I've just released a new Nprogram single entitled "Sunshine," and it's available at iTunes. It's a mid tempo R&B/Pop groove that kind of fits the season. The song is also available at Amazon, Rhapsody and Spotify. You can also hear the song by clicking the the Tunecore Widget to the right or the one below. A thirty sec video clip of "Sunshine," can bee seen at YouTube.
Also, I now have mobile apps for both Nprogram and John Hughley that are available for free from Reverbnation. Thanks for listening.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Audiam
I distribute my music through Tunecore, the online digital distribution company that was founded by Jeff Price and Peter Wells. Last year Price and Wells were relived of their duties and summarily dismissed. I was surprised to hear about this move. I know that conflicts can happen with a publicly held company that might find the company's founder/s looking for work, but these guys seemed to have set a new standard for independent music services. Unfortunately, after all this time, the reason for their dismissal remains a mystery.
On June 12th 2013 , Jeff Price and Peter Wells announced their return to the web with an all new company called Audiam. The goal of Audiam is to give independent artists the means to collect money from having their videos played on YouTube. Price and Wells estimate that half of the 25 billion videos posted to YouTube are bringing in about 1.3 billion in advertising dollars a year. Audiam will provide a system to get ad dollars for the other 12.5 billion videos.
The service is currently in beta and is only providing access to those living outside of the US, but Price and Wells expect it to go live sometime early this summer. There's no up front cost to use Audiam, just a flat 25% administration fee. Artists can upload as many songs as they want. Audiam will find videos that use those artists songs and authorize YouTube to place ads on them, and then administer the artists' share.
Audiam will also supply information to YouTube that will allow them to auto - generate buy links to iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, for placement underneath each video.
Sounds to me as if Price and Wells may be on to something. Up until now most independent artists have not had access to money from views of their videos on YouTube. Clearly, the amount of money that will reach most users of Audiam will probably not be quite as much as major label artists, but at least it will be money that these artist deserve but weren't able to get. I think, and this is just my opinion, that this is definitely something worth looking into.
On June 12th 2013 , Jeff Price and Peter Wells announced their return to the web with an all new company called Audiam. The goal of Audiam is to give independent artists the means to collect money from having their videos played on YouTube. Price and Wells estimate that half of the 25 billion videos posted to YouTube are bringing in about 1.3 billion in advertising dollars a year. Audiam will provide a system to get ad dollars for the other 12.5 billion videos.
The service is currently in beta and is only providing access to those living outside of the US, but Price and Wells expect it to go live sometime early this summer. There's no up front cost to use Audiam, just a flat 25% administration fee. Artists can upload as many songs as they want. Audiam will find videos that use those artists songs and authorize YouTube to place ads on them, and then administer the artists' share.
Audiam will also supply information to YouTube that will allow them to auto - generate buy links to iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, for placement underneath each video.
Sounds to me as if Price and Wells may be on to something. Up until now most independent artists have not had access to money from views of their videos on YouTube. Clearly, the amount of money that will reach most users of Audiam will probably not be quite as much as major label artists, but at least it will be money that these artist deserve but weren't able to get. I think, and this is just my opinion, that this is definitely something worth looking into.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Let's Do It Again
If you been accessing Classic MySpace,then you've no don't noticed that it doesn't exist anymore. Yep, everything from the old MySpace is gone. As of Wednesday, the New Myspace is the only Myspace you can access. But, I don't have a problem with that.
In fact, while the New Myspace was in beta, I got a chance to add or convert just about anything from the old Myspace that I might have wanted. In reality and in all fairness, that was actually zilch. I liked the look and feel of the New Myspace so much that I looked at it as a whole new website.
The launch of the New Myspace brings along with it a new app for iPhone users, adding the mobile experience that some felt had been missing. The app is free and includes an ad supported radio feature called, My Radio, that builds a station based on user input. Each user has his/her own station which that can programmed with the music that they like or feel that their friends or fans might like. And the app also includes a GIf creator.
The focus of the New Myspace is music and the people who love it. When you log on, the first thing that you notice is that those pesky ad filled pages have been replaced by large thumbnails of your friends/ fans and what they have chosen to share. That, I think, is enough in itself to get get new users into what the site has to offer.
The New Myspace is the website that everyone has talked about for a very long time. The only question is, is whether those of us hungry for the unification of music and social networking will not only go and see what is going on there, but go there ready and willing to participate in the experience that they've all been waiting for.
In fact, while the New Myspace was in beta, I got a chance to add or convert just about anything from the old Myspace that I might have wanted. In reality and in all fairness, that was actually zilch. I liked the look and feel of the New Myspace so much that I looked at it as a whole new website.
The launch of the New Myspace brings along with it a new app for iPhone users, adding the mobile experience that some felt had been missing. The app is free and includes an ad supported radio feature called, My Radio, that builds a station based on user input. Each user has his/her own station which that can programmed with the music that they like or feel that their friends or fans might like. And the app also includes a GIf creator.
The focus of the New Myspace is music and the people who love it. When you log on, the first thing that you notice is that those pesky ad filled pages have been replaced by large thumbnails of your friends/ fans and what they have chosen to share. That, I think, is enough in itself to get get new users into what the site has to offer.
The New Myspace is the website that everyone has talked about for a very long time. The only question is, is whether those of us hungry for the unification of music and social networking will not only go and see what is going on there, but go there ready and willing to participate in the experience that they've all been waiting for.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Big Squeeze
Like most of us, when I listen to recorded music I usually don't give a thought to why the music I hear, sounds so good.
When you go to a concert or live performance, you usually come away thinking that the show had a great sound or a bad sound based on whether or not the band's FOH (front of house) used compression and EQ. The best live sound is most likely derived from using as little signal processing as possible. The engineer or FOH may deem it necessary to recreate a certain sound or effect from a recorded single or album. The compression and EQ,used during a live show will be mostly on vocals. But, a recorded track is another story all together.
Often, there's so much going on, on a recorded track you have to use compression in order to get a cohesive sound. Compressing a sound alters it's dynamic range. It can make a loud sound softer or a soft sound louder. When it's used in audio recording, compression can even the volume level of each sound, allowing them all to fit together into a mix.
Some compressors have a certain unique quality that can add a coloration to your sound that's actually desirable and many that are used in today's recordings are chosen specifically for that reason. However, when compression is over used, the result can be such a loss of signal dynamics that EQ, or equalization must then be used to bring back what has been squeezed out.
Equalization provides the ability to restore a sound's natural quality by the raising or lowering of specific frequencies. It's like turning up the volume without using gain or attenuation. This works especially well during mastering. When it's clear that a track has been compressed and limited heavily, EQ is used in order to raise the over all volume. This is when boosting or cutting certain frequencies can bring back a sense of the songs character.
Compression and equalization brought together in just the right amounts or used judiciously will not only make a track sound vibrant and fresh, but if they are done so, you will never even know they've been used.
When you go to a concert or live performance, you usually come away thinking that the show had a great sound or a bad sound based on whether or not the band's FOH (front of house) used compression and EQ. The best live sound is most likely derived from using as little signal processing as possible. The engineer or FOH may deem it necessary to recreate a certain sound or effect from a recorded single or album. The compression and EQ,used during a live show will be mostly on vocals. But, a recorded track is another story all together.
Often, there's so much going on, on a recorded track you have to use compression in order to get a cohesive sound. Compressing a sound alters it's dynamic range. It can make a loud sound softer or a soft sound louder. When it's used in audio recording, compression can even the volume level of each sound, allowing them all to fit together into a mix.
Some compressors have a certain unique quality that can add a coloration to your sound that's actually desirable and many that are used in today's recordings are chosen specifically for that reason. However, when compression is over used, the result can be such a loss of signal dynamics that EQ, or equalization must then be used to bring back what has been squeezed out.
Equalization provides the ability to restore a sound's natural quality by the raising or lowering of specific frequencies. It's like turning up the volume without using gain or attenuation. This works especially well during mastering. When it's clear that a track has been compressed and limited heavily, EQ is used in order to raise the over all volume. This is when boosting or cutting certain frequencies can bring back a sense of the songs character.
Compression and equalization brought together in just the right amounts or used judiciously will not only make a track sound vibrant and fresh, but if they are done so, you will never even know they've been used.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Gently Down The Stream
After spending the last ten years dominating the digital download market, Apple is now looking to follow that up with it's own hybrid music streaming service. Apple intends to take on Pandora and Google for the rights to be the number one streaming music service with what bloggers and tech writers have dubbed iRadio.
So far Apple has managed to sign a deal with Universal, which is the world largest recording company, and on June 2nd they signed an agreement with Warner, while Sony is still holding out over the so called," song skipping," feature. There's also some questions about the payment of royalty advances to some of the major artist on those respective labels. This, however is what enabled Google Play to get it's streaming service up and running so quickly.
iRadio is said to have a feature set that will offer an on demand function, and like Pandora, listeners would be able to rewind or skip a song entirely after listening to a small snippet. At this point it's believed that Apple intends to at least start iRadio as a free service and because of that, many industry insider see it as a "boon," for the music industry.
Apple had hoped to launch iRadio at this summer's Worldwide Developers Conference. I think, and this is just my opinion, that Apple's, "music everyday," commercials are a prelude to things to come. Getting consumers ready for the new streaming service that will no doubt figure prominently as part of iPhone, as well as iPad promotions.
All in all, iRadio sounds like a good thing to me, just like Pandora did, before they began looking to cut their royalty payments to artist. Which brings up the question of whether iRadio will invite independent artists to the table as they did with iTunes. The way I see it, it couldn't hurt. Bringing in the independent artists would mean more variety. More variety would mean a greater selection and a larger audience. Which, might serve to make iRadio, revolutionary.
So far Apple has managed to sign a deal with Universal, which is the world largest recording company, and on June 2nd they signed an agreement with Warner, while Sony is still holding out over the so called," song skipping," feature. There's also some questions about the payment of royalty advances to some of the major artist on those respective labels. This, however is what enabled Google Play to get it's streaming service up and running so quickly.
iRadio is said to have a feature set that will offer an on demand function, and like Pandora, listeners would be able to rewind or skip a song entirely after listening to a small snippet. At this point it's believed that Apple intends to at least start iRadio as a free service and because of that, many industry insider see it as a "boon," for the music industry.
Apple had hoped to launch iRadio at this summer's Worldwide Developers Conference. I think, and this is just my opinion, that Apple's, "music everyday," commercials are a prelude to things to come. Getting consumers ready for the new streaming service that will no doubt figure prominently as part of iPhone, as well as iPad promotions.
All in all, iRadio sounds like a good thing to me, just like Pandora did, before they began looking to cut their royalty payments to artist. Which brings up the question of whether iRadio will invite independent artists to the table as they did with iTunes. The way I see it, it couldn't hurt. Bringing in the independent artists would mean more variety. More variety would mean a greater selection and a larger audience. Which, might serve to make iRadio, revolutionary.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
What's In A Name?
A few years ago, I think just after the release of Windows 98 SE, the word that began to get passed around was, when ever Microsoft issues a new operating system, "always wait for service pack 1." It wasn't long after that, that I found that this was not a bad idea.
Windows 8 is said, at least by Microsoft, to be doing well. In fact, they say that 100 million licenses have been sold so far. However, over all sales for PC s have been slumping and it's being reasoned that Windows 8 is the culprit.
In order to keep pace with Apple, and make a connection with smart phone and tablet users, Windows 8 was designed to use apps on it's start screen. It's Metro Screen is laid out with large tiles that are apps that allow the user to use touch screen technology to access files and programs. This is fine if your computer has a touch screen, but if you're running Windows 8 on a slightly older computer, things can be a little confusing. In fact, that appears to be what has been happening.
Many Windows 8 users were disappointed to discover that the desktop and the start button were not readily available upon boot up. A start menu has replaced the start button and the desktop is accessed by clicking or touching the desktop tile. However, at some point when trying to use certain apps, you end up back on the Metro Screen.
After listening to many complaints from users, and seeing that businesses have been slow to adopt Windows 8, an update has been planned for release later this year. Code name Windows Blue, it will serve as a true update as opposed to a service pack release and will be made available as Windows 8.1.
With the release of Windows 8.1, there is speculation that users may be given the option to to boot directly to the desktop, and the start button may also make a return. However, Microsoft has stated that they are not yet ready to consider the start screen of Windows 8 a failure. They admit that there is a learning curve, but go on to say that Windows 8 users report that they enjoy using the new interface.
I'd be willing to bet that even if the boot to desktop option and the start button don't make an appearance in this next release, they may return at some point in the future. They may come possibly as add ons that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, as opposed to third parties that are already doing so. If Microsoft can address the user account controls problem of Windows Vista, surely they can give their users back their desktop and start button.
Windows 8 is said, at least by Microsoft, to be doing well. In fact, they say that 100 million licenses have been sold so far. However, over all sales for PC s have been slumping and it's being reasoned that Windows 8 is the culprit.
In order to keep pace with Apple, and make a connection with smart phone and tablet users, Windows 8 was designed to use apps on it's start screen. It's Metro Screen is laid out with large tiles that are apps that allow the user to use touch screen technology to access files and programs. This is fine if your computer has a touch screen, but if you're running Windows 8 on a slightly older computer, things can be a little confusing. In fact, that appears to be what has been happening.
Many Windows 8 users were disappointed to discover that the desktop and the start button were not readily available upon boot up. A start menu has replaced the start button and the desktop is accessed by clicking or touching the desktop tile. However, at some point when trying to use certain apps, you end up back on the Metro Screen.
After listening to many complaints from users, and seeing that businesses have been slow to adopt Windows 8, an update has been planned for release later this year. Code name Windows Blue, it will serve as a true update as opposed to a service pack release and will be made available as Windows 8.1.
With the release of Windows 8.1, there is speculation that users may be given the option to to boot directly to the desktop, and the start button may also make a return. However, Microsoft has stated that they are not yet ready to consider the start screen of Windows 8 a failure. They admit that there is a learning curve, but go on to say that Windows 8 users report that they enjoy using the new interface.
I'd be willing to bet that even if the boot to desktop option and the start button don't make an appearance in this next release, they may return at some point in the future. They may come possibly as add ons that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, as opposed to third parties that are already doing so. If Microsoft can address the user account controls problem of Windows Vista, surely they can give their users back their desktop and start button.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Tunguska
On June 30th 1908 a powerful explosion shook the region of Russia know as Siberia, near Tunguska The force of the blast was 1000 times more powerful than that of the Hiroshima bomb, registering a 5 on the Reciter scale, and leveling an estimated 80 million trees. Many questions have been raised over the years as to what may have been the cause of this great event. On April 29th 2013, Russian scientist, Dr, Andrei Zlobin submitted a paper that announced that he had obtained the first evidence of a possible impactor.
In 1988, Dr. Zlobin went on an expedition to the Tunguska impact site. It was there that he found about 100 rocks that appeared to be meteorite fragments at the bottom of the Khushmo River's shoal. However, Dr. Zlobin didn't examine his find until 20 years later in 2008. When he finally examined the stones he found three which showed clear signs of melting and regmalypts, or thumb like impressions on their surface. These impressions are what are found on meteorites and are caused by ablation as a hot meteor or asteroid falls through the earth's atmosphere at high velocity. Using tree ring evidence to estimate the heat of the blast, Dr. Zlobin determined that the heat was was not hot enough to melt rocks or stones already on the ground. Therefore, he concluded that the stones were most likely fragments of whatever had fallen to Earth over Tunguska.
Dr. Zlobin has gone on to say, that a detailed chemical analysis has not yet been done, so the nature of the body that fell will take a little more time before it is known. However, Dr. Zlobin believes that it could have been a comet because comets often have a nucleus that contains rock fragments. He has estimated the density of the impactor to be 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter which is the same as Halley's comet.
While it's clear that there is still more work to be done in order to confirm that the stones came from space, the fact that they have been preliminarily identified as remnants of a possible and/or a probable impactor, may help to shed some light on what caused the explosion. It may also help in determining what type of damage we could expect in any future collisions, and what our chances are for surviving such events.
Many near Earth objects are now being monitored and a vigil is being kept in order to determine if any of those object might someday be on a collision course with the Earth. As they say, it's not a question of if, it's matter of when.
In 1988, Dr. Zlobin went on an expedition to the Tunguska impact site. It was there that he found about 100 rocks that appeared to be meteorite fragments at the bottom of the Khushmo River's shoal. However, Dr. Zlobin didn't examine his find until 20 years later in 2008. When he finally examined the stones he found three which showed clear signs of melting and regmalypts, or thumb like impressions on their surface. These impressions are what are found on meteorites and are caused by ablation as a hot meteor or asteroid falls through the earth's atmosphere at high velocity. Using tree ring evidence to estimate the heat of the blast, Dr. Zlobin determined that the heat was was not hot enough to melt rocks or stones already on the ground. Therefore, he concluded that the stones were most likely fragments of whatever had fallen to Earth over Tunguska.
Dr. Zlobin has gone on to say, that a detailed chemical analysis has not yet been done, so the nature of the body that fell will take a little more time before it is known. However, Dr. Zlobin believes that it could have been a comet because comets often have a nucleus that contains rock fragments. He has estimated the density of the impactor to be 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter which is the same as Halley's comet.
While it's clear that there is still more work to be done in order to confirm that the stones came from space, the fact that they have been preliminarily identified as remnants of a possible and/or a probable impactor, may help to shed some light on what caused the explosion. It may also help in determining what type of damage we could expect in any future collisions, and what our chances are for surviving such events.
Many near Earth objects are now being monitored and a vigil is being kept in order to determine if any of those object might someday be on a collision course with the Earth. As they say, it's not a question of if, it's matter of when.
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