This is a political problem and requires sensitivity to the problems of the world.
I fear that the Internet as an advert for the sheer unadulturated self-satisified and selfish behaviour of Americans will be the last thing you as a nation need at the moment. But then maybe its true that you *really* don't care and don't want to know...
Wouldn't it be better and more rewarding to give the money to charity than to just blow up DV camcorders. This seems enormously childish and selfish for no gain *except* the feeling of burning money for nothing but a cheap thrill.
I do sometimes wonder about people like this - with so much child poverty in the US, hunger and disease in the developing world, misogynistic and repressive state actions around the globe and a terrifying new famine certain to hit Ethiopia very soon. Should we really be acting like spoilt little children breaking our toys just because we are bored.
Who cares what the multinational record labels do!?! Jesus, since when have they supported anything like new innovative music anyway?
We should be buying new music from small labels and encouraging them to experiment with Open Media/Open Source releases. That way we'll have it both ways, good new music, and we can copy and re-use it however we want without worrying about cracking and hacking some god-awful crappy protection scheme.
We do we have to buy such safe multinational anodyne music??? Come on slashotters EXPERIMENT! There are so many interesting labels out there.
Slashdot Mirror
3K mikes aren't the be all. First you need good musicians and good singers. Anyway I wasn't talking about the cost... its the hassle!
But you definitely need a good stable computer.. and Apples just are.
Cheers!!!
Much as I love taking all the computer peripherals I can take into the studio with me as I can carry, I would much rather find the mouse as standard so that it is always there.
And although a mouse doesn't weigh much, you kinda want to concentrate on getting the equipment you're making the music with right (ie guitars, synths, samplers etc) and not having to worry about mice keyboards and other computer stuff that you expect to be right anyway!!!
All PCs in studios I work in always have two button scroll wheel mice. MACs almost *never* do.
And singles are the driver of Album sales (albeit a loss leader) and priced at the stupidly low levels that they can be set at on a medium like the Internet (99 cents has been mentioned) that is well within the means of teenagers everywhere.
I think this will be a virtuous circle of people putting the singles directly onto iPod mp3 players and the like and then going back for more. This could really change the whole nature of Album sales (often containing more than a couple of duff tracks to make up the numbers) and providing the mechanism for download is both strong enough to be profitable and not too strong as to irritate customers then they could have a winner. Both for the music companies and the Internet as a whole...
I work as a musician and producer and a one button mouse is a right pain when working on the Mac. Although I love OS X and Logic, I would be able to work much faster if Apple would provide some kind of scroll wheel so I could nip around documents much faster.
Although it is hard to know before seeing a real mouse I think the fact that this could be both Vertical and Horizontal will make it better to use than existing scroll wheels. I love the transparent Apple mouse so this would be an excellent improvement...
Now the next step is to get the music software to support it.... So hopefully Apple ownership will speed that up too...
We have been submitted to Slashdot but they deigned not to bother drawing attention to our site at LOCA RECORDS but are happy for some crappy eighties band...
No wonder new music is finding it hard to get an audience as everyone seem to be looking backwards these days...
We at LOCA Records have been experimenting with Free Licence releases since last year. But we actually release the records, so example our ML release is a 12"vinyl release that includes a copy of the Open Audio license (from EFF.org) as part of the record artwork...
The record is getting very good reviews but bizarrely no reviewer has so far picked up on the open license that we are using. It just seems to be passing everyone by.. this is very strange as you would expect *someone* to notice...
The majority of buyers of music are in the young teeny market or the older back catalogue and new music is squeezed between these two camps. And hey guess what, most people into new music don't buy, my record label (LOCA) sells very small amounts of CDs and Vinyl *even though* we get emails and good press telling us how good the music is.
And we have had a donate to artists for their MP3s available for twelve months and ONLY ONE PERSON HAS DONE SO... even though we have had thousands of downloads.
Now, perhaps everyone hates the music - fair enough - but I think much more likely people can't get their head around paying for something they have already got on their walkman. That is certainly one of the main reasons I do not copy albums off people, the moment I do, no matter how good my intentions, I do not go and buy the CD. Sure if I grab an MP3 off the web I will as then the quality is poor (for instance I recently went out and got the Electric6 single Danger! High Voltage! after a download).
So what do we the tiny independent labels do about this? Well I'm truly not sure.. The market is sewn up by the majors to extents you would not believe. Generally people *do not like* buying unknown bands, and certainly not if they are not stocked in the major record stores, and lastly if they get the MP3 they seem mostly happy with that...
I would love for an alternative business model to start to emerge on the web but it seems that for all the talk its the same everywhere, the majors can advertise and buy their way into the web review sites by blitzing them with promos, they plug like crazy and they already control the external print market. Goodby heterogeneity, hello homogeneity.
This new 'scientific' method of calculating music singles is the result of laziness and shallowness by the buying public and quite frankly history will judge us that way...
But not too get too depressing, will that stop us writing music and running the label? Nah.. we love music too much..
One of the problems is that everyone moans about the homogeneity and lack of good music and then instead of going out and buying it they download MP3s fromthe web. Now that is fine *providing* you give something back to the artists and the musicians writing the stuff... sadly this is often not the way...
The majority of buyers of music are in the young teeny market or the older back catalogue and new music is squeezed between these two camps. And hey guess what, most people into new music don't buy, my record label (LOCA sells very small amounts of CDs and Vinyl *even though* we get emails and good press telling us how good the music is.
And we have had a donate to artists for their MP3s available for twelve months and ONLY ONE PERSON HAS DONE SO... even though we have had thousands of downloads.
Now, perhaps everyone hates the music - fair enough - but I think much more likely people can't get their head around paying for something they have already got on their walkman. That is certainly one of the main reasons I do not copy albums off people, the moment I do, no matter how good my intentions, I do not go and buy the CD. Sure if I grab an MP3 off the web I will as then the quality is poor (for instance I recently went out and got the Electric6 single Danger! High Voltage! after a download).
So what do we the tiny independent labels do about this? Well I'm truly not sure.. The market is sewn up by the majors to extents you would not believe. Generally people *do not like* buying unknown bands, and certainly not if they are not stocked in the major record stores, and lastly if they get the MP3 they seem mostly happy with that...
I would love for an alternative business model to start to emerge on the web but it seems that for all the talk its the same everywhere, the majors can advertise and buy their way into the web review sites by blitzing them with promos, they plug like crazy and they already control the external print market. Goodby heterogeneity, hello homogeneity.
This new 'scientific' method of calculating music singles is the result of laziness and shallowness by the buying public and quite frankly history will judge us that way...
But not too get too depressing, will that stop us writing music and running the label? Nah.. we love music too much..
I think that the methodology and algorithms should be made Open Source so that they can be seen to be fair and in addition people can post improvements to beat the inevitable Google cheats.
Also it will slow down the slow and steady encrochment of big companies tempting google to upgrade their links (or worse supply details of how to get around the system to their special access, premium paid up clients)...
A system is needed to be able to allow users to provide feedback (and hence publicity to new music) and most importantly somehow give the artists some money for the work they produce, afterall they need to eat too.
We are a record label and have been experimenting with open media and this whole debate has influenced our music releasing model... We currently use the EFF Open Audio license to release vinyl records for dance and electronica music...
LOCA RECORDS
I don't know if anyone has come across the writer Bruno Latour but he argues convincingly that we need a more complex understanding of the way technology projects are started, run and completed in order to understand why certain technical decisions are made. Afterall there can be cost constraints, efficiency constraints, material constraints, management constraints, organisational constraints (ie we don't do it like that here) and so on and on.
The phrase heterogeneous engineering is a great term that refers to the way technical people have to engineer not just, say, the software, but also the managers, other people, organisational lethagy and so on just to get the thing out of the drawing room (let alone the door).
I remember working for a very prestigious and large media company who could not see the value of the Internet whatso ever. No matter how much I banged on about it. In the end I left as it was clear the managers and company were still living in the land of VAX/VMS... Shit they were *still* worrying about X25!
But it is interesting how we as engineers have to have the social skills as well as technical skills in order to move a project forward... and that can be much harder than the technical!
We are experimenting with open media at LOCARECORDS.COM but eventhough we are getting downloads we don't get payment... Maybe that will change but certainly we are getting a more supportive reponse from people who *actually* buy the record itself..
I think this represents an important legal challenge to protect and limit these sorts of activities. I think it is sad that companies feel a need to deceive in order to get business, but at least these class actions can do something to redress the balance.
This is the same argument as war is good for the economy as it means we have to build lots of stuff, smash it up and then build it again... and of course full employment too...
There are *other* human values. For instance some poor kid in Pakistan might be working 12 hours a day in a stinking hot factory poking wires inside the camera but so you can pay a measly $700. That is *not* so great.
Yeah lets compare.. with a President who *Stole* the election from the American people...
Yeah interesting eh?
And as I have said previously, I am not anti-technological nor anti-progess, merely I believe we need to be more sensitive to issues. Rather than, wow a rocket that has a DV camera, gosh, wow, amazing. Yeah right.. amazing waste of money... hardly creative and hardly useful either...
And I have not said stop buying things. The purpose of the post was to raise a dissenting voice and say, hey, maybe this isn't all that great, is that *so* bad??
Why are so many slashdotters so seemingly terrified of a critical question about one of the site posts?
Must we really be robots being fed this information or can we actually say something critical occassionally without the need for abuse?
No-one seems to be proposing outlawing hobbies, and frankly I don't propose to, however some hobbies make less sense than others, for example Saddam presumably thinks he has every right to indulge in his 'hobbies' so why are you American's so keen to stop him? Oh right, yeah, because he is a *threat* to the world, he is 'evil'... oh I see claims to a moral position when it suits the *Americans*....
Or would it be ok if he strapped DV cameras to his rockets and posted them to Slashdot?
Does raise the interesting question of this very useful rocket technology information being posted where Saddam can find it easily ...
I thought it was a site that welcomed interesting thoughts and comments and valued the American values of debate and democracy.
Or maybe I was wrong.
Have you actually *read* The Wealth of Nations? Do you think that Adam Smith was proposing completely unchecked market economics???
Er... No.
Firstly this has no scientific value at all.
Secondly, I am not proposing an anti-technological anti-progress position here. It is quite simple, these people are *burning* money for no other reason than there own individualistic selfish satisfaction. And yes, the fuel costs money as does the destroyed rockets, ruined camcorders (lets face it how long can they really last) and all to stick look-at-me videos on the internet.
I am merely stating that when you look around at the world (and the Internet has been enormously useful in helping us to do just that) you see repressive states, anti-democractic regimes, torture, poverty, starvation and unhappiness.
When you start to think you as a nation have absolutely no responsibilies to the rest of the globe (ie as America so often does) then there is a very real danger in the growth of terrorist organisations and anti-american sentiment growing. And if this is allowed to grow unchecked *no* amount of American hegemony or military muscle is going to stop it. This is a political problem and requires sensitivity to the problems of the world.
I fear that the Internet as an advert for the sheer unadulturated self-satisified and selfish behaviour of Americans will be the last thing you as a nation need at the moment. But then maybe its true that you *really* don't care and don't want to know...
I do sometimes wonder about people like this - with so much child poverty in the US, hunger and disease in the developing world, misogynistic and repressive state actions around the globe and a terrifying new famine certain to hit Ethiopia very soon. Should we really be acting like spoilt little children breaking our toys just because we are bored.
We should be buying new music from small labels and encouraging them to experiment with Open Media/Open Source releases. That way we'll have it both ways, good new music, and we can copy and re-use it however we want without worrying about cracking and hacking some god-awful crappy protection scheme.
We do we have to buy such safe multinational anodyne music??? Come on slashotters EXPERIMENT! There are so many interesting labels out there.
static
LOCA
Bearos
Tigerbeat
Anticon
To name just a few....