I'll start off by stating my position on the Digital Economy Bill, or at lest part of it pertaining to music copyright. I'm have a pretty moderate stance on piracy, I don't do it, I don't think people should do it, but I understand that people who can't afford music will do it, and that it doesn't have an entirely negative effect on the music industry.
Sure it's changed the recording industry (although thats not the only reason the recording industry has changed), but there are a lot of bands that couldn't have made it to where they are today without the immediacy of the Internet, and the publicity that can generate from a band who's music is being heard everywhere. I'm also a strong believer that the record industry fucked up, and thats why their profits are plummeting. They have lost all of the trust that they once had, and lots of music fans don't want to give their money to the kind of businesses that sue children for millions of pounds for downloading a song for free from the Internet.
Do I wish that piracy was a non- issue again? Sure! There would be an awful lot more money changing hands in the music industry, maybe I'd get more of it, but you cant put that genie back in the bottle, file-sharing is the norm, and any successful music business understands that.
The real problem I have with the digital economy bill is that it puts the power to judge people guilty of file-sharing in the hands of the content holders. There should never be a point where anyone but the courts and the police should be the people in charge of judging when someone is in breach of the law, thats lunacy. They're not trained, they're free of bias and they hold no authority.
So when I heard yesterday that BT and TalkTalk broadband want a judicial review of the DEC, that gives them more power in warning persistent file-sharers and eventually cutting them off, it made me mad. It made me mad because they are in no better stead to judge whether someone is innocent or guilty than the copyright holders themselves. Cutting off file-sharers would benefit them greatly, because without people using bandwidth heavy services like file-sharing, they need not update their struggling systems so fast.
What we need, is a system where the content holders contact the authorities, who investigate the matter and if it is deemed that the person accused is in fact guilty, then they get punished in whatever way is deemed fit (not disconnection, maybe suspension, bandwidth caps and fines though) AND that they are given a means to appeal this judgment (such as, my wifi was open).
So I say that if BT and TalkTalk want more power to cut people off, rather than suggesting that the courts take care of it, I will not use either of them ever again. We'll have to see what comes of it.
Friday, 9 July 2010
coming this week
A review of the new Digg.
A discussion on the digital economy act, and why you should boycott BT and TalkTalk.
Sorry its been so long, and sorry this is so brief. Oh and by the way, for those of you who don't know, I graduated with a first class honours the other day!
And for Digg : 6f5afc26b8bf4a0fb6cf6d3103c2b2a4
Thats a verification key for any human beings out there, I'll write about it when I review the new Digg updates
A discussion on the digital economy act, and why you should boycott BT and TalkTalk.
Sorry its been so long, and sorry this is so brief. Oh and by the way, for those of you who don't know, I graduated with a first class honours the other day!
And for Digg : 6f5afc26b8bf4a0fb6cf6d3103c2b2a4
Thats a verification key for any human beings out there, I'll write about it when I review the new Digg updates
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
For those that are interested
Here is my disssertation! Feel free to read through it and share it around if you feel like it. Bear in mind that it isn't the most easy piece of text to read, Bucks has pretty strict guidelines about the format and the content of its dissertations so it might not be laid out in the most logical way.
The goal of the dissertation for me was to talk to as many interesting people as possible and it turned out pretty well, I learned a lot about digital consoles, particuarly about their weaknesses and strengths.
How might operational use of live digital consoles be improved? A Dissertation
The goal of the dissertation for me was to talk to as many interesting people as possible and it turned out pretty well, I learned a lot about digital consoles, particuarly about their weaknesses and strengths.
How might operational use of live digital consoles be improved? A Dissertation
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Spotify
I've been using Spotify for a while now and seeing as I have just decided not to renew my premium membership I figure now is as good a time as any to write a bit about it.
For those who don't know what Spotify is, Spotify is a music streaming service. You sign up for an account and you can listen to most of the music in the world (maybe) for free, with adverts. For a fee you can upgrade from this basic package and remove the audio ads. For a larger fee you can remove the ads, save the music to your computer to listen to offline, and use the mobile service.
Sounds great huh? Well it is, I would argue that there is no reason anyone in the world should have not to have Spotify installed on your computer to listen to a bit of music thats stuck in your head but you dont own, or to see what this new hyped band you've been hearing about sounds like. To listen to more that twenty hours a month though, you're going to need an invite. Spotify has two free plans, Open and Free. Anyone can get an Open account, but as I said before you're limited to how much music you can listen to in a month. Invites upgrade you to Free membership which as far as I can tell is a lifelong deal. This is a new system and if you signed up when Spotify started you wont have needed an invite because at the time they didn't have the same kind of traffic to their servers that they do now. You only get invites to give out if you have at some point paid for a subscription.
So you've tried out the free version for a while and Jonathan from Spotify is starting to grind your gears, or maybe you're just interested in trying the mobile client, or offline syncing? There are two paid options, Spotify Premium is what I've tried, as it was the only option available at the time. It's £10 a month and for that you get unlimited ad free streaming of Spotify's fairly extensive library at a higher bitrate than any other plan (320kbps VBR Ogg Vorbis no less). The mobile client is ok, although streaming over 3G will quickly show you how crap your mobile network is, and it currently has none of the social features I'll go into later. It's available for Android, iPhone and Symbian. You can sync albums offline on your phone and you will need to do this to listen without getting frustrated. Offline listening also has the advantage of allowing you a higher bitrate version than they allow streaming. There's also exclusive albums that only Premium subscribers can listen to although I can't say that I remember listening to a single one of them. The thing is, to justify spending £120 a year on a Spotify subscription you need to justify that to yourself somehow. You may think "well without ads I can listen to Spotify instead of CD's/ MP3s". What you will quickly realise is that Spotify isn't all the music in the world, far from it. There's a lot there, but there's a lot of very important classics missing, and new music generally arrives later than it does on iTunes. That and I'm pretty sure people like me who spend over £10 on music every month are definitely in the minority. Frankly you'll get a better experience listening to music with ads and buying albums you really like. If you're buying Spotify for something to listen to on the move, may I suggest the vastly superior Last.fm, which seems far more reliable over 3G. Now what it is good for, and what I have found myself using it for, is building playlists for filler in between bands, syncing them offline, and using that rather than CDs. It's a good enough quality when synced that I can barely tell the difference between it and CD or lossless formats like Flac.
The £5 client simply removes the ads, no offline sync, no enhanced bitrate, no exclusive albums, and most of all, no mobile client. I guess it's worth it if you really hate the ads and just use Spotify at home and work with a reliable connection, and don't care about the audio quality.
Just recently they introduced a few really good social features that tie your Spotify account to your Facebook account. Once the accounts are connected, you can look at your friends playlists and subscribe to any you like, as well as see tracks that they have starred. The idea of sharing Spotify playlists is not a new thing though, you can post links to Spotify playlists like this, which I have seen done particularly well by Latitude, who compiled playlists of the best tracks by all of the bands on the roster. I think once Spotify is more commonly used, this will happen more.
To summarise, here's 5 reasons you should get Spotify free:
For those who don't know what Spotify is, Spotify is a music streaming service. You sign up for an account and you can listen to most of the music in the world (maybe) for free, with adverts. For a fee you can upgrade from this basic package and remove the audio ads. For a larger fee you can remove the ads, save the music to your computer to listen to offline, and use the mobile service.
Sounds great huh? Well it is, I would argue that there is no reason anyone in the world should have not to have Spotify installed on your computer to listen to a bit of music thats stuck in your head but you dont own, or to see what this new hyped band you've been hearing about sounds like. To listen to more that twenty hours a month though, you're going to need an invite. Spotify has two free plans, Open and Free. Anyone can get an Open account, but as I said before you're limited to how much music you can listen to in a month. Invites upgrade you to Free membership which as far as I can tell is a lifelong deal. This is a new system and if you signed up when Spotify started you wont have needed an invite because at the time they didn't have the same kind of traffic to their servers that they do now. You only get invites to give out if you have at some point paid for a subscription.
So you've tried out the free version for a while and Jonathan from Spotify is starting to grind your gears, or maybe you're just interested in trying the mobile client, or offline syncing? There are two paid options, Spotify Premium is what I've tried, as it was the only option available at the time. It's £10 a month and for that you get unlimited ad free streaming of Spotify's fairly extensive library at a higher bitrate than any other plan (320kbps VBR Ogg Vorbis no less). The mobile client is ok, although streaming over 3G will quickly show you how crap your mobile network is, and it currently has none of the social features I'll go into later. It's available for Android, iPhone and Symbian. You can sync albums offline on your phone and you will need to do this to listen without getting frustrated. Offline listening also has the advantage of allowing you a higher bitrate version than they allow streaming. There's also exclusive albums that only Premium subscribers can listen to although I can't say that I remember listening to a single one of them. The thing is, to justify spending £120 a year on a Spotify subscription you need to justify that to yourself somehow. You may think "well without ads I can listen to Spotify instead of CD's/ MP3s". What you will quickly realise is that Spotify isn't all the music in the world, far from it. There's a lot there, but there's a lot of very important classics missing, and new music generally arrives later than it does on iTunes. That and I'm pretty sure people like me who spend over £10 on music every month are definitely in the minority. Frankly you'll get a better experience listening to music with ads and buying albums you really like. If you're buying Spotify for something to listen to on the move, may I suggest the vastly superior Last.fm, which seems far more reliable over 3G. Now what it is good for, and what I have found myself using it for, is building playlists for filler in between bands, syncing them offline, and using that rather than CDs. It's a good enough quality when synced that I can barely tell the difference between it and CD or lossless formats like Flac.
The £5 client simply removes the ads, no offline sync, no enhanced bitrate, no exclusive albums, and most of all, no mobile client. I guess it's worth it if you really hate the ads and just use Spotify at home and work with a reliable connection, and don't care about the audio quality.
Just recently they introduced a few really good social features that tie your Spotify account to your Facebook account. Once the accounts are connected, you can look at your friends playlists and subscribe to any you like, as well as see tracks that they have starred. The idea of sharing Spotify playlists is not a new thing though, you can post links to Spotify playlists like this, which I have seen done particularly well by Latitude, who compiled playlists of the best tracks by all of the bands on the roster. I think once Spotify is more commonly used, this will happen more.
To summarise, here's 5 reasons you should get Spotify free:
- Great for listening to new bands
- Share playlists with your Facebook friends
- See what your Facebook friends like
- Great for gig filler
- Mobile client is interesting to play with (if faulted)
Monday, 26 April 2010
What I've Learned About Writing a Dissertation.
Finally it's all done! My dissertation is out of the way, all finished, all printed and bound. I'll post a copy online once it's been handed in, I don't want any risk of anyone claiming it as their own or anything.
I think it reads pretty well, I'm especially proud of the primary research. I think all in all it provides a pretty good grounding on many of the issues surrounding digital consoles in live audio.
It struck me that there was a lot that I could have done to make my life a lot easier, most of which I was told and ignored. I thought I'd post a list of the key lessons I learned, so that any undergraduates preparing to write their dissertation might be a bit more prepared.
1) Pick a Topic You Will Enjoy
I'd argue this is the most important point, and it's one I did actually obey. Needless to say it's a world easier to write 10000 words. More importantly though its a lot easier to read around a topic that genuinely interests you, and its near on impossible to pretend to be interested interviewing people about a topic you dont care about.
2) Start Early
Everyone says this and everyone ignores it also. It's only human nature to leave things till the last minute and when all your friends are doing them same it makes it all the harder. A better way to think about it is decide on a topic early and start reading around it. Take notes on everything you read.Other things you can start doing early is finding people who know people that you can interview.
3)Structure Your Essay Well, and Early
If your essay is well structured it will not only be easy to read, but much easier to break up into managable chunks and write. As silly as it sounds, the thing that helped me be most productive was writing a time table of topics I should write every day. Of course you're not going to stick to it, but at least you won't be sitting there wondering what you should be writing.
4)Use a Refferancing Program
I don't think I could have written my dissertation without the help of Zotero, a free plug in for Firefox which can connect to either Word or Open Office. Refferancing is the most tedious part of writing an academic paper and there really is no need to to it manually.
In addition, for a dissertation like mine, where most of my secondary research came from websites, it allows you to take notes all over the pages, automatically back up all of your sources, both on your computer and on their web servers automatically.
Zotero also automatically populates your refferance list and bibliography, as well as formatting and alphabetizing them.
There's also a social networking feature which I found to be mostly useless but might be of use to other people (my profile)
I think it reads pretty well, I'm especially proud of the primary research. I think all in all it provides a pretty good grounding on many of the issues surrounding digital consoles in live audio.
It struck me that there was a lot that I could have done to make my life a lot easier, most of which I was told and ignored. I thought I'd post a list of the key lessons I learned, so that any undergraduates preparing to write their dissertation might be a bit more prepared.
1) Pick a Topic You Will Enjoy
I'd argue this is the most important point, and it's one I did actually obey. Needless to say it's a world easier to write 10000 words. More importantly though its a lot easier to read around a topic that genuinely interests you, and its near on impossible to pretend to be interested interviewing people about a topic you dont care about.
2) Start Early
Everyone says this and everyone ignores it also. It's only human nature to leave things till the last minute and when all your friends are doing them same it makes it all the harder. A better way to think about it is decide on a topic early and start reading around it. Take notes on everything you read.Other things you can start doing early is finding people who know people that you can interview.
3)Structure Your Essay Well, and Early
If your essay is well structured it will not only be easy to read, but much easier to break up into managable chunks and write. As silly as it sounds, the thing that helped me be most productive was writing a time table of topics I should write every day. Of course you're not going to stick to it, but at least you won't be sitting there wondering what you should be writing.
4)Use a Refferancing Program
I don't think I could have written my dissertation without the help of Zotero, a free plug in for Firefox which can connect to either Word or Open Office. Refferancing is the most tedious part of writing an academic paper and there really is no need to to it manually.
In addition, for a dissertation like mine, where most of my secondary research came from websites, it allows you to take notes all over the pages, automatically back up all of your sources, both on your computer and on their web servers automatically.
Zotero also automatically populates your refferance list and bibliography, as well as formatting and alphabetizing them.
There's also a social networking feature which I found to be mostly useless but might be of use to other people (my profile)
Friday, 23 April 2010
A quick update
Apologies about the lack of updates, I'm really busy with my dissertation which is in this Wednesday, but I will post the whole thing online when it's done for you to read. I'll get back to my usual minimum of one new blog post after that.
Next week I will begin the final mix down of Science Vs Romance as well, so that should be available some time soon also.
Next week I will begin the final mix down of Science Vs Romance as well, so that should be available some time soon also.
Friday, 2 April 2010
5 of the best albums I have heard this year so far.
I've found myself listening to loads of music the last few months, partly due to a break in work over easter and to keep myself occupied while I write this beast of a dissertation. Also because I've recently got back into using Last.fm now that I have it on my phone. Its an awesome companion to Spotify who's catalogue is much better but sucks as a music discovery service.
Yeasayer- Odd Blood
The follow up to 2007's All Hour Cymbals, Odd Blood is a massive step forward for Yeasayer. A lot has happened for this band since All Hour Cymbals. 09 was a great year for Yeasayer, they supported MGMT and produced Bat For Lashes' hit "Two Suns" album (as well as guest appearing on a few songs). Yeasayer follow up on this with Odd Blood and odd is right, Yeasayer are all over the place. Odd Blood is a mixture of 80s pop, experimental rock and electronica. There are many highlights so far as catch pop tunes go and they're all on the first half of the album (a similar album structure to tour mates MGMT), you could argue that the album goes downhill halfway through if its singles you're interested in but theres plenty of interesting stuff in the latter half too. This is one of the most interesting albums I have heard in a while, theres something for everyone so long as you're not too fed up of 80s nostalgia already.
RJD2- The Colossus
This is RJ's first album for his own "RJ's Electrical Connections" label. More than any other, this album is the sound track to my dissertation. It's the best album I have yet found to write to, just catchy enough to hold my attention, but enough slow sections that I can really concentrate. This is thoroughly well made atmospheric, sample driven, soul/psychedelia inspired Hip Hop/Electronica album with some really great tracks and a massive step up from 2007's "The Third Hand".
I only fear that I will come to hate it if I associate it too much with this dissertation, that would truly be a shame because this album is great.
Frightened Rabbit- A Winter of Mixed Drinks
Those of you that have been here before might notice this was also in my list of most anticipated albums last month. Frightened rabbits are one of my favorite bands at the moment, satisfying my need for folk inspired indie rock, but also just for their well written, well recorded songs.
A Winter of Mixed Drinks sees Frightened Rabbit step away from previous producer Peter Katis (for the most part) and it shows. The album is arguably not up to the same consistent standard that they set with Midnight Organ Fight, but the singles are stronger than anything they have released before. Swim Until You Can't see land is one of the catchiest songs I've heard all year and touch wood its not in anyway annoying me yet. and Nothing Like You is as good as anything the band had released previously (although it does have a piss poor chorus).
Broken Bells
I've been a massive fan of Dangermouse since The Grey Album, and The Shins were one of the my personal highlights of Reading 2007, so the teaming up of Dangermouse with Shins front man James Mercer caught my attention straight away.
This album blends Dangermouse's trademark beats with Mercer's folk and country inspired indie rock to great effect. The album goes from Beach Boys inspired vocal and acoustic based guitar songs like "Your Head Is on Fire", to full band, synth led, indie rock like "The High Road", to drum machine based tracks like "The Ghost Inside" (which sounds like a mixture Danger's work with Beck and Gnarls Barkley) and everything in between.
Tom Caruana- Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers
From one guy who started his career with a mashup album featuring classic rap mashed up with Beatles samples, to an album of classic rap mashed up with Beatles samples. This time it's Tom Caruana mixing up Wu-Tang vocals with Beatles samples to great effect. It's a monster at 27 tracks but theres some real gold in there, its definitely worth a listen. It's had the Raekwon seal of approval which has gotta mean a lot, and the mainstream press has latched onto him, Caruana even had an interview in the New York Times where he talks about, amongst other things, some of the samples he used in one track.
It was originally hosted for free by Tea Sea Records (the label Caruana owns) but predictably its been taken down now, although I'm sure you can find it somewhere if you look hard enough. you really should try and get a copy because its really clever, very interesting stuff.
Yeasayer- Odd Blood
RJD2- The Colossus
I only fear that I will come to hate it if I associate it too much with this dissertation, that would truly be a shame because this album is great.
Frightened Rabbit- A Winter of Mixed Drinks
Those of you that have been here before might notice this was also in my list of most anticipated albums last month. Frightened rabbits are one of my favorite bands at the moment, satisfying my need for folk inspired indie rock, but also just for their well written, well recorded songs.A Winter of Mixed Drinks sees Frightened Rabbit step away from previous producer Peter Katis (for the most part) and it shows. The album is arguably not up to the same consistent standard that they set with Midnight Organ Fight, but the singles are stronger than anything they have released before. Swim Until You Can't see land is one of the catchiest songs I've heard all year and touch wood its not in anyway annoying me yet. and Nothing Like You is as good as anything the band had released previously (although it does have a piss poor chorus).
Broken Bells
I've been a massive fan of Dangermouse since The Grey Album, and The Shins were one of the my personal highlights of Reading 2007, so the teaming up of Dangermouse with Shins front man James Mercer caught my attention straight away.This album blends Dangermouse's trademark beats with Mercer's folk and country inspired indie rock to great effect. The album goes from Beach Boys inspired vocal and acoustic based guitar songs like "Your Head Is on Fire", to full band, synth led, indie rock like "The High Road", to drum machine based tracks like "The Ghost Inside" (which sounds like a mixture Danger's work with Beck and Gnarls Barkley) and everything in between.
Tom Caruana- Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers
From one guy who started his career with a mashup album featuring classic rap mashed up with Beatles samples, to an album of classic rap mashed up with Beatles samples. This time it's Tom Caruana mixing up Wu-Tang vocals with Beatles samples to great effect. It's a monster at 27 tracks but theres some real gold in there, its definitely worth a listen. It's had the Raekwon seal of approval which has gotta mean a lot, and the mainstream press has latched onto him, Caruana even had an interview in the New York Times where he talks about, amongst other things, some of the samples he used in one track.It was originally hosted for free by Tea Sea Records (the label Caruana owns) but predictably its been taken down now, although I'm sure you can find it somewhere if you look hard enough. you really should try and get a copy because its really clever, very interesting stuff.
Honorable Mentions:
Hot Chip- One Life Stand
Delphic- Acolyte
Gorrilaz- Plastic Beach
Four Tet- There's Love In You
Animal Collective- Campfire Songs
Phoenix- Live in Sydney
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