I'd be happy to let folks have their way with my multi-tracks. Still, not
that many people are set up to do it. But with the advent of cheap, fast,
computers, decent affordable soundcards (the M-Audio audiophile 2496 is what
I use - around $150) and easy to use software (N-Track is fabulous and
around $60) it is possible. If a song has around 20 different tracks and is
around 4 minutes long you could get about one and a half songs on a cd with
uncompressed 16 bit 44.1 khz files so a complete album would take many discs
for the whole project. I personally wouldn't be interested in using
compressed files or God forbid, MP3s.

Bobby Sutliff


>
> Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 12:45:39 -0400
> From: "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: New Music Format -- MULTI-TRACK
> Message-ID: <BAY2-F52pTljBOh8s4K000003cd@hotmail.com>
>
> It has been done...both Todd Rungren and David Bowie have experimented
with
> this on releases in the last decade. I think it was considered a gimmick
at
> the time because music software for mixing (i.e. ProTools, Logic Audio, et
> al) was out of reach for the average home user. Cake Walk and Sound Forge
> got into the game for the home market, but Bowie and Runt were supplying a
> custom software -- which I imagine was what they were actually trying to
> sell, as opposed to the music itself.
>
> I would love to be able to do this with my artists but there's a lot of
> resistance. The main one is the butchering and bastardizing of the
original
> songs. Purist fans would probably stay pretty true to the intent of the
> songs with preferences to the amount of treble, bass, prominant
> instrumentation mixing, stereo vs. mono, etc.
>
> But what happens when some mixmeister decides that the tune needs an
> accordian solo or a new vocal provided by the daughter of the next door
> neighbor...or it becomes a parody. Even if you protect the software from
> pirating by limiting the useage to one specific computer, the results
can't
> be controlled. You'll have zillions of remixes being uploaded to
> peer-to-peer and proliferating beyond the reach of the artist's ability to
> recover any income from it.
>
> Personally, I'd love to see this happen. It would be fun trying to collect
> all the different remixes of a particular song or album. It might even
spur
> on sales of the software/album by the artists because people would want to
> compete in the remix sweeps....Hell, you could make a contest out of it
and
> thereby really ramp up the initial sales [I believe Runt made it possible
> for people to post THEIR remixes on a forum of some kind....maybe it was
> Bowie....don't recall].
>
> But, a few acts I've worked with have denied multi-track remixing for any
of
> their classic works because of poorly handled remixes by reputable
> producers....so convincing them that neophytes should be allowed the
> opportunity to reek havoc on their masterworks is going to be tough.
>
> I think we might be able to get former Klaatu man Dee Long to do something
> like this....he's software savvy and always on top of technology. I'll run
> this by him...
>
>
> Jaimie Vernon,
> President,
> Bullseye Records of Canada, Inc.
> http://www.bullseyecanada.com
> "Not Suing Our Customers Since 1985!"