You are currently browsing the monthly Archive for January, 2008.
Ars technica reports on a Washington D.C. tech. conference where speaker Cary Sherman (RIAA chief) basically said the Internet should remain free (and ISPs shouldn’t regulate downloads).
In yesterday’s post, I referenced this speech but had only seen bits posted on blogs. This is good stuff and I saw a great post on the Womb boards where they are comparing ISP enforcement to the same responsibility we see enforced by the postal mail.
Find the Full Text here: (womb boards)
It’s been a crazy week; can anyone tell? But I found some great things to share!
Indy Mogul - the perfect site for anyone interested in starting out in filmmaking or animation using no-nonsense (and low budget) tricks and tips. These guys are serious; they just got back from Sundance Film Festival and video blogged a bunch of it! They also have video tips for how to do special effects(like ripping the beating heart out of a victim “a la Indiana Jones & Temple of Doom”). I’m sure you can use that soon… (Thanks Audiogeek Zine)
Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may soon have to police your downloading habits. This is due to increased pressure from content owners to control illegal downloading. If only the RIAA had thought of this sooner… (Thanks, Future of Music Blog). In the meantime, the European Courts say that ISPs don’t have to disclose file sharers (via Hypebot); so if you can’t catch the birds, chop down the tree?
Marc Cohen’s Ad-supported Music Central reacts to the Qtrax fiasco. Good one, Marc!
Andrew Dubber discusses the boundaries of the new music industry (or lack thereof). (New Music Strategies).
Guitar Flame shares a video from what has to be the world’s youngest fingerstyle guitar player. Nice one.
ProMedia reminds us how to use the Xpand! plug-in as a metronome in Pro Tools.
Protooler reviews a free online sound source (did someone say “Free?”) for film, radio and tv sfx.
Wire-to-the-Ear makes me feel 100 years old as he shows y’all how we used to do things.
Didn’t find anything interesting, yet? Then check out my wife’s latest zombie video review…
An Urgent Message from NMPA regarding your rights:
Original source =(http://womb.mixerman.net/showthread.php?t=6404). Also at: http://nmpa.org/aboutnmpa/presidentscorner.asp . Bold and Italic emphasis = mine.
On Monday, January 28, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) begins the hearing that will determine mechanical rates for every songwriter and music publisher in America. It will be the most important rate hearing in the history of the music industry because in addition to setting rates for physical products, rates will be set for the first time ever for digital products such as digital downloads, subscription services and ringtones.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) will be representing the interests of songwriters and music publishers and will be fighting vigorously to protect those interests to ensure that musical compositions are compensated fairly.
On the other side of this fight stands the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association (DiMA). Both the RIAA and DiMA have proposed significant reductions in mechanical royalty rates that would be disastrous for songwriters and music publishers. This is literally a fight for the survival of our industry.
To give you an example of what is at stake, the current rate for physical phonorecords is 9.1 cents. The NMPA is proposing an increase to 12.5 cents per song. The RIAA, however, has proposed slashing the rate to approximately 6 cents a song - a cut of more than one-third the current rate!
For permanent digital downloads, NMPA is proposing a rate of 15 cents per track because the costs involved are much less than for physical products. The RIAA has proposed the outrageous rate of approximately
5 - 5.5 cents per track, and DiMA is proposing even less.
If you find that troubling, it gets worse. For interactive streaming services, which some analysts believe will be the future of the music industry, NMPA is proposing a rate of the greater of 12.5% of revenue, 27.5% of content costs, or a micro-penny calculation based on usage. The RIAA actually proposed that songwriters and music publishers should get the equivalent of .58% of revenue. This isn’t a typo - less than 1%. And DiMA is taking the shocking and offensive position that songwriters’ and music publishers’ mechanical rights should be zero, because DiMA does not believe we have any such rights!
The initial hearing will last four weeks, with the three permanent Copyright Royalty Judges hearing arguments Mondays through Thursdays from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm each day. At the conclusion of the initial hearing, there will be more discovery, followed by a rebuttal hearing in May, and a final decision expected on October 2.
The NMPA will be spending millions dollars in this proceeding to protect the interests of songwriters and music publishers against the much larger record labels and digital media companies. And although we face such an enormous fight, we have an incredible advantage - we represent songwriters, without whom the record labels and digital music services could not exist.
Please forward this to anyone who is involved in the songwriting and music publishing industry.
We will be sending out regular updates as the CRB progresses to keep you informed. Through your networks, we hope to reach the vast majority of the industry. If you did not receive this directly, and would like to be added to the master NMPA communications list, please send your contact information to Jamie Marotta at jmarotta@nmpa.org.
As always, we appreciate your support of the NMPA which allows us to wage this fight on your behalf.
David M. Israelite
President & CEO
National Music Publishers’ Association
http://nmpa.org/home/index.asp
Here’s one of my favorites: Frank Zappa soloing over his twisted cover of an Allman Brothers tune in 11/8 time; –Whipping Post!
Earfarm posted this vocal outtake here of David Lee Roth singing “Running with the Devil” . It’s pretty amusing without the music!
If you liked that, you might also enjoy this outtake here of Smashmouth’s” Days like These”.
Undiscovered footage of Phil Collins recording the drum track for “In the Air Tonight” (flash required)? No it’s a commercial, silly.
I’m not a sports fan, and I really rolled my eyes when I discovered that Chunklet had this country ditty labled as “Worst Song” here; Being an Auburn grad. myself, I’d quickly add that this doesn’t seem to be an officially produced song about Auburn University(at least I sure hope it’s not!!).
Creative loafing has an article about the songwriter who’s started the UGA music business program.
Simon Napier-Bell reflects on the great injustices of the major record labels. (Thanks Media Futurist)
The Listenerd share a cool interactive music video, “Black Mirror” that allows you to mute the multitrack audio (1 = vocals, 2 - drums, 3 - pad, etc…).
Protooler noticed this Strum-Acoustics release: a virtual acoustic guitar plugin with performance-enhancing voicing/strum algorithms to make any hack keyboard player sound just like a real acoustic guitar player.
How much of the mediocre stuff in your life have you let yourself believe is great?
Seth Godin talks about breaking bad habits: (video link).
Wire to the Ear reminds us that it’s better to start tracking softly to avoid the big “D“.(article is tagged Ableton Live, but applies to Pro Tools, too!)
Make it a good day!
-J
This month’s tech tip from Musician’s Friend is really appropriate, even if you’re not ready to head to rehab: –Craig Anderton gives us a great sequence that really boils everything down into the steps we should be doing. A great read.
These light+loudspeaker combos are really aesthetically appealing, but they’re probably not suited for the average nightclub environment. Imagine the fireworks when you add a few of these to a room full of drunks and a few pitchers of beer spilled on the floor…. (credits to emusician Xtra).
I know how annoying it is to surf over to a potentially wonderful site and find that you have to surrender your email address to register to use it. Such is the case for Rode University; the education/marketing effort touted at NAMM by Australia’s #1 microphone maker (thanks Protooler & Harmony Central). Inside you’ll find 25 well-made videos covering every application for 11 Rode microphone models. If you’re just getting into recording, it’s a great place to start.
Remember the review I did of Eye Music Network?
Here’s the glimpse of their music video player that I couldn’t share before…(because I was having embed problems w/ Edublogs.org). Enjoy!
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Here’s the embed code (after the jump)
Van Canto = Hero-metal a cappella (not counting the drummer)!
Power chords are interval distances taken from a triad (the backbone of tonal music); –i.e. the root and the fifth. I always think of bagpipes when I think of power chords, although the highland bagpipe’s drones are tuned to octave A’s, not a perfect fifth (octaves and perfect fifths are a specific musical distance apart).
There’s true energy in the interval; energy enough to hear and judge the temper of the intervals (temper = how equal the step sizes are). The piano tuner I apprenticed with during my college years taught me to tune a tempered octave by equalizing the beating you can hear between a P4 and P5(perfect 4th and perfect 5th). It’s quite easy to hear if the P4 beats are much slower or faster than the p5 (but you should mute 2 of the 3 string of a piano’s notes before trying this, else you could get too much interference to tell if motion is present).
So what’s this got to do with choirs? Hang on–…I’m getting to that.
Plainsong was originally sung in unison, but by the middle of the 9th century, music historians tell us that it was common for people to sing songs in parallel P4ths, P5ths, and P8ths. Power Chord harmony!
It wasn’t until the 1300s that folks got tired of power chords and started to phase it out.
Imagine that! Folks in the Dark Ages got tired of power chords…funny stuff!
Actually, power chords in vocal music never really died. And this style of voicing is re-emerging and becoming fashionable.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704683,00.html
(thanks ypulse via Listenerd)
And there’s a new movie,too (which I just ordered for my classes.).
You can check it out here:
Power chords for choirs.
Rock on!
Listenerd turned me on to Mental Floss’s top 5 Rap/Hiphop covers(in a folk style).
Here are 4 more funny favorites not necessarily in a folk style:
The Dan Band’s rap medley. Fast girl rap covered by your local neighborhood mechanic.
Richard Cheese's swing Gin and Juice.
Aaron Durr's Ludacris cover.
Hayseed Dixie's Snoop Dogg cover.
I live about 2 1/2 hours from the Florida beaches, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see an occasional snowfall; –such is the case right now, ’cause they’re forecasting a few flurries(and ice). The county west of ours is closing ALL roads from 9 pm until 9 am tomorrow.
Old Man Winter hasn’t stopped DM Mobile Studio, but it has slowed him down a bit.
EarFarm showcases visual artist and songwriter Daniel Johnston.
Future of Music speaks on the future of FCC Licensing and new non-commercial FM radio stations (*power to the people*).
Harmony Central finally posted a NAMM Highlights video (Day 1 down, 3 more to go?).
Hypebot shares a great video overview of the Creative Commons Licensing (”is this the future of music licensing?”).
Listenerd shares a clip of a beer bottle orchestra (apparently orchestras drink a lot of beer in Australia).
Ad-supported music affirms that mobile phone music downloads cost too much.
Music Gadgets covers Edirol’s new 4-track 24b/192khz portable recorder from Namm’s Winter Market. This is the big brother to the R-09 that I bought almost a year ago. Handy things!
MusicThing covers Roland’s new Digital Harpsichord and points to a new music gear blog w/ NAMM show coverage…Wire to the Ear.
Guitar Flame laments a teenager’s first cassette tape purchase.
Paul and Storm discover Storm’s uncanny resemblence to Osama bin Laden’s son.
Good Musician posts a clip featuring MacWorld Expo 2008’s p%$$ed-off Randy Newman singing about Caesar, the Spanish Inquisition, Malaria and U.S. politicians.
And finally, Killed by the Video Star features reviews of music videos new and old, including “These boots are made for walking” (original) and the lame sequel.
Get your gear fix at:
SonicState (try here first)
Feeling more retro than cutting edge? Check out SonicState’s video of Top 20 Weird instruments - Episode one!
A quick comment from Ms. Cara Duckworth, spokeswoman for the RIAA:
Regarding our college initiative, a university’s role in reducing the level of piracy on its campus cannot be overemphasized. We have consistently said that the more proactive a school is in the education of its students regarding its IT and enforcement policies, the offering of great legal alternatives so that students can have access to their favorite music (at deeply discounted prices or even for free), and most importantly, implementing effective technology that helps protect the integrity of its network, will lead to fewer instances of violations and fewer instances of hearing from us–a win for everybody!
The RIAA wants the universities to offer cheap/free music downloads to students! I concur!
The RIAA wants universities to educate their students about IT policies! I concur!
The RIAA wants universities to utilize appropriate technology to curb the illegal file sharing. I concur!
Why aren’t we doing these things already?
Woot! I’m asking myself “why haven’t we been making these the whole time?”…
Modular snakes! From Planet Waves.
This new and innovative tool features easily interchangeable DB25 core cables and breakouts for flexible wiring options utilizing industry standard analog pinouts. DB25 Core cable is available in three lengths — 5 feet, 10 feet and 25 feet, with breakouts including TRS, XLR female, XLR male and XLR male/female combo.
//*beep* -Roger that, tower… I said 50 feet…I need 50 feet, dammit!*//
Users can mix and match core cables and breakouts for any snake configuration, thus saving money by expanding cabling options and reducing the number of snakes needed to complete various connections. The system also utilizes proprietary multi-pair cable featuring oxygen-free copper conductors and two layers of impenetrable shielding in a low-noise, low-signal loss construction, along with Amphenol gold-plated connectors for optimal signal transference, corrosion resistance and strain relief. The Planet Waves Modular Snake System retails for $59.99 — $159.99.
//*beep* “and you say they’re on the plane?* –//
//Damn!//
(Text from and Thanks to Harmony Central.)
The amazing Michael Kelsey from Lafayette, IN. More videos at www.michaelkelsey.com . (Thanks to Guitarflame.com for putting me in this mood!).
Hear 2.0 reminds us of the cyclical nature of the music industry. (ad-supported music).
Media futurist predicts a songwriter’s strike due to the failings of the Performing Rights Organizations (PROs). I believe there’s a good chance he’s right about this; –the industry and the courts still haven’t gotten a good handle on a digital world without borders.
A lot of bloggers are pointing to the end of the record labels. I read with interest the post about “Digital is more than just the Internet“ from New Music Strategies. The point is well taken; –the industry was not prepared for the wide open spaces and changing formats/distribution methods. Change takes time and the folks who made a living off the status quo were slow to see the handwriting on the wall. But don’t rule them out yet.
Seth Godin published some new music lessons for the industry to think about. (hypebot, our digital music).
The Digital Rights Management experiment apparently failed, so the labels will have to come up with something new(our digital music). My bet=look out for digital watermarks that track the tracks (Listenerd).
The RIAA is probably not dead. (Mashable via Listenerd). I know my job continues to change incrementally. The same can be said for the industry, even though change can be painfully slow (and those who do not change are condemned to fade away).
Finally, we’re all here for a purpose. Look at Louis’s post and contemplate the future. What changes do you need to make?
For you plugin-heads; a free Vintage meter! (RTAS, VST & Direct X). (thanks to the Womb board). Plus a list of more FREE RTAS plugs!
Happy Sunday!
Peace,
J
Are your coworkers cool enough to help you make a video? Check out this! Thanks Listenerd & Pop Candy. I predict this will become the next big fad!
How many ways can you play a guitar? (Thanks, GuitarFlame).
Find a strange music video you like from a band you’ve never heard of. (Thanks Killed by the Video Star).
3 observations from the net:
1. Sound Quality is down.
Listenerd posted a great article link from RollingStone about MP3 sound quality the other day and I heartily recommend it:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
2. Compression is up.
After you’ve read the article, check out Turn Me Up! (dot) org for more info on the subject of loudness wars.
3. People aren’t really listening to the music anyway!
Finish off your adventure with Collision Detection’s observation on “Why Audiophiles are Dying Off” (thanks Listenerd).
(Click on image above to see full-size.)
I checked my email this morning and found an invite to join Eye Music Network for free…and I remembered these folks at the Atlantis Conference. So I went and signed up.
Impressions:
1. The streaming is really fast! I’m on my office connection (at a university) and have been used to waiting 15-30 seconds for the average stream to begin. These videos load almost instantly! A nice surprise, but would it continue at these speeds once 100,000 more people joined?
2. Interesting variety. Here’s a Ozzy video…
http://musicroom.eyemusicnetwork.com/video/b0ade2d026/I+Don%27t+Wanna+Stop
Let me know if you have any playback issues!
3. It is ad-supported. As a member you can select your favorite videos and embed them into your facebook page or blog; i.e. a personal “video boombox”. I could see how some folks would really enjoy this if: (1) they could upload their own media, and (2) more artist videos were available. Their player is supposed to be embedded below (after the jump), but apparently they have some technical issues with my blog host or the wordpress GUI.
*UPDATE* - They contacted me and said a fix for this was in progress! YAY!! How’s that for good customer service!
Garritan is offering a free online Jazz Arranging Course by Chuck Israels! (thanks HarmonyCentral). It looks cool, if you’ve had at least 1 year of music theory.
Enjoy the best Mashups of 2007 (free download) [thanks to Gerd Leonhard & MediaFuturist.]
Sample tracks include:
07 Lobsterdust // Marley Maiden
Bob Marley VS Iron Maiden
[from the Number of da Boots album, MOTW #27]
08 DJ Zebra // Break Through Love
Doors VS Led Zeppelin
[MOTW #44]
09 El Barto & Liam B // Don’t Dance
Genesis VS David Bowie
[MOTW #40]
Mark Hornsby is starting a new year-long series about recording a song entirely in the box using Pro Tools. Every month the tracks will be available as a free download at http://recordingmag.com/index.html (Thanks, Promedia Blog).
Good Musician has started his series of Basic Repertoire posts with the Queen of the Night’s flashy Aria from the Magic Flute. I didn’t realize there was a “whistle” register in the human voice…I’d always assumed these sopranos were a result of cold war genetic engineering experiments…
Marty Atkins has begun Tour Smart: The Tour. Watch for it in a city near you. (Feb. 8th in Bham, AL).
KilledbytheVideoStar has killer reviews of the latest (and not so latest) in music videos. Good stuff!
My buddy Stan and Rollin’ in the Hay will be in town at the Double Branch Saloon on Friday Jan. 11. at 10 pm.
I’m a Zune fan. I like PCs. “I know PC’s are pretty lame, but at least they’ll always stay the same.” (Thanks to Listenerd for the first video.)
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