Spotify in the Spotlight, Again

Spotify seems to be an easy target as of late. More and more artists are speaking out about the streaming service, or even removing their back catalogue from the site. With few options remaining for the recording industry many people are left wondering if it is possible to create a business model that provides both for the artist and label as well as representing good value for the consumer.

Do you think the industry is doomed, are streaming sites such as Spotify the only solution, how do you think artists should get revenue?

Read this excellent article in on The Guardian website to find out more.

Music Graduate Employment

"Dr Robert Adlington, an associate professor of music at the University of Nottingham, credits these successful and varied outcomes to the highly desirable skills developed by music students during their studies."

"With unique skills and a broad range of graduate jobs on offer, music students have better prospects than people imagine."

This recent article in The Guardian points out that skills learned whilst studying music related course can be used in all areas of employment, not just in the music industry. Surveys have found that music graduates are employed in vast array of areas and musicians develop all seven skills that define employability.

Homemade electronics

This is a brilliant homemade electronics project; a hand-cranked midi sequencer. This is modern update  to the old piano rolls found in player pianos. This is a great project for those you studying A Level Electronics too.



Jason Hotchkiss, the creator of this post runs a fantastic blog that has lots of electronic projects for musicians and music technicians. Check it out here:

Korg Volca

I constantly get asked about a good starter synth by students. I pains me to say but up till now the only synth I could recommend for the price was the MicroKorg. Korg released the Monotron a while back and whilst they are good fun they can hardly be used in a serious application. 

Now Korg have announced the Volca series of analogue synths, complete with full midi control, analogue circuitry and portability due to the battery power and small package size. Korg have announced 3 models, a drum machine, bass synth and lead synth. They can be connected together and even be synced with Korg's iOS apps. With midi control they can sync with your sequencer or be operated by tap tempo for live work. The bass and drum machine particular look and sound very similar to both Roland's TR909 and TB303, both of which are only available in emulation form or at eye-watering prices on Ebay. The best feature by far has to be the price, at £120.

Sonification

This is the 'sonification' of the initial data gathered at CERN's large hadron collider. For those of you, like me, who aren't particularly scientific here is a quote to try and explain the process-

"The discovery of the Higgs boson was a singular event, but it was also the product of a long effort: the Atlas project, which used CERN's Large Hadron Collider to analyze particle acceleration. The existence of the Higgs was confirmed -- or, well, the existence of a particle that "looks for all the world" to be the Higgs was confirmed -- when groups of researchers detected a "bump" corresponding to a particle weighing 126 GeV, making it consistent with Dr. Higgs' mysterious particule.

The Higgs, in other words, was discovered due to a data anomaly. And now, that data set -- and that anomaly -- have been set to music. Or, more precisely, music has emerged from that data set and that anomaly." - The Atlantic Tech

The composer, Domenico Vicinanza, composed the piece by attaching a note to each data point derived from the collider. The high F, C and E you hear in the second bar is the anomaly of data that is considered to be the Higgs Boson

What we are left with is something that is simailar to a Steve Riech composition 

To see more on sonification watch the video

Still Bill

Still showing on iPlayer.

'Still Bill' is a documentary on soul legend Bill Withers. It tells the story of his late arrival on the music scene and his disappearance from the limelight.

Watch it here.

March 16th - No More (Loudness) War

The loudness war refers to the trend, adopted by artists and labels, of making music as loud as possible in a vein effort to compete with other releases. This loudness is achieved in the mastering process (by using a series of compressors, limiters and EQ tricks). This fad has become so extreme that we find that a Justin Bieber CD is actually louder than a CD by AC/DC or The Sex Pistols. In an attempt to combat those crushing the life out of music, Ian Shepherd, a mastering engineer by trade, has set up 'Dynamic Range Day'. Read more about it here.