Daniel Crooks – still from Intersection #5

• A new music/sound work for Daniel Crooks. He’s installing a large work in a new building down in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct. See image above.
• Sound design and music for a new Australian feature film, again riding shotgun with Mr J. David Franzke.
• An album of soundtrack fused rock for post-pagan power rituals hosted by the power elite. David Thrussell has something to do with this as well – naturally.
• A live show with Mr. Jeremy Dower where I’ll be breaking out the MIDI sax to add some snuffly colour to what I can only describe as hi-fi down-tempo jazz for the 8-bit generation. Mr. James Cecil will also be taking a deck chair and MIDI hand-drum out onto the jazz patio with us.
• A return to contemporary dance land with the ladies and gentlemen of Chunky Move. Ben Frost will be hanging about bringing his experiences of making love to Icelandic glacial forms to bear on some sonic architectures for the dancers.
• A bit of a snazzy PA and live performance with Dr. Philip Brophy. He’s still a punk ass bitch and he’s opening a video installation next to a body of water in downtown Melbourne. It’s for a festival, don’t you know?
• A fair bit of live sound for the return of the What is Music? festival, in both Sydney and Melbourne.

And more besides….

C’mon daylight savings! I’m ready for you now.

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

August Update

Panorama taken at the Melbourne Planetarium while Nat Bates and I were mixing Our Living Climate.

The show for Melbourne Planetarium is finally done! Nat Bates (sound design) and I are really happy with how it’s all turned out. Here is a little mix sample of some of the music for the show.

Our Living Climate (soundtrack excerpts)

The show will be running at various times from August till November. Check this page for details. It’s also likely that the show will continue to run for sometime after that, as the Planetarium regularly rotate the various shows in the program. Also keep your eye out for Stories In The Stars another show that I made the music and sound design for with David Bridie. The show is about Indigenous Australian astronomy, specifically focused on the Boorong people of Central Victoria.

The Red Tree launched their LP, “I Am Not Bird” at the Evelyn on the 31st. Head to their MySpace to hear some tracks. They were also feature artists on JJJ Unearthed. They’re heading out on a national tour shortly, so check their web-site/myspace/twitter/etc…

Click the LP cover above to listen in iTunes.

July also saw local composer/musician/producer/engineer/spooker James “Wilkinsound” Wilkinson in the production room mixing and mastering music he’s just completed for a new computer game. The game is being made in Melbourne by Transmission Games, and is yet to be released, so I can’t tell you anything about it except that James’ music is an awesome collection of block rocking beats. For those of you that don’t know James’ work, his excellent record Post is available via Preservation Records.

James “Wilkinsound” Wilkinson listening to mixes in my room at Jack The Bear’s

Liquid Architecture was also on in July. For those of you that don’t know about Liquid Architecture, it’s a national festival dedicated to “Sound Arts”. This means it takes in and shows a broad range of work being made in both sound and music here in Australia, as well as featured work from overseas artists. Generally, L.A. shows feature artists who are taking a more experimental and avant-garde approach to music and sound. This year marked the 10th year that the festival has been running for and I’ve been involved with the live sound in Melbourne for the festival for 6 years. I also sit on the board for the festival since it became an incorporated body last year.

This years festival was an interesting one, but probably not one of my personal favourites. This may sound to some like it was a bad thing, but not necessarily. If you are going along to take in music and sound of this kind, you have to do so with an open mind – many times the work you hear is surprising and invigorating. Other times this is not so much the case, but when people are experimenting with sound and displaying this to an audience, it’s not uncommon to come away either loving or hating what you just hear. One of the great things about L.A. concerts and shows is that you rarely come away going, “Meh.” Anyhow, all of the concerts happened without any technical problems and all of the performers seemed satisfied with the sound system and the technical aspect of their performances.

In the mastering room Clare Bowditch came in to master her new single, mixed by Cornell “QUA” Wilczek at his awesome and fresh new studio Electric Dreams. Not sure when that one is hitting the streets in Australia, but keep your ears peeled!

That’s all for now!

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

July Update

David Franzke and I have been spending most of our time working away on darklovestory, a film directed by Jon Hewitt and written by Jon with his wife actress Belinda McClory. A version of the film has just been shown in Perth at the Revelation Film Festival. Another short film that I mixed earlier in the year, Carrot was also shown at Revelation.

Dave and I are taking care of the entire soundtrack on this movie, which means plenty of work and quite a few interesting challenges. I spent quite a bit of time early on cleaning up dialogue. The film was shot entirely on location in Kings Cross on Super 16 film. We only have dialogue from the shoot and it was all pretty noisy as you could imagine – lots of traffic noise and unwanted room noise across most of the film. ADR is not an option, and I’m not a huge fan of re-recorded dialogue anyhow. I had to go looking for a tool I could use for cleaning up some of this stuff. I ended up using the amazing Izotope RX thanks to an awesome recommendation from Cornell Wilczek (aka Qua). I’ve used a bunch of different noise reduction tools in the past, but not recently. What this software package was able to do for the dialogue in this film is nothing short of amazing. It’s really changed the sound of the film for the better!

We’re continuing to work on the film over the next couple of months most likely. It’s possible that the next stop for the film will be overseas festivals in Korea and Canada. We’re both pretty happy with where it’s all heading. I’ll keep you posted in future updates as things develop.

Also this month I’ve been busy working further on music for the Melbourne Planetarium show The Living Climate. Nat Bates (who’s doing the sound design) and I are getting pretty close to finishing and the show will be completed by the end of July.

Also, semester one finished at RMIT, so I was busy dishing out the grades. For all my students reading this – don’t worry, you probably passed!

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

June Update

If you want to keep up with my general web interests and small thoughts check or subscribe to both my Twitter and FriendFeed streams!

Here’s so highlights of what’s been happening in May:

Acolytes, the film for which I produced the original score (written by J. David Franzke) has seen a limited release. Due to the financial vagaries of Australian film distribution, it’s not going to see a general release. The film had a limited run in Melbourne at ACMI. I went along to see it a couple of times and it sounded much better than when I saw it at the Forum for Melbourne International Film Festival in ‘08. It was at least as good as what I heard when we mixed it in Sydney – the ACMI cinemas really do have great sound. Anyhow, the film is now out through Madman – see here. Here’s a review by David & Margaret from At The Movies, and another by Juile Rigg from MovieTime.

Mr. Franzke and I have also begun work on another film for Acolytes director Jon Hewitt called darklovestory. We only just started and should be finished in about 6 weeks or so.

The Red Tree album, which has in a very on and off way taken 3 years to complete, is finally finished and into its release schedule. The album is epic in its scope and has been a real labour of love for both myself and the band. We’ve all been working really very hard to bring it too fulfilment and the band are going to be doing a bunch of shows around the country in support of the album. The first single “Ziah” is out now and the second single “Ivory and Gold” will be out shortly. Check their MySpace or homepage for details. The singles and LP will be are (or will be) available on iTunes. The launch show for “Ziah” is at the Northcote Social Club on 18 June.

Digital Primate was in the production room for a couple of days with dub versions of his last LP which were dubbed up byMad Professor who also mixed the LP. We added a few bits and pieces to the dubs to flesh them out prior to mastering – some additional bass lines, synth passes using the System 700 (see next), dogs barking and Tibetan Dongzhens. We mastered extra bass heavy (naturally!) and the LP should be out through Shock in the next couple of months. Here’s the DP homepage and MySpace.

I’m mid-way through writing music for the new Melbourne Planetarium show “Our Living Climate”. Nat Bates is taking care of the sound design and so far it’s going quite well. Once things get a little more settled with the score I’ll post up a little taster or two of some of the music.

There has also been the usual raft of various mastering, mixing and teaching jobs as well!

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

May Update

This thought as been rattling around my brain for a while and as it happens a post by Bob Lefsetz made me think it was time to give it some air. Bob (whose blog is top of my regular reads list) says,

If you’re making an album today, I’m laughing. Create one song that grabs my ear, leave me wanting more. It’s about bite-sized rather than humongous. It’s not so much about value as it is about special. It’s about music, not commerce.

When it comes to the majority of pop and rock music, I agree with what Bob is saying. Earlier in the post he also says,

There are artists who make album-length statements. There are some acts whose audience demands more material. But does it have to be delivered in the same old way?

To paraphrase, Bob thinks that artists should draw an audience out – release only the best songs over a longer period of time. If you’re just about songs and songs alone, this makes sense. However, there are artists and fans out there who want more than just the golden nuggets. For some digging for the prize is what makes the strike shine that much brighter.

I hate to be obvious, but think about “Money” by Pink Floyd. Most people think that it’s a great song in and of itself and no one seems to care that it’s 6 minutes long – you can still hear it on the radio! I’m certain that when many of us listen to that track it brings to mind the (well worn) emotional ride that people experience when listening to the whole of Dark Side of the Moon. “On The Run” would sound like rubbish to your average listener if they hit preview in iTunes. When heard in context of the whole album however, it’s one of the most dramatic parts of the listening experience. People who would never listen to an avant-garde electronic soundscape not only find this track acceptable to their tastes, but many also point to it as their favourite section of the album.

In this way the lengthy listening experience of an album is a chance for artists to expand their range; expanding people’s listening tastes and introducing them to new sounds and ideas they might normally cast aside. Getting people to take a risk with their ears is an important aspect of an artists growth, it’s also important to the fans that really care – sometimes they want to be challenged. Artists need to gain the trust of listeners to do this, and this trust takes time. Again from Bob Lefsetz,

A true fan wants more and more music by his favorite artist. But he doesn’t want it dropped like a bomb all on one day, he wants it released spread out over time. It’s like a relationship is collapsed to a week, with not only kissing and intercourse, but babies and divorce all at the same time. Whereas real life is an endless stream of small moments. Musicians should realize this, understand it’s a changed world.

Looking over the time-span of a career this makes sense. Draw the fans out and keep them keen. Don’t give them the second rate material as filler. From a creative point of view however, I’m not so sure. We do have a tradition of listening to longer forms of music. The A.D.H.D. “shuffle” listening experience that the iPod can provide is not all pervasive. It’s no-ones place to say that this is how we will listen to music from now on and it’s reasonable to assume that it’s going to change again in the future. Think of symphonic works, musicals or film soundtracks – they just aren’t built to be broken up. Sure you can play the 1st movement from Beethoven’s 5th symphony, “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis or the “Imperial March” from Star Wars and they work on their own. These musical quotations (songs or not) also call to mind the numerous aspects of what those larger works entail. It’s about a series of emotions and feelings that are drawn out in larger arcs of time. The time period Bob’s suggesting (weeks between small releases) is too long for the album experience to happen. It’s too fragmentary for some artists and listeners. It’s a quick healthy meal for people who want to sit down at a dinner party. Have you ever listened to an album and being slightly nonplussed on first listen only to have the richness of the music unfold over subsequent repeated listens? I fell in love with most of my favourite music this way. To pick up on the relationship metaphor, it’s a little like copping a mind-blowing lay for 3 or 4 minutes every few weeks from someone you adore. It’s one way of making love for sure. Getting laid slowly over an hour however is a whole other thing entirely, and the two just don’t bare comparison.

When it come to the bulk of albums out there today I think Bob is spot on. Most albums are rubbish – many artists don’t have the depth to pull off a solid 40 minutes of cohesive musical ideas and many more again don’t care. It’s hard to make, a massive commitment and creatively risky. We all know of endless records where the 2 or 3 good tracks are surrounded by 6 average ones. Many of these were made by record companies, not artists. Most artists still persist with the album out of some beleaguered sense of tradition to a format, to a package, all the while ignoring the creative and musical aspects of what makes the great albums great. For artists who are smart enough to understand that albums don’t matter to them, then Bob’s advice is solid. However, the album still has a place and I think Bob’s a little too caught up in his own heat to see that it’s what some artists want – it’s how they need to express themselves. It’s also what some listeners want as well – they like giving 40 minutes of their ears to someone they trust. There is no doubt that these people are in the minority, but we all know that one great album can revolutionise the minds of artists and listeners alike. It’s possible that the mass market phenomenon of records like Dark Side of the Moon will not reoccur, but what does this have to do with the one-to-one relationship between creator and audience? Nothing. If this new musical marketplace is all about giving the artists more options and opportunities for them to make great work, then it goes that all cards are on the table and this includes albums. I trust Bob when he says again and again, “Make amazing music, the best you can, and if it’s truly good the fans will follow”. So if this means albums, and you really are serious about the album then maybe you should think about the 40 minute MP3 file.

If you’re an artist or in a band that considers itself “an album act”, you ought to think about what it means if you were to relinquish the option for people to buy only what they think they want. Have a look at this TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell – one of the great revolutions in product marketing and manufacture was the realisation that sometimes people don’t know what they want. Could you release your album as a single track? 1 MP3 file – 40 minutes long – no single tracks for sale? Take the lot or not at all. I made this as an album, so buy it as an album. It’s a bold move for sure, but then again isn’t that why we love music and the people who make it? They dare to express bold emotions for us all.

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

Albums: Give people a single 40 minute MP3.

The answers to “Why?” mostly they boil down to people who are looking towards a professional career in the audio industry. If you have to ask about where to learn audio engineering/production/creation, then you’re probably already heading in the wrong direction. Here’s why.

In the past, a few lucky people were able to get a full-time job as an assistant in a big studio or large broadcast company (T.V., radio, etc.). From here they’d work under experienced mentors slowly building up the experience and knowledge needed to become professionals and experts in their own right. This world was a small one with limited spaces, and often these people ended up working at the studio or company for many many years. Today, apart from a few extremely scarce places, this apprenticeship system doesn’t really exist any more. What we have now is a broader network of peers, that exist in places like good music and audio colleges, internet forums, magazines and ‘out there’ in your local music community.

The truth is that many people working as professionals today fall into their career as audio engineers. Increasingly just being an audio engineer alone is not enough to sustain an interesting and fruitful career (think about being an audio engineer at 55!). Another truth is that 99% of people who pay out their (or their parents) money to attend privately held “Big Dollars Audio School” will not end up working as professionals or even skilled amateurs. They will give up as they lack one thing.

What they lack is passion. It seems none of the peers who I admire set out to be “audio engineers”, instead they set out with a desire to make. A lot of these people don’t even call themselves audio engineers, there’s a whole range of titles for what they do; composers, producers, artists and so on. What binds them together however, is that they are obsessed with the process of making sound and music using whatever electronic tools that come to hand. Most of these people stay the hell away from “Big Dollars” and if they do study, they’ll sniff out a good course at an established university or technical college that’s oriented towards creativity rather than vocation.

They all recall with fondness what they did with that first radio, cassette recorder, record player, synthesiser, effect pedal – the point where their obsession first took flight. From this they begin to gather 2 essential things – knowledge and experience. Like any obsessive they do this using any means at their disposal; endlessly listening to records, getting a band together to make music, recording any sound they can, mixing the live sound for other bands, consuming any web-page, blog, book or magazine that has information, saving up to buy equipment, asking questions of anyone who seems they might know something. This process never stops. They live it and are on a constant quest to make better and better work, no matter what part of the process they are involved in. Sometimes this drive means that many other aspects of their life will come second to this need. All of this effort however, feeds back into their knowledge and adds to their experience.

One thing I often tell people is that there are no secrets in making music & sound with technology. If you have ears and know how to listen, you can figure most sounds out. It is not a black art. It’s not as Kevin “The Caveman” Shirley says in this interview, rocket science. Anyone who makes you think or feel this way is probably trying to sell you something and should be avoided. If a student, client or friend asks me a question I will try and answer by telling them everything I know about the subject, hopefully in a way that helps them out. Probably so much so that sometimes I’m kind of annoying, and maybe they wished they hadn’t asked. People who avoid questions, the kind that hold onto their knowledge like it’s a secret, are douchebags and should also be avoided. As useful as words and knowledge are, they are nothing without experience. The time it takes to gather experience and fold that into your working method. It is time served and the wisdom you gain that sets you apart. Knowledge alone is not enough.

People who are looking to go to “Big Dollars Audio School” have been duped into thinking the only way to get direct access to knowledge and experience is to pay large piles of hot, wet, stinking cash for the privilege. What they get mostly is a very diluted version of both which is usually taught by some unfortunate creature(s) who have minus passion for what they do. Many teachers at “Big Dollars” are conflicted about the fact that they’re having to teach what they’d rather be doing for a living. You might get very lucky, but I doubt that “Big Dollars” is the kind of place that’s going to attract a good teacher – ie. a seasoned professional with good communication and enthusiasm for teaching. In the end drained of cash, dreams and time, most “Big Dollars” graduates get their gold embossed diploma receipt and in no time head straight back into the loving arms of the bank, call centre or cafe. It’s a depressing think for anyone to endure, and there is a way to avoid this pitfall.

Here’s what I suggest to most people heading down the path of handing out their money to one of these schools – take that same amount of cash you were going to give to “Big Dollars” and buy some gear, learn how to read a manual, how to use google, and get to work. Record your band, find a band and do a free demo for them – anything! Just get your hands dirty and give yourself problems to solve, things to learn. You’ll become a better sound engineer faster. The other bonus is you’ll have your own set-up to build upon – you can’t record much sound with a piece of paper! If you don’t have truly have the passion, this probably sounds like a risk. It is a risk. If it’s too big a risk or you don’t think you can get your own small studio together sorry, but you’re not going to make a career out of audio and music – face it and move on. If you’re obsessed however, it’s a risk you’ll gladly take. You’ve probably already taken it.

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

Why going to an audio engineering school is generally a waste of your time and money.

I’m sure many of you may have heard of and used Muxtape. For those who haven’t, Muxtape is a place where you can easily upload a set of MP3’s to make an on-line mix-tape. This is an awesome way of spreading tracks you love to people you know and a way of making new friends who like your selections. It is all done with a super-simple and cool looking interface. A great and simple idea that is well done.

Now with all the kerfuffle around MP3’s, file sharing and the music business* you’d think, as many people do, that this websites premise of letting you upload any old MP3 for the world to hear is going to piss off some record companies and/or the RIAA, etc. As a user of Muxtape, I was always ready for the day when the site would be the target of a music industry takedown.

And indeed it was on 18 August this year.

What follows is the post that is currently on Muxtape.com from it’s creator Justin Ouellette about how and why this happened and what he’s been through with what he’s calling the “first phase” of Muxtape.

The post reads as a kind of parable for entrepreneurs and idealists who understand music and the internet. For those people who see the opportunities to create new systems of marketing and distribution. The industry response is both interesting and tedious. It shows how the lack of flexibility in the large music corporations is what is killing them – even if they want to move, their size and hunger will not let them.

* – an industrial revolution era business model which uses technology to capture & split music away from an audience. Profit is made by this division.

I love music. I believe that for people who love music, the desire to share it is innate and crucial for music itself. When we find a song we love, we beckon our friends over to the turntable, we loan them the CD, we turn up the car stereo, we put it on a mixtape. We do this because music makes us feel and we want someone else to feel it, too.

The story of Muxtape began when I had a weekly show at my university’s radio station in Oregon. In addition to keeping the station’s regular log I compiled my playlists into a web page, with each show represented by a simple block that corresponded to a cassette recording for that week. At the time, mixtapes were already well into their twilight, but long after my show ended I couldn’t stop thinking about how the playlist page served a similar purpose, and in many ways served it better. Like a mixtape, each playlist was a curated group that was greater than the sum of its parts. Unlike a mixtape, it wasn’t constrained by any physical boundaries of dissemination, but… it also didn’t contain any actual music. Someone might come across the page and smile knowingly at the songs they knew, but shifting the burden of actually compiling the mix to its intended listener defeated the purpose entirely.

Five years later, internet technology had advanced significantly. I was working on experimental user interfaces for web sites when I started thinking about that playlist page again, and ultimately set out to bring it to life. My desire to share music (in the mixtape sense) hadn’t gone anywhere, but the channels to do so were becoming extinct. Popular blogging services allow you to post audio files in an ephemeral sort of way, but it wasn’t the context I was looking for. A physical cassette tape in your hands has such an insistent aesthetic; just holding one makes you want to find a tape player to fulfill its destiny. My goal with Muxtape’s design was to translate some of that tactility into the digital world, to build a context around the music that gave it a little extra spark of life and made the holder anxious to listen.

The first version was a one-page supplement to my tumblr, and was more or less identical to what it would become later. The feedback was great, and the number one question rapidly became “can you make one for me, too?” At first I started thinking about ways I could package the source code, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed like massively wasted potential. Distributing the source would mean limiting access to the small niche of people who operate their own web server, whereas I wanted to make something that was accessible to anyone who loves music. The natural conclusion was a centralized service, which suddenly unfolded whole other dimensions of possibility for serendipitous music discovery. What seemed before like the hollow shell of a mixtape now seemed like its evolution. I knew I had to try building it. Three weeks of long nights later, I launched Muxtape.

It was successful very quickly. 8,685 users registered in the first 24 hours, 97,748 in the first month with 1.2 million unique visitors and a healthy growth rate. Lots of press. Rampant speculation. Tech rags either lauded it or declared it an instant failure. Everyone was excited. I was thrilled.

There was a popular misconception that Muxtape only survived because it was “flying under the radar,” and the moment the major labels found out about it it’d be shut down. In actuality, the labels and the RIAA read web sites like everyone else, and I heard from them both within a week or so. An RIAA notice arrived in triplicate, via email, registered mail, and FedEx overnight (with print and CD versions). They demanded that I take down six specific muxtapes they felt were infringing, so I did.

Around the same time I got a call from the VP of anti-piracy at one of the majors. After I picked up the phone his first words were, “Justin, I just have one question for you: where do I send the summons and complaint?” The conversation picked up from there. There was no summons, it was an intimidation tactic setting the tone for the business development meeting he was proposing, the true reason for the call. Around the same time another one of the big four’s business developers reached out to me, too.

I spent the next month listening. I talked to a lot of very smart lawyers and other people whose opinions on the matter I respected, trying to gain a consensus for Muxtape’s legality. The only consensus seemed to be that there was no consensus. I had two dozen slightly different opinions that ran the gamut from “Muxtape is 100% legal and you’re on solid ground,” to “Muxtape is a cesspool of piracy and I hope you’re ready for a hundred million dollar lawsuit and a stint at Riker’s.”

In the end, Muxtape’s legality was moot. I didn’t have any money to defend against a lawsuit, just or not, so the major labels had an ax over my head either way. I always told myself I’d remove any artist or label that contacted me and objected, no questions asked. Not a single one ever did. On the contrary, every artist I heard from was a fan of the site and excited about its possibilities. I got calls from the marketing departments of big labels whose corporate parents were supposed to be outraged, wanting to know how they get could their latest acts on the home page. Smaller labels wanted to feature their content in other creative ways. It seemed obvious Muxtape had value for listeners and artists alike.

In May I had my first meeting with a major label, Universal Music Group. I went alone and prepared myself for the worst, having spent the last decade toeing the indie party line that the big labels were hopelessly obstinate luddites with no idea what was good for them. I’m here to tell you now that the labels understand their business a lot better than most people suspect, although they each have their own surprisingly distinct personality when it comes to how they approach the future. The gentlemen I met at Universal were incredibly receptive and tactful; I didn’t have to sell them on why Muxtape was good for them, they knew it was cool and just wanted to get paid. I sympathized with that. I told them I needed some time to get a proposal together and we left things in limbo.

A few weeks later I had a meeting with EMI, the character of which was much different. I walked into a conference room and shook eight or nine hands, sitting down at a conference table with a phonebook-thick file labeled “Muxtape” laying on it. The people I met formed a semi-circle around me like a split brain, legal on one side and business development on the other. The meeting alternated between an intense grilling from the legal side (“you are a willful infringer and we are mere hours from shutting you down”) and an awkward discussion with the business side (“assuming we don’t shut you down, how do you see us working together?”). I asked for two weeks to make a proposal, they gave me two days.

I had to make a decision. As I saw it I had three options. The first was to just shut everything down, which I never really considered. The second was to ban major label content entirely, which might have solved the immediate crisis, but had two strong points against it. The first, most visibly, was that it would prevent people from using the majority of available music in their mixes. The second was that it did nothing to address the deeper questions surrounding ownership and usage for everyone else who wasn’t a major label: mid-size labels and independent artists who have just as fundamental a right to address how their content is used as a large corporation, even if they don’t carry quite as big a stick.

The third option was to approach a fully licensed model, which I had been edging toward since I met with Universal. I knew other licensed services so far had met with mixed success, but I also knew Muxtape was different and that it was at least worth exploring. The question about whether or not the labels saw value in it had been answered, the new question was how much it was going to cost.

It was June. I approached a Fifth Ave law firm about representing me in licensing negotiations with the major labels, and they took me on. Two weeks later I met with all four, flanked by lawyers this time, and started the slow process of working out a deal. The first round of terms were stiff and complex, but not nearly as bad as I’d imagined, and I managed to convince them that allowing Muxtape to continue to operate was in everyone’s best interest. Things were going well. I spent the next two months talking with investors, designing the next phases of the site itself, and supervising the negotiations. A big concern was getting a deal that took into consideration the fact that Muxtape wasn’t a straightforward on-demand service, and should pay accordingly less than a service that was. Another reason I liked the licensing option from the outset was that it seemed like an uncommon win-win; I didn’t want the ability to search and stream any song at any given notice, and they were reluctant to offer it (for the price, anyway). Muxtape’s unusual limitations were its strength in more ways than one.

The first red flag came in August. Up until then all the discussion had been about numbers, but as we closed in on an agreement the talk shifted to things like guaranteed placement and “marketing opportunities.” I was denied the possibility of releasing a mobile version of Muxtape. My flexibility was being constricted. I had been worried about Muxtape getting a fair deal, but my biggest concern all along was maintaing the integrity and experience of the site (one of the reasons I wanted to license in the first place). Now it wasn’t so simple; I had agreed to a variety of encroachments into Muxtape’s financials because I wanted to play ball, but giving up any kind of editorial or creative control was something I had a much harder time swallowing.

I was wrestling with this when, on August 15th, I received notice from Amazon Web Services (the platform that hosts Muxtape’s servers and files) that they had received a complaint from the RIAA. Per Amazon’s terms, I had one business day to remove an incredibly long list of songs or face having my servers shut down and data deleted. This came as a big surprise to me, as I’d been thinking that I hadn’t heard from the RIAA in a long time because I had an understanding with the labels. I had a panicked exchange of emails with Amazon, trying to explain that I was in the middle of a licensing deal, that I suspected it was a clerical error, and that I was doing everything I could to get someone to vouch for me on a summer Friday afternoon. My one business day extended over the weekend, and on Monday when I wasn’t able to produce the documentation Amazon wanted (or even get someone from the RIAA on the phone), the servers were shut down and I was locked out of the account. I moved the domain name to a new server with a short message and the very real expectation that I could get it sorted out. I still thought it was all just a big mistake. I was wrong.

Over the next week I learned a little more, mainly that the RIAA moves quite autonomously from their label parents and that the understanding I had with them didn’t necessarily carry over. I also learned that none of the labels were especially interested in helping me out, and from their perspective it had no bearing on the negotiations. I disagreed. The deals were still weeks or months away (an eternity on the internet) meaning that at best, Muxtape was going to be down until the end of year. There was also still the matter of how to pay for it; getting investment is hard enough in this volatile space even with a wildly successful and growing web site, it became an entirely different proposition with no web site at all.

And so I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever faced: I walked away from the licensing deals. They had become too complex for a site founded on simplicity, too restrictive and hostile to continue to innovate the way I wanted to. They’d already taken so much attention away from development that I started to question my own motivations. I didn’t get into this to build a big company as fast as I could no matter what the cost, I got into this to make something simple and beautiful for people who love music, and I plan to continue doing that. As promised, the site is coming back, but not as you’ve known. I’m taking a feature that was in development in the early stages and making it the new central focus.

Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands, offering an extremely powerful platform with unheard-of simplicity for artists to thrive on the internet. Musicians in 2008 without access to a full time web developer have few options when it comes to establishing themselves online, but their needs often revolve around a common set of problems. The new Muxtape will allow bands to upload their own music and offer an embeddable player that works anywhere on the web, in addition to the original muxtape format. Bands will be able to assemble an attractive profile with simple modules that enable optional functionality such as a calendar, photos, comments, downloads and sales, or anything else they need. The system has been built from the ground up to be extended infinitely and is wrapped in a template system that will be open to CSS designers. There will be more details soon. The beta is still private at the moment, but that will change in the coming weeks.

I realize this is a somewhat radical shift in functionality, but Muxtape’s core goals haven’t changed. I still want to challenge the way we experience music online, and I still want to work to enable what I think is the most interesting aspect of interconnected music: discovering new stuff.

Thank to you everyone who made Muxtape the incredible place it was in its first phase, it couldn’t have happened without your mixes. The industry will catch up some day, it pretty much has to.

Justin Ouellette
25 September 2008

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

Muxtape: A parable for music & business in 2008

via Noise Addicts

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

Origin of the term, “wicked breaks”.

Firstly, is BlazeBlue OneLine which is a show that I designed the sound system for and also helped oversee the final stages of the sound design. The brain-child of Anthony Hamilton, this show mixes steet art and modern dance. I know that makes it sound a little like a community theatre outreach program, but this show is the furthest thing from it. Dancing with Anthony is Luke Smiles – these two guys are among the finest contemporary dancers in Australia right now – and this show is so packed full of unexpected moments and general awesomeness that you really have to see it to believe it. Now much time left however as this show is on tonight and tomorrow night at the ArtsHouse Meat Market in North Melbourne. Details here.

Secondly, I’m in the process of doing music and sound design for another ArtsHouse show called Get A Grip. This is a show that has been devised by the Trace Elements crew who are a diverse bunch guys that do “Parkour, Stunts, Performance, Athletics & Art”. This show mostly centers over Pakour and a huge scaffold set has been built inside the North Melbourne Town Hall for the show. Its shaping up to be quite a show and these guys can really move. The show also has a couple of films as part of it that are looking great. I’m working with old buds Nat Cursio (direction) and Jenny Hector. Find details on the show here – starts this coming Tuesday. This video below is from the development that trace elements did last year for ArtsHouse.

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

A couple of shows for May.

This is a website set up by MIPI “an organisation that provides investigative and intellectual property rights enforcement” along with the support of the major music labels & local industry body ARIA. It’s basically a video based on the old shtick where the artists all line up to cry poor about how music piracy is hurting them.

Included are Aussie acts like The Veronicas, who made a $AU 1.7 million profit last year & Human Nature with $AU 1.9 million for their trouble. These numbers come via the BRW Top 50 Entertainers list (subscription needed).

Even more mind-melting is the fact that this will be available on DVD free to high schools and available as a BitTorrent download! (BitTorrent is one place where you can access pirated music on the net.) From The Age newspaper article:

“The documentary is not yet part of a structured anti-piracy program in schools, but Heindl said it was formatted to fit neatly into existing units, such as the “Music for Free?” English unit created this year by the Commonwealth Department of Education, which examines the ethics of file sharing.”

I’m amazed that the artists are willing to line themselves up to peddle this tired crap – but then again if you’ve ever listened to some of these records, you’d know that many of these artists have made a career from recording their toilet activities and setting it to a dope beat with the help of a hot producer. To understand why this is just so much rubbish and how a free DVD of some confused artists won’t do anything to help, come with me now as we zoom out to take a bigger look at what is going on.

Music happened before there was an industry and it will happen after. Music is a timeless human expression that changes and occurs constantly. The ‘industry’ is new to music in this timescale and has sought to exploit a gap between artist and (a new) audience opened by technology. It did/does this in two ways:

Firstly, technology emerged (c.1888) that meant that a recording could be made of a musical performance. New technology is always expensive and subsequently this meant that very few people had the opportunity to record. Over time, many myths have been and continue to be built up about the recording process – most of them bogus. Most music business people have little understanding of this technology, so subsequently they subscribe to these myths (ie. an expensive recording studio is a better recording studio). These myths are handy when artists take them on, as require the continued participation of the music business to finance something that the artist can rarely do themselves.

Secondly, yet more technologies allowed these recordings to be reproduced, distributed and sold to many more people than before. Things like vinyl presses, trucks & trains, radio stations and so on were expensive and the music industry has paid for and subsequently controlled many aspects of the technology/money gap between artist and audience. The music industry belives that it created, paid for and therefore owns this audience – even if they used artists and their work as the front to do so. It’s important to note here that while they may have created an audience they did not create the audience. The audience is a cultural phenomenon. In music, an audience starts with the individual who creates a piece and goes out into the world.

As technology has moved on and closed this gap of its own volition, the music industry failed to see what was happening and is now broken. If some people did see this happening, there was little or nothing that could be done to stop it. Recording technology is cheap and prolific and is a massive industry in its own right. With more access to information (largely via the internet) recording myths are being debunked or becoming so outrageous that they are irrelevant. The recording industry lost this aspect of control about 20 years ago and was the beginning of the end for it. The internet has subsequently filled the distribution, marketing and sales gap once controlled by a few large companies. Without a gap to exploit, there can be and will be no music industry in the centrally controlled mass-market fashion we’ve become accustomed to.

This means that someday soon The Veronicas will be out there in the big wide world with just themselves, their music, some recording gear and a computer – just like the majority of people who make music today. All this film shows is a sad display of artists coming to terms with the fact that the industry they chose to be a part of is broken and without it, making a buck out of music will continue to require them to work hard with most likely, less reward.

So now we have some perspective – here’s a quick list of items for consideration for the crew of the SS. Australian Music Biz as their ship disappears under the waves, never to be see again:

• Music will still get made, sold and enjoyed even if ARIA and all the major labels collapsed overnight.

• The day after this happens the members of general public who have yet to ween themselves off commercial radio will realize that there is more music out there than ever before covering more styles, sounds, moods and ideas than you’ll ever have time for.
• With their feed tube removed, radio stations may have to return to employing DJ’s who know & care about music. This would also mean that it will be easier for more bands to have access to more ears.
• Music will be purchased directly (or more directly) from the artists, so while they may not sell as much, they’ll make the same, or maybe more money – as this article by Steve Albini demonstrates and also as recent releases by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails indicate.
• Performing will return as essential to any music career. Industry-made studio-built bands will get less attention without a show or a publicity machine.
• Less cash and public prominence will lower the risk of artists developing fevered egos and becoming culturally disconnected and irrelevant. Bono and Sting will return to their true place in the world as “a couple of guys from those two bands”.
• With less money recording will be stripped back to it’s essentials (a good recording of a good performance) as no one will be able to afford spending excessive time in the studio polishing turds.

Please big music industry, go someplace quiet and die to let the rest of us get on with making music for each other. We don’t need you anymore and we’re sorry you didn’t realise that you couldn’t own music. It’s a shame to have to watch you pass away without dignity – but this is the fate suffered by many a cheat. It’s not nice to think about all the artists you exploited and the ill fate that many suffered but we’ll recycle what’s left of you (and your market) to make something new. We promise to think of you when we play our copies Back In Black that we downloaded on our computers and remember the times when people “made records like that”.

--
Byron J. Scullin.
Follow me on Twitter.
Ambient Diary Podcast.

The broken music industry. Why a free anti-piracy DVD for schools won’t work.