Obstacles In Audio Engineering

Who is the RIAA?

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:54:00 +0000

The RIAA works in conjunction with most major labels to protect and help the music industry flourish. They help spread the work that piracy is bad news for the economy as well as for music fans. They file lawsuits again most piracy websites and other sources of online piracy downloads. They also help keep explicit albums off children’s hands by informing parents about the foul language used on albums with labeling a parent advisory on them. They also keep count of sales and give out awards for specific plays /sales. They also keep data on consumer habits, genres and ages for future marketing.

The Institute for Policy Innovation estimates that the economy loses $12.5 billion a year due to music piracy. 71,060 US job loses, with $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings. $422 million in tax revenue, $131 million lost in corporate income and $291 million in personal income tax. (RIAA, 2011). While piracy is still active on the net, RIAA works with Universities to teach the youth not to steal music online. They also encourage Universities to teach their students new technologies to prevent piracies. They don’t expect to completely remove piracy. For that’s impossible, however they want it to be controllable in other to flourish out economy.

The RIAA awards record trophies for amounts of albums/singles sold. They Provide a trophies for 100,000 units sold which is Silver. 500,000 units would be Gold Record. 1 million units sold will fall under Platinum and over 10 million sold is Multiplatinum. These awards help artist establish better deals through other major labels, and gains recognition in the industry. So we can clearly say that the RIAA is here for the better of our music culture.

RIAA, (2011). For Students Doing Reports. RIAA Organization. Picture also retravied from:

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

Music Industry and Piracy

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:14:00 +0000

Another year of plunging music sales has caused many thinking the unthinkable in the music industry. Due to piracy in the last decade in the music industry; experts agree that digital sales can top off at 5 billion this year. Which is half of what was expected for 2011, and a third of the whole music market. An analyst at Forrester Research said. “ Music’s first decade is behind us and what do we do?”.

However music executives say that is not the case. They say that there is hope. As long as they control piracy, which according to industry federation is the vast majority of downloads online. In numerous countries today, they are cracking down on illegal online downloads. Due to these crackdowns, experts say illegal downloaders will convert into consumers, and help flourish the music industry once again. Many countries are also contemplating whether to disconnect users that are illegally downloading. However while thousands of e-mails have been send out to suspected copyright cheaters. No disconnections have been enforced.

Countries around the world are taking strong actions to increase music sales. Many competitors towards iTunes are fading away. Nokia recently stated that they are giving free phones out with subscription, that include music free downloads. A British pay-TV broadband provider named SKY, recently canceled subscription for music services.

However while these drastic measures are taken for music sales. Experts say that the main source to fight piracy and redeem music sales is online. Putting stop to illegal downloads is the answer to save the music industry from drowning in its own pool.

Pfanner, Eric (2011). Music industry braces for the unthinkable. Yahoo Finance. Yahoo 2011.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Music-Industry-Braces-for-the-nytimes-310084089.html?x=0

Post 2 for BPD

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:28:00 +0000

In my last post I talked about Steve Ells and Mark Cuban and the key components they look for when negotiating a deal. I have noticed that both investors strongly believe in an organized business plan. They both agree that deals are usually turned down when they show lack of business plan. Mark Cuban believes that if a business plan is thoroughly thought out properly and execute on plan, the business should be a success. So I have been planning my business plan with cautious. Making sure everything makes sense and that they are no issues. Getting the business plan revised should always be an option.

Another key component Mark Cuban pointed out is how much the person looking for a loan is welling to pitch in to the plan. Mark Cuban thinks that if the individual seeking investment for a business, also invests his own money into the business, they will work harder and would be more dedicated to their business. I have not been saving anything for my business plan, so I would need and should start saving my launch money. When I do approach an investor, I will make sure I have a lump sum of cash to pitch in. This will bring ease to the investors and boost their confidence towards my business plan and I.

I believe the most important section of my business plan is the description of the business, for the investors to see. I think my plan is very unique and as soon as they read what my plan is they will be interested. There is a need for what my business plan is and no business is proving this need. There are over 6 million people with tattoos in the USA, but there is no dedicated school for it. Not yet at least.

Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:39:00 +0000

Steve Ells is investing his money on a new hit series called America’s Great Next Restaurant. Steve Ells is the founder of Chipotle and he began his restaurant chain with an $85,000 loan from his father in 1993. He was born in September 1965 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has been appointed Chairman of the board in 2005. Before Ells launched Chipotle He was working at Stars Restaurant for two years. He graduated from University of Colorado with a bachelor of art degree in art history and graduated from Culinary Institute of America.
Steven Ells is one of the investor for Americas Great Next Restaurant, which they are seeking to invest millions of dollars into opening three restaurants in New York City, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. One of the key components is that they are looking for is a unique name. This is a key component because the name reflects to the owners and what they are portrayed as with their company.

Mark Cuban is the next angel investor I will speak about. Mark was born in Pittsburgh, PA on July 31, 1958. He started his business venture as young as 12 years old. He sold garbage bags to afford a pair of basketball shoes. He eventually paid off his student loans by collecting and selling stamps. Now he is owner of NBA Dallas Mavericks, Magnolia Pictures and chairman of HDTV cable networking. His key component for a business plan is very simple. If there is an actual need for the product. And this key component is simply for profit reasons. Another important key component he looks for is the track of the business plan and the financial records. Also how much money the one seeking investment is willing to pitch in to the table. He believes that business plans that are strongly planed tend to do better then others. Also if one is willing to invest his own money into a business plan they seek investment for, usually work harder and stick to the plan.

http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/
http://people.forbes.com/profile/steve-ells/19160
http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-cuban
http://www.investingvalue.com/investment-leaders/mark-cuban/index.htm

Promote with Soundcloud

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:22:00 +0000

Soundcloud is a very beneficial website for artists, managers and labels. The website is an audio streaming website with mainstream artists, local artists and even producers. Sound designers are now starting to use it as their Foley portfolios to gain more gigs. The website contains dozens of tools to promote work. The site is also heavily active with events, auditions and gigs for a small fee.
Soundcloud provide musicians and others the ability to promote their work. Users can also sign up as a fan and explore local and international work. For artists, you can write a bio and provide beneficial links to others for promotion. You can also create playlist widgets to post on popular social sites and even your personal site. The website also gives the user the ability to connect and share with popular social site such as Facebook, Tweeter and Myspace.
One of Soundclouds beneficial tools is its charts position and artist stats. The charts position provides a local and/or an international chart position of how well the artist is progressing. The artist stats provide play count, widget hits and fans. The more fans the more plays the artist will receive, and the more plays the higher the artist will be positioned in the Soundcloud chart. Soundcloud also provides artist with an audition tryout and other ways to allow their name to be known. I personally use Soundcloud and receive many audition or event notifications locally and virtually.
Over all I believe the website is definitely useful for promotion. Artists and managers can also put up their music up for sale on iTunes and other popular music stores. Each user is also provided with a blog ad-on. Artist can use an emailing service to keep fans in tune. This website has it all for upcoming artist, bands and even producers.

Information retrieved from:
www.Soundcload.com

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:58:00 +0000

Templates Make Life Easier

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:27:00 +0000

Templates can make a project run smoothly in any application-program, especially in Pro Tools. In this blog I will discuss the advantages in creating a unique template for work process. For one to create a new session and begin creating tracks and aux busses to route sounds through, can fairly take up time and distract your creative thinking. Pro tools just like any other application today allows you to create a session and make a template off of it, for future use.
First you would want to create a session, which will come out empty with no tracks provided. You will need to create the tracks desired. You can add tracks with the “track” menu. Many people work differently in Pro Tools so choose the work flow that best compliments your work. I usually start with about 5 mono/stereo tracks, 4 Instruments tracks, 3 auxiliary tracks, a click track and 1 master fader for final audio result. After clicking on “create”, your session is half way done. Next we would have to use the busses routing matrix to route the audio to the correct aux’s and so on. That would be up to you to decide where you want the audio to be routed to, using the busses I/O settings. Once the routing has been done, your session is complete. Now you can save the session as a template, so you can easily use the custom settings you have arranged.
You can save a session template in the “file” menu; it’s called “save session template”. Once you opened up this window, you will need to choose where you want to save the template. I would save it somewhere you can find it easily. Create a new category and save it in there. Now when you open pro tools the system will ask you which template or saved session would you like to use. Simply click on the new category you have created and you will find the template you have saved inside. I also recommend you save it with a name you will remember. Templates just make life easier.

Digidesign (publisher). (2007). Pro Tools® 7.3 - Music Creation (Part 1). Retrieved from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knXGQGpXWCw

Pro Tools, New Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:23:00 +0000

Pro tools has made many improvements since its first version released. Today, Pro tools has an extraordinary cool tool for stretching or shrinking audio files without changing the real pitch of the audio file called, “elastic audio”. This tool can be used for many different scenarios and situations. Electronic composers can use this tool to increase or decrease the speed of the hi-hat to correspond with the incline or decline of the song. Vocal mixers can use this tool to chop-up words and use it to make the vocals stutter effect. Which is commonly used in pop music today.
This tool can be activated and operated on by changing the track view to warp. Once activated one has to set event markers to where they want to begin or end their time stretch warp. Event markers can be stretched or shrink to achieve the sound one desires. Think of it as of it was a rubber band and you have set markers between the areas wanted. Now you can drag any of the markers to stretch the rubber band or shrinks it. Except is not a rubber band but an audio region. One can use this tool to fix notes, drum percussions, vocals and even more tracks that are off tempo. Easy fix for what use to be a headache to fix in the past.
They are three different types of event markers that can help one use the tool efficiently. One is called telescope warp, which is applied by taking the end of a region and stretching/shrinking it to match in time or what’s preferred. This event marker stretches or shrinks the whole audio file. Second one is accordion event marker, which is splitting up the whole audio region into two or more to dissect in a more specific manner. Third one is region event marker, which allows one to stretch or shrink very small parts of the audio region like syllables and single hi-hat hits without effecting the other parts of the audio track.

www.avid.com

Obstacles on Fair-use and Contracts

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Wed, 25 May 2011 01:27:00 +0000

Working in the audio world as a songwriter, one has to be very careful when using samples. One also has to be very informed with the copyright laws and how they may apply and or be a liability against their work. If you are publishing a music piece that has sampled audio used in it. You may want to get permission from the publishing organization. Publishing samples of other peoples work may be hard to categorize under fair-use. Ask yourself if the song sounds anything like the original piece. And don’t make assumptions make sure you are protected.

What is fair use and what isn’t? Fair use can be very hard to categorize in the music industry. Many lawsuits have been filled do to this matter. A good example is Lady Gaga’s hit, “born this way” and Madonna’s single, “Express yourself”. Supposedly lady gaga had gotten Madonna’s blessings to release the song. If your song sounds like any other out there, I strongly recommend looking into getting permission to publish, and get it writing. This is a great example of getting the correct documents to release songs that may need permission from others to release. You are liable if it is not in writing.

Contracts can be very tricky in the music industry. Making sure what you are getting royalties over is very important. From performance to digital downloads, one has to cover all aspects of the compensations. Making use you don’t give up your song-righter’s copyrights is another matter you may be liable for in signing a contract. A lot of different liabilities take affect in the music industry. From sampling others work to loosing out on money do to tricky contracts. You are liable for all you publish or sign. I strongly advise seeking legal counseling when signing contracts or publishing what may seem to be a liable matter to your company.

Podcasts:

http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2010/09/643/

http://www.entertainmentlawupdate.com/2011/03/episode-18-of-beauty-queens-and-footlong-sandwiches/

http://www.academicroom.com/video/introduction-copyright-law-lecture-3-copyright-applied-music-and-computers-peer-peer-file-shar

Mutual Benefit In the Music Industry

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:53:00 +0000

My interview was with Brian Hutch, CEO of Digital Dollar Productions talks to me about negotiating in the music industry and how both sides of the people can gain mutual benefit. Brian has been active in the music industry for nearly a decade now. He graduated from Full Sail University and has been active in negotiating ever since. He has negotiated deals with current mainstream artists and labels to mutually benefit both sides. He is currently working with upcoming mainstream artists. Brian explains to me how he has used mutual benefit throughout his carrier to establish connections and deals.

I have personally negotiated with Brian and gained mutual benefit by making a deal. And he used the same negotiation we did to make his points. I am a mixer for him and mix all the work he works on or for. Our deal was very simple, since he lives in Daytona Beach and I am in Orlando. He negotiated to buy the equipment I need in order to do my job, since his studio is in Daytona and I cannot attend the studio on a daily basis. And he also offered me a small lump sum of money.

His point was that at the end, he can right-off the equipment he bought for our projects and save money that way. And when the job is done, I will get to keep most of the equipment, for my future business use that is. He explained that he strives to gain mutual benefit with every deal he makes, in this sort of fashion. The deal we negotiated to was very beneficial to both sides and allowed us to work and negotiated other deal throughout time. He told me that gaining mutual benefit, for both sides, is the way he has become so successful in the music industry.

http://www.digitaldollarmusic.com/

Pro Tools 9 Has Finally Arrived

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 06:13:00 +0000

Pro Tools has been around ever since the beginning era of digital audio. And since then, Avid (Digidesign) has gradually expanded. Pro Tools has been through many different makeovers, but the latest makeover is truly brilliant. Avid introduced Pro Tools 9 on November 11, 2010 to the world and they are not holding back anymore. Delay compensation, 3^rd party interface ability, multi-band beat detector and, last but not least, no-hardware needed to open up Pro Tools.

Many Pro Tools users have been dying for these features and it has finally arrived. Now users can open up Pro Tools without the need of an interface. Making it very convenient to work on your session at any time. All you need is for your laptop to be charged or your computer to be plugged into an A/C source and an ilok for authorization purposes, and you’re in. Avid has also introduced their all-new beat detector called multi-band beat detector. This new updated plug-in allows users to detect tempo a lot more easily.

Instead of buying an Avid interface to use Pro Tools with, users can now use 3^rd party interfaces. Many Pro Tools users have their own preferences as far as what interface they like to use and this has limited many DAW (digital audio workstation) users from using pro tools as their primary DAW. I have always wanted to use Apogee interfaces with Pro Tools because I believe they have better D/A conversion and I like the dynamic range better. But I never had the privilege to use an Apogee interface because it was never compatible with Pro Tools LE. This has caused some to push away from Avid. But now, the story has changed.

Delay compensation was another huge factor Pro Tools LE users complained about. I was definitely one of them! Nothing is more annoying then to hear your work off tempo do to delay compensation. For this reason I have pushed away from Pro Tools; for I could not have afforded Pro Tools HD, which had delay compensation. But now since Avid has allowed these features for a low cost, I believe lots of DAW users will convert to Pro Tools as their primary DAW. This also paves the way for new producers and artists. Five years ago you could have put together a semi-professional home studio for roughly $2,000.00. Today you can do that with $600.00.

Avid (2011). Avid Unleashes Pro Tools 9—Breaks New Ground with More Creative, Flexible Options for Music and Sound Production. Avid Technology Inc.

http://www.avid.com/US/press-room/Avid-Unleashes-Pro-Tools-9

Passion, Music and Creativity.

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:26:00 +0000

Speech by: Benjamin Zander

Benjamin Zander gives an unforgettable and inspiring speech on passion and music. He has inspired me in many different ways from this speech. From the thoughts of not giving up and being patient to the way I think about classical music. I actually enjoy classical music that was a joke. He grabs your attention immediately with a joke that has a meaningful ending. Through out his speech, he tends to be very humorous. However he is in control of all his jokes, for they all have a enlighten fact.

By being so humors he has gained everyone’s full attention. He then describes how he is going to perform an experiment, which is interacting with the audience. He also tends to get off the stage and walk into the audience, which I think is gaining the audiences trust. He uses his real life experience stories to also make valuable points, which that’s another good method to use when make points and attempting to get the audience’s attention and trust. When you lest expect it he hits you with another joke and a valuable point. The experiment at the end of the speech was basically the cheery on top. You can tell how passionate Ben is about music and creativity. His passion attracts the audience.

Again Ben uses a lot of humor and that is really getting the audiences attention instead of losing the audience. Humor is his key to giving inspiring speeches. He also uses a piano to make his points. Which is brilliant in my perspective, He not only humors the audience for their attention but he also takes them to an emotionally musical journey. He is also overcoming adversities at the same time. This speech has definitely made me understand the ability of creativity and passion by the way he gave this speech. This speech meant a lot to me, especially around this part of my life. I have thought about giving up many times in the past, however my passion for art always persuade me not too. He has also thought to share the magic, be open-minded and openhearted.

References:
TED2008/ http://www.ted.com/(publisher). Zander, Benjamin (Speech). (filmed/Feb,2008).(published/Jun,2008) Retrieved video from:http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

Obstacles In Audio Engineering

noreply@blogger.com (Elyas Rafiee) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:49:00 +0000

In the recording world of audio, there are many obstacles one might face. One has to be prepared and adapt quickly to run a recording session smoothly. Using psychology in a recording session will give you the leverage you need to get along with the artist. With todays fast pace work ethics, one has to be fast and efficient when troubleshooting computers, analog gear and other technologies used. Many successful audio engineers use these traits.

Being prepared is the first key to avoid obstacles in a recording session. Preparation will not only give you the ability to work rapidly, but it will also make you look profession in front of clients and confidant. Adapting to the artists work ethic is another major key in running a session smoothly. One also needs to be able to adapt to certain procedures involved with recording.

Psychology can take you far in the audio industry and other industries too. Being able to notice the artists intentions will not only make her feel at ease when its solved, but it can also allow you to dodge troubleshooting issues due to vocal recordings in the future, because of her confidence. If something is troubling the artist in a session, you can neither solve it by noticing it nor totally miss it until she speaks up.

Computers always crash, especially in a recording studio. You will have to learn to deal with troubleshooting down times and deal with it fast! In a recording session 15 minutes of down time can cost the studio lots on money. To make sure the sessions run smoothly, preparation as far as technology goes can help tremendously. Restart the computer and make sure the analog gear is working and not malfunctioning. Make sure all the input and outputs are routed correctly and that they are routed to working i/o strips on the consoles.

At the end of the day experience is the only thing that will strengthen your knowledge in running a recording session with minimum issues.