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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 15, 2018 15:37:14 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. Inevitably there will be a need for a universal basic income as has been discussed. At least until money loses most or all of its all value. Recorded music was really the precursor for what's coming. People think it should be free and has basically no value. I was really surprised how mp3s and Napster took off immediately. A person today has enough recorded music and video entertainment to last a lifetime if they have access to a computer with decent internet. Thousands and thousands of dollars of it. If they're not that inclined to see a show in person, they can watch very lifelike HD video on youtube, tv, or bluray. That will only get more lifelike as time goes on. So what happens when tech is good enough to do everything for someone? People only need money to exchange it for resources. Over time the amount of money needed to get basic necessities will be less and less. Maybe people will exchange other things instead of government-issued fiat currencies. You really have to try and see as much of the whole picture, which is a bit tough. There's just so much stuff changing. Everyone is worried about jobs being done away with, but they're also assuming everything will stay the same or costs will go up and we'll have all these impoverished people everywhere. The inevitable goal/outcome of technology is for it to fix every problem out there. For now, if people in the industry tried to shift everyone away from this loudness nonsense it would do a world of good. But it is probably too late, they half-heartedly tried including dvds around 14 years ago. It'd be nice if there was a new format on a 25 or 50 gig disc that had multiple masters in various sample rates and bit depths with bonus video content and large booklets, but the public has shown they'd rather have a pile of 128k mp3s on an Ipod or smart phone with earbuds/a tiny speaker. How people went from loving vinyl artwork and taking pride in being a fan of a band to just wanting to play a bunch of poor quality mp3s is beyond me. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle though. I guess people always wanted piles of mp3s and ate it up once exposed to it.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 15, 2018 15:44:50 GMT -6
How that happened was the demise of live music that is affordable to teenagers both as performers and as fans. Somebody will figure out that they can do a living room show and then graduate to coffee shops when the crowd gets too big for their living room. The low-quality MP3s are simply background music that could be replaced by real live radio DJs. Nobody ever paid for background muzak.
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 15, 2018 17:43:01 GMT -6
No politics, please. Especially when they make zero sense.
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 15, 2018 17:45:42 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. As a songwriter, I would ask that you spend that money with Apple instead of Spotify. Apple pays more.
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 15, 2018 17:47:26 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. Totally agree. Enforcement of existing laws would be a damn good start.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 15, 2018 17:52:33 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. As a songwriter, I would ask that you spend that money with Apple instead of Spotify. Apple pays more. Easy enough for me - I’ll check out apple
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 15, 2018 18:39:17 GMT -6
Napster was a program, I don't think it was actually hosting anything. Napster was a website and yes, it did host everything. The whole pile of horsepuckey about "hosting" is a major loophole in the law that must be taken care of. Giving away your product is not "advertising." It's sucidal stupidity. The internet meme that giving away your music is somehow "advertising" is propaganda spread by big internet players who want to profit from using our work for free. They tell you that doing that instead of working with a real label (which would back you and cover your expenses aghainst future earnings, which is a helluva great deal in my book) is somehow "sticking it to the man, whereas in reality it's swapping one "man" who at least covered expenses for another "man" who don't pay you nuttin' and expects you to pay everything. Up front. Wrong. Everything that goes across the internet is already monitored by myriad entities, from the NSA to Farcebook. It's reached the point where it's nearly trivial. If you mention a product in email or a private post on FB you start getting ads for it onscreen. That's because every keyclick you make online is being monitored. Wake Up! You don't remember the widespread hatred that Lars brought down on the band with his antipiracy statements? Or do you just choose not to remember? The fallout lasted years. You haven't been paying attention. The reason so many bands are touring now is that there is no other revenue stream available unless you're a big pop star that can get product tie-ins. There is no money in records. There is no money in streaming. Radio is dead. So now we have everybody fighting for a smaller piece of a continually shrinking pie. That's why there are so many bands touring - everybody is desperate for money. The figure you DON'T see - because it isn't publicised - is how many tours get cancelled or severely truncated for lack of funds. Not going to happen unless they make cables illegal. If you can play it you can copy it. Absolute worst case you put a really high quality mic in front of a really good speaker and record that. D'OH! And you don't think that's speculation? <facepalm> Yes, it did. Zip files go back to the late '70s/very early '80s. You just don't listen, do you? THERE IS NO REAL "COST OF ENFORCEMENT!" All of the necessary "machinery" is already in place and functioning! Haven't you been paying attention to the current Facebbok scandal, to mention just one of many, many mechanisms? EVERY SINGLE THING WE DO ON THE INTERNET IS TRACKED AND RECORDED. All that needs doing is setting up a few really rudimentary search algorithms - if you even want to do it at that level. It's even easier to go after the pirate sites - it's being done right now against the pirate sports and movie sights and it's pretty effective. Th apply the same technology to music sites would be trivial. The only reason it's not being done is a problem of will - the tech is in place and functioning. If it's AI it's extremely rudimentary. Yeah, that's the excuse the "legal pirates" use for not paying us. Nobody's talking about "throwing downloaders in jail." Downloaders shouldn't get more than a fine, like a parking ticket. The target is DISTRIBUTORS - that's uploaders and sites. The statutory penalties are all for DISTRIBUTION. Despite all the propaganda and lies you've been force-fed, nobody has ever been taken to court for downloading. It's all UPLOADERS. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was busted because she was hosting approximately 1,500 files in her upload folder, which was reduced in the court case to about a dozen because 1,500 counts would have been way too unweildly to prosecute efficiently. If the uploaders and sites are knocked out, downloading won't be a issue - you can't download if there's no place to download from. Any idiot should be able to understand that. No, just require them to pay a fair royalty. They'd go away all by themselves or, in the case of Youtube which has all of Google behind it, change their business model pretty drastically. Why would you need to limit the number of bands? All you'd need is a statuatory minimum royalty, if that. I don't know of any bands that would give away their music if they could sell it for a reasonable price that are worth listening to. It was never necessary to limit the number of bands selling music before and most people who like music don't choose one band over another because it's cheaper. We're not selling potatos or paper plates. Generally, acts that were more popular charged MORE, not less. Why? Nobody wants to listen to that crap anyway. Let me clue you in on a big secret - just because you own some recording gear does not make you an "audio pro". Reading recording mags and watching tutorial vids on the internet does not make you an "audio pro". It never has and it never will. What it makes you is a CUSTOMER for the gear pimps. What makes you an "audio pro" is putting in an insane amount of time and hard work honing your craft. Having access to real "audio pros" - who are not trying to sell you something - on a one to one basis helps a lot, as will studying acoustics and music. Not necessarily formally, but intensely. You can learn a certain amount on the forums - but the vast majority don't because their minds are clogged with garbage from other idiots and from people who are trying to sell something, and because often the good info is not something they want to hear. Like what I'm telling you right now. You're mistaking garbage for competition. No. You're talking through your hat. Given a fair marketplace there will always be a demand and market for quality new product. No. The only reason it might appear that way is the preponderance of junk music being "released" now and the absence of promotion for anything that doesn't fit the gateway algorithms. Today "legacy" music outsells new music for one reason and one reason only - IT'S BETTER. How do I know it's better? It sells. Nobody's promoting it. It sells because people like it. You're pontificating about something you know nothing about. Nothing. Zip. Zero. You've always been able to access music from the past if you're really interested. Have some more Kool-Aid. Please. Never mind that bitter almond taste, that means it's GOOD for you. Extra vitamins. BTW, you're about 20 years out of date. Freedom? No. What you're talking about is a world where slavery is endemic. Or, if you prefer, "techno-serfdom". Because staples will always have value. And people need them to survive and will have to pay for them. Somehow. I read more and better SF than you do, and understand the implications a HELL of a lot better. Emphasis on the word "Hell". And I understand the difference between fiction and prognostication. NO! You don't give people a "choice" to mangle your art. The PROBLEM is that what's in control are algoritms controlled by tone deaf marketing weasels. Even worse, FOCUS GROUPS of marketing weasels. We need to ban the algorithms and reinstate human program directors and DJs. Old fashioned DJs who love music in general and aren't tied by the balls to one specific "genre." DJs who serve as a gateway to discovery. Like we had in the '50s and '60s,. before you were born.
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Post by m03 on Apr 16, 2018 0:44:32 GMT -6
Napster was a program, I don't think it was actually hosting anything. Napster was a website and yes, it did host everything. The whole pile of horsepuckey about "hosting" is a major loophole in the law that must be taken care of. The original Napster, not the later corporate entity, was a peer-to-peer application. They did have a website, but not in the sense that you mean it...their site only hosted a link to the installer, and I don't think they even hosted it initially (I seem to recall getting it from somewhere like Tucows at first). Anyway, no media was ever stored on their servers...only the indexes that tracked which user claimed to have which file.
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 16, 2018 7:56:21 GMT -6
There's no real accounting for people's taste. To reach the general public, you need a ton of advertising. They're not out hunting for the next great album. I could discover a band today who made an album better than whatever multi-platinum classic and it wouldn't sell without a buzz. Appetite for Destruction would never have sold without the one-time airing of Jungle on MTV at some unfavorable hour. There's other albums that didn't sell at all until the right promotional opportunity happened. MTV once held immense power as everyone over 35 knows, more than radio even. When they took off all the Rock stuff at the beginning of 93 and replaced it with mainly R&B and Hip Hop, the Rock stuff started to lose a good deal of its momentum. By 95 a lot of acts who sold millions were off the major labels and playing to audiences a fraction of the size they were in 92. The quality of the songs and production dropped a lot. Even if they were still on a major like Anthrax, they were largely abandoned. The concert audiences could've been bigger, but a significant portion of the fanbases had no idea stuff was going on. I've heard Rock fans talk at shows of legacy acts. A lot of them don't keep up. Legacy act members fight over the name because they know that's all that matters for a lot of people. I would bet that a sizeable portion of Kiss concert attendees believe that Ace and Peter are still in the band. There's no real protest over having a new Spaceman and Catman. If it was called Simmons and Stanley, the attendance would probably be 1/3.
Of course I know that big internet players love having tons of copyrighted stuff on their sites and not paying for it. They make a killing off streaming. This is where I think the focus should be in terms of royalties and enforcement because people are actually playing the music. Didn't the RIAA spend years suing people into oblivion over Kazaa downloads? Awards in the 100s of thousands. What big piracy sites operate in the US today? The Pirate Bay always seems to find a way to survive. I doubt the general public are signing up for rutracker memberships left and right. Youtube, spotify, etc have made these sites pretty much irrelevant to the average person. I couldn't even tell you if there was a successor to Napster and Kazaa. Napster didn't change Metallica's sound. St Anger still sold really well considering how drastically they strayed from their brand with that awful production. Death Magnetic had even higher first week sales in 2008. If they had made Black Album part 2, I bet the sales are at least 50% more.
Legacy music is better. It's easier to connect with because you aren't blasted with extreme levels of harsh sterility. There was a lot more put into it. A new band won't have the resources to pull that off. I knew 20 years ago that if every band had a chance at the same exposure, bands like Limp Bizkit would never have been at the top. Youtube, etc is really what enabled a more equitable marketplace in terms of exposure. Now if they could make the revenue sharing a bit more equitable, that would be a giant step.
And yes, I'm well aware at how intrusive government is and how things are monitored. Cases where they illegally spied on someone and then got phony warrants to make it look like they had legal justification prior to the illegal spying. I've read activist sites from all parts of the political spectrum for years just as I've read futurist sites. Books like Confessions of an Economic Hitman. There are comments sections on tech sites if one wants to debate what is Sci-Fi and what isn't. The articles talk about things going on at real laboratories and similar places. It's naive to think that this won't apply to music and audio. Painting me as some brainwashed corporate spokesman is completely off the mark.
You and I might put effort into finding music, the average person does not. When I would go to record stores, I was the only one digging in piles of old vinyl sampling different stuff. Voracious music hunters were in the minority. Nowadays I wouldn't even know where to start with new music outside of established record labels. I found out about The Midnight when someone embedded Days of Thunder in some article or video. For a modern recording, it's more tolerable than most. This loudness obsession keeps me from hunting too. It's more than that though. All the fake drums and other DAW-related excesses put me off too. Personally, I liked it better when most cds I bought said "mastered by Barry Diament" or "mastered by Bernie Grundman" on them. Barry has said that was the golden age of mastering and I tend to believe him.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 16, 2018 12:55:32 GMT -6
There's no real accounting for people's taste. To reach the general public, you need a ton of advertising. Yes and yes - now. As recently as the late '70s, when there was still indepenant radio, it wasn't so. To a large extent we can thank Ronnie Ray-gun for killing independant radio, when he deregulated ownership of stations and open the door to monopolies and narrowcasting. The whole punk rock scene was largely based on indie labels and bands self-releasing, as well as "personality" DJs playing imports and offbeat private releases. I guess you're too young to remember all that. For about 5 years, yes. What's often overlooked is that this was the same period that saw the rise of corporate radio and narrowcasting. Again, corporate radio and narrowcasting. Thanks a lot, Reagan. There's a school of though that believes that this was largely politically motivated, which I'm not going into in detail right now. I'll just say that certain powers in Washington had come to fear the power of music to shape public opinion and took steps to muzzle that, some of them not obvious, as in the false-flag operation we know as gangsta rap. It's because quality has taken a nose dive due a lack of investment in new artists. There's very little that's new in rock these days, all the "new" stuff is just regurgitation of stuff that was done years ago. That's been going on for decades, junior. It's nothing new. Back in the '50s there were something like 3 or 4 bands touring under the name "The Coasters", all under the same management, some with ZERO recording members of the real band. There was even an all-white version. So? Kiss was always an artificial construct. And it's comical that you'd mention two former members who can't play very well. No. You're swallowing the toxic, anti-music industry propaganda again. The truth is that the RIAA never sued anybody. Never. They have no legal standing to sue, they;'re just a trade organization whose job is promotion and setting standards for the industry as a whole. They did file a cease and desist injunction. The ones who sued were Capitol Records. Awarded by a JURY of the culptrit's peers. Which were millions, if not billions less than the actual legal liability if she had been charged withn the total contents of her upload folder when she was busted. I guess you don't bother actually reading what I tell you, right? Otherwise you'd know that the number of songs in the Thomas suit was reduced from the 1,500 that she was busted with down to 24. Thomas was offered a settlement of a 5 thousand, total. She refused and opted for a jury trial (big mistake.) The jury of her peers awarded a fine based on that 24 of $1,920,000, still considerably less than the legally specified maximum amount per song had she been charged with everything. The judge, who showed considerable anti-industry bias, reduced the amount to, IIRC, less than 10%. Thomas refused to pay and appealed. On appeal, a SECOND jury of her peers again imposed a high fine, which was again reduced. She again refused to pay and appealed again. Her final appeal was rejected by SCOTUS. A similar case filed by Sony Music against Joel Tenenbaum met a similar fate. I really don't know, I stopped actively following the pirate scene a few years ago. Most of the big sites operate offshore, which is why we need strong blocking legislation like SOPA and/or PIPA to protect US industry. I know there are Bittorrent sites operating out of Canada. I also know that MEGA was attempting a new operation last year, dunno what happened, what with Kim Dotcom's legal entanglements. There are definitely sites based in Russia and Eastern Europe. The mechanisms for blocking these are in place and work. They're commonly used to block pirate sports sites and Terrorist sites. That's not the point. The point is that the streaming services are still using the threat of piracy to justify their refusal to pay fair royalties. Piracy has become legalized and corporatized. We need to do something about this and eliminating the fundamental threat is key to this. Er, no. It's not "the same exposure". It's the same RESOURCES - financial backing to develop the act, do proper preproduction, and record with a professional team. The reason that "bands like Limp Bizkit" got to be at "the top" was corporate narrowcasting and corporate playlists set by focus group to the lowest common denominator - essentially the same thing as today's algorithmic progframming, but using advertising focus group dweens insteand of algos programmed by corporate dweebs. Audience feedback has been removed from the equation, as has audience exposure to anything that doesn't fit very narrow guiidelines. We need to overturn 30 or so years of FCC policy aimed at corporatization and monopolization of media. And that's why we need to do away with piracy/streaming, so we can have the necessary resources to create good music and why we must do away with the monopolization of media and must restore locally owned outlets. Contrary to the nonsense people are being force-fed, you CAN'T make a record at home that comes close to competing with professionally produced product - not unless you're the next Prince, and those come along maybe once a generation. And even Prince had a well developed organization and staff behind him. The truth isa that most people can't engineer and produce themselves nearly as well as other people can, EVEN IF THEY ARE LEGITIMATE ENGINEERS. You don't have the necessary objectivity when you're working on your own stuff. And if it's a group project without a clearly defined person in charge the problems multiply exponentially. The usual rule of thumb is that it takes at least 5 times as long to DIY, for a product that's maybe half as good. Of course being a person with significant experience in professional studios can mitigate that significantly, but such people are a very small percentage of those making the attempt. Which is why all that talk about "democratizing of production, blah, blah, and woof-woof" is just so much blather aimed at selling people gizmos by taking advantage of their dreams.
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Post by m03 on Apr 16, 2018 14:35:22 GMT -6
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 16, 2018 14:43:18 GMT -6
Well John, I agree that making things local again is a great idea. 6 companies owning all the media has been horrendous. Clearchannel having so much power over live venues is horrendous. All I've seen is from the 90s and beyond. The scenes from the past sound much better to me. Particularly when you talk about the late 70s and a few years into the 80s. I believe Bowie used to talk about the creativity that came out of America at this time. Corporations have gradually made stuff worse and worse. They're always looking at ways to make more of an assembly line product. Even a small indie label like The End Records went from bringing us cool, creative bands to bringing us nothing but things influenced by the worst aspects of Nu-Metal and Metalcore. This loudness war is a product of the corporate mentality. If there are modern artists with any sort of spirit resembling what I've heard 70s punk bands had, I'm not finding them.
There's a lot wrong with SOPA and PIPA. They didn't pass, so I haven't thought about them in a while, but I read enough valid criticism of them from various sources. I've heard the stories about gangsta rap and Corrections Corporation of America but haven't heard a lot of stories where they wanted to suppress artists' influence. Sounds plausible. Things like that definitely happen. Then there's theories as to why labels push certain pop artists and why those pop artists push certain things into the culture. The purity of the music scene has been forced out. Even when young, poor artists try to get stuff going, they're largely imitating corporate trends. A new band will have to put stuff up on social media and streaming, there's just no way around it. Unfortunately, people will just listen to that and not actually buy a product. Maybe it will get them some local shows where everyone plays with their phone the whole time. I've heard there's still a lot of big tours that sell the opener spots. There's no real incentive to develop anyone new. It can take years to develop an artist into something workable as you know. There's just no way to restrict things enough so that the only way to hear the music is to buy the cd or itunes.
Fans of legacy bands don't even keep up with the bands they're fans of. Some are downright resistant to checking out their new albums. I've even met Priest fans who won't listen to anything after '82 and Maiden fans who won't listen to anything after '88. A lot of Kiss fans want to see the original guys even if Singer and Thayer deliver a better performance. Dokken fans want Lynch. What's funny is I heard people thought whoever the touring guitarist Dokken had in 2004 was Lynch. This Guns tour did so well due to Slash being there. Only a small percentage care about Duff, they'd be drawing the same with Stinson. Most people at these shows probably think Fortus is Izzy. I haven't gone to the tour because I thought the 2012 lineup was better. If they're gonna bring the original guys back, I want Adler on drums. This hybrid thing doesn't work for me with the people they have. But I'm not who they're targeting. They're selling to the casual fan who is into the hit singles. People used to be a lot more unforgiving. I'm still amazed fanbases revolted over albums like The Elder and Turbo.
As far as making stuff at home and self-producing, I've heard that it's a bad idea. Maybe it's true most artists can't be objective in those scenarios. Some might be better off self-producing than working with the wrong outside producer. I think it's probable to get a better result with a console, tape, and real analog gear. Going back to the scene of the late 70s and a few years after, they really got some great-sounding stuff on shoestring budgets. Not the most polished stuff, but it worked for them. A lot of the original punk and metal stuff. And that first Motley record. You can't get anything like that for the same budget today despite digital supposedly being better. I get the science, but trying to make things as clean and accurate as possible isn't what I'm after. Accurate in this case meaning putting clarity above musicality and emphasizing pitch and timing perfection way too much.
Streaming sites will exist regardless of piracy outside of them. They get away with paying next to nothing because there's nothing forcing them to pay. I don't know, maybe the labels get paid something and give the artists pennies? I know the streaming sites just recently made deals with some major artists to get them onboard. Def Leppard maybe? I know youtube blocks stuff all the time and pays labels something. They go too far at times like when they took down this channel that had a guy making instrumental covers of songs nobody else did.
It is true that a lot of audio companies are marketing stuff to unsuspecting people who think that their gear will make them a star. I've worked with guys like that. Who would blow thousands a year on complex gizmos like the Zoom recorder that was popular 10 years ago. I was told it was "something that records onto a cd but sounds like tape". I'm not sure I really believe a lot of these algorithmic plugins are as close as companies claim. Some might be. I recently started mixing/mastering blind with the HQ version of that Azure EQ and it's gotten me something closer to the sound of a classic album more than anything else has. They said it was uncompromised and indeed, I doubt even an 8700k cpu could get this thing to playback in real time. The original and revised regular Azure sound kinda thin in comparison.
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 16, 2018 14:48:24 GMT -6
Reagan does get the blame for things Carter did. Air travel was deregulated under Carter too. I remember the RIAA being out there with Lars and I recall that they were directing things a lot of the time. I forget if the lawsuits brought a lot of negative publicity onto them.
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Post by donr on Apr 16, 2018 15:15:39 GMT -6
From my perspective, things aren't as bad out there streaming and touring as have been characterized in this thread. 2017 was the year streaming began to throw off royalties. Physical product is officially dead, and downloads are declining, but the surge in streaming is offsetting those loses. Big payers are Spotify, Amazon, Apple and even Youtube is paying real money now. BOC had a better year for the non-sync uses and streaming 'sales' than it has in a long while. Go figure. I read that half of streaming is legacy music and it's new artists that have trouble breaking through. I look at the Spotify charts and I don't know just about any of the artists, so there must be somebody doing it. Our touring remains strong. Yeah, we play a lot of casino/resorts but I frankly don't mind. It's a comfortable gig with minimum grief. We do festivals and our hard tickets are theaters and smaller halls. I net more today than I ever did playing arenas. I'm not complaining. Record companies are scrambling to adapt to the evolving business, while startups are re-inventing what 'record companies' do. Here's a vid series called "The Disrupters" made by The Economist. eydisrupters.films.economist.com/ey-disruptersScroll down to the one called "The Music Factory." Good stuff. I wouldn't count on Congress to fix anything for music creators. They've fobbed off royalty rates onto a rate court, and politicians you think would care are beholden to big data more than they are to big rap or r'n'b or pop. If anything, artists and writers will retain rights to their output more than they ever used to, even with major labels. It's just a pain that things change faster than you can keep up with. One more thing, I travel all the time and I see most people on planes now with some kind of better earbud with a seal, or headphones, and quite a few USB powered DAC's also. So some folk do care about the quality of their playback.
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Post by wiz on Apr 16, 2018 15:53:39 GMT -6
I have been thinking about whats been written here quite a bit.
I think one of the major changes for those of us old enough to have listened to music through the 60s onwards.. is"enforced familiarity" by technology.
I had a relatively small music collection. Hard copy. It was mainly cassettes cause I could play them in the car as well as at home, and they were portable. LPs were of albums I really wanted. I would tape those and play those in the car.
But the big thing was how much I listened to the same music, over and over again.. and I really couldn't skip it easily, so I listened to that album track that didn't quite spin my wheels on first few listens, but over time I grew to love.
I also listened to Albums by artists, I never really bought those albums like Explosive hits 74 etc 8).
Now, people don't really listen like that, because technology allows them not to.
You have to let music grow on you, allow it weave itself into the fabric of your life. It can become a "soundtrack" of a time in your life, but only if you allow it to.
Also, I think in your teens early 20s you sort of ingrain what it is you are going to like for a lifetime. Nostalgia plays a large part in preference as well.. particularly if there is a girl involved with a song you remember....8) And there was, and she was magic 8)
Times have changed, thats reality.
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by christopher on Apr 16, 2018 17:42:59 GMT -6
I have been thinking about whats been written here quite a bit. I think one of the major changes for those of us old enough to have listened to music through the 60s onwards.. is"enforced familiarity" by technology. I had a relatively small music collection. Hard copy. It was mainly cassettes cause I could play them in the car as well as at home, and they were portable. LPs were of albums I really wanted. I would tape those and play those in the car. But the big thing was how much I listened to the same music, over and over again.. and I really couldn't skip it easily, so I listened to that album track that didn't quite spin my wheels on first few listens, but over time I grew to love. I also listened to Albums by artists, I never really bought those albums like Explosive hits 74 etc 8). Now, people don't really listen like that, because technology allows them not to. You have to let music grow on you, allow it weave itself into the fabric of your life. It can become a "soundtrack" of a time in your life, but only if you allow it to. Also, I think in your teens early 20s you sort of ingrain what it is you are going to like for a lifetime. Nostalgia plays a large part in preference as well.. particularly if there is a girl involved with a song you remember....8) And there was, and she was magic 8) Times have changed, thats reality. Cheers Wiz I recently began walking at night. Put the earbuds on and waste an hour through the neighborhood, trying to get healthier. I don't have a lot on my itunes- a pain to load stuff and I prefer wav files. So the only album on there is the free U2 album Apple gave away. So I've been listening to that a lot, it has a good tempo for walking. And this is what I've discovered, these songs did imprint and did actually grow on me. I think they are some great songs, and I can imagine the equipment and gear, for me that is a lot of my enjoyment when listening. And even though I'd say I enjoy this album now, I still feel dissatisfied with the sonics. The dynamics don't breath, and the overall resolution of the sound is this blurry.. "blah". And it doesn't connect deep with my soul for some reason. Yet I can go and hear an old Jeff Beck song I never heard before on Spotify and immediately is new feeling and simply cool.
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Post by EmRR on Apr 16, 2018 17:50:37 GMT -6
I was catching up on TapeOp this weekend and noted a consistent thread across most interviews about people getting away from the loudness wars. FWIW.
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Post by M57 on Apr 16, 2018 18:24:06 GMT -6
Has anyone ever considered that the best way to win the war is to declare it's over when it's not?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Apr 16, 2018 21:02:52 GMT -6
I checked my tracks against Chris Stapleton’s Broken Halos LP, and Ryan Adam’s Gold, and I was shocked my tracks were louder,not by much, but a little. I didn’t really push it to the max at all. It makes me wonder why that same track on YouTube is lower in volume than other tracks I compared it to.
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Post by Tbone81 on Apr 16, 2018 21:26:30 GMT -6
Has anyone ever considered that the best way to win the war is to declare it's over when it's not? I believe Andrew Scheps already did declare it over, and himself the winner.
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Post by Blackdawg on Apr 16, 2018 21:51:03 GMT -6
Has anyone ever considered that the best way to win the war is to declare it's over when it's not? I believe Andrew Scheps already did declare it over, and himself the winner. HAHA!
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Post by donr on Apr 17, 2018 0:47:23 GMT -6
As a 'get off my lawn' old timer, my personal preference for pop music is -12 to -9 dB dynamic range. There are exceptions, but my preference is that range.
I appreciate greater dynamic range in recordings and playback for realism and impact in a dedicated listening environment and specific material, but I actually want whatever compression is necessary to bring popular recordings up into the range I prefer. I want music to sock and throb to the degree it floats my boat.
Louder recordings fatigue me and generally exaggerate unpleasant distortion and discourage repeated listening.
Can any young people here recommend a loud modern recording they regard as iconic as the chestnuts the older folk regularly reference as pop benchmarks?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2018 1:16:13 GMT -6
As a 'get off my lawn' old timer, my personal preference for pop music is -12 to -9 dB dynamic range. There are exceptions, but my preference is that range. I appreciate greater dynamic range in recordings and playback for realism and impact in a dedicated listening environment and specific material, but I actually want whatever compression is necessary to bring popular recordings up into the range I prefer. I want music to sock and throb to the degree it floats my boat. Louder recordings fatigue me and generally exaggerate unpleasant distortion and discourage repeated listening. Can any young people here recommend a loud modern recording they regard as iconic as the chestnuts the older folk regularly reference as pop benchmarks? Despite my sometimes cranky and forthright nature I'm not actually that old, let's just put it this way Limp Bizkit / Linkin Park was a thing when I was a bopper. Personally I think everything went down hill after the Nirvana era which IMO was loud enough, my wife listens to all the current trendy pop songs but personally I don't listen to many modern tracks.. I think I've listened to way too much metal over the years which generally doesn't contain terms like "dynamics" in its description. Maroon 5 stuff is produced pretty well, especially around the "this love" era.. One of the last times I felt connected to an album or tracks sonically was Metallica's black album and I really enjoyed their collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony on no leaf clover. TBH though a lot of current music just sounds like mush to me.. I might enjoy the content but not necessarily the mix / master.
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Post by M57 on Apr 17, 2018 4:34:31 GMT -6
Almost all of my pop listening is over the radio (and in the car at that), and generally speaking my ears start to fatigue after 15 to 20 minutes at my usual listening levels (which normally I can comfortably listen at for hours at a time). My problem is that I don't really have a reference point. Is the music all that compressed or is FM smashing it even more? Come to think of it, I just chaperoned a dance at my school. I had to step out of the room a couple times for an ear break, but it's hard to say why. Was it too loud? Meh. Were they playing it too loud? Sure. ..and then there are the lower frequencies that just didn't exist on vinyl.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2018 5:56:05 GMT -6
Almost all of my pop listening is over the radio (and in the car at that), and generally speaking my ears start to fatigue after 15 to 20 minutes at my usual listening levels (which normally I can comfortably listen at for hours at a time). My problem is that I don't really have a reference point. Is the music all that compressed or is FM smashing it even more? Come to think of it, I just chaperoned a dance at my school. I had to step out of the room a couple times for an ear break, but it's hard to say why. Was it too loud? Meh. Were they playing it too loud? Sure. ..and then there are the lower frequencies that just didn't exist on vinyl. There's just specific frequencies and saturation that get your ears, I've noticed a couple of mics turn my ears into a bouncy castle waving in flux like the TLM-103.. For the most part it sounds like a decent mic, but my ears scream at me.. Never had that with a U87 / 67 / 89 (or really any classic mic)..
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