Do I need a new business model?

I had an interesting discussion this week about the future of the music business. I suddenly envisioned that we might well be at the end of an era. Music listening for millions of years was something that was dependent of the moment that the music was performed. Then, by the end of the 19th century someone invents a tool with which music can be recorded. This invention leads to an age where people listen to music through wax roles, lacquer discs, vinyl discs, tapes, cd's. A giant industry develops and millions are made. And then, 100 years later (a very short time when regarded in perspective of human history) we are done with that. The internet eradicates within a decade the necessity to distribute music on discreet physical carriers. Music is distributed without effort. The business model of the music industry has vaporized.

So, we're back to the situation where a musician earns his bread by performing his music. Music labels are forced to reconsider their role, their position. They are no longer needed by the artist to distribute the music, their role as producer/financer of the recording process has become obsolete or at least risky in the light of the vanished distribution channels (upon which their business model was based).

It is time that we take a close look at what the listener actually is prepared to pay up for. Obviously the listener is not interested in high quality recordings. The massive consumption of mp3's in favour of CD's shows that the listener thinks mp3 quality is fine enough when given the choice between paying (CD) or (free/cheaper) download.

Sooooooh, what does this mean for me and my music? If small quality labels are unable to sell more than a few dozens of copies of releases of artists that used to sell more than a 1,000 where does that leave me? I guess my days of traditional releases are over. I am forced to take a new direction. My primary drive is to make music, but to have it heard by other people adds a lot to that.

I guess that, together with me, a lot of musicians will be forced back from the professional into the semi-professional level and from that into the amateur level. A lot of artists will quit producing music because they have to take care of a family.

Nevertheless: I am convinced that new forms of musical production and distribution will rise. Small, fast, low budget. At this very moment someone is already working on the right concept for the future.

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There it is!!

I've done it; I've put my small business online. As of yesterday all of the information about my services is public on the EARLabs site. If you go [ there ] you can read about the services that you can order from me. With a track record of 30 years of composition, 20 years of writing about music and 10 years as a consultant I thought it was time to combine this experience into a little business. The past six months I have actively acquired projects for other people and all of them were satisfied with the result. Take a look at the list of [ clients ]. All of these projects were for free, for the client to get to know me and for me to get a feeling of how things might work out.

In 2010 I have decided to step up to the next level: a proper catalogue of services and online information. The business model is still quite low profile. I have been thinking about prices and looked at what competitors in this market ask for their services. This put up a dilemma: I want to aim at artists and labels with a small budget but on the other hand I want to deliver professional quality. And no matter what: quality requires time and good tooling.

Contrary to what people in my environment advised me I have decided not to start with a list of rates, like so and so many euro's per minute of music and so many tracks, etcetera. I think this business is very personal and I want to leave it up to the client to pay a fair price.

What is a fair price?
A fair price is an amount of money that satisfies both our needs. It depends on what you can afford to pay and what you think is fair to compensate me for my work. Yes, that is  more difficult than just say : 5 euro's per minute of music for mastering or 15 euro's per minute for  a 24 track mixing job. I was juggling with figures until I thought "what the heck, this might leave out all these guys whose music I love and who have done a great job musically but are unable to pay".
If this still makes you feel uneasy, then please ask me what I think is a fair price.

So there we are and here I am, distance is not an issue
I live in The Netherlands. That can be far away, geographically. But that doesn't matter anymore. We can work out everything via the Internet. I have a large server space where we store all of the music stuff and where we exchange the original material and the edited material. We have free teleconference software which allows us to discuss the music real-time. I can let you follow exactly what I do when I do it.

I think this getting on the same level with each other is important. Although most times I can work at a fast tempo and deliver the master of a song within 24 hours, I really want to get on the right level with the client. Can you imagine that you have worked a couple of months and a total of 200 hours on a series of songs or compositions and then decide that you need the master within let's say a day? No, you want to hand over this stuff very carefully to someone you trust.

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Live by the end of February

After a very long hiatus I will be doing two solo live performances again. [ Extrapool ] in Nijmegen organizes an event to celebrate 25 years of Kapotte Muziek. Date is February 26. Two days later I will be in Amsterdam at the [ OCCII ] in Amsterdam to do something similar.

In the mean time: I have been doing a lot of mastering/remixing of works by Jeff Surak and Alexei Borisov. Noisy stuff that needed and received royal treatment.

The EARLabs.services will kick off by February 1st. There are several services. I have been in doubt about the business model, especially the financial aspect. I have decided that I will open shop on a 'pay what you think is reasonable' basis. Of course I have a price in mind, and I think I deliver professional quality services but I trust my clients. They will pay me what they can afford and think is reasonable. Plus, if I see/hear that someone is pulling my leg then I still have the right not to do perform.

My own work has been under cover for a while now.

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Too hot to handle

I browsed through my collection of half baked stuff today and stumbled upon this thingie. It was done early 2008 when I wanted to go back to my MS-10 and start working from that machine. Although I think this is an interesting half product I doubt it will ever make it as a part of an official release. So here's an unofficial release. I baptized it "Too Hot To Handle". The centre is formed by an impromptu with the Korg which is backed up by 3 parts of steady frequencies that yield interference.

download "Too Hot To Handle" [ here ]

EDIT: something went wrong with the upload. To make it up I give you another file. This one's a really different cup of cocoa. A 14 minutes blast of techno, produced in 2005 and updated today. There's a weird reverb in a lot of the mix which I couldn't get rid of. I only had a very final mix at my disposition and no earlier ones to work with. Still, it's so funny. I couldn't believe it was me who produced this.

download "Staticbase2005" [ here ]

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KORM PLASTICS 25 year jubilee

Having a very bad memory I don't recall exactly how Frans De Waard and I came to meet each other. I only remember that I was immediately impressed by his dedication to music. Writing, publishing, producing, talking about it, networking; Frans did it all and very much on his own conditions. There was (and still is) no one telling Frans how to do his stuff. He is like a locomotive rolling on his own track at full speed.

And suddenly it's been 25 years since Korm Plastics, De Waard's record label has started. That's worth a celebration and of course a record label celebrates by issuing a release that contains a selection of the label's stable. Frans has released a lot of my work and so I gladly help him out with a composition of 2'50". I don't know when it's to be released but I'm sure looking forward to it.

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Writing a CD with cue sheet.....

Today I finished the new Franz Fjödor CD. Been polishing, upgrading the sound and done some suggestions for different arrangements. Lots of work but really fun. Editing the cue sheet was a different matter. I really like it when in my car stereo I can see the track title instead of "track 01".
I had  been using Nero for years to burn discs but that old version didn't produce cd text so I started looking for open source software that could provide me with the right material. In the end it was Burrrn, that did the trick.

Read about the new release [ here ].

In the mean time I got new requests from Frans de Waard to master his personal material (for Entr'acte) and the forthcoming Tobacconist release (Tourette Records). I listened to the latter sound material and really like it. Much better than I expected, actually (sorry for lack of confidence, there). Will do my best to produce an excellent sound.

My own material is of course lagging a bit. No worries. By the end of the year I will do a sprint and present you with niceties.

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A slippery slope slides the best

I have so many things going on at the moment that I don't know where to begin. I am working on soundmaterial by Roel Meelkop, Tore Honore Boe, Howard Stelzer and Wouter Jaspers, plus my own stuff ánd a contribution to an upcoming 25th anniversary compilation for Korm Plastics. And all of the material is tumbling one over the other. Let's see if I can walk you through:

Roel Meelkop
Roel presented a Reaper project with recordings from Helsinki which he had already structured and layered but which sounded too dull (his words). Actually I liked the basic structure which was formed by some kind of big organ sounds that played a short melody. As if the organ was placed outside on the streets. It had a dreamy atmosphere and so the 'dull' sound was actually appropriate. I touched this up by adding an extra layer (duplicating the original ongoing street sounds track) and eq-ing that so that the high frequencies got more power at some places. I also filtered other tracks so that they didn't get in each other's way. Roel was enthousiastic about it.

Tore Honore Boe
Tore sent me four old tracks that have been recorded from a live performance. The idea is that I enhance the sound. Difficult. I haven't really decided about the approach. I can simply polish it or try to deconstruct the frequencies and go deeper....

Howard Stelzer

Howard sent me the original file of "This Map Is A Gift" (2006). This, too, needs remastering. Same doubts. I have already given it a go, though. I have dissected the file and am working on the dynamics and eq. The work is quite dense so it's impossible to work on the individual sounds that are produced. But it's definitely getting in the right direction. I will finish this one on Wednesday, latest.

Wouter Jaspers
This is the most extensive commission. Wouter has given me the mixes plus the original tracks of his new -to be released- cd. There's a dead line, here. So I'll have to work fast. Hope I'll make it in time..... The original tracks are beautiful and I think I can make this into something special, but it needs Love Tenderness and Care. I hope I'll be able to give enough of that....

My own stuff
Have finished two tracks and am working for Korm Plastics compilation.To show you the variation of stuff that's under my hands here two extracts:

[ 4 loopers ]
[ cellogo ]

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Loads of work underway!

I skipped a week of reporting. Which doesn´t mean nothing happened! On the contrary: I've been very busy. First thing: I updated the discography and added a lot of my musical archive. Go check this out [ here ]. There's more to come but for the time being I think this will keep you entertained.

Next I have sent some personal invitations to people with an offer to do mixing and mastering work for them. This resulted in a few acceptances. I have been doing a mix of a composition (violin, trumpet, saxophone, synths) by Arturas Bumsteinas, and a work by Roel Meelkop. Wouter Jaspers (Franz Fjödor) announced a series of mixes and asked me to prepare them for a master. That job will take a while the next couple of weeks. A bunch of other composers have replied with enthousiasm and announced that they will make use of my services. I will keep you updated of any interesting progress, of course.

Otherwise I have worked out a composition based on a single cello sample. Am satisfied with it and will upload a version soon.

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THU20, third session

Sunday, October 4, THU20 once again visited the EARLabs studio. Aside from catching up with friends it was a great musical experience. After the previous session I had made some alternative mixes of the first part of the composition which were closely scrutinized. The first 15 seconds were slightly changed and was then left for the time being. We worked on the second part which was already half way through (more harmonic, rhythmical), and made some modifications there (of course).  The middle/second part consists of loop-like sounds and back up with a.o. some bass guitar sounds (since Jacques/DMDN is now playing bass in metal band Bünkür, we were pleased with his contribution). Next it was important to get an idea about the finale. That would give us a sense of the length and forced us to decide about structure.

After some deliberations (see picture) we decided to do a tape cut up session. I rigged up my old Akai reel-to-reel. We recorded the first 5 minutes of the piece and then spliced the tape into five different sections, which in themselves were spliced into pieces of various length. Next was the recombining part. Purposely we worked quite roughly with blanks and overlaps. Unfortunately the result was a bit disappointing (not quite the Williams Mix all of us had in mind) so, after we transfered everything back into the computer we had to do some extensive extra editing. Still, it provided us with material to let the piece go out with a bang :). And it really bangs, I tells ya.

The current version takes approximately 12.5 minutes. We then decided to call it a day and go get some good Chinese meal. We exchanged discs and tapes and had a good laugh. That's what it's actually all about: having a good time together.

As usual I got some good ideas for the piece the day after, so our next session (to be scheduled) I'll have my proposal ready. Perhaps I'll upload some sketches this week, since I'll be gone next weekend for a trip into Germany, visiting no less than seven museums in the neighbourhood of Essen, Duisburg and Dusseldorf. If anyone wants to meet up: mail me.

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New gear, phase 2

Well, yesterday was the big day. I deconstructed the old rig (which was not bad but a little oldfashioned (AMD athlon, with ddr RAM) and built the new motherboard with Core2 processor and monstrous cooler into it. I had to run to the store to get two strips of ddr2 (oops!) and fired it up with my original sata harddrive. The 2 terabyte drives are already installed but not yet functional since we need to study a bit more on how to rig up the Raid system. All in due time. This week I will slowly build up the software part of things so we can get going next weekend, when THU20 will be in the studio.

In the meantime, [ here's ] a bite for you to chew on. I really like it.

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weekly report (august 28, 2009)

[ Madmad liblib (in 7/8) ]

Take a listen. It's a bit primitive but it wojks, dunnit? All rhythm is brain candy and candy is addictive. I will work out this composition and it will definitely be more sophisticated.

That's about all for this week, kids. I've been experimenting with my studio gear and nothing really important was produced. See ya next week.

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Yay ! Ouch!!

I can be such a goddamn calvinist. I feel a pique of pride and immediately some little devil stings me in the back of my head, telling me I shouldn't. But I AM proud. The first review of EARLabs 3 arrived today, from no less a magazine than The Wire. So why shouldn't I be proud? Here it is.

Yes, yes I know. We are just one of many. And I really am puzzled by the strange remark about the Northern European potting shed.

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Entr'acte releases Helix

Finally, more than a year after its completion, the cooperative works with Sascha Neudeck (upper picture) and Christopher McFall (lower picture) have been released. This coop started when Christopher and I exchanged ideas about stuff that we worked on and had released. I set up a webserver which was used as an exchange platform. Each of us placed basic material on the server which the other guy then downloaded and included into a composition. This worked quite nice. Then after a while Sascha who also circled around in my EARLabs network proposed a cooperative project. We suggested that he joined our duo project which then became a trio.

We then decided to produce 6 pieces. Each duo producing 2. Each duo had one piece started by one with alterations and additions by the counterpart and another started by the other. Etcetera. This worked really fine as we all had approximately the same basic idea but also our own approaches to sound. That way we sort of meandered around each other. That was what lead to the idea of the title: Helix.

The production was finished by the end of summer 2007. Allon Kaye of [ Entr'acte ] decided to publish it but it did take a while. We were okay with it and moved on with our personal projects (like Gaussian Transient which was my immediate successive project). Then, early 2008 Allon requested a new master and so I remastered the original and sent that one off. That was, I believe May 2008. And now the result is seeing the light of day.

Marvellous!

[ Listen ] to a special mix I brew for Entr'acte!

Cheers, Allon!!!

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THU20 at EARLabs studio

Today we had THU20 in the studio. We are preparing a piece for a compilation series, that is being released by GX Jupitter Larsen's Zelphabet.com. It was actually the first time Frans de Waard, who has been a member of THU20 for years and joined us during concerts, in the studio as a THUboy. The piece we're working on will be some 16 minutes long. Today we set up a score and played a couple of live improvs, recorded multichannel into the computer. Later these recordings we rearranged so that they fit better with the score. Next session is due on February 22.

I am not allowed to let you hear some provisional results but I can assure you it is first class THU20 stuff !!! The pictures here show Roel (left) and Sjak (DMDN) together during a break and Frans on the picture below. In front of Roel is his infamous Korg MS20 modification. It's a MS20 without the keyboards. It's got all the normal functions but this way it's much easier to take it on tour.

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Krrraakkkllll

Today I received a small package in my mailbox. After opening it I felt like looking into the past. A CRACKLE BOX!!!!! I first encountered a similar box to the one inside in 1984. It was owned by Kees, the bass player of VH De Straks, a local punk band (influenced by Wire, but singing in the Dutch language). I have since never had one in my hands. And now I have my own box. It's number 345 of an edition (the 4th) of 500. It is very cute and invites me to touch it all the time.

I was surprised to see that it is (almost) exact like the old ones. I expected to see a slot for a connection to a mixer or something like that. Instead it is still producing the noise through a tinny speaker. Which adds to the romantic feeling of course. The box is built with delicacy, just like a cigar box, out of cedar (?) wood, lackered.

You read all about the crackle box [ here ]

Thanks, Dick Rijken !!! I'm quite happy with my precious!

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EARLabs.org

I've changed the way EARLabs functions. Actually I have become tired of maintaining the site and given Sietse van Erve (of Orphax fame) control of the site. I think it's better to focus on release and review information. The function of the cubicles has been taken over by sites like hyves and myspace.com. So now EARLabs.org is THE place for music labels to present their music and for people to write reviews about the releases.

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Production at EARLabs

Sometimes I receive a request to master, remaster, remix or just mix a work that was made by someone else. I must say that I often times enjoy doing that. Polishing up, adding spice, sometimes making new arrangements, is really good fun to me.

So, suppose you would be interested in letting me have a go. Or, you're in a snag and don't know how to finish or to just proceed with the stuff that you're working on. And you think: "Let's see if the EARLabs guy can help me out".

How do we do things
The first thing to do is contact me, using [ this ] form. Explain what you would like me to do. Listen and give some advise, do an alternative mix or master or remaster an almost finished product.

Most of the things can be done via the Internet. I have a fast DSL connection and am most of the time online. Exchange of big files or sets of files (up to 2GB) is no problem. If you want to send stuff on cd that's okay, of course.

Speed
Most times I am able to respond within a day. Remixing/mastering a song usually takes me a couple of days. An album or a series of compositions can take up to a week. If you want the end result fast, then I will have to reschedule other things and will have to ask for a fee. If there is no hurry there's a fair chance that I will not charge you anything. This is not my job (yet), so I'm not financially dependent on doing these things.

The end product can be a finished mastering disc (compliant with Red Book) or a digital set of files. If you want the complete mix I can send you the whole set of rendered tracks, so that you can continue work in a different studio.

Discretion
Most times I work discretely, that is: the artist does not want to make it public that he/she had assistance from anyone else. That is no problem. But, let's not get ahead of things: if you're interested in trying something: [ contact me ] and we''ll work something out.

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