If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

– Thomas Jefferson

Syndicated from: Creative Deconstruction

It used to be the record label’s jobs to tell us who to listen to. A&R would scour the earth looking talent, groom them, coach them and surround them with people who could get them where they wanted to go. If the label caught the scout’s vision they would sign the act and fund a record or two.  There was a process. It wasn’t perfect, but a process nonetheless. Label’s stopped doing this years ago. Maybe it was MTV that started the decline of artist and repertoire. Label’s saw the money that could be made off a pretty face and their priorities began to change. Before you knew it Britney Spears was at the top of the charts. Once the majors began to consolidate and were gobbled up by companies run by executives who hadn’t played a record since the Carpenters, the role of Taste-maker belonged to fewer and fewer entities who cared less and less about the art of music.

As listeners began realizing that they were being fed a diet of insubstantial junk, it was the beginning of the end for the industry. You can blame Napster all you want, but what made Napster so appealing was that it exposed fans to music they had never had access to when the major labels were running the show. It was like one massive, world-wide mix tape that anyone with a broadband connection could tap into. Independent bands started to realize that people in places they had never even toured were not only listening to their music, but were sharing it with their friends.

Now new tracks are pouring onto the Internet like auto workers into a state unemployment office. Except there’s no line, and nobody working behind the counter. Armed with a free copy of Garageband and the vague hope that someone, somewhere might listen, scores of nameless musicians are doing their best to take advantage of the new digital frontier.  It’s largely the same situation for listeners. A music fan who logs onto MySpace looking for fresh tracks could spend endless hours scrolling through band profiles, probably finding more misses than hits. It might take weeks before they uncover something that really gets inside them.

The major labels dropped the ball. The world needs taste-makers. People want help discovering new music. When the labels couldn’t be trusted, at least the world always had independent record stores. The fact that music lovers were willing to weather the elitist condescension of record store employees is proof of this – people want someone to tell them what they should like! Of course, record stores were a casualty of the digital revolution, too. An unintended and unfortunate casualty, but I’m not sure any amount of wistful nostalgia can bring them back now (though there are many who still try – and God bless them.)

This is why services like Last.fm make such big deal about their ‘recommendation engines.’ They’ve created a system built on crowd-sourcing and meta-tags in order to fill the taste-maker void. It works ok – I have found a few artists through Last.fm that I’ve now added to my regular rotation. But crowds are stupid. The individual members of a crowd might by intelligent and capable, but put them together – stupid. Read Malcom Gladwell’s Blink if you don’t believe me, he’ll convince you. 75% of the songs that end up on my Last.fm station are either mediocre or downright terrible.

I know there is more good music out there - but where is it? We need people and services to step up and tell us where to find the good stuff so that we don’t have to waste so much time on the filler. Technology can help but real people need to be involved, too. Pandora has a good start, using over 50 actual humans to analyze a host of criteria when making recommendations. Mufin is brand new, and looks like it may be the most comprehensive recommendation engine to date. But even these options don’t feel human, so they don’t carry much weight. People don’t want recommendation engines, they want to hear someone they trust raving about an artist they love. Maybe it will be bloggers, maybe indie labels will step up to the plate, or maybe someone will create an engine that really does the trick. Either way, in our post record industry world, the sooner the new taste-makers emerge the sooner the real talent will have a chance to rise more quickly to the top. That’s good for everybody – except maybe the filler.

There are only 12 notes in Western Music.  This video shows how many POP hits can come out of just one Four Chord Progression.  Apparently, quite a few.  This video was created by the Axis of Awesome, and they’re worth checking out.  You can support them (and get some cool swag) here.

T Racks 3 Screenshot

One of the most important, yet often overlooked, elements of a professional recording is mastering.  Mastering isn’t a part of mixing, it is the final stage before audio is duplicated, where the fidelity (punch, clarity and volume) are added to the track.  Mastering is one of the separators between demo and pro recordings, and high quality mastering can literally separate a hit from just another song.  IK Multimedia’s latest installment of the T-Racks Mastering Suite takes the art of digital mastering to a whole new level, bringing advanced signal processing and fidelity to the masses..  With T-Racks 3, anyone can get music mastered at the level of a professional mastering lab.

I’ve been a T-Racks user for years, and I recently had the opportunity to work with the new T-Racks 3 software.  I thought T-Racks 3 was going to be a rehashed version of software I loved.  I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.  The interactivity, new plug ins, and sound quality blew my mind.  I expected to see a familiar piece of software, with 4 signal processors popping up on the screen.  When I opened the program and saw the 12 configurable slots for the signal chain, my first thought was “is this for real?”  This didn’t even look like the program I have used for years.  Once I started testing the program out on a final mix, I found it to be easy and fun to use.  Within two hours I had three distinct masters to choose from, and each of them sounded sonically equal to almost any major label release I have heard.

T-Racks 3 is available for both Mac and Windows, and the plug ins can be loaded into almost any audio program as well as used as standalone software.  The program is beautiful and the plug ins look real (and gorgeous).  All the modules can be turned on and off individually (allowing you to actually hear the difference each plug-in makes to your master), and the 12 slots are configurable in a variety of ways.  There is even a bypass button that lets you compare your original (plug in free) mix with the mastered version.

As if all that isn’t enough, the five new processors (available in the Deluxe version) are recreations of some of the most powerful and well-known studio equipment in history, including limiters, compressors, and equalizers.  T-Racks brings the quality, equipment, and results of some of the finest mastering studios on the planet into your home studio, and the program clocks in at under $400.  If you want your tracks to sound professionally mastered, and have the highest professional fidelity, then T-Racks 3 may be the best choice for your home studio.

Top 10 Indie Music Marketing Tools

5. GYDGET - Everybody’s got widgets, but these guys get it right by enabling you to grab your info, music, and video and spread it across the net. Free.

6. REVERBNATION – Communicate with fans, build a street team, get widgets and Facebook apps, sell stuff. Tools do do it all and most of them free.

7. TUNECORE - Affordable flat rate digital distribution to all the major download sites worldwide with no strings attached.

8. TUBEMOGUL – You made a great video for a $23.57 budget. Now what do you do with it? Simultaneously upload to 18 sites including all the biggies then track performance.  Basic service is free. (Bonus: A list of viral video sites.)

9. ARTISTDATA – Update tour dates on your website, MySace, Pure Volume, Last.fm, Jambase, Pollstar, Sonicbids and more all at once plus submit tour dates to local media.

10. MOZES, BAND TXT ALERTS (tie) You could use Twitter to communicate with fans, but not everyone wants an account. Every cell can accept text messages.  Mozes is free (carrier rates apply) and robust, but pays for itself with ads that could upset some. Band TXT Alerts costs a little, but takes a way the ads.

bluhammock’s Jaylaan Shares “What Is Working?”

In conjunction with US. independent music trade group A2IM (American Association Of Independent Music), we’re asking indie professionals: In this fractured media landscape, what is working? What outlets and tools are helping your artists build an audience?

In this third installment Jaylaan Ahmad-Llewellyn, the founder of indie label bluhammock music (KaiserCartel, Cary Brothers, Swati, Val Emmich and more) responds:

“I think that this is an interesting question because it begs the question of what do you consider ‘working.’ There is building an audience that buys music, an audience that attends shows, and simply building awareness that you even exist as an artist…

click here to read more…

IndieBandSurvivalGuide.com is an open community created by indie musicians. It’s the place to share all the practical information, tools, and resources that’s available to indie musicians with one another. Think of this site as your band’s back office – a place to plan, share knowledge, network, and otherwise help you promote your music, get heard, and ultimately, win fans.

If not, you’re missing out something fierce.

From the illustrious Sebastian Tomczak comes Little Scale + Milkcrate.
These guys mod old game systems (Sega Master System, Genesis, Game Boy, etc.) into music making devices.
They have an ongoing project called Milkcrate:

Milkcrate is not a band or a particular group of people. Milkcrate adds a further set of constraints of space, time and materials to create music within.

The rules…

• The objective of milkcrate is to write, record and produce as much music as possible, creating a completely finished product within twenty- four hours of beginning the session
• No member of the group is to leave the environment, within reason
• All materials and raw sources used to create music must be explicitly non- musical
• All the materials must fit inside or on a milkcrate
• There is a limit of one milkcrate per person
• At least one member of the group must be productive at all times

These rules are modular in nature; milkcrate sessions may have additional constraints, so long as they do not break the existing ones.

Check Little Scale out HERE.
Check out Milkcrate HERE.
They just put out 2 videos of their most recent Milkcrate sessions, as well as the downloadable audio.

Milkcrate 27 part1:

Milkcrate 27 part2:

November 28, 29, 30 2008

DAS CLICKENS

Nophe5t 5.0