Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 14:45:33 -0500 From: Andrew Chalfen To: audities@smoe.org Subject: Re: Owsley-related Message-ID: <5.1.2.1.2.20030220142515.012e4168@pobox.upenn.edu> kcbowman@oaklandnet.com wrote: >"...basically, for the first time in the pop era, a musician can create >recordings for mass consumption with pretty much ZERO budget. Record >tracks on a home computer, make some mp3's, post 'em on a website, and >practically anyone in the whole universe has access to them." >>Well, true except for the mass consumption part. By mass consumption, I mean that anyone, anywhere, anytime can have access to one's mp3 simply by virtue of having a computer, a modem/DSL/T1, and an mp3 player. >>It's easy enough to make a home recording and slap in up on a webpage, but if you are a rock band and you want to make something sound nice and large and "radio-ready" like everyone's favorites like Weezer or Cotton Matther or Jellyfish or whatever, you're either going to need over a hundred thousand dollars worth of your own recording gear or else go to a place that does: a decent recording studio with an engineer or producer who knows how to get a great recording of a great performance. I never said anything about quality. If Andy Partridge recordied something on a Fisher Price cassette tape recorder, I would be at the very least interested in hearing it. The 1994-era GbV recordings rank as some of my very favorite recordings of all time, and they were recorded on a beat up cassette 4-track. I am definitely guilty of gear lust in my own studio, and am always looking to improve the sounds I get. But even if I only had a beat up PC with a $30 Radio Shack mic and a bootlegged copy of CoolEdit pro, I'd certainly continue to record songs and post 'em. >>What is going to lead people who aren't fanboys and fangirls like ourselves to check out your mp3? Nothing at all. But it's there for someone to find if they stumble across it. Note that I never said anything about promotion or sales or pop music careerdom...Just the fact that a guy in Bosnia (or girl in Tokyo) has the *ability* to have a copy of a recording by a guy from Binghamton (or Girl in Temecula), with basically no production or manufacturing cost. Not possible in 1993 or really even in 1997 - back then cassette, CD or vinyl copies would have to have been manufactured... mailing and shipping costs would have been incurred. Now, one could type "Our band sounds like Saga and Rush" into Google with the prospect of being two clicks away from downloading a track by a Saga-esque, Rush-like band for free...It'll probably suck, but maybe, just maybe, it won't...at least it cost you nothing. >>Well, promotion, which leads to reviews and airplay. Who said anything about airplay? >>Even then, no guarantees. Getting on the radar of public consciousness costs money. Who said anything about doing anything more than creating a recording and posting it for whomever finds it? >>your "ZERO budget" statement is way misleading. Yes, it costs money to promote a recording. Yes, it costs money to sound like Jimmy Eats World (or whatever "radio-ready" band). But one can make a recording of *reasonable fidelity* using gear which costs next to nothing.