Anderton

On a related topic, why not offer optional-at-extra-cost downloads as well as streams that include interviews, photos, concert posters, etc.? Maybe even isolated tracks. My book downloads include presets, audio examples, and other peripheral stuff that could never be included in a physical book. Why can't music do the same? I've thought about puttting my 2016 - 2022 music projects on a USB stick at 24/96 along with other goodies, and selling the USB stick as physical media. But I doubt anyone would buy it when they can get the songs for free on YouTube.

Well, at that point, you're not a musician. You're an alcohol salesman who knows how to play music 🤣

Streaming services pay out most of their money to rights holders. Not that much goes to the streaming service itself, which is why they're losing money. I think the real problem is obvious: Consumers think music should be free. They expect to pay less per month than two coffees, or even nothing, and be able to listen to everything recorded by anyone, from any era. The analogy to radio isn't even close. Radio only had a very limited selection of music at any given moment. Music has been devalued to the point of no return. To make matters worse, physical media is dead. You can't sell your recordings at gigs which was always a nice income. Nowadays, unless I'm missing something, the ONLY way you can make money from recordings is from streaming.

Ah, okay. The dictionary definition is quite different.

The fact that an entire industry - even fierce competitors - could get behind something that would benefit the consumer should be an embarrassment to other industries. And, the fact that our industry continues to do it four decades later is mind-boggling.

True. But we know what the odds are. My band went through the Motown offer machine too, and based on the terms it was a hard pass. We did well with a boutique label deal, distributed by MGM and then RCA.

Like so many things, it started off as a good idea - companies raise money to expand into other ventures, people decide whether the company has a future. Everyone makes money if the company does well, and consumers get better products. Everyone loses money if the company doesn't do well. Fair enough. The problem with any system is when people start to game it and distort reality. WITHOUT GETTING POLITICAL, a good example that occurs to me is Truth Social going public. I see no way that its parent company, with around $3.3 million in ad sales for the first 9 months of 2023, a $49 million net loss over the same period, and a minuscule slice of the online audience can be valued at $4.8 billion. Similar manipulations happened recently with AMC and Gamestop, the so-called "meme" stocks. And you have companies siphoning their profits into stock buy backs. There's nothing illegal with that, but again, it distorts the system because the profits aren't going immediately into R&D and taking care of shareholders. A lot of people have chosen to invest in real estate. Again, that was great when someone had extra money to invest, bought a nice place, spruced it up, and made a profit. But when you have companies that have nothing to do with real estate buying huge tracts of houses, charging exorbitant rents and getting away with it because houses that normally people would buy to live in are being bought up for renting, that distorts the system as well...so does Air BnB, which started off as "my kids are on their own, I have a room, wouldn't mind making a couple bucks over the weekend" to a business that acts more and more like a bad hotel. People will always figure out a way to screw up a good thing

When it was released, Steely Dan's music was considered quintessentially well-recorded, mixed, and mastered. Let it retain that well-earned distinction, and move on to other things. The songwriting and music is why people liked Steely Dan. Tinkering with the sound at this point seems pretty niche, but I guess it's a fun project for all concerned.

What do you mean by the manager "biffed" it? That's not clear to me.

I could easily see that as working well with audiences. Thanks for the comment!

The concept of live vs. recorded has flipped 180 degrees over the past few decades. You used to hone your songs on the road, then go into the studio and try to capture the live performance magic. Now, you hone your songs in the studio, then go on the road and reproduce the studio experience.

Agreed, I expect to play more intimate settings so your comments make sense. The more I think about it, the more I think it needs to be a real time production. The drums/ hex guitar duo I did with Brian from Public Enemy several years back was incredibly liberating because I didn't have to follow anything - no bass, no keyboards, no backing tracks. If I wanted the solo to go another eight measures or cut it out altogether, no problem. We could also do tempo variations based on how we felt at any given moment, not what was programmed into a backing track. We did play a festival gig with that approach and pulled it off because it sounded big.

I've been working a bit with the Beat Buddy Mini. The big deal about it is that you can add files and transition between sections in real time using footswitches, so you're not locked into a backing track. I'm curious about the "big" version that costs around $380. Supposedly it sounds better, is more customizable, etc. It can also play back MIDI files but then you're locked to the backing track again.

Was Eros tour a Freudian slip? I'm not the target demographic either, and I've never made it all the way through a TS concert video. However, I listen to her CDs, because I enjoy her music. No spectacle required. Sometimes acts fool me, though. I saw Gino Vanelli in concert by accident. Not my kind of music, yet he was so into it, and came across so well, he won me over. Ditto Frankie Moreno. Then again, neither of them are "spectacle" artists.

Agreed. I saw a Shania Twain concert where everything was run from Digital Performer, with a second mirrored system in case anything went wrong. The guitarists never had to do a "footswitch tap dance," and keyboard players never had to call up a preset, and so on. All they had to do was concentrate exclusively on their playing. The only drawback was not being able to deviate at all from the arrangement.

I think another one is how you're wired. Depression can run in families, which implies there's something genetic at work. I also think there's a difference between "getting depressed" and "being depressed." Depression will happen to everyone at some point. But for some people, it starts at a very early age and never goes away.

I do too, although I'd consider it more like a wish list of things that will be technically possible. A prediction that's really out of the box would be something like being able to photograph light outside of the range of human vision's bandwidth, and transpose it down into our visible range...like the way we can "see" infrared. Maybe that would allow seeing what's considered paranormal phenomena, or unknown aspects of the human body (like "auras") that would be helpful for medical applications.

What I'm finding in my initial forays is song selection really matters with a stripped-down setup. I tried doing "Free Fallin'" with just vocal, Helix for vocals+faux harmony and guitar, and Beat Buddy drums. Surprisingly, it actually sounded pretty good. More complex tunes didn't, uh, fare so well. "Donna" also worked. So that's two dead guys down, maybe 20 more to go once I finalize my setup. I bet "My Sharona" would go over well but I doubt any canned rhythm would be compatible. If the voice+faux harmonies/Helix/Beat Buddy combination works, that's simple and doable. Getting a harmonica holder would help, too. But with backing tracks, I could have great-sounding drums...and then I start thinking hmmm, a keyboard could store the drum loops I need, and then I could play keyboards too... Keep those ideas coming!

Or working in an industry where cost is prioritized over quality.

I've wanted to do a one-off act for Halloween called "The Deadful Great." It would consist only of songs that were done by rock stars who are now deceased, and be a combination of music, stories, and some humor. Every time I've mentioned the concept, people say they'd travel and/or pay to see it. I love live performance, and this would be fun. I wouldn't have to write any songs, and could pick crowd-pleaser covers. But... Do I use backing tracks? That seems like cheating to my old school way of thinking about live performance. Or, I could limit backing tracks to drums. I can get a zillion guitar sounds out of two Helix paths (including a sort of faux bass that pulls out the chord's root), and cool vocal sounds (including harmonies) from the other two paths. But then what plays back the backing tracks? Maybe it's time to dust off the Minidisc. Or maybe bite the bullet and use a laptop? Or I could do the whole thing live with guitar, Helix, and Beat Buddy to provide a drum track - no backing tracks, no computer. But Beat Buddy doesn't sound as good as loops from an acoustic drummer. And then there would be the footswitch tap dance where it would be difficult to turn on the drums AND change Helix presets at the same time. Or I could use a Digitech Vocalist for the vocals, which would let me exploit the Helix further...but now I need a mixer for the drums, vocals, and Helix... Putting the result on YouTube would be fraught due to copyright clearance if I was just doing covers. And putting together an act would take time away from doing my original music...not to mention finding a venue and promoting the gig, which sounds like it would be a time sink. Any advice from the collective Musicplayer.com savants of live performance? What option hits the sweet spot of minimum hassles and maximum impact?

Are you a David Hume fan? Sounds very "is/ought" gap to me.

Damn straight!!! Your posts are a good example.

Absolutely. I steal soundtracks from myself I take songs and strip away vocals, leads, and other elements that aren't sufficiently "background." With AI there is an analogy with samplers, which allowed film composers to do orchestral music without orchestras. The main difference is you still needed someone to write the music, which isn't the case with AI. I wonder if Ken Lee is going to ask Suno to create a song about zombie Teletubbies. I would definitely click on that!

The nasty thing about depression is that there doesn't need to be any reason for it. Your life can be going along just fine. That makes it even worse, because if there was an identifiable problem causing it, then at least you could try attacking the source of the problem. I walk at least a couple miles every day and love it! I think walking has all kinds of benefits.

Ever notice that when a fan's sports team wins, he says "we won." But when the team doesn't win, it's "they lost." It's the personal association with tribalism that causes the problem, where investing into the tribe's beliefs defines one's personality. So, to disagree with the tribe involves having to admit you're wrong, and people are by and large not willing to do that. That's why people double down on believing something the tribe says you should believe, even though it's been proven to be wrong. [Spoiler alert: The earth isn't flat.]