The middle-class musician may be a thing of the past, thanks to the pandemic.

[buffered]

Crypto is terrible. It's not the promised future at all.
We need to dump it already. The exploitation of it is already an environmental fuck up due to the amount of power being used to churn the Blockchain. It's insane.

Crypto is fine, nothing wrong with it at all - and needed in some cases. It's the dumb shit people are doing with it that is fucked up.

Well Bitcoin alone is now using the same power as argentina. That`s fucking insane.
This is mainly down to bitmining plants of course, but the problem is the processing gets more complex and requires more power all the time.
It solves one problem but opens another.

This is why POS will take over. BTC is inneficient and will be taken over by these new protocols. BTC can be wrapped to work on ETH network.
It is getting greener. The only reason BTC is popular is because the mass population think that this is what crypto is.

[buffered]

anyway we are moving into quantum computing which reduces energy consumption dramatically. The more efficient computers become, the reduction in energy consumption to run these networks. In future this will become much more green, especially when compared to today's standard banking, which is atrocious.

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah Ethereum is better.

https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-isn ... ked-155329

Money is a problem no matter how you create it as currency.

[buffered]

Yeah Ethereum is better.

https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-isn ... ked-155329

Money is a problem no matter how you create it as currency.

Have to be careful with articles like these. Not really giving an accurate in depth picture of what is happening or the tech.

[Lost to the Void]

It`s good enough, I couldn`t be assed to find the New Scientist article.

Quantum computing is also, realistically/practically, a fair way off as it is so vibration sensitive, decoherence is a problem that will take a while to workaround for practical use.

But once it`s stable, then yay. Then people can download their 5D VR porn and still not pay for music (NFT`s or not).

[buffered]

quantum was just an example. anyway 30-40 years is still considered short term. By then, most peoples mobile phones will be used as validator nodes in a POS.
And people do pay for music, the problem is that the gatekeepers (spotify, youtube, etc) distribute earnings in a gross arbitrary and non-transparent way.
Same way banks hold/ use your money.
Same way government decides arbitrarily where your tax dollars go.
Decentralised networks came about to fight this. It's important.

[Lost to the Void]

Decentralisation is important just in general, not just in computer/data networks.
Anarchy!!

[Lost to the Void]

And people do pay for music, the problem is that the gatekeepers (spotify, youtube, etc) distribute earnings in a gross arbitrary and non-transparent way.

They don't really, they pay for a service, or they pay for access to a service.
That/those services have reduced the user cost to such a ridiculous low that it has devalued music to the point of stupidity.
The way the money is distributed via these services is, of course, shit for the artists.

But that's just the same old music industry story.
The problem really is getting access to the audience. It always has been.
Promotion, basically.
Big labels offered promotion and distribution.
It's really hard to access your paying audience, it's hard for them to find you.
Once you do, once you actually find YOUR paying audience, you`ve already basically solved your problem, so NFT`s become pointless, because at that stage you can sell them your TShirts, Vinyl, Artwork....whatever.
One of the main reasons people still use distributors for their vinyl is the access to audience and the logistics of self distribution/delivery.
I don`t think there is ever going to be a service that improves things as really we are now dealing with ethics. And the customer (as a whole) doesn`t care about ethics, they just want their shit. That`s why apple are still in business, or indeed any other multinational.

[Amøbe]

And people do pay for music, the problem is that the gatekeepers (spotify, youtube, etc) distribute earnings in a gross arbitrary and non-transparent way.

They don't really, they pay for a service, or they pay for access to a service.
That/those services have reduced the user cost to such a ridiculous low that it has devalued music to the point of stupidity.
The way the money is distributed via these services is, of course, shit for the artists.

But that's just the same old music industry story.
The problem really is getting access to the audience. It always has been.
Promotion, basically.
Big labels offered promotion and distribution.
It's really hard to access your paying audience, it's hard for them to find you.
Once you do, once you actually find YOUR paying audience, you`ve already basically solved your problem, so NFT`s become pointless, because at that stage you can sell them your TShirts, Vinyl, Artwork....whatever.
One of the main reasons people still use distributors for their vinyl is the access to audience and the logistics of self distribution/delivery.
I don`t think there is ever going to be a service that improves things as really we are now dealing with ethics. And the customer (as a whole) doesn`t care about ethics, they just want their shit. That`s why apple are still in business, or indeed any other multinational.

I work in music streaming (very evil). Now Denmark is not really comparable to the rest of the world, as the general public has a pretty good personal economy, and it is only south Korea and some other country (Finland?) that are anywhere near the same amount of digitalization and access to fast internet... but! our national broadcasting company has made a lot of research in the music consumption over the last years - In Denmark around 80 % of the users are premium users - that means using 1200 DKK (around 160 €) a year on music. That is a way bigger sum of money, when you consider that this is the average user! Most people didn't even spend half of that on CDs back when they were the main product.

...my point is that there is something seriously wrong in the music business, since the amount of money used is increasing, and the distribution is still fucking people over!

[Lost to the Void]

Well, at least Netflix pay for their programming. I suppose netflix is the closest comparison to something like spotify.
But from the user side, you are paying for a service. The artist is sorta hidden from the equation.
You pay netflix/spotify, for access to their service, and then they give you shit.
People aren`t really spending more on music, they are spending more on delivery services.

You aren`t accessing the artist/creator, they are sort of in the background of the picture.

It`s this shift in perception that allows these business to actually give a worse model, in terms of how the artist is dealt with, than even the worst days of the music industry 1.0.

My best mate is a professor at Macquarie University and did this big research paper on this shit that became a book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-2-0-Fut ... 1845539389
It`s woefully depressing.

That`s why places like bandcamp are so much better, as the artist is put back into the equation.
Fuck streaming. It`s ruined the music experience in many ways.

[timc3]

Well Bitcoin alone is now using the same power as argentina. That`s fucking insane.
This is mainly down to bitmining plants of course, but the problem is the processing gets more complex and requires more power all the time.
It solves one problem but opens another.

Yeah, that really annoys me on the larger scale. And on a personal side that the prices and availability of GPUs is crazy and I would like one for a machine learning rig. But again this is another case of the dumb shit people do with it. Blockchain and Crypto can be used for good things that are not that power intensive like secure sharing of personal data - medical records and the like, royalties tracking, smart-contracts, voting mechansims. Instead we have people using huge amounts of power trying to generate wealth.

I work in music streaming (very evil). Now Denmark is not really comparable to the rest of the world, as the general public has a pretty good personal economy, and it is only south Korea and some other country (Finland?) that are anywhere near the same amount of digitalization and access to fast internet... but! our national broadcasting company has made a lot of research in the music consumption over the last years - In Denmark around 80 % of the users are premium users - that means using 1200 DKK (around 160 €) a year on music. That is a way bigger sum of money, when you consider that this is the average user! Most people didn't even spend half of that on CDs back when they were the main product.

...my point is that there is something seriously wrong in the music business, since the amount of money used is increasing, and the distribution is still fucking people over!

I think spending even 80€ a year on CDs/Vinyl might be better for the artist(s) who got their music bought than spending 160€ on streaming considering how the profits are split between artists.

[Amøbe]

I think spending even 80€ a year on CDs/Vinyl might be better for the artist(s) who got their music bought than spending 160€ on streaming considering how the profits are split between artists.

You are absolutely right (which is also why it's a very good idea to support through Bandcamp)

My point is that there's something wrong with the music industry at large if people spend way more on music, but less gets into the hands of the musicians

[Amøbe]

Well, at least Netflix pay for their programming. I suppose netflix is the closest comparison to something like spotify.
But from the user side, you are paying for a service. The artist is sorta hidden from the equation.
You pay netflix/spotify, for access to their service, and then they give you shit.
People aren`t really spending more on music, they are spending more on delivery services.

You aren`t accessing the artist/creator, they are sort of in the background of the picture.

It`s this shift in perception that allows these business to actually give a worse model, in terms of how the artist is dealt with, than even the worst days of the music industry 1.0.

My best mate is a professor at Macquarie University and did this big research paper on this shit that became a book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-2-0-Fut ... 1845539389
It`s woefully depressing.

That`s why places like bandcamp are so much better, as the artist is put back into the equation.
Fuck streaming. It`s ruined the music experience in many ways.

I don't disagree with you - my point is just that the issue is not that people don't want to spend money in the music industry at large, but it is the musicians who gets screwed in this model!

Interesting book by the way - adding it to my list of stuff I should read

[Lost to the Void]

Well Bitcoin alone is now using the same power as argentina. That`s fucking insane.
This is mainly down to bitmining plants of course, but the problem is the processing gets more complex and requires more power all the time.
It solves one problem but opens another.

Yeah, that really annoys me on the larger scale. And on a personal side that the prices and availability of GPUs is crazy and I would like one for a machine learning rig. But again this is another case of the dumb shit people do with it. Blockchain and Crypto can be used for good things that are not that power intensive like secure sharing of personal data - medical records and the like, royalties tracking, smart-contracts, voting mechansims. Instead we have people using huge amounts of power trying to generate wealth.

I work in music streaming (very evil). Now Denmark is not really comparable to the rest of the world, as the general public has a pretty good personal economy, and it is only south Korea and some other country (Finland?) that are anywhere near the same amount of digitalization and access to fast internet... but! our national broadcasting company has made a lot of research in the music consumption over the last years - In Denmark around 80 % of the users are premium users - that means using 1200 DKK (around 160 €) a year on music. That is a way bigger sum of money, when you consider that this is the average user! Most people didn't even spend half of that on CDs back when they were the main product.

...my point is that there is something seriously wrong in the music business, since the amount of money used is increasing, and the distribution is still fucking people over!

I think spending even 80€ a year on CDs/Vinyl might be better for the artist(s) who got their music bought than spending 160€ on streaming considering how the profits are split between artists.

Crypto is probably a good thing for everything except money, the usage/demand and need for perpetual growth will always be a problem.

[Lost to the Void]

Interesting book by the way - adding it to my list of stuff I should read

Steve is a hero.
He`s one of the few academics left in the world (seriously) who are really fighting the cause for fair use, and battling aggressive copyright/intellectual property bullshit, he's gotten into trouble over it. He was the prodigee of some really well known maverick in the music legal world (who I don`t know, because I`m not an academic), who eventually was driven to retirement, and steve took up the mantle.
He's been invaluable helping me with legal stuff over the years.

He was in my, well, it was our industrial band, we`ve known each other since we were kids. We took a weird divided path after the band ended (essentially over a double whammy of management fucking us, and us chasing women who split us apart), I went into the underground with the punk DIY ethic, and he went into copyright law and the legal side of music biz. Both of us fighting against mainstream music bullshit.

Ultimately I think he has had more impact...... But I had more fun.

[disparate]

It's always sad when artists of any discipline are held back from creating and distributing their work.

Yeah basically this, I'm not gonna get into middle vs working class musicians or the somewhat overblown/straw man "it'll weed out the posers" argument (i"ve been talking about dance music and DJing on the internet for two decades and someone's always moaning or saying something will weed them out, pro tip just focus on doing your thing); but my possibly oversimplistic/idealistic view is that a lot of us work hard af on this stuff and it's saddening to see it getting even harder to see any payoff for it and seeing similar things for most creative endeavours.

(this post brought to you by my exhaustion with the amount of time and effort I put into this shit while holding down my recently extremely busy day job)

[Lost to the Void]

I think spending even 80€ a year on CDs/Vinyl might be better for the artist(s) who got their music bought than spending 160€ on streaming considering how the profits are split between artists.

You are absolutely right (which is also why it's a very good idea to support through Bandcamp)

My point is that there's something wrong with the music industry at large if people spend way more on music, but less gets into the hands of the musicians

There has always been something wrong with the music biz, it just much worse now in that, via mainstream consumption, even less money gets to the artist.
A fascistic level of trickle down economics.
Even when vinyl was still selling well up to the early 00's, those people who created the music got the smallest slice.
Back when I was shifting units the dealer price the distribs paid per unit was 1.99 standard. Pressing with full colour labels on 500 units came to around 1.50 per unit.
Out of your 50p profit the distrib took transport/shipping fees and admin stuff. Vinyl was selling for around 5:50 to 6:50 at retail.
If you repressed then you made your money as you were only paying for pressing and not metalwork. So that was around 50p per unit.
Then, providing your distrib was honest, and... Record distributers and honesty.....well.... That's another conversation... Providing they were honest, shifting 5000 units could earn you ok. In that period a record that sold well did 1000 units. A hit was 3-5000 (in techno).
Now compare today.
A techno "hit" might shift 150 units. 300 would be like, hit of the year.
A lot of labels can't even shift 100 units within a 3 month period. Labels you probably think are shifting way more.
And production costs are proportionally higher, even more so on small runs.
There is no money in techno vinyl. It's a loss leading business card that might get you gigs, and that is where you can make money. (Which is why I say we need to go in to this Subsekt vinyl thing not expecting to make money, and at best break even, it's for love).

This is partly why I get snarky with producers who say "oh I only release on vinyl". Reaching 100 people is not really prestige to boast about.

I think this may well be one of the contributing factors to the vomit inducing banality we have in techno to some extent.
Artists need to gig more to make a living. Gigging week in and out to any booking going is exhausting. It's like being on endless tour. That doesn't leave much time to develop and experiment to make truly creative music.
Producers have time to knock out an EP of blah tools in a week and then they are off for 3-4 days of travel. And on top of that, to keep the gigs coming in they feel they need to release with frequency. So quality control goes down as well.
And so we have this quagmire of mediocrity. And overexposed artists on every lineup all the time.

[chava]

There has always been something wrong with the music biz, it just much worse now in that, via mainstream consumption, even less money gets to the artist.
A fascistic level of trickle down economics.
Even when vinyl was still selling well up to the early 00's, those people who created the music got the smallest slice.
Back when I was shifting units the dealer price the distribs paid per unit was 1.99 standard. Pressing with full colour labels on 500 units came to around 1.50 per unit.
Out of your 50p profit the distrib took transport/shipping fees and admin stuff. Vinyl was selling for around 5:50 to 6:50 at retail.
If you repressed then you made your money as you were only paying for pressing and not metalwork. So that was around 50p per unit.
Then, providing your distrib was honest, and... Record distributers and honesty.....well.... That's another conversation... Providing they were honest, shifting 5000 units could earn you ok. In that period a record that sold well did 1000 units. A hit was 3-5000 (in techno).
Now compare today.
A techno "hit" might shift 150 units. 300 would be like, hit of the year.
A lot of labels can't even shift 100 units within a 3 month period. Labels you probably think are shifting way more.
And production costs are proportionally higher, even more so on small runs.
There is no money in techno vinyl. It's a loss leading business card that might get you gigs, and that is where you can make money. (Which is why I say we need to go in to this Subsekt vinyl thing not expecting to make money, and at best break even, it's for love).

This is partly why I get snarky with producers who say "oh I only release on vinyl". Reaching 100 people is not really prestige to boast about.

I think this may well be one of the contributing factors to the vomit inducing banality we have in techno to some extent.
Artists need to gig more to make a living. Gigging week in and out to any booking going is exhausting. It's like being on endless tour. That doesn't leave much time to develop and experiment to make truly creative music.
Producers have time to knock out an EP of blah tools in a week and then they are off for 3-4 days of travel. And on top of that, to keep the gigs coming in they feel they need to release with frequency. So quality control goes down as well.
And so we have this quagmire of mediocrity. And overexposed artists on every lineup all the time.

Not disagreeing, just pointing out that this has been going on since start 00s at least. Producer/DJ-types pushed a 12" out a week just before the big distribution crash around 2002(?). Techno needed at reset back then, maybe now it's the time for another.

Vinyl are pretty low sales now, but maybe not THAT bad. Here'ss 250 12s from last year who sold at least 200 units: (obviously it's a fraction of what is was compared to 20 years ago)

https://www.discogs.com/search/?limit=2 ... xact=12%22

[Lost to the Void]

There has always been something wrong with the music biz, it just much worse now in that, via mainstream consumption, even less money gets to the artist.
A fascistic level of trickle down economics.
Even when vinyl was still selling well up to the early 00's, those people who created the music got the smallest slice.
Back when I was shifting units the dealer price the distribs paid per unit was 1.99 standard. Pressing with full colour labels on 500 units came to around 1.50 per unit.
Out of your 50p profit the distrib took transport/shipping fees and admin stuff. Vinyl was selling for around 5:50 to 6:50 at retail.
If you repressed then you made your money as you were only paying for pressing and not metalwork. So that was around 50p per unit.
Then, providing your distrib was honest, and... Record distributers and honesty.....well.... That's another conversation... Providing they were honest, shifting 5000 units could earn you ok. In that period a record that sold well did 1000 units. A hit was 3-5000 (in techno).
Now compare today.
A techno "hit" might shift 150 units. 300 would be like, hit of the year.
A lot of labels can't even shift 100 units within a 3 month period. Labels you probably think are shifting way more.
And production costs are proportionally higher, even more so on small runs.
There is no money in techno vinyl. It's a loss leading business card that might get you gigs, and that is where you can make money. (Which is why I say we need to go in to this Subsekt vinyl thing not expecting to make money, and at best break even, it's for love).

This is partly why I get snarky with producers who say "oh I only release on vinyl". Reaching 100 people is not really prestige to boast about.

I think this may well be one of the contributing factors to the vomit inducing banality we have in techno to some extent.
Artists need to gig more to make a living. Gigging week in and out to any booking going is exhausting. It's like being on endless tour. That doesn't leave much time to develop and experiment to make truly creative music.
Producers have time to knock out an EP of blah tools in a week and then they are off for 3-4 days of travel. And on top of that, to keep the gigs coming in they feel they need to release with frequency. So quality control goes down as well.
And so we have this quagmire of mediocrity. And overexposed artists on every lineup all the time.

Not disagreeing, just pointing out that this has been going on since start 00s at least. Producer/DJ-types pushed a 12" out a week just before the big distribution crash around 2002(?). Techno needed at reset back then, maybe now it's the time for another.

Vinyl are pretty low sales now, but maybe not THAT bad. Here'ss 250 12s from last year who sold at least 200 units: (obviously it's a fraction of what is was compared to 20 years ago)

https://www.discogs.com/search/?limit=2 ... xact=12%22

It wasn`t anywhere near the same scale/rate

The schranze+bongo congo period that may or may not have contributed to the big death of techno and the rise of mnml wasn`t quite as clear cut.
Distributers like prime were pumping out releases like no 2morro, they along with kinetec and triple vision were handing out P&D deals like candy. Typical capitalist growth ideals. The market collapsed through the digital revolution and over saturation, and suddenly these distribs had a ton of stock with no market. Record shops were vanishing, for a few reasons, at the same time.
People forget that the SUF collective, including Ben sims and some others, all owned a pressed plant, curve pressings, in hackney. A full sized pressing plant. That all went to shit.
A lost of friends lost money in that period. I myself lost close to 30 grand in all of that.

Discogs is only a reflection of sales and resales on discogs, and anyone can claim they own a record, it`s not an accurate measure of the actual retail market. I talk to the pressing plants regularly so I have a very good idea of pressings, and I deal with distribs too. Everyone wants to give the illusion that they are selling 000`s but it`s just not a reality. You only have to go on any pressing website and see what their top deals are. Usually it`s 150`s and 200`s
For example, Juno in london are a big online vinyl seller. When they buy in a release, they might buy 5-10 copies. Whereas we look at 2002-3, they would buy in maybe 30-50 of a middle level release.
To sell out and get no.1 in Juno sales chart you just need to sell 5-10 copies.
IT`s not much different with the big hitters like Hardwax.
Selling out of your record is a shallow boast now, but it looks good on stores.

Vinyl sales are objectively low for dance music. It is purely for collectors now. In some clubs you have to request vinyl decks for your night, as expecting them these days might lead to you rocking up to your event with no (vinyl) decks in the booth.

I`ve been talking with a lot of my clients this year about a potential new service I may offer. I am thinking about getting a vinyl cutter that cuts to these new hard wearing blanks. Dub plates with more longevity (double sided too). So I will be able to do short vinyl runs, 20-50 copies, each one cut, not pressed, at a price lower than standard pressing. Interest has been an unprecedented "as soon as the service is available, we are in".
That`s a reality for dance music on vinyl, we are going to be looking at ultra limited runs, we already are, 150 now costs the same as 250 2 years ago, Covid has fucked everything up with the pressing plants, and all the small labels are going way way way way to the back of the queue. Delays are potentially up to 4-6 months. For a service that you won`t make a profit on. Hard to swallow.

This isn`t a moan, as it doesn`t really effect me any more as I found other ways to monetise my music skills, but it really is hard for an artist to make money.
Before the big vinyl crash, a middle level label could make enough money for a... not a great income, but a low income, especially with repressings and gigs. There is zero money to be made in selling music now. The money is in gigs/merch. And that highlights the issues I pointed out already, the idea of being on an endless tour....

[kronk]

I`ve been talking with a lot of my clients this year about a potential new service I may offer. I am thinking about getting a vinyl cutter that cuts to these new hard wearing blanks. Dub plates with more longevity (double sided too). So I will be able to do short vinyl runs, 20-50 copies, each one cut, not pressed, at a price lower than standard pressing. Interest has been an unprecedented "as soon as the service is available, we are in".

i looked hard into this about 6/7 years ago when i was running a vinyl label as i could see the writing on the wall.

for the 10yrs before that we were typically doing runs of 500-1000, dropping then to 200-400 before shut down. i stopped doing distro as it was a waste of time and sold direct off the website/mail-list (no bandcamp as it was 10% charge for not much benefit at that time) and to a handful of shops cod (boomkat/thrill jockey, etc..).

it seemed to me then that the only way forward without getting bogged down in massive waiting times for plants (due to major reissues, record store day n that) and the increasing pressing charges was to go hand cut dubs. at that time there was three options -
1. the vinylrecorder from germany. talked to several people who own these, theres also some 'big name' techno people who have one as well... i got several test cuts too. the quality was pretty good when the unit was setup correctly and the cutter knew their shit. the problem with this machine is that the guy who sells it is nuts and insists on all sorts of bullshit to sell you the machine.
2. at the time there was another option - the dub cutter - which was an addon to your turntable. this was developed by vinylium in switzerland, which is flo kaufmann - one of a handful of cutter head repair experts left worldwide. the results i heard from this were really good. unfortunatley vinylium had stopped producing these by that time & i dont think too many of these were made. flo is now involved in the phonocut, although it remains to be seen how good the results from that will be.
3. pick up an old lathe (e.g presto 6n/8c) + recondition. this wasnt really an option for me but for someone who knows their way around electronics then this could work. albeit that theres a fair amount of work involved to get it up to 'spec'. - upgrade to take a stereo cutter head, setup heat, suction, a microscope, etc

also, at the time i was looking into it, getting the blanks was an issue. the vinylrecorder blanks were sown up by the VR seller (souri). but now there seems to be a few options - myshank being well regarded. + MS or PIAPTK do styli/cutterheads at a more affordable rate now.

in the end i parked it as at the time the cost per copy was too high taking blanks & cutterheads into consideration. id be very interested to see what way you go with it steve and how youre able to offer a price lower than standard pressing... that would be amazing.