Ableton Forum

leonard wrote:

ethios4 wrote: Digital music is a grey area. If you walk into a store and steal beer, you're stealing something physical and unique. If you steal music you are only replicating data...nothing physical is taken. What about buying used CDs? You're paying for the physical copy, and yet the artist/label gets nothing at all. It gets complicated to sort out...

no, but i'd quite happily take a carton of beer from some guy who was offering it for free from his garage, even if he got it from some guy who robbed a shipping crate.

Whew, these moral mazes have some tricky twists!

ethios4 wrote:

leonard wrote:

ethios4 wrote: Digital music is a grey area. If you walk into a store and steal beer, you're stealing something physical and unique. If you steal music you are only replicating data...nothing physical is taken. What about buying used CDs? You're paying for the physical copy, and yet the artist/label gets nothing at all. It gets complicated to sort out...

no, but i'd quite happily take a carton of beer from some guy who was offering it for free from his garage, even if he got it from some guy who robbed a shipping crate.

Whew, these moral mazes have some tricky twists!

I gave up ranting that people should buy music. it's too late, the stores are all looted, it's open season. whichever artists and record labels that are so dumb as to not modify their income schemes at this point should probably be euthanized or at the very least sterilized.

I still don't know how to download illegal music. (I know, I can ask google.)

ethios4 wrote:

leonard wrote:

ethios4 wrote: Digital music is a grey area. If you walk into a store and steal beer, you're stealing something physical and unique. If you steal music you are only replicating data...nothing physical is taken. What about buying used CDs? You're paying for the physical copy, and yet the artist/label gets nothing at all. It gets complicated to sort out...

no, but i'd quite happily take a carton of beer from some guy who was offering it for free from his garage, even if he got it from some guy who robbed a shipping crate.

Whew, these moral mazes have some tricky twists!

sure it is, but i think the analogy of breaking into a shop and stealing a tv or something is way off the p2p file sharing networks. for the analogy to work, each individual must hack into a server and steal whatever proprietary data is on there. p2p networks just aren't like that. does anyone rip a cd they borrow from a mate? what of some friend on the other side of the world who emails you a link to a ftp site they uploaded a copy of this new cd they bought they want you to check out? ever hook up a turntable to a recorder and rip some vinyl from a mate? it simply isn't the same.

Tone Deft wrote:
I still don't know how to download illegal music. (I know, I can ask google.)

Its easy, you just type the name of the band into the torrent box instead of the she-male porn youre usually looking for.

ethios4 wrote:

leonard wrote:

ethios4 wrote: Digital music is a grey area. If you walk into a store and steal beer, you're stealing something physical and unique. If you steal music you are only replicating data...nothing physical is taken. What about buying used CDs? You're paying for the physical copy, and yet the artist/label gets nothing at all. It gets complicated to sort out...

no, but i'd quite happily take a carton of beer from some guy who was offering it for free from his garage, even if he got it from some guy who robbed a shipping crate.

Whew, these moral mazes have some tricky twists!

Want some more moral confusion?
Here in austria the law states that you are allowd to make copies for private use. This includes recording songs from the CD your friends bought. If you buy an empty cassette - and since the beginning of this year also harddrives/usb sticks etc. - a part of the money goes to the AKM (our version of GEMA/RIAA). So now one has to differentiate to what is a personal copy...? Torrent...ok thats not personal. But now in the days of mass internet socialising, is getting a copy from someone who I've talked to hours on end, for years on the internet without meeting them in person (because they live on the other end of the world), less personal than borrowing the CD from a colleague at work, to who I say "Hi, How you doing?" "Fine!" once per day and little more...

One thing that confuses me is that people think nothing of paying £2 for a ring tone. It just goes to show how shallow people can be - They're more interested in amusing themselves with the latest gadget than they are in the actual music.

Instead of a disk with artwork on the box, sell a download or a memory stick and a mobile phone/ipod cover with your artwork on.

were the cost of a track 10 pence (or whatever the equivalent is in euro's or dollars), I think most people would feel too pathetically tight not to pay for a download.

We go on about cheapening music because of the large amount there is to choose from (95% dross too) but the cost of this dross isn't commensurate with the quality of the work. So yeah, sure a really creative and original artist should charge more but a beginner with only a modicum of talent shouldn't expect to get rich on the sales of their rather average music.

Well, the problem there is that 'rather average' is subjective. one mans dross is another mans ear candy.
I would dread a day when music is valued simply on the production quality, or perception thereof. That ain't music, although I do accept it goes hand in hand with the bleepy blop music industry, production snobbery is rife in electronic music, maybe rightly so. but not sure it separates the average from the great in terms of music.

Would we say Robert Johnson singing drunkenly and playing an acoustic guitar is worth less becasue he didn't have access to Waves plug-ins?

Music is good if the listener thinks it is good.

'Pretty Lights' is the future of the industry IMO.

Remove all this bollocks by giving your music away for free and make money from your live gigs. If you're good enough, you will. If you're not and people don't enjoy what you do, do something else or change your music.

simples.

UKRuss wrote:Well, the problem there is that 'rather average' is subjective. one mans dross is another mans ear candy.
I would dread a day when music is valued simply on the production quality, or perception thereof. That ain't music, although I do accept it goes hand in hand with the bleepy blop music industry, production snobbery is rife in electronic music, maybe rightly so. but not sure it separates the average from the great in terms of music.

Would we say Robert Johnson singing drunkenly and playing an acoustic guitar is worth less becasue he didn't have access to Waves plug-ins?

Music is good if the listener thinks it is good.

'Pretty Lights' is the future of the industry IMO.

Remove all this bollocks by giving your music away for free and make money from your live gigs. If you're good enough, you will. If you're not and people don't enjoy what you do, do something else or change your music.

simples.

sure. i agree that alot of electronic music produced these days is quite average. certainly nothing i'd rather spend my bandwidth on, let alone what little money i have. however, i'm quite confident that reducing modern electronic music, good electronic music that is, to "bleepy bloop" generalities tells me you don't fully grasp what algorithms and mathematical concepts in general to digital noise can produce. ok, case in point. i've been listening to autechre for years. loved most everything they did (quaristice was a bit of a let down though), no one else i heard even approached what they did. bleeps and bloops yes, but of a certain quality which could not be reproduced. until recently. i heard some music recently, as a result of this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbJWLMeH ... ture=email) which came close. bleeps and bloops to some maybe, but not just any. another point is if selling physical releases, the artist might consider some sort of hand made packaging. i "grew up" (late teens etc) buying works from the experimental music community. yeah, then it challenged my ideas of music, and tripping balls mixing some found sound records to some drones elevated my perception of many things at the time. point is many of these releases hand hand made packaging, hand printed silk screens, hand made record covers, even one record i have came with a zootrope, music is just found sound loops (has it's purpose), but the packaging made the actual process of buying worth while. i actually want to give my money to people like that. new example is moldovers release with a circuit board included. i didn't like his music but if i had money to spare i'd probably give him some for innovation. point is these things are the things which artists need to embrace in order to garner new "recruits" so to speak. another point is i read a thread on this board recently in which people said " i can't do without the randomise button". you seriously expect anyone to shell out money for your use of a function which someone else has developed, which you only have a very rudimentary understanding of? i've long been against using pure randomness and calling it music. indeed, even any randomness, or any purely algorithmically generated music should come from the person them selves, otherwise it's inauthentic noise, and certainly not something anyone should expect any other person to shell out money for..

UKRuss wrote:Well, the problem there is that 'rather average' is subjective. one mans dross is another mans ear candy.
I would dread a day when music is valued simply on the production quality, or perception thereof. That ain't music, although I do accept it goes hand in hand with the bleepy blop music industry, production snobbery is rife in electronic music, maybe rightly so. but not sure it separates the average from the great in terms of music.

Would we say Robert Johnson singing drunkenly and playing an acoustic guitar is worth less becasue he didn't have access to Waves plug-ins?

Music is good if the listener thinks it is good.

'Pretty Lights' is the future of the industry IMO.

Remove all this bollocks by giving your music away for free and make money from your live gigs. If you're good enough, you will. If you're not and people don't enjoy what you do, do something else or change your music.

simples.

Some great composers make lousy musicians (and vice versa)

Tone Deft wrote:
I still don't know how to download illegal music. (I know, I can ask google.)

People have sent me some unsolicited links, but I have never sat down and decided, "I want to steal some music." and searched for a specific track. Our quaint values don't really apply to the tweens.

UKRuss wrote:Would we say Robert Johnson singing drunkenly and playing an acoustic guitar is worth less becasue he didn't have access to Waves plug-ins?

Robert Johnson is some excellently produced old crackly bluesman recordings! No one these days can achieve the authenticity of his lo-fi-ness.

leonard wrote:[sure. i agree that alot of electronic music produced these days is quite average. certainly nothing i'd rather spend my bandwidth on, let alone what little money i have. however, i'm quite confident that reducing modern electronic music, good electronic music that is, to "bleepy bloop" generalities tells me you don't fully grasp what algorithms and mathematical concepts in general to digital noise can produce. ok, case in point. i've been listening to autechre for years. loved most everything they did (quaristice was a bit of a let down though), no one else i heard even approached what they did. bleeps and bloops yes, but of a certain quality which could not be reproduced. until recently. i heard some music recently, as a result of this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbJWLMeH ... ture=email) which came close. bleeps and bloops to some maybe, but not just any. another point is if selling physical releases, the artist might consider some sort of hand made packaging. i "grew up" (late teens etc) buying works from the experimental music community. yeah, then it challenged my ideas of music, and tripping balls mixing some found sound records to some drones elevated my perception of many things at the time. point is many of these releases hand hand made packaging, hand printed silk screens, hand made record covers, even one record i have came with a zootrope, music is just found sound loops (has it's purpose), but the packaging made the actual process of buying worth while. i actually want to give my money to people like that. new example is moldovers release with a circuit board included. i didn't like his music but if i had money to spare i'd probably give him some for innovation. point is these things are the things which artists need to embrace in order to garner new "recruits" so to speak. another point is i read a thread on this board recently in which people said " i can't do without the randomise button". you seriously expect anyone to shell out money for your use of a function which someone else has developed, which you only have a very rudimentary understanding of? i've long been against using pure randomness and calling it music. indeed, even any randomness, or any purely algorithmically generated music should come from the person them selves, otherwise it's inauthentic noise, and certainly not something anyone should expect any other person to shell out money for..

I like some bleep blop and in fact produce a lot myself. But what you're saying is still subjective, Autechre aint my thign at all, but to you they deserve major respect over and above other electronic musicians, for me not. I don't dig it therefore to me it might be bleep blop and pointless.

My point is, it's personal, but alot of the snobbery has come from electronic music production and chin stroking critics of the genre mentality. Girls dont care about algorithms and sidechaining compressors, they want to dance, for them Girls Aloud is good music.

know what I'm sayin?

so the only valid music is that which gets women to open their legs?
many women i know dig autechre, they (autechre) in and of themselves don't get them to put out,
and no, autechre don't deserve any more respect over and above anyone else, moderat being one example of a recent act which simply blew me away,

for real, you think the evolution of electronic music should revolve around what gets women to put out?
thats ridiculous.

for real, ....

leonard wrote: sure. i agree that alot of electronic music produced these days is quite average. certainly nothing i'd rather spend my bandwidth on, let alone what little money i have. however, i'm quite confident that reducing modern electronic music, good electronic music that is, to "bleepy bloop" generalities tells me you don't fully grasp what algorithms and mathematical concepts in general to digital noise can produce. ok, case in point. i've been listening to autechre for years. loved most everything they did (quaristice was a bit of a let down though), no one else i heard even approached what they did. bleeps and bloops yes, but of a certain quality which could not be reproduced. until recently. i heard some music recently, as a result of this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbJWLMeH ... ture=email) which came close. bleeps and bloops to some maybe, but not just any. another point is if selling physical releases, the artist might consider some sort of hand made packaging. i "grew up" (late teens etc) buying works from the experimental music community. yeah, then it challenged my ideas of music, and tripping balls mixing some found sound records to some drones elevated my perception of many things at the time. point is many of these releases hand hand made packaging, hand printed silk screens, hand made record covers, even one record i have came with a zootrope, music is just found sound loops (has it's purpose), but the packaging made the actual process of buying worth while. i actually want to give my money to people like that. new example is moldovers release with a circuit board included. i didn't like his music but if i had money to spare i'd probably give him some for innovation. point is these things are the things which artists need to embrace in order to garner new "recruits" so to speak. another point is i read a thread on this board recently in which people said " i can't do without the randomise button". you seriously expect anyone to shell out money for your use of a function which someone else has developed, which you only have a very rudimentary understanding of? i've long been against using pure randomness and calling it music. indeed, even any randomness, or any purely algorithmically generated music should come from the person them selves, otherwise it's inauthentic noise, and certainly not something anyone should expect any other person to shell out money for..

Interesting points Len...but fuck, get some paragraphs man!