BuskerLabel announced the public availability of its crowd-funding platform for releasing music albums online under Creative Commons license.

BuskerLabel, a self-funded startup based in Rome, offers an innovative platform to the music business by focusing on the excitement and anticipation that precedes an album’s release.

In return for pledging cash, fans can get early access and listen to a stream of the entire album uploaded by the artist. Upon release, they are rewarded with a high-quality “lossless” tracks download and a public acknowledgment with their name displayed on the album’s page.

Any artist can start the fund-raising phase with the simple action of uploading tracks and choosing a release date in the future. Artist offers a single track for free as a promo. Based on this, users can decide whether or not to make a pledge using BuskerLabel’s own virtual currency, called a “Koin”. One Koin is equal to one Euro and can be purchased conveniently using PayPal. After giving one or more Koins, fans gain the privilege to playback a stream of the entire album. If a person does not like the album, the fan can withdraw support in the last five days before release.

On the chosen date, the album is released under a Creative Commons license allowing all Internet users to freely download and share tracks for personal use. Creative Commons licenses maximize the legal diffusion of music by bringing more and more fans to the artist for subsequent releases and, most importantly, for live tours that depend mostly on the “brand awareness” of the artist’s name.

BuskerLabel passes on to the artists 80 percent of the collected money immediately following the release date.

BuskerLabel is different from existing fund-raising online services because it goes beyond simple donations for already released music. Instead, it deals with produced music that is ready for distribution.

As most of the major labels complain, releasing music in digital form is a critical moment, since it starts a huge wave of downloading and sharing activity. Licensing under Creative Commons allows music lovers to share tracks legally. In addition, the fans that pledge money effectively grants them the status of co-producers. BuskerLabel blends these two factors aiming to turn former copyright violators — so called “pirates” — into True Fans.

So many ways to go and look at the stars.

A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body’s surface into space. Many variants have been proposed, all of which involve traveling along a fixed structure instead of using rocket powered space launch. The concept most often refers to a structure that reaches from the surface of the Earth on or near the Equator to geostationary orbit (GSO) and a counter-mass beyond.

This is not rock music.

Listen here. Download here. Contact here.

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Next week so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will post new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions on Monday 8th March. Thanks]

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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Apple just announced the 10 billionth iTunes music download sale.  An impressive statistic for sure but not the
end of the story.

As Apple often does with download milestones, it gave a prize to the 10 billionth download customer and revealed that the song downloaded was “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash, a song which originally dates back to 1958.  Given that Country fans skew older than most music fans (nearly two thirds are over 45) it is interesting to contrast this with the downloader of the billionth Apple App Store App: Connor Mulcahey aged just 13.

Apple’s music and App stores straddle paid content’s demographic fault line. Apps – a fundamentally interactive experience – are tailor made for the digital natives, whereas the static 99 cents music download remains wedded to a bygone era. Of course the kids still like music, but the current digital music product doesn’t compel them to part with their cash in the way an App does.  The simple fact is that Apps have far greater monetary value for youth than music does.

Music product innovation is the music industry’s way into the App Store. The CD generation still values music but they’re becoming the foundation of music sales just when they should be making way for the next generation of music buyers.  Indeed, three quarters of digital music buyers are aged 25 and over.  So whilst it’s good news for Apple that they’ve discovered a way of monetizing youth, it does little to help music sales.  Which is the reason why the music industry needs to commence a period of unprecedented product innovation,

whereby apps become a key channel for music sales. (See here for my take on what 21^st century music products should look like).  Of course there are plenty of music apps already out there, but few are doing much to create a new music product paradigm.

iPod sales slow whilst the iPhone and Apps prosper. The final pertinent trend here is the slowing of iPod momentum. The simple fact is
that iPod sales are slowing (see chart below).  Thus much of the iTunes music download growth is coming from increasing the average number of downloads per buyer but that has limits, particularly considering the weaker appeal among youth. Meanwhile iPhone sales are growing at the  expense of iPods and App downloads continue to accelerate with unprecedented pace.

Apple remains the behemoth of digital music sales, but unless the music industry learns how to make products that Connor Mulcahey will buy, they will find the Apple bandwagon starts to leave them behind.

*Note: though Johnny Cash was the subject of a contemporary biopic (‘Walk the Line’) but ‘Guess Things Happen…’ was not featured in the film nor the soundtrack.

Those who engage in music piracy will often list a familiar set of excuses to justify IP theft: the album is too expensive, the labels don’t make it available in digital format, artists don’t receive a big enough portion of album revenues, downloaded albums serve as promotional tools for the band’s concerts and merchandise, the list goes on.

That’s why I was dismayed, but really not surprised, to see how quickly the Haiti benefit album “Hope for Haiti Now” cropped up on all the popular BitTorrent indexing sites like ThePirateBay and Torrentz. No matter how much the operators of these websites like to portray themselves as “digital revolutionaries” who are encouraging the adoption of “new business models” (i.e. “please compete with free”), there is really no excuse or justification for hosting a website where users can obtain this album for free. What possible justification can one give for uploading, downloading, or making available this album over the BitTorrent network?

Not only that, but out of the 9 front-page Google results for “Hope For Haiti Now torrent”, a dismaying 5 out of the 9 results (Torrentz, IsoHunt, BTJunkie, Monova, TorrentZap) are hosted or have some connection to Canada. No matter what these website operators’ opinions are of record labels and movie studios, wouldn’t you think that they would take at least some steps to ensure their services aren’t used to pirate a $7.99 charity album?

Looks to me like the Pirates of the Caribbean can be found right here in Canada. At least we’re also good at legitimately hauling in the gold as well.

For those of you who have yet to pick up this truly amazing album, which also serves a great cause, there is no shortage of legal sources where it can be obtained. I highly recommend heading to iTunes or Amazon and ordering a copy.

On another positive note, this album just set the record as the first digital-only release to top the Billboard Album Chart!

iTunes – Sound Quality – Tweaking the Sound
By Simon Dawson

EQ and Beyond

One way to enhance the sound on your computer and iPod is to be discerning with your importing preferences. Another option is to improve your speakers, either by investing in better earphones for your Pod or by hooking up to a decent hi-fi. But aside from all this, you can also tweak the sound using various iTunes tools, including a pretty comprehensive graphics equalizer. You can either apply EQ as you listen or assign customized presets to specific tracks, which are then transported to your iPod when you next plug it in.

Equalizing

The iTunes Equalizer allows you to adjust a range of frequency bands for the music coming out of your computer. To open Equalizer, hit its stripy button in the lower right corner of iTunes pane. First make sure the Equalizer is active by checking the box in the top left of the pane. Note, though, that this window doesn’t need to be open for the settings to be having an effect – you can tell whether the Equalizer is currently active by seeing whether its button in the main iTunes window is glowing blue.

Presets

From the dropdown menu you can choose between a number of preset frequency settings, designed to suit different types of music: the “Dance” preset, for example, has a heavier bass setting, while the “Spoken Word” setting features stronger mid-range frequencies, just like the human voice. Play some music that you are familiar with and try a few of the presets, even ones that don’t sound at all suitable from their name. Take a look at the different shapes that the Equalizer’s sliders make on-screen and get a feel for what is happening to the music. Toggle the tick-box in the Equalizer panel “on” and “off” to compare your new settings to the unequalized version of the song.

Make your own Presets

At anytime you can drag the sliders up and down yourself to try and get a sound perfectly matched to the music you’re listening to (as you do so, the Preset dropdown will display Manual). If you create an EQ that you like, you can save it by selecting “Make Preset…” from the dropdown and choosing a name. Once you’ve made a preset, you can recall its particular combination of levels by clicking its entry in the dropdown menu. Or you can edit or rename the presets.

EQing Songs

So far i have explained using the Equalizer as a real-time tool, simply changing the settings and presets as you listen. But iTunes can do more than that: using the song information panels the program allows you to associate preset EQs with individual songs so that both iTunes and your iPod know exactly how you want to hear them.

First, in the Song List select the song, or songs, you want to add an EQ preset to and then choose “Get Info” from the File menu. Now simply choose the preset you want to use from the Equalizer Preset dropdown menu (found under Options when you are dealing with a single song).

And on to the Pod…

All your Equalizer presets and individual song associations are carried over to the iPod when you update, though you can manually select the preset you want to use from the EQ menu within the iPod’s main Setting menu. This is also the place to go to toggle the iPod’s Sound Check function “on” and “off”. However, the single best way to improve the sound that comes out of your iPod is to buy a good pair of sound-isolating headphones.

Other Sound Settings

Other than EQs, iTunes offers a couple of other sound-tweaking settings within the Audio pane of iTunes Preferences…

Sound Enhancer

In theory, when you set the Sound Enhancer to high you should notice a general improvement of the “presence” in the music you play. It’s tricky to quantify, but the sound should be brighter and the stereo separation really vivid. You may not like the effect – or not be able to tell the difference – but it’s certainly worth experimenting with, so check the box, slide the slider and see what you think.

Sound Enhancer is usually most beneficial for composed audio formats like MP3 and AAC, but you may also notice a difference with CD playback. The only real downside is that it can keep your computer’s processor pretty busy, which could result in glitches and skips if you don’t have a fast machine.

Sound Check

When Sound Check is on, iTunes attempts to play back songs at approximately the same volume level, so you shouldn’t have to keep turning the sound up and down as you jump around your collection. As more songs are added to your Library, oTunes recalculates its setting and stores the information in its database. It’s not perfect, and you may still notice discrepancies in loudness between different songs, especially where songs have been imported from a non-CD source. If particular tracks are still too quiet or loud, use the Volume Adjustment setting to bring them into line.

Simon has been writing articles for nearly 2 years. Come visit his latest website at http://1cupcoffeemaker.info/commercial-espresso-machines/ which helps people find the best information on commercial espresso machines.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Simon_Dawson

http://EzineArticles.com/?iTunes—Sound-Quality-and-Music-File-Formats&id=3828793

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Over the coming month or so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will soon be posting new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions. Thanks]

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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US music subscription service MOG is set to launch in the UK by the end of the 2^ndquarter off the back of a 2^nd round of investment totaling $10
million.

As I posted earlier in the month, the music subscriptions space is going through an important period of transition.  It took much of the last decade to realize that the 9.99 premium rentals model was only ever going to appeal to a niche of music aficionados, and though global premium music subscribers total 8.25 million, we’re still no closer to mass market appeal for premium subscriptions.  And yet we have a host of new entrants including, MOG, Spotify Premium, We7 Premium, Sky Songs, Virgin Media etc etc.

So what’s changed? Well, both a little and a lot.

The niche audience is getting bigger. Firstly, the appeal for premium subscriptions is still a niche addressable audience of tech savvy music aficionados, but that audience is growing. It’s still far from mass market (and never will be) but it’s a more attractively scaled base now.  A few million per major music market perhaps. For a company like MOG that’s plenty enough addressable market. Also improvements in consumer technology and connectivity make it easier to deliver a high quality on-the-go cloud based experience, a crucial asset.

New routes to market. Perhaps the most important change though is that numerous new channel partners are emerging that can help shoulder the to-consumer cost.  ISPs, mobile operators, device manufacturers, even brands all are becoming realistic partners for subsidizing premium subscriptions, in turn reducing the price point to an extent where appeal is much broader.  The music industry is waking up to the fact
that a recurring household music purchasing relationship is much more valuable and secure than ad hoc individual spending and illegal downloading.

MOG has an additional crucial asset: the service is inherently social.  Regular readers will recall that I posted about the concept of ‘putting the crowd in the cloud’, that social interconnectivity in cloud based services will become a crucial component of music discovery and engagement. MOG joins those dots.

Those assets alone though may not be enough. If MOG is to steal serious market share in the UK it will do well to investigate the unique
range telco partnership opportunities that the UK presents due to the government’s strong(ish) stance on making telcos partners in tackling music piracy. A subsidized MOG service from BT, integrated into their IPTV boxes and xBoxes, for example, would be a really enticing prospect.

(And a sign of the times, MOG is being talked about as a potential ‘Spotify-killer’….whatever happened to being an ‘iTunes-killer’…they’re still the ones that own three quarters of the premium digital music business…)

This week contributing member Howard S. shares his thoughts on sound.

What happened to sound…

I have always been a music fan. I like listening to it when I work; it paces me. I’ve been doing much more listening lately because I’m in the process of writing a book. And I’ve been expanding my music library like crazy lately because I live around the corner from the Mercer County Library and have been checking out CDs to burn into my iTunes library.

My preferred method for listening is through my iPod headphones plugged in to the back of my Mac. This morning I was listening to the CD “Centerfield” by John Fogerty, taken from my iTunes library. And the sound of the record really hit me; it annoyed me how it just doesn’t match up to how I’ve heard this album in the past.

No matter how I adjusted the iTunes equalizer, I could not get things to sound right. The sound is completely flat – no dimension. I haven’t reached the point of being a complete audiophile in that I can tell the difference between the “warm” sound of vinyl vs. the “flat” sound of digital music, but I’m starting to get there.

It is pretty amazing. We’ve traded sound quality for pure convenience. Maybe there are digital formats for music that place more emphasis on sound quality, but the file sizes seem huge and the sources don’t seem that accessible.

I can remember buying stereo equipment, speakers, tape players, turntables, and a decent receiver/amp combo and being thrilled at how I could turn things up and make the walls of my room shake. Then one day, you wake up, you listen to something you’ve heard a million times through these tiny “ear buds” and you say to yourself…

What the fuck happened to THE SOUND?

I’m a fan of author Michael Chabon, who wrote The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh among other books. On his Web site, Chabon has a short essay which really captures what all this talk about sound means. http://www.michaelchabon.com/Michael_Chabon/Bonus_Track_2.html

Thanks Howard for writing in…. Let us know what you think, in the comment section.

‘Work’ is a term that is gradually losing meaning, all the while that we are in an ever growing need of meaningful work.

While it has to be admitted that Freder was born with the silver spoon, he did eventually grow to show character. Perhaps it is only fitting that the liberation of the workman arises from the very nest of the tyrant. Mediation, at best, combines the best of both worlds.

This is not rock music.

Listen here. Download here. Contact here.

Mathew Ingram reported today on the demise of Dutch record label Sellaband. Although stories of recording studios struggling to pay their bills or going out of business are certainly not uncommon these days, what’s interesting about Sellaband is that this news comes less than two years after the label acquired $5 million in venture capital funding, and a few months after landing hip hop legends Public Enemy.

What set Sellaband apart from other labels was it’s “crowdfunding” business model where fans would pay to “sponsor” an artist’s upcoming album which Sellaband would only produce once the artist gathered $50,000 in sponsorship. In return,  fans would get a copy of the album (if the artist reached the goal) and a share in the album’s revenues.

Here is what Public Enemy member Chuck D had to say about the model just three months ago:

Sellaband is the new frontier and will completely redefine the way the music business operates

Unfortunately, it did not turn out this way and Sellaband went through its VC funding in a manner not seen since the late-90s. This should, however, have come as no surprise to anyone paying attention to recent trends in music distribution experimentation.

What’s been consistently proven over and over again is that these “crowdfunding” models always fail to attract the critical mass necessary for a sustainable business.  Radiohead found out a couple years ago that when you ask fans to “pay what they want”, what they want to pay is just a little over $2 for your album; definitely not sustainable unless you can keep funding new albums with profits from albums released under an established record label.

Trent Reznor also regretted going with the “pay what you want” model for music distribution:

I naively thought at that time that if you gave the public the choice of do the right thing or not, I thought people would actually do it. Five bucks for an album? And I found that most people, no, they really don’t want to do that. I think I laughed about that and got shit-canned by everybody for whining about wanting to get paid for work that I did. The steps we’ve taken since then, I think, have gotten closer to something that approaches a business model. It doesn’t work for bands that nobody knows yet.

Like Radiohead, Reznor can at least afford such experiments in digital music distribution (thanks to their traditional labels). I don’t think the same can be said of all the investors, fans and artists who put time and money into Sellaband.