Progressive Rock Artist seeks Audience
During the last few weeks I had been frequently visiting our local music shop and playing one of the guitars there. Finally we gave in and decided it had to come home with us. It’s a Godin Multiac Nylon SA for those of you who are interested. Very nice! I’ve used it a lot on some recordings already.
Show me their business plan. If it is based on making profit out of someone elses work without fairly recompensing them, then it looks like the business plan of a parasite to me.
The legal issue of mp3 distribution seems pretty clear cut to me. People distributing mp3’s of music recordings of which they own copies (but of which they do not hold the copyright) are breaking the law. Both Napster and mp3.com are pushing the envelope of copyright law, and will probably win the suits currently being brought against them by the RIAA, albeit not without some adaptation on their part. In the case of Napster (innovative technology? give me a break), they will have to comply with their own terms and ban the users distributing pirated music. If they are unable to do so, well, that’s a whole ‘nother problem.
The trouble is, this is just a distraction. Basically, networks allow the sharing of files. The internet allows practically anyone to transfer digital content – legally or otherwise. Work it through, people: With copyright no longer enforceable and no longer providing revenue protection for the recording industry, they’re going to move on. No more CDs or video tapes. Even HDCD and DVD formats won’t survive the great internet bandwidth breakthrough of insert_date_here. Pretty soon you’ll be listening to your music by subscription, paying by the listen.
Or not. If you do not want the product of your creativity prirated and distributed on the ‘net, you can always sell your material in a non-digital format. Those of you how have hoarded your vinyl 12″ albums, insistent that the sound quality inherent in the grooves really was “better than CD” can breath a sigh of relief. Yes, you really were right all along. Vinyl is better. We’ll all be buying the 21st century equivalent of collectible gatefold 12″ albums (groovy cover artwork, dude).
How will garage bands be able to make a living and sell their product when as soon as they get popular (assuming they are any good), their self-produced CD’s are ripped and freely distributed? Gee – I guess they could try and get signed to a record label and get their music on the future proprietary pay-per-listen streaming audio servers. Some things don’t change no matter how hard you try.
Check out www.stopnapster.com for more information.
I have finally completed the process of archiving to CD the music that Walter and I recorded over the years, and started selecting choice tracks for a “best of” collection; updating the portion of our website that deals with our music; remastered a couple of tracks, and upgrade my studio computer’s sound card to a semi-professional 24bit/96kHz model: A Delta 66 PCI card from M-Audio. I wish I could say I had used it to actually record more music. Maybe this year will see a concerted effort from me to finish some of this stuff…
In my spare time (hard to find) I have been working through the cassette tapes of music that my brother Walter and I recorded while we were flatting together 10 years ago, transferring the tracks to hard disk, then doing NR and Peak compression and fixing pops, dropouts, equalisation (in the digital domain with a highly-regarded but relatively cheap audio editing tool), then burning audio CDs. In my naievity I actually thought 15 C90 cassettes would render down to two, maybe three CDs. Well, I’ve halfway through and just finished Volume 6 <g>. The thing is, I can’t bear to discard anything, even crude demos. I guess this way I can throw out the cassette tapes when I’m done, and not worry that there is a forgotten gem still on there somewhere. It’s all good to listen to, at least from my perspective.
I was wondering how many pressings to do. I’m currently doing four: A complete set for Walter, one for me/Lisa, a back set also for me/Lisa, plus one spare. If my parents would appreciate it, I’d send them a set. I may do this anyway for safe keeping.
I’ve been designing the CD covers on my PC and printing to a postscript file, then walking down to Kinkos (Kinkos is a chain of really amazing 24-hour walk-in photocopy and printing place, for those who haven’t heard of them before) and printing them out on a Xerox Docu-color “Fiery” high-speed colour laser printer. Excellent results, and it’s $4 for the “digital rendering” process, then .99c for each additional printout.
I may compile a “Best of Archives” two-CD selection when I’ve finished. Anyone who is interested in a copy should beam me an email.
Other Music Studio news:
I have filled the gap left in the studio from not having Walter’s D-50 synth with a Korg Trinity TR-Rack. I was planning to take my time over what module to get, and after some research, we found one in a local store going cheapish.
It has great drums, and rocking B3 organ patches! Lots of them! Emerson lives in my rack! Great realistic Leslie speed-up-slow-down effects… good pipe organs, not so sure what I’ll do with them though.
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