Recording - April 2016 - 4

PUBLISHER: Thomas Hawley
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Brent Heintz

EDITORIAL

EDITOR: Mike Metlay
SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR: Lorenz Rychner
TECHNICAL EDITOR: Paul Vnuk Jr.
EDITOR AT LARGE: Beto Hale
COPY EDITOR: Diana Smethurst
MÚSICO PRO EDITOR: Fernando Curiel

CONTRIBUTORS
Paul Vnuk Jr., Allen Goodman,
Darwin Grosse, Rodrigo O. Sánchez,
Paul J. Stamler, Marty Peters, Katy Krassner

What's a song worth?
The photo above was taken at the Winter NAMM Show, where I was being treated to
an immersive virtual reality demonstration by Virtual Sonics, collaborators on the new
Roland Cloud project. With an Oculus Rift over my eyes and headphones on my ears, I was
completely surrounded by the sights and sounds of an endlessly changing landscape that
moved with my head as I looked around. Paul Vnuk captured the photo of me sitting in a
chair and looking around blindly at stuff only I could see... an ironic image to keep in mind
when looking at the current state of the music industry.
As a former scientist who was actually around when the Internet was developed, I got to
see what it was originally meant to be. It was not invented for the purpose of making
money; it was invented to share information very quickly and to withstand a nuclear war
while doing it. That meant it was built without the sort of legal safeguards a record company
would want, and it was made to be completely decentralized and self-healing-take out a
city, the Internet goes around the crater-so there was never such thing as a "center of the
Web," no specific physical target one could attack, whether with guns or with lawyers.
When music first made its way online, the nature of the Internet made it easy to copy and
share. Not understanding the ramifications of this at the time, the music industry committed
what many in the business now call "The Original Sin"-allowing that to happen without
massive legal repercussions. But the very nature of the Internet denied them a clear target.
The battle was lost before they fired a shot... and since then, business types everywhere
have been looking around blindly, trying to understand why no one sees the reality they're
selling. They keep trying to push models that will make money from a system that was
designed from the ground up to share information for free... and they (mostly) keep failing.
The infamous hallmark of this reality-challenged view: the buzzword monetize, which
means (to paraphrase South Park): "step one, put up free site and watch it get popular; step
two, (???); step three, profit."
Business models have gotten more and more bizarre, each one doing progressively
more damage to the people who make the music in the first place. In the 1990s, the
record label sold a CD of your music for $20 and you got a few dollars out of that. In the
2000s, online stores sold file downloads for a dollar, and you got a few coins per sale. In
the 2010s, streaming services offer unlimited music for a small monthly fee, and you'll see
a few pennies per month for hundreds or thousands of streams. Music on the Internet has
always been free; the current business models have now made it worthless.
But before we quit and go take up other pastimes, let's turn that around. People have
forgotten that the Twentieth Century was a tiny blip in the history of music-a brief period
where music could be recorded onto physical media and sold by the few people who
had the resources to record and sell it. Before the Internet, before CDs, before cassettes
and 8-track tapes, before vinyl, before wax cylinders... music was something you went to
see someone play, or that you played yourself.
We're returning to a world where performance matters, but now the recorded result isn't
a commodity solely owned by large companies. Music is free, but it retains value-artistic
expression, emotional connection... and yes, even monetary value, if songs can be brought
to the attention of people who need them. It's hard to make a living writing songs, but it's
not impossible-as long as you write well, write often, network, and create quality demos to
properly showcase your wares.
This issue features interviews and gear reviews that will hopefully provide inspiration and
good advice for the songwriting process-strategies and tools that turn ideas into tracks that
communicate your ideas effectively... and get them to the right people.
However we create them, we write songs because we love music and we have things to
say. Whether our future is bright, dark, or somewhere in between, we're going to continue
to strive to write and record better, more beautiful songs... because it's what we do.
Enjoy the issue.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Brent Heintz, Paul Vnuk Jr.
ART & PRODUCTION

ART DIRECTOR: Scott Simmonds
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Colin Courtney
WEB GOALIE: Colin Courtney

PLAYBACK PLATINUM SERIES
Lorenz Rychner

EDITOR/PRODUCER:

CIRCULATION
Tiffany Sepe

CIRCULATION MANAGER:

ADVERTISING SALES AND MARKETING
DIRECTOR: Brent Heintz
CLASSIFIEDS MANAGER: Colin Courtney
ADMINISTRATION
Thomas Hawley

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE:

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

PRESIDENT: Thomas Hawley
VICE PRESIDENT: Brent Heintz

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RECORDING April 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2016