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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 13, 2018 14:15:18 GMT -6
On technical grounds, yes, you're right that it's just my opinion. However, when I'm listening to the radio and, for the first few seconds, I can't even tell what song I'm listening to because it just sounds like a bunch of angry bees, I think that is objectively bad by any standard. I say that (most) people perpetuate it because they don't know any better. I don't think it has so much to do with taste, or lack thereof, as it has to do with the misguided need to be louder than the last guy. Nah. I listen to a ton of pop music and it doesn't all sound like a bunch of angry bees. If you think that, you're listening wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2018 14:41:52 GMT -6
Anyone know any other well known albums released in the last 10 years that rejected the loudness war? Just out of your time frame, but he Bladerunner 25th Anniversary 3 disc set by Vangelis sounds just stunning and has bucket loads of dynamics. I'll add more as I think of them, there are some!
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 13, 2018 14:48:13 GMT -6
CTRL/SHIFT/EJECT has become my friend (it turns the screen black)...amazing what you hear when you're not looking at things.
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Post by Blackdawg on Apr 13, 2018 15:07:47 GMT -6
CTRL/SHIFT/EJECT has become my friend (it turns the screen black)...amazing what you hear when you're not looking at things. Okay. If this thread has been worth anything it was for that right there! That is awesome! Gonna use the crap out of that. I had a cool old school RTAS plugin from...i think it was Manely..or Mass...someone. Its was called Listen. Insert it anywhere in the session and if you hit play, the screen goes black! Stop. Comes back. Was super cool. Was pissed when they switch to AAX i couldn't use it anymore
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 13, 2018 15:30:58 GMT -6
Movie scores generally seem to have more dynamics then other genres, although I've heard about loudness war seeping in there too. The Bladerunner score I usually listen to is some kinda fan edit based off that 3 disc set from 2007. There's plenty of piracy laws on the books. The problem is resources that are needed to go after millions of people. Even if they were strictly enforced, I'm not sure how much extra revenue that creates for artists who aren't already famous. In some ways the piracy is good for established people because it makes their albums irrelevant while giving them untold levels of exposure. 20+ years ago if an artist made an album that alienated the fanbase, they were done. Now you have a lot of people, including a lot of younger generations, digging up stuff via streaming and buying merchandise and concert tickets. 20 years ago if I told people about King Diamond, rarely did anyone listen. His biggest drawing shows in the US might be 1000 people at places like House of Blues. Now he can sellout 5000 capacity venues with only Exodus as support mere months after selling above 5000 tickets with Slayer for Mayhem fest or whatever it was called. No album released since 2007 and no US tour since 2005, I think. So about a decade of no activity but somehow demand grew 5x over. What changed I think was that pretty much every person into that type of music became aware. If we include social media uploads in strict enforcement, there goes lots of free advertising.
Streaming will eventually get into higher quality stuff, maybe even fair compensation at some point. Flac streams. Maybe some 24/96 stuff at some point. Even if someone creates advanced piracy protections, it'll be broken sooner or later. The only reason some plugins haven't been cracked is because the interest isn't there. Mainstream music will attract a lot more cracking resources than some Ilok plugin. What is a lot more valuable than piracy protection is promotion. Mainstream releases would not sell without tons of promotion across so many places. Promotion will change over time too. It'll be a different world once people start hooking up to the cloud via their neo cortex. There's just no going backwards. Napster was disruptive, but people coulda seen it coming if they thought about it. A CD being data, internet allowing the transferring of data, mp3 compressing data, it was only a matter of time until someone decided to facilitate it. I had considered the idea years before Napster came out when I couldn't find a way to buy some Kim Wilde cds. A guy who ran a fan site and me agreed it would be problematic to send huge wav files internationally via dial-up.
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 13, 2018 15:32:34 GMT -6
CTRL/SHIFT/EJECT has become my friend (it turns the screen black)...amazing what you hear when you're not looking at things. That's very true. First read about this concept on nwavguy.blogspot.com What's always interesting is when you have a plugin in bypass, forget it is, and then you start hearing the adjustments despite the sound not changing. Stuff sounds different at concerts too when you close your eyes.
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Post by EmRR on Apr 13, 2018 16:54:47 GMT -6
CTRL/SHIFT/EJECT has become my friend (it turns the screen black)...amazing what you hear when you're not looking at things. WTF is eject? I don't think I have a computer with eject on it anymore.
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Post by popmann on Apr 13, 2018 19:10:25 GMT -6
When I was working in the commercial room in the 90s, all amateur people paying for small studio time wanted was 80s production. Gated reverbs....ultra compressed chorused acoustics....vocals gutted of any low frequency info....picked bass...wavetable synth pads....
This is related to this discussion because the loudness bullshit is utterly been rendered functionally a non issue by streaming volume offsets and vinyl's resurgence....but, those working with insecure and not terribly good artists will be making stuff loud as piss for a good decade+ to come.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Apr 13, 2018 19:15:14 GMT -6
I just ran a CD of my next album for the first time to compare to others. I haven't released it yet. I compared it sonically to Chris Staleton's Broken Halos and Ryan Adams' Cold Roses LP. I don't know if it's that I'm comparing vinyl to CD, but man, my tracks were louder by quite a bit. It also made me aware I pushed the vocal too hot and not forward enough, but I'll have to improve my mixes next album, this one's done, for better or worse. I mastered them using Aria, and I'm learning that vocals will come forward a bit after mastering, so you have to compensate a little in the final mix.
I'll compare to other CD's tomorrow out of curiosity, I need to chill tonight.
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 14, 2018 0:57:55 GMT -6
Anyone know any other well known albums released in the last 10 years that rejected the loudness war? Two of my faves of recent years: Southeastern, Jason Isbell Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens Not sure how well-known they are, but these were in my listening queue today: You Want It Darker, Leonard Cohen Oleander, Skylar Gudasz Human Contact Is Never Easy, Sam Phillips
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2018 1:40:47 GMT -6
CTRL/SHIFT/EJECT has become my friend (it turns the screen black)...amazing what you hear when you're not looking at things. WTF is eject? I don't think I have a computer with eject on it anymore. On Windows I use this little old app called Wizmo that does the same thing, have it set to blank the screen with Ctrl-Alt-B. www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm
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Post by yotonic on Apr 14, 2018 1:57:05 GMT -6
Love Ethan Johns' work with Ray LaMontagne on "Trouble". Shelter is a favorite, an SM7 through a UA 610 and Ethan cut the drums himself to the rough mix.
The vocal feels like a woodwind weaving through the texture of the mix. The dynamic nature of the SM7 strips off a lot of the annoying mouth noise and other distractions that can come with an LDC even before compression.
Compare it to Ryan Freeland's production of Ray's "For The Summer" (also great work) and they feel like they are from completely different times in history.
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 14, 2018 9:00:15 GMT -6
Ryan Adams Ashes and Fire was killer - Glyn Johns
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 14, 2018 10:19:49 GMT -6
Ryan Adams Ashes and Fire was killer - Glyn Johns Yes! Absolutely stunning work by all involved. Martin, I feel like the Easy Tiger record is Ryan’s loudest. It’s crazy loud compared to his other offerings at the time like Cold Roses and 29. Ryan Freeland’s works with Joe Henry have great dynamics - I love the way he preserves what the players give to the musical situation. The Southern Family album that Dave Cobb did is also fantastic for dynamics.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 14, 2018 12:46:14 GMT -6
Algorithms are also messing things up. If you want to get on streaming playlists you gotta sound like all the other songs on that list. Little by little music is gonna be weeded down to one song lol. There oughtta be a law. I'm not kidding, we need legislation to prohibit algorithmic programming.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 14, 2018 13:07:56 GMT -6
Algorithms are also messing things up. If you want to get on streaming playlists you gotta sound like all the other songs on that list. Little by little music is gonna be weeded down to one song lol. There oughtta be a law. I'm not kidding, we need legislation to prohibit algorithmic programming. What if people only want to listen to one type of music? I don’t know if there needs to be a law addressing that sort of thing.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 14, 2018 14:20:00 GMT -6
Movie scores generally seem to have more dynamics then other genres, although I've heard about loudness war seeping in there too. The Bladerunner score I usually listen to is some kinda fan edit based off that 3 disc set from 2007. There's plenty of piracy laws on the books. The problem is resources that are needed to go after millions of people. Even if they were strictly enforced, I'm not sure how much extra revenue that creates for artists who aren't already famous. Evidently there are NOT plenty of piracy laws on the books, because piracy is still a problem. Outmoded laws that are totally ineffective are not "plenty" - they're just useless, outmoded, ineffective crap. What's needed are effective laws to block and take down piracy sites and impose stiff penalties - jail time - on the operators. Prior to Napster piracy sites used to get taken down all the time and operators typically got a couple years in federal pen. Suddenly that stopped happening. Piracy existed, but not in music very much because music was uncool to pirate. Only lamers pirated music because music has no copy protection - it was like cheating in the game and the serious pirate sites - the "scene" sites - would ban you for uploading music. Piracy existed but at manageable levels because scene pirates took measures to keep the public out - nobody wanted to get shut down and jailed. Half the fun was playing hide and seek with the cops - the other was being first out with a new crack. Nobody wanted the general public involved. You're probably too young to be aware of any of this. If we get effective anti-piracy laws and international cooperation via Interpol we can take things back down to a reasonable level. It can be done, and quite easily. The tools are in place - they're used to fight terrorism and international crime. They're just not being applied. Absolute, total bullshytte. Established artists don't need "exposure". Yeah, right - that's why nobody listens to Garth Brooks or Metallica anymore. Pull the other one, it has got bells on! Which brings in barely enough money to support the tour. I've got some news for you (well, not really news to those in that end of the biz) the touring business is glutted. There are far more artists touring than there is demand. The typical member of the public only has so much money they can afford to pay for live shows, and with ticket prtices through the roof (because records don't make money anymore) that means that people can afford fewer shows. At the same time you've got more artists than ever competing for that money. It's a huge clusterfuck. You've got people like Don playing casinos instead of major auditoriums and arenas as a result - and they're the LUCKY ones. 20 years ago a 5000 seat show was, if not nothing, then small potatoes. Acts played the small (5000 seat) shows because they were more intimate and fun than the bread and butter arena shows. AFAIK, King Diamond hasn't toured the US because they can't break even on a tour. That's "free advertising" that we don't need. You don't give away the product you're selling for "free advertising". That's suicidally stupid. Which seems to be par for the course these days. Man,. you're brainwashed.... Let's hope it doesn't. Fair compensation would be good but do you REALLY think people would pay cable TV rates for streamed music of any quality? And high quality streaming would create a really serious bandwidth problem, which in turn would drive up your internet rates. There are real limits to how much a finite amount of bandwidth can support. We're in a big bubble right now and the bubble is reaching the technological limits of what's possible. You can't copy protect audio. It can always be copied via the final analog signal. You might as well try to hold back the wind. That's why the ONLY solution is strict enforcement of sufficiently serious penalities to make the average person think twice before stealing. When I was in the first year of high school there was a big fad for shoplifting. Lots of kids, even kids with the money to pay were shoplifting all kinds of stuff. Then a few kids got busted and a few others got caught, warned, and turned over to their parents. Suddenly shoplifrting wasn't cool and fun anymore. I'd wager they still get cracked but you just don't have access. If something isn't cracked it's only because there's a pile of plugs that do exactly the same thing, save for the artwork in the GUI. The only stuff that isn't cracked is that with a hardware component. The "interest" in the cracking scene is the competition between crack groups. No, it won't - because it's pointless. All you need to crack audio is a recorder of some sort and a stereo line cord or a set of clip leads to attach to the speakers. It's trivial. You can't copy protect audio. Not "protection" which does not and cannot exist, PROSECUTION. Throw your little punk ass in jail for a couple years for running a pirate service. You upload, you go to jail and pay a stiff fine. You run a site, you go to jail for a much longer time and get socked with a fine you'll be paying for the rest of your life. Without sites and uploaders, downloading will wither away. Incidentally, contrary to the image they promote of themselves, the people who own and run those sites are no "Robin Hoods" - thery rake in a pretty penny running those things. Effective promotion is very expensive. "Promotion" that is not expensive is not effective and, if it involves giving away free product, can even work against you. It's the major reason that I refuse to post my work on sites like Soundcloud. You read too much bad Science fiction and worse, you seem to believe it. (I read lots and lots of SF too, but you have to be able to separate real science based stuff from sheer fantasy.) And you REALLY need to lay off the Cory Doctorow, it's (he's) toxic. Napster never should have lasted more than two months before going down in a big Federal bust. The FBI seriously dropped the ball there. Right up until then they'd been doing hard busts of various types of pirate sites at a rate of at least one every couple or three months with a near 100% conviction rate and jail time. People on both sides of the aisle (both serious pirates and music biz people) were placing bets on how long Napster would last. It never happened. The big question is WHY? Evidently you weren't hip to the record collector network. Or weren't willing to pay the going price. Yeah, just like it wasn't practical to send huge files like Microsoft Office or a full Windows install. Or AutoCAD. Or anything else. Guess you never heard of a multi-part RAR, huh?
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 14, 2018 14:21:42 GMT -6
There oughtta be a law. I'm not kidding, we need legislation to prohibit algorithmic programming. What if people only want to listen to one type of music? I don’t know if there needs to be a law addressing that sort of thing. Every heard of human DJs? Or Program Directors? Radio did just fine before algorithmic programming. A lot better, in fact. And humans need jobs.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 14, 2018 15:29:45 GMT -6
Streaming isn’t going anywhere, in fact, in 5-10 years you probably won’t be able to buy a digital copy of music, it will all be streaming.
I pay a little over $10 a month for Spotify right now. I can download songs onto my phone, make playlists, listen on an airplane, etc.
I’d pay $50 a month for that ability. Seriously. It’s great. I couldn’t be any happier with it. I get turned on to all sorts of new stuff with a tap of my finger. The deal they struck with the labels is what is screwing everybody over.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2018 15:50:43 GMT -6
I still refuse to support streaming sites (yes, even Youtube, haven't had a Google account in about 8 years), too many of my clients have seen their incomes from music reduced to less than 5% of what they were a a decade ago. Something has to change. Bandcamp is good.
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Post by christopher on Apr 14, 2018 19:03:17 GMT -6
I think loudness and meth epidemic go hand and hand. And of course narcotic epidemic to ease the pain ;P
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 14, 2018 20:02:33 GMT -6
Evidently there are NOT plenty of piracy laws on the books, because piracy is still a problem. Outmoded laws that are totally ineffective are not "plenty" - they're just useless, outmoded, ineffective crap. What's needed are effective laws to block and take down piracy sites and impose stiff penalties - jail time - on the operators. Prior to Napster piracy sites used to get taken down all the time and operators typically got a couple years in federal pen. Suddenly that stopped happening. Piracy existed, but not in music very much because music was uncool to pirate. Only lamers pirated music because music has no copy protection - it was like cheating in the game and the serious pirate sites - the "scene" sites - would ban you for uploading music. Piracy existed but at manageable levels because scene piarates took measures to keep the puiblic out - nobody wanted to get shut down and jailed. Half the fun was playing hide and seek with the cops - the other was being first out with a new crack. Nobody wanted the general public involved. You're probably too young to be aware of any of this. If we get effective anti-piracy laws and international cooperation via Interpol we can take things back down to a reasonable level. It can be done, and quiter easily. The tools are in place - they're used to fight terrorism and international crime. They're just not being applied. Absolute, total bullshytte. Established artists don't need "exposure". Yeah, right - that's why nobody listens to Garth Brooks or Metallica anymore. Pull th othert bone, it has got bells on! Which brings in barely enough money to support the tour. I've got some news for you (well, not really news to tjhoser in that end of the biz) the touring business is glutted. There arer far more artists touring than there is demand. The typical member of the public only has so much money they can afford to pay for live shows, and with ticket prtices through the roof (because records don't make money anymore) that means that people can afford fewer shows. At the same time you've got more artists than ever competing for that money. It's a huge clusterfuck. You've got people like Don playing casinos instead of major auditoriums and arenas as a result - and they're the LUCKY ones. 20 years ago a 5000 seat show was, if not nothing, then small potatoes. Acts played the small (5000 seat) shows because they were more intimate and fun than the bread and butter area shows. AFAIK, King Diamond hasn't toured the US because they can't break even on a tour. That's "free advertising" that we don't need. You don't give away the product you're selling for "free advertising". That's suicidally stupid. Which seems to be par for the course these days. Man,. you're brainwashed.... Let's hope it doesn't. Fair compensation would be good but do you REALLY think people would pay cable TV rates for streamed music of any quality? And high quality streaming would create a really serious bandwidth problem, which in turn would drive up your internet rates. There are real limits to how much a finite amount of bandwidth can support. We'ree in a big bubble right now and the bubble is reaching the technological limits of what's possible. You can't copy protect audio. It can always be copied via the final analog signal. You might as well try to hold back the wind. That's why the ONLY solution is strict enforcement of sufficiently serious penalities to make the average person think twice before stealing. When I was in the first year of high school there was a big fad for shoplifting. Lots of kids, even kids with the money to pay were shoplifting all kinds of stuff. Then a few kids got busted and a few others got caught, warned, and turned over to their parents. Suddenly shoplifrting wasn't cool and fun anymore. I'd wager they still get cracked but you just don't have access. If something isn't cracked it's only because there's a pile of plugs that do exactly the same thing, save for the artwork in the GUI. The only stuff that isn't cracked is that with a hardware component. The "interest" in the cracking scene is the competition between crack groups. No, it won't - because it's pointless. All you need to crack audiop is a recorder of some sort and a stereo line cord or a set of clip leads to attach to the speakers. It's trivial. You can't copy protect audio. Not "protection" which does not and cannot exist, PROSECUTION. Throw your little punk ass in jail for a couple years for running a pirate service. You upload, you go to jail and pay a stiff fine. You run a site, you go to jail for a much longer time and get socked with a fine you'll be paying for ther rest of your life. Without sites and uploaders, downloading will wither away. Incidentally, contrary to the image they promote of themselves, the people who own and run those sites are no "Robin Hoods" - thery rake in a pretty penny running those things. Effective promotion is very expensive. "Promotion" that is not expensive is not effective and, if it involves giving away free product, can even work against you. It's the major reason that I refuse to post my work on sites like Soundcloud. You read too much bad Science fiction and worse, you seem to believe it. (I read lots and lots opf SF too, but you have to be able to separate real science based stuffg from sheer fantasy.) And you REALLY need to lay off the Cory Doctorow, it's (he's) toxic. Napster never should have lasted more than two months before going down in a big Federal bust. The FBI seriously dropped the ball there. Right up until then they'd been doing hard busts of various types of pirate sites at a rate of at least one every couple or three months with a near 100% conviction rate and jail time. People on both sides of the aisle (both serious pirates and music biz people) were placing bets on how long Napster would last. It never happened. The big question is WHY? Evidently you weren't hip to the record collector network. Or weren't willing to pay the going price. Yeah, just like it wasn't practical to send huge files like Microsoft Office or a full Windows install. Or AutoCAD. Or anything else. Guess you never heard of a multi-part RAR, huh? Napster was a program, I don't think it was actually hosting anything. Everyone needs advertising. Even Star Wars. It would take a lot of resources to stop every site with pirated content in every country with internet access. I know little about Garth, but when did Metallica really alienate its fanbase? They pissed off some hardcore metalheads in 91 and 96, but not the people who loved the hits. Judas Priest did a lot of damage with Turbo and Ram It Down. Megadeth was nearly killed off by Risk. Didn't Aerosmith also take a big hit with Rock and a Hard place? I know Kiss was basically on life support because of Elder and Unmasked. Maybe "I was made for lovin you" could be blamed for putting off the rock fans. If the touring business is so unprofitable, why are more bands repeatedly touring than ever? You even see bands touring that haven't done a show in 30 years. I don't doubt that a lot of bands barely break even or lose money. It's hard to say how big a draw BOC should or shouldn't be. I love Revolution and Club Ninja, but for some reason I'm in the minority. There's a lot of bands from that era who had much higher sales that are also playing casinos. Some of these casinos have a pretty big capacity too. I was saying that King Diamond played to over 5000 people here twice in 2015 after only being able to draw maybe 1000 max at House of Blues/Metro from 98-2005. Downloading wasn't much an issue in 98. King complained about downloading a lot starting in 2002. It was probably more of a problem in 2002 than it is now. The increase in attendance is only due to more people becoming aware. Every person sharing videos and whatever on social media is advertising. There's plenty of high demand, unique plugs that haven't been cracked. I guess after Ilok 2 was cracked companies went and tried some new things. Some methods were easier to crack than others. Supposedly the Acustica stuff is impossible to crack despite no Ilok. I doubt companies pay money to pirates not to release cracked stuff. From what I understand the Ilok 2 stuff got cracked because some guy who hadn't done the audio stuff wanted a new challenge. The usual crack teams couldn't figure it out. If there were 100 crack teams out there, everything would probably be cracked. For plugins, I don't think many crackers care to make the effort. For music, I was talking about the future when someone invents some kind of sophisticated system so even analog copies aren't possible. Most of the time I'm reading stuff like Fanatical Futurist and Kurzweil, there isn't a lot of speculation there. Just analysis of what exists and where it's going. Kurzweil has promoted the idea that people who don't want to live with advanced tech could have set aside areas, sorta like the Amish. Did winrar exist in 96? I don't recall working with zip files and the like until maybe 99. The only way they could really have strict enforcement of piracy is if enforcement costs came down. Inevitably that would mean AI. Putting everything under a microscope. There shouldn't be a big incentive to pirate with youtube and streaming. Most people can listen to everything they want that way. Album sales aren't going to go way up if they start throwing downloaders in jail. You'd also need to ban youtube and streaming sites and limit the number of bands allowed to sell music. Then have those few bands/artists get all the media exposure. Probably ban home recording, anything that plays digital files, and regulate the industry so only a limited number of people can be audio pros. The lack of barriers to entry is what led to all this oversaturation. One could argue that oversaturation is a bigger problem than downloaders. Music of the past would also need to be suppressed. Today more than ever artists have to compete with the past. Before everyone just moved onto whatever was new. A lot of times you couldn't access things from the past due to lack of information and lack of product availability. Artists of the past must compete with modern artists. Probably tens of thousands of albums have come out in the last 20 years. It would not surprise me if more albums are released in a modern year than the total that were released from 1950-1990. I think we're moving in a direction where everything is going to be more widely available and much less expensive. Less money will go a lot further. Stuff like 3d printed houses selling for less than 10k. Being able to use self-driving rideshare services instead of paying for a car and all its costs. Better and cheaper healthcare solutions. I think the average smartphone now contains tech worth 900k in 1982. I don't think the world is going in a direction where we're bringing back high pay for factory jobs before outsourcing. It's going to be about needing less human work and people having more freedom to do with their time what they want. At some point society will raise the question about people who want to split off and live with only so much tech. But you would have to restrict the group living with less tech somehow because they would eventually develop the advanced tech they sought to avoid. Getting back to loudness. These artists and companies should really give people a choice. You don't see anyone caring to do that. They're too worried that if they're not insanely loud that it will damage their brand with someone for some reason. Insane loudness isn't an artistic choice, it's about control.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 15, 2018 13:07:04 GMT -6
Criminal prosecution of copyright infringement is not that difficult or expensive. The word gets around fast after a few people go to prison. The bottom fell out of shoplifting after retailers stopped worrying about "image" and started calling the cops.
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Post by swurveman on Apr 15, 2018 13:35:51 GMT -6
It's going to be about needing less human work and people having more freedom to do with their time what they want. Who is going to pay for that? This "more freedom to do with their time what they want" tech speak is the language of welfare. And there is no welfare utopia.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 15, 2018 14:26:33 GMT -6
I actually think we are headed that way simply as the most affordable means of maintaining order.
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