Price: FREE
Product Link: here
Rating: 4.5 bloops

Just as with movies and music, music production has it’s classics as well. When you think classic console you think Neve. When you think classic compressor LA-2A comes to mind. When you think classic sampler Fairlight is right there. And, when you think “classic really cool off the wall free plugins”, Destroy FX comes to mind.

Part of the smartelectronix.com software development coalition, the super destroy fx
cover a wide range of effects, including delay & pitch shifing the likes of which you have never experienced before in transverb (used in the classic OS2 track on Hobby Industries) to the bit crushing and drop-frame-non-dithering sample rate reductions of geometer. See screen shots below.

Geometer

Geometer ripping up some sound making it happier. Similar Pluggo’s Fragulator yet different at the same time. Something like the difference between Coke and Pepsi yet not at all.

Transverb

Pitch shifting delay goodness with randomize and “tomsound”. This is one of those plugins that makes a wide variety of sounds. When running vocals through it it can make you sound like Darth Vader or Alvin and the Chipmunks, both on a 10 sleepless caffeine binge of course. Sort of like a tape delay that does massive 12 octave pitch shifting with a really long playback loop, but at the same time not at all. This seems to be a common theme here.

*Tip* - When using on an EFX send be sure to turn the “dry mix” slider all the way down. There really is no need to have the dry signal coming through on the EFX buss.

Both of these fine free plugins are available as AU and VST for Macintosh and as VST for the good ole PC.

The UK’s Burial has been making waves and receiving raves (pun intended) with his past 2 release, but has tended to stay a recluse and not expose himself to too much publicity.

In this interview he discusses growing up in the UK in a “post-rave” society, pitched up (and down) vocals, sampling video games for drum sounds and “UK Garage”.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/347/

“With CD sales continuing to fall, record labels realize they must reinvent themselves or perish.“

It sounds like the same song that has been being sung for a while. We’ve all heard it, we’ve seen the headlines for years, but the truth of the matter is that it is really happening. The old paradigm of Artist -> Manager -> Label -> Distributer -> Media Outlet -> Consumer is breaking down. It is easier than ever for fans to get the music of their favorite artists, at little to no cost. The concept of “free” has unfortunately migrated to “entitlement” and it is causing major problems. People don’t feel the need to pay for the music they want to listen to anymore. New methods need to be devised to generate income from music for artists, and soon.

RCRDLBL.COM is one of these new examples. Their methodology is something that may sound familiar — Take an established artist that has some cred and show their work along side an up and coming artist for a mutually beneficial result. What is new here is that this isn’t an event, or a festival, but an actual business, a meta record label housed in a BLOG format. Very interesting. Couple all of that with a keen business sense, good connections, a star maker (Josh Deutsch) and the internet and you have something called RCRDLBL.COM. This new business model could potentially help get the music industry moving in the “right” direction.

Or could it?

Some quick Googling sheds some light into the cooperate machine behind this [seemingly] new paradigm — coupling emerging and established artists to the benefit of all parties involved. This idea, while (relatively) new in the music industry has been the way that the fine art and underground music communities have been promoting and raising awareness of new talent in their respective universes for eons. Ars Electronica, Mutek, and the DEMF are just a few examples of organizations that function with this methodology.

The major player in this venture is Josh Deutsch, the founder of Downtown Records. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, who is Downtown Records? Well, remember Gnarls Barkley? Downtown Records. Other artists on Downtown are Spank Rock, Mos Def and Justice. Big dawgs. Do a little Wikipedia action on Downtown to get the skinny. In short, Downtown is jointly distributed by Warner Music and Atlantic Records. This isn’t some mom-and-pop record label, or a truly independent label for that matter. It is starting to look like a shake-and-bake venture for the big dogs.

Now, this Josh person. Who is he? To start with he is a “former Senior Vice President of A&R at Virgin Records. What’s up mr. bigdog-corporate-part-of-the-machine guy. Next he has ties to Warner and Atlantic. The site has major sponsorship from Puma, BMW, Nokia, Nikon, and Virgin Atlantic. Hmm. Is something going on here? Am I being a bit too cynicle? Perhaps, but, when you get “Big Record Labels” involved in music, things seem to get shadey real fast. On the surface this whole thing looks like a good and mutually beneficial endeavor for artists, labels, and for rcrdlbl, but I am concerned with the licensing contract. It isn’t on the site and I have no idea who gets what percentage of royalties.

So, if you choose to go into something like this take a deep look into the contracts before jumping on something that looks to be a good thing. It is true that this site and this idea could help artists get noticed and press, but as with all business dealings, you always need to read the fine-print before you sign.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/27/technology/leonard_downtown.fortune/index.htm

These two articles were published back in December of 2007 on Wired.com and are even better the second time around. Thom Yorke of Radiohead talks about why Radiohead decided to release “In Rainbows” as they did, and David Byrne talks about survival in this new age of the music industry. Both are absolutely fascinating reads and point a spotlight on these topics, which is starting to get a lot of attention on this (transelectronic.net) site.

Wired.com | Issue 16.01: David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke?currentPage=all

Wired.com | Issue 16.01:David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all

I just came across an amazing article in Wired Magazine entitled “FREE! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” by Chris Anderson. Anderson starts with an old-world example of how Gillette started out by giving away their product (the razor handle with only a few blades) in order to eventually sell more blades and build the empire that is Gillette.

He takes that example and shows how modern-day companies like Google, Flickr, or YouTube are taking this very same idea and running their entire business based on providing free services. Of course not everything on these sites is free for everyone — Google has Ad Words that people pay for, YouTube has premium channels that companies pay for, and Flickr has it’s “Pro” account that also generates revenue, but the bottom line in all of these examples is that you give something away and are able to charge someone else to pay for what you give to the people for free.

Anderson talks about how free impacts the Movie Industry, how we are living in a world of Digital Waste, how the difference between something that costs $0.01 and $0.00 is huge, a brief paragraph concerning Zero margin cost (distributing digital music files) amongst may other ideas.

While I don’t have any concrete ideas about how this directly relates to solving the issues with music distribution and getting artists payed for their work, I do know that free is the future for information and content on the web, and that there is a viable platform here to be created for artists and musicians to benefit in some way from the models of Gillette and Google.

It is a long article, so do as I do: print it out and take a little break from the daily grind. Fill your brain with some good ole knowledge whilst you take a break from the daily grind of taking care of the things in your life that are not free.

Link to Wired article here: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

Pole, of ~scape fame, has made a name for himself with his deep and dubby minimal productions. Never one to be satisfied, for some of his recent performances he put a live band together to play his material. I saw him in 2006 at Mutek and it was stunning.This week over at Resident Advisor he put together for them an amazing mix of dub, both old and new. A truly fantastic listen.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=91

So, if you are anything like I am, you know enough about what you are doing on your computer that when you change a file extension name you intend to do it. In Mac OS X, around 10.2 (don’t quote me on this) Apple introduced a “fix” to the OS where it asks you *every time* you change a file extension if you really want to do it. I, like many of you, was so annoyed with this “feature”. Yes, they had a reason for doing it. Yes, they (Apple that is) meant to solve a security risk by adding it, but for most (if not all) of us it was more of a burden than a blessing.Well, fret no more my little dumplings.With Mac OS 10.5, Apple finally realized that people are not as careless as they had previously thought and now have an option to disable this feature. Here is how to use it.While in the finder, select the “Finder” drop down menu than select the “Preferences…” option.

Select the “Advanced” tab and you will see an option for “Show warning before changing file extension”.

Un-check that box and VIOLA! No more annoying confirmations!

Amazing.

I hope this makes you as happy as it made me.

Line 6 FM4 Digital Filter Modeler

Price: $249.99
Product link: here
Site Link: here
Rating: 1.5 Bloops

On the surface this looks like an amazing piece of gear - filer modeling, bass synth, classic wa-wa sounds, all in one box. And, based on how good the delay modeler is you would think that this piece would be great, right? And being that line 6 has made a name for themselves for really great emulation hardware from the pod series you’d think that this too would be aces, right? Well, unfortunately, things are not as they appear.I brought the FM4 into the studio and put it through a battery of tests, everything from the bass synth, to the mu-tron emulation and even the “cool sci-fi” effects and everything sound the same - thin, digital, nasil - obviously not what it is supposed to be. I couldn’t even tell the difference between several of the effect settings. I checked my wires, switched the switches, tried the presets, and nope. It wasn’t me or my gear, this thing just sounds whack. Oh well, you win some and you loose some. Thankfully Guitar Center has an amazing return policy and I can bring it back tomorrow. Then it is off to 30th Street Guitars and Rogue Music for some really (hopefully) satisfying and cool hardware effects.The bottom line is that while Line 6 makes some really great gear, this unfortunately, does not fall into that category.