from Dave....

[Dave Pensado]

Hey Sluterz, I have been kinda nuts last couple of days. I will try my best to answer all questions. Help me, if I don't give a complete answer, or didn't answer the question to your satisfaction, let me know. I like all the new questions, you guys are the best. Be patient. This is way more fun for me than you! I learn the most from these questions. Our profession is also blessed to have guys like Jules, how about a round of applause for him. I would like to have a few statements on your vision of the future of our industry and how the internet figures into your vision. I know it has been discussed to nausea, but indulge me. OK, well good night and keep living the dream, I AM!

[TheScientist]

One of my further questions was gonna be aimed at you about the internet, so I'm impressed at your mind reading abilities. I also have a question on fishing, but that is for another thread. haha
I actually love what the internet has done to the music industry on a whole, it has opened up a world of music to people who in the past would only heard what has been play listed on their local radio.
Yer it has killed off a few of the big players. and cut the amount of money in the game, but it has also made it easier for people not in the top 100 to make a living out of selling their music on line, something before which could only be done by selling their CD's out of the back of their car's after a gig. I think people that download music for free, are cheeky, but how many of them would have gone and paid for your music anyway? I have a sticker on the side of a speaker from yeeeears ago that says "home taping is killing music" well, music is still here. And some kid could download your whole album for free, and love it, his friends get copies, they love it and they all turn up to your gig. Is that a lost sale or a few new fans?
As for engineering, well how many people are now in their home studios, recording mixing and mastering all their work then selling it online the next day. I am currently working in the Dance music industry, and there are people I know who using sites like beatport make a good living from their music. And they use online forums such as this to learn and share techniques, after all if it wasn't fr the internet, Dave, would you be reading this right now?
Software, I can read about a new product, download the demo, and buy in all in the same day.
Speed is another massive factor, recieve files over ftp in the morning, send back your draft mix in the afternoon. I think the only people that have really suffered from the internet is the postal services. ha.
I'm not sure what the future holds for music with internet advances, an mp3 can be dowloaded in seconds, so increase in speeds won't have a hugh affect on that, I know the film industry is getting mights twitchy though.
My god, I have totally rambled there! Appologies. e

O
The Scientist

[Oroz]

Originally Posted by Dave Pensado

and keep living the dream

Hell Yeah! thumbsup.

[Savernake]

Soon enough people will subscribe to favourite artists like they do with blogs and RSS feeds. Last.fm style interaction will become a norm (where your music and preferences are stored and you are suggested artists you might like, and gig listings of artists you listen to or might like in your area without having to look at small print listings).

There will eventually be a nice big touch screen computer which can turn into a mixing desk, can turn into a big ass EQ to draw a curve in at high resolution, could turn into a 'window' to the live room as it has a camera for your face and links to another computer the same in the live room, it will allow drag and draw midi editing, customisable touch interfaces... the camera will recognise what your eyes are looking at and expand that 'window' (now im going a bit tech, but we all want something like this!)

Everything a computer can do but with touch interface - it will hopefully have some sort of nicely diffusing surface as well.

Hopefully some kind of decent new drug will be synthesised and a new 'scene' will erupt. Anyone heard of cake from brasseye?

[JoeyM]

Originally Posted by Dave Pensado

I would like to have a few statements on your vision of the future of our industry and how the internet figures into your vision

My vision starts with digital mobile microphones which may have a diaphram with a laser inside either parallel to the diaphram or straight on - no analog audio is put to metal wire, and that way coloring could be done later. This is because technologies like Vectoral Kernels (Nebula) will be perfected precicely. Not only a universal digital microphone but one that completely rejects wind. Never, ever do you lose the inspiration of your song. Worth a chuckle today, but...

This of course requires more engineering, but already on a scale of 1-5 of "digital doing analog" I second guess that competant engineers would say digital technology is at about 2. We're not there yet but the work is cut out for us.

I see a competant studio of the future as being one blackberry with wireless digital mics, wireless headphones for everyone and built-in US copyright registry checker so you'd know if your song was the same as Happy Birthday to you

I don't see any end to SSL consoles or Neves, but I see wirelesss being so reliable and fast that there's no reason not to have your favorite studio in your blackberry bookmarks to actually USE.

So you're out on a boat, having a great time with friends and someone gets the inspiration to sing - you patch in Cello and immedietly get one of the fabled echo chambers. On demand patching, and for a price. Don't have Waves? Patch your vocal to run through one of their plugs online for an automatic credit card transaction. Preview free. Render, $5.

I also think graphic display goggles are LONG overdue. If you think of your eyes looking up and down your monitor, and think of how much more display information you could have if someone would make extremely tight pixeled wrap around goggles (with a simple opacity control so people aren't doing dangerous things with goggles on).


Kind regards to Jules and Dave

[Ianb007]

It's Ian. How are you doing? Glad you're sharing your knowledge and experiences with the slut community.

[andrewj]

Hey Dave it is great to have the possibility to meet an engineer like you on this board. And I can not appreciate anything more than being at this incredible forum with incredible guys like you. Mhh... well perhaps I can but that has nothing to do with music, gear or mixing

And you are damn right: Jules a bit thank you for this forum. Without your forum I would never have learned so much about gear and what is important for the music I mix today. Without you I would never have invested so much time and so much money into music anymore. Mhh... my wife is not as thankful as me!

[messiahwannabe]

Originally Posted by Dave Pensado

I would like to have a few statements on your vision of the future of our industry and how the internet figures into your vision. I know it has been discussed to nausea, but indulge me. OK, well good night and keep living the dream, I AM!

posit: filesharing is a pandoras box which has already been opened. it's very very easy to get free music, and lets face it, why would anybody pay for something when they can get it for free? extrapolate this trend and the end result is no more money to spend on studios, engineers, etc - how could you justify it with 0 money for your effort/outlay? everything will be recorded to laptop, by amatures, as freebie promos, if anyone even bothers. i'm not sure how happy i would be with that scenario! is it greedy to want to have potential income from my recordings?

i suggest, there's a bloody simple solution to the problem of unpaid internet music downloads/filesharing:

1) $10/month music/movie tax for anyone with an internet connection. if any current customers don't already download tunes, tough, now they can start, with a clear conscience. no exceptions and stop whining.

2) huge servers can be set up, to be rapidly paid for by these subscription fees. the servers are available to any artist, or corporation, wanting to make their music available for download and receive a cut of the money. current recording contracts, royalty rates etc stand as is, but new ones will probably be rather different. a fairly large but reasonable fee is charged to anyone who wants to upload music - say around $100/album. this reduces clutter by keeping out those who aren't serious, but isn't large enough to prevent anyone who is from accessing this potential income. the fee also helps pay for maintaining/adding to the infrastructure.

3) the money is divided each month according to how many downloads each artist/movie/whatever gets. this can be monitored by a non-profit organization (or preferably 2 or three in concert) to keep things legit.


there. problem solved. artists get paid. producers/engineers/etc get paid. even the majors can continue to get paid for doing what they do, finding and promoting artists they think will have broad popular appeal. talented musicians producers and even a&r agents are once again encouraged to do their thing cause there's revenue to be had. at the same time, barriers that previously kept that talented but socially inept genius musician languishing somewhere in kansas or khazakhstan are all but gone.

i don't even think it would be that hard to sell to the public, i suspect that while many people download music for free for various reasons, most have enough of a conscience about it to agree to this fair, evenhanded scheme.


there, problem solved! next up: i will singlehandedly solve the problem of world hunger


-mw


ps. dave thanks a million times for your sage advice on here! i've been mixing my r&b drums as you suggested and they're noticably tighter - a bigwig label guy here in indonesia heard my new mixes when he was sitting on the fence with regards to our previous demo, and now we're signed. thanks!

[farjedi]

On one hand the internet has meant that unsigned acts can expose their music to a potentially enormous amount of people with little or no financial outlay, the internet has also meant that I can go to you tube and listen to music without having to buy it, and there is a whole emerging culture, especially but not exclusively in youngsters, who are growing up with the mentality of 'why do I have to buy if I can get it for free?'

I am torn by this because I love the thought of music being a free thing to people to enjoy and immerse in but also I wonder where does this leave people who want to pursue this and make a living, and also will this inevitably affect the quality of music we hear? Does giving someone the financial freedom to devote to their art mean the art will be better or will the fact of making their art for no financial gain mean it will have more substance?

OR PERHAPS I AM WRONG!....

Perhaps all this means is the plastic corporate shovel fed pap will disappear. Our kids and their kids won't be forcefed the same uninteresting regurgitation and will have Choice and be exposed to Variety. People will naturally want to support the musicians who create music they love and so will willingly pay to hear their music...ok that may be a stretch of the imagination

In anycase music will never die even if it does cease being an industry, people will still create for love and people will still listen.

On a science note I can't wait for multi-continent fibre optic jamming in my living room!!....

[djui5]

Originally Posted by Dave Pensado

I would like to have a few statements on your vision of the future of our industry

Dave,
If you don't mind I'll offer my "vision" of the future of the business. Personally I think in the next 5 years it will be extremely localized, even more so than it is now. I think there will still be a few artists who make a huge movement (similar to Hannah Montana right now, her damn merchandise is everywhere), but the indies will be 99% of the business. Bands will have more local fan bases (some expanding worldwide in small numbers) but the days of selling 10million albums are over. This is of course my opinion. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.