8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

New Pressing Plants, Old Vinyl Presses

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Discogs:

Anyone who knows about the current record industry knows that vinyl presses are hard to come by. There are a limited number of functional machines on the market, and none are currently in production (at least for the moment, although you will occasionally hear rumors). In order to locate and purchase presses, the founders of Cascade had to go on what Lanning describes as an “epic quest to locate equipment.”



As demand for vinyl continues to increase, old record presses have rapidly been escalating in price. The Cascade crew searched for equipment, while watching their dream of record production sky-rocket in cost. Finally their epic quest led them to Canada where Cascade was able to acquire six presses from the former Rip-V plant. Originally those six presses were used by the Hub-Servall Record Manufacturing Corporation in New Jersey.



However, there were still many challenges ahead, as their “new” presses were 43 years old, and needed considerable maintenance and set-up. Lanning jokes that the presses are “like tanks”; sturdy and well-made, just in need of some TLC. Amazingly, Rainey, Gonsalves, and Lanning were able to convince Dave Miller, one of the original builders who worked on those presses in the early ‘70s, to help with the project. Miller flew out to Oregon in November of 2014 to help with the set-up and repairs.


It’s heartwarming to see new vinyl pressing plants opening up, like Cascade Recording Pressing in Oregon, as profiled here on Discogs. I’ve known that an impediment to opening a new plant is the limited number of working presses available and I’m intrigued by these intricate tales of quest, like searching for the remaining Valyrian swords (Game of Thrones reference, watch out). It’s also nice how the plant aims to serve labels in their region foremost … in a perfect world, every part of the country would have its own pressing plant.


Update: Here‘s a great tale of the discovery of ten record presses in Mexico City. (via Analog Planet)

So What Is Mastering Anyway?

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LinkedIn Pulse:

There are many definitions of audio mastering. Most commonly, though, the term mastering is used to refer to the process of taking an audio mix and preparing it for distribution. There are several considerations in this process: unifying the sound of a record, maintaining consistency across an album, and preparing for distribution.


I’ve had clients ask me why mastering is necessary, stating things like, “my mixdown sounds great … why would I need to master it?” This article is useful in explaining the need and reasons for mastering, as well as giving an interesting historical timeline of the practice.

I feel mastering is as important (and underrated) in the recording and release process as having a good studio monitor set-up. If you intend to stick with ‘the music thing’ then you will someday look back with deep regret if you allow an unmastered (or improperly mastered) release out into the world, I assure you. It’s important to keep in mind that mastering can’t fix a bad mixdown, but it will provide a sonic cohesion that will help make sense of your mix, both in context of its own sounds as well as among other professionally regarded releases.

I’m of the school of thought that you should not master your own music, though I do know some people who do this with good results. I believe you can get a much better master from someone who listens to your songs without bias (or who hasn’t heard the music a thousand times like you have). You also have an advantage when using a mastering engineer who does this as an area of focus, rather than as a side-job.

It’s a huge bonus if you can sit in with your mastering engineer and observe the process. You’ll learn much not only about the art of mastering, but also how your music and mixdowns are perceived by a professional. I once was lucky to have a three day mastering session on my music with the renowned Bob Katz who is based here in Orlando. It was like audio bootcamp … illuminating. The experience definitely shaped the way I think about sound.

Update:

The Album’s Place In A Streaming World

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Music Business Worldwide:

You wouldn’t know it to earwig most modern label conversations, but physical album sales alone actually accounted for 53% of 2014’s total sales/on-demand streaming cash haul. It’s therefore something of a worry to consider the shabby treatment the LP is currently being subjected to around these parts – and the recklessness with which the language and mathematics of streaming are being imposed upon it.



First we must recognise that streaming will claim the majority of music consumption in the future. But that doesn’t prevent us from asking a vital question: What do all of streaming’s measurements of success – its billions of plays, its viral playlists and its carefully-branded ‘memberships’ – actually mean in the context of traditional, unit sales-based album successes?



The truth is, we have no idea… and we probably never will.


There’s some valid food for thought in this kinda snarky piece, and the author is right to point out that physical sales remain (comparitively) strong. That’s certainly not gleaned from all the ink and fanfare given to the streaming economy. And I share the writer’s frustration with those in the music industry who try to contextualize and measure new technologies through traditional formats.

Regardless, I’m not beholden to the ‘album’ … I feel that as that concept loosens the artist has a lot more room to creatively play with how his / her music is presented to the listener. Don’t get me wrong – great albums are great. But so are are series of EPs, or ten single songs each released weekly, or any other permutation that’s possible now. How, and with what frequency, an act’s music gets released can now be part of the game, rather than just being expected to have a sixty minute set of songs ready each year or so. As a (sometimes) recording artist, I find that inspiring.

An Update: What The Hell Is Going On With Soundcloud?

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I really don’t mean to be posting about SoundCloud every single day, but this new article from FACT, nicely summing up the service’s recent headaches and the cause for these issues, is too good to pass up.

FACT:

Moves like this and the suspension of Dummy’s account aren’t great PR for SoundCloud. In both cases there’s no evidence to suggest they’ve done anything to warrant having their accounts shut down, and it affects the livelihood of both. Dummy, like many music sites, relies on its account to host track premieres from small artists, who in turn get the boost from Dummy’s following. If a music magazine were to lose its SoundCloud account, it could suffer a loss of traffic from a lack of premieres, and smaller artists lose a platform for exposure. But anecdotal evidence suggests this isn’t necessarily the fault of SoundCloud, but of heavy-handed requests from major labels over a licensing impasse that’s been going on for over a year.



SoundCloud has an official line on copyrighted material, but much of what goes on behind the scenes is still unknown to most people. In Dummy’s case, the trigger for its problems was material it claims had been sitting there for years. The goalposts seem to be moved on a daily basis, and nobody really has any idea why, or to what extent.



FACT asked Sony Music for comment on both their policy regarding SoundCloud account takedowns and Dummy’s allegations that it was given the tracks to host by the company itself, but Sony has yet to respond. Sony has every right to ask SoundCloud to remove illegally uploaded or remixed material, but its treatment of Dummy seems especially heavy-handed given the situation, and its silence on the matter makes it seem as if it’s happy to let SoundCloud take the blame.



The potential loss of the platform would have fairly serious implications, not just for small artists but the music industry as a whole. If the service goes the way of Grooveshark, it won’t just be underground artists like Plastician that lose their access to a wealth of undiscovered talent – it’ll be the majors losing their access to the next generation of hitmakers too.

“We Don’t Need Other Worlds. We Need A Mirror.”

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Here’s an excellent – and somewhat poetic – video essay by Kogonada exploring the themes of one of my favorite films, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris:

Slate:

Solaris was adapted from the novel of the same name by Stanisław Lem, but ignores most of Lem’s astrobiological theories to focus on the relationships between characters—deliberately, as Kogonaga clearly outlines. Kogonaga smartly points out that Tarkovsky’s film, unlike Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, is about humanity, not technology.

Personalized Spaces, DJ Curators, And The Speedy Evolution Of General Licensing

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This article on SoulCycle’s DJ-fueled fitness phenomenon explains how the growth in performance royalty may not just be attributed to ‘new media’, but also to general licensing in physical spaces (clubs, restaurants, fitness clubs, etc) thanks to increased personalization and the mainstream integration of DJs as curators. Thus the Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) need to update how they calculate distribution of these royalties as it’s based on an outdated system of presumption.

With respect to distribution, the procedures used by the PROs today are perhaps as inadequate as the licensing fees themselves. While technology makes it possible to track every song actually performed in any given (fitness club) spin class, general licensing revenues are not distributed with this data. Rather, the money received is put into a larger pool, and mostly distributed using a number of inaccurate proxies such as a sample of television and radio performances that overwhelmingly favors “Top 40” hits.



The genesis of this allocation makes sense if you consider that, at the time this licensing category was originally created, there was no cheap, reliable method to track general licensing. Today, several companies, such as the tech start-up Music Play Analytics, are producing inexpensive, unobtrusive and simple song identification technology on a B2B basis. Requiring chain-wide music usage reports, in an easily digestible format, is hardly a burden to either party.



Apart from fitness clubs, many retailers, restaurants, hotels and other general licensees are increasingly personalizing their music offerings. This results in more songs from niche genres getting more exposure than ever before. And nowhere is this truer than at SoulCycle where they have whole classes devoted to a specific artist, DJ or theme (like 90s hip-hop or 70’s funk). Continuing to distribute these license fees by following a homogenized pop radio chart defies logic and underserves the vast majority of PRO affiliate songwriters and publishers.


This has been a problem since the rise of non-top 40 DJ music over four decades ago. That underground nightclub that only books the most cutting edge DJs, and dutifully pays their required ASCAP and BMI fees? Chances are those fees have been going to mainstream songwriters, not the ones actually being played in the club. The time for incorporating song identification technology is now … device installation should come with a venue’s PRO membership.

As an aside, some other countries with stricter performance royalty laws have attempted to solve the problem in unwieldy ways that make one understand why our current system was adopted. I know many clubs in Italy and Mexico will make a DJ write down information for every song played in a set – or, alternately, any song that could potentially be played, if the DJ doesn’t plan sets – so these details can be reported to that country’s PRO. Not only is this a big headache for the DJ, but there’s no guarantee for accuracy; one DJ friend told me that he once listed a large number of my songs (even though he didn’t actually play them) to give me a ‘boost.’ I didn’t end up seeing an influx of royalty from Mexico because of that, but it’s the thought that counts.

SoundCloud’s ‘Three Strikes’ Policy Claims Another High Profile Victim

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Dummy:

Soundcloud have frozen Dummy’s account which we have grown to over 21,000 followers having used and supported the service since it first launched. Although the page is still visible, we can no longer access to repost or upload tracks.



The reason Soundcloud has given is that we have received three strikes for content that we have uploaded which is in breach of major record company Sony’s copyright, although Soundcloud have so far not told us which tracks are in question.



Soundcloud have stated if we can persuade Sony to remove the objections then they will remove the strikes to restore and unlock our account. However, under instruction from Sony, Soundcloud are not allowed to tell us who to contact within the organisation. We have only ever uploaded music that Sony have sent us to promote, so it seems ridiculous that they would want to shut down our account and prevent us from supporting new music signed to their label in the future.


This is an update to yesterday’s post, and more evidence that the pressure on SoundCloud is getting to deep sea levels. Not that I’m advocating favored exceptions to SC’s policy, but it hardly seems like a good idea to target a respected and somewhat influential music site like Dummy. And obviously Sony isn’t the one getting tarnished in the eyes of the public. Perhaps SoundCloud should be more transparent in their take-down notices as to why certain content is not permitted, spinning it as more of a case of boycotting content from those who won’t play nice at the bargaining table. All of this backwards-bending and high stakes negotiating won’t mean anything if SoundCloud emerges with a MySpace-like public indifference.

Matthew Herbert’s Next Album Takes The Form Of A Book

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FACT:

Matthew Herbert has announced that his next album will take the form of a book called ‘The Music’. Herbert is crowdfunding the book, from which he intends readers to be able to construct the end result.



“For my next record, I will write a description of the record rather than make the music itself,” Herbert says. “It will be divided into chapters in the same way that an album is separated in to tracks. This is that book.”



“Each chapter will describe in precise detail what sounds to use, how they should be organised and occasionally an approximation of what the net result should sound like. Crucially it must be able to be recorded for real given enough time, access and resources. However, I will never make the record. It will always just be a description of the music itself.”


Brilliant. There are so many directions this could go upon release of the ‘album.’ If fans and other artists choose to participate with their own interpretations of the described songs then this project might keep evolving for some time. Herbert once again tickles my fancy for creative games and I’ll certainly be following this latest endeavor closely.

Data To Date: The Rapid Rise Of Social And Streaming

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Next Big Sound has released a fascinating industry report on the current state of social media and streaming:

Streaming is fast becoming the primary way we consume music, whether that be through the more interactive on-demand services, algorithmically-driven lean-back experiences, the increasingly popular format of human curation and playlists (think Beats One radio or Spotify’s discovery feature), or some combination of the above.



What really blew our minds when tallying these totals was that the number of online plays in just the first six months of the year far exceeds what we tracked in all of 2014, even before the addition of Pandora’s data. Let’s take a moment to consider what impact this could have on the music industry at large. For musicians, their piece of the streaming pie will only continue to grow.


It would seem streaming is here to stay. Is this the final step in the format wars? I mean, what could possibly come after streaming as a music delivery format? Honestly, I’m sort of open to the idea of a combination of streaming, downloads (if you gotta have it), and vinyl or deluxe physical packages as our musical diet from here on out.

The Next Big Sound report also has some news about SoundCloud that would normally be encouraging for them. Instead, it will probably just add to the pressure they are receiving from the majors:

SoundCloud’s play counts continue to climb at a steady rate year over year. Next Big Sound tracked close to 5 billion plays on the service in May 2015, which is twice that of the same month a year before, and five-fold the year prior. At the same time, unless you’re living under said rock, you know that the social streaming service has long been in ongoing negotiations with labels for direct licensing deals, reportedly with the intention of launching a subscription service.



If slow and steady wins the race, SoundCloud could plausibly compete with more mainstream platforms such as Spotify or Rdio. However, SoundCloud provides a valuable niche service in that it is optimized for content such as mix tapes and DJ sets. If striking direct deals with rights holders – integral to legitimizing the service and monetizing content – means they are essentially strong-armed into charging users for a service they were once offered at no cost, they’ll want to see that growth rate remain as stable as it has been.


I sincerely wish them the best of luck with that.


There’s some further dissection of Next Big Sound’s report from Forbes:

You read that right: one trillion streams. That’s the number tracked by Next Big Sound in the first half of 2015 across YouTube, Vevo, Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, Vimeo and Pandora. In other words, the average Earthling has streamed more than 140 songs over the past six months. There should be no doubt not only that streaming is here to stay, but that it offers the music industry a level of reach never previously seen in human history.