are my MP3's any good?

X

XXX Music

New member
I've put up a whole bunch of home-recorded MP3's at: http://xxxmusic.com
Click on the "Free Samples" to hear them.

I recorded most of this on an 8-track ADAT. I tried hard to get a nice and heavy guitar sound, have I succeeded?
 
Yer site is cool...familiar with Hug, you've got a truly perv brother that does great music too....did the sample thing on Rockin' Guitar Orgy...great sound...Super Heavy Duty Stuff did the sample thing too, liked it as well...curiousity piqued by Satie/Fripp/Summers, downloaded the long sumbitch and was blown away.....why the hell aren't you doing music full time?????..I'd be interested to know (maybe this info was at yer site, if so, didn't see it) what was played by whom with what etc....sure were clean mixes....I'll do the older 4 track stuff later 'cause I'll be visiting the site again...maybe a lot.....gibs
 
Gibs, Thanks man, I really appreciate that. I've been making this stuff for a long time and I've never actually done anything with it. I just got that site up very recently, nice to get positive remarks.

I wish I could play music full time, but I've got a great job/career at this point that I really can't give up to do it.

My brother Jack and I have been meaning to get Hug's stuff onto this website for a while now since I have the credit card/secure server thing. I'd really like to get some other bands onto it soon, get some traffic for it etc. Jack plays on a couple of those tunes in the older 4-track Archives section.

I played/produced everything on the tracks that you downloaded. There was one other person involved in the Spooked stuff (Don Joyce of Negativland), and there are a bunch of people on the 4-Track Archives (there's a page there that lists them). Everything else you hear is me unless it says otherwise.

Thanks again for the compliments. That site is pretty big, check out all the 30-60 second samples on the various Musical Selections sub-pages.
 
Does Everybody Love Raymond?
In truth- he doesn't sound any more or less under the influence of several hundred micrograms of the diethyl amide of D-lysergic acid in that MKUltra piece than in any of the other samples.
You've got some great music and I love your stick it to the filchers concept of audio distribution.
 
Slackmaster2K,

Yes, I am attempting to sell this music! The idea is that $9 buys access to many hours of MP3's you can't get at mp3.com or anywhere else; right now it is only six hours of stuff and is primarily my music (and the radio shows I've done with Don Joyce), but I'm hoping to get other artists involved as well.

I was also thinking about throwing in a CD w/membership for $12 or something, would you (or the masses, more particularly) be more willing to spend the money for that?

I am already giving away four full MP3's by the way, how many would be reasonable before asking for a token contribution?

I don't understand why people expect (and musicians oblige) everybody to give their music away for free. I mean I don't record music to make money, I do it because I really enjoy it, but it is not reasonable to ask for some minor compensation at some point? I can't imagine how much money I've spent on music and recording equipment over the years; I've no hope of ever making a profit off my music, but I still don't think I should give everything away for free.

Thanks for the critiques, I've been planning on making a shorter version of the Oldredo mix, because you're right, it's too long.

I've been wanting to get a bass rig together for a while, you're right about that too. All the background industrial-type noise on that song was my Roland JV80.
 
Thanks. Anybody who likes the Raymond cuts should most certainly check out the SPOOKED section:
http://www.nvo.com/cd/spooked/

which contains cuts from two three-hour radio shows done by myself and Don Joyce of Negativland, on his radio show OVER THE EDGE on KPFA (94.1 FM) in Berkeley and Fresno, in January of 1999.

SPOOKED is all sorts of true stories and music dealing with the CIA, from an ex-spook known as Raymond: CIA, NSA, LSD, WACL, SPY stuff you know, cryptanalysis, money laundering, digital money, the shadow government, TORTURE, you name it...

I have a whole bunch of other radio shows we've done too, some with the Weatherman (David) of Negativland, my brother Jack Hug, Wobbly and others.

The whole stick-it-to-the-filchers thing is supposed to be partly a joke by the way, not that I don't want my stuff distributed without my control.
 
By the way, I'd appreciate it if anybody has tips on how I can promote this site, get some traffic for it.
Thanks
Mike
 
Are you really selling your music or is that a joke? I'm not sure how the masses will respond to being asked for 9 bucks to listen to your music without getting a CD or something....especially when you've got sites like MP3.COM, which you might consider.

In fact I kind of wasn't sure how to take your site at first. I listened to some of your stuff but I never responded because I thought you were just spamming...since you only had two posts and both were to "advertise", more or less, your site.

But it seems like you really were looking for compliments & criticism so I appologize for not responding to your first post!

I went back and listened to two of your cuts...since you're asking about "heavy guitar" I first listened to Hevydsmp...

You did a pretty good job of capturing a heavy metal guitar sound...although it's a *little* bit 80's sounding...but just a little...too many highs perhaps. What it really needs is bass guitar to give it that pounding it deserves. I really dug the effect you use starting at 0:37..or is that a seperate synth track? What I enjoy most about this clip is that "industrial noise" underneath it...how did you do that?

The second tune I listened to was Oldredo. I really dug your use of drums on this one. Again however, you need a bass guitar or something under there besides the synth (in my opinion that is). At 10 minutes this sucker really stretches. I dug the part at around 7:00 where the guitars fade to nothing....it almost sounds like it's just the wet channel of a reverb unit. Cool delayed clicky noises too.

Anyway, good luck in your quest to sell yourself :) As far as promotion goes, you're gonna have a bitch of a hard time unless you come up with a good hook. Currently there are a bazillion MP3 sites and a gazillion XXX sites. Keep that in mind!

Slackmaster 2000
 
I think you're much more likely to sell CD's and merchandise. Reason being that people like to assume that everything on the net is free....I know that's not true and I know it's silly....but that's the attitude. Just look at this whole Napster battle.

Plus I like the idea of getting something besides just the ability to download MP3's. Nobody really cares that you spent a bunch of money on equipment, that's your problem...but offer up a CD and suddenly there's *something* to buy...something you can hold in your hand.

BTW, I'm not saying that you should give your music away! I'm just saying that you *might* need a hook besides the fact that it's original music. Music is everywhere! It's not hard to come by! You need a hook to get people to your site and the music has to be good enough that they'd rather spend $9 on you than $9 on a Tool album or somethin. I think that a CD, a physical thing, is an absolute *MUST* if you're selling music.

But that's just my opinion. I don't know jack squat really. I do wish you the best of luck with your new business however. You're the most agressive salesman on the BBS and we'll probably learn a lot from your endeavors if you stick around.

Oh, this is probably a dumb question, but have you checked out MP3.COM's DAM CD program? You give them $5 for every CD you sell, but you keep the rest. The benefits being that they make the CD's for you for "free".

Enough of that shit. In regards to basses, I've been having a lot of luck with a $100 used Peavy bass and a $130 Sansamp Bass Driver DI box. For $230 total I was able to add *realistic* bass to my mixes. Of course I can't do anything live with this setup, but I don't plan on playing the bass "live" anytime soon. This sorta thing is worth considering if you're not really hardcore into playing the bass.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Hey man, I personally think MP3 is a ripoff. XXX Music can sell and duplicate your CD's for a much smaller cut than that!

I'd really love to completely undercut MP3, Amazon and the like. I think it's ridiculous that people are willing to give such a huge cut to anyone else.

Anyone who wants to sell CD's through my E-Store should please contact me at mike@xxxmusic.com and I'll work out any kind of arrangement you need. Just need to have access to a credit card secure server to sell your CD's? I can do that. Want me to duplicate and ship your CD's too? Can do that too. Need a website to put it on, or want to open your own E-Store and credit card service? Can do that too. All for much less than MP3 charges.

But you're probably right about people wanting something in their hands and not paying for MP3's; I may end up simply opening up all the MP3's I've put up for free and try to sell CD's with them.

I realize people can already download free music on the Web already. However I'd like to at least pay some homage to the concept that musicians ought to seek some compensation for it, and that people ought to be willing to grant it.

Imagine how much cooler music on the web would be (and how much MORE of it there would be) if we all were willing to shell out a few bucks for independently produced stuff that we liked, instead of giving it to big record companies and massive distributors.
 
Can you make real CD's or just CDR? Does MP3.COM make CD's on CDR media?

Anyway, I don't see any ripping off going on. I see a pretty typical business transaction. Considering that you get a CD & case with printed graphics & such shipped for $5.00 overhead isn't that bad if you don't want to make these things in large quantities. Plus you pay nothing upfront.

I would say that for the quantity they're dealing with, the 5 bucks is probably just about right and I'd guess that a smaller company would have a hard time competing once their user base began to grow. Hard to say.

Slackmaster 2000
 
That would be good if we could get a CD store for this BBS, so the members could sell their hard work. I have heard several songs from members that I would pay to have a good CD of it.

Back to the music of this post. Very interesting stuff, sounds like you could be the next Steve Vai.
 
Fishmed great idea...why don't you re-post something like that in the feedback forum...although I think Dragon may be MIA again.....it would be so cool to offer that service for the members...only drawback I can think of is the reach out would only be to the people that come here to learn about home recording...but it would be nice to be able to have some non-mp3 formats to buy....advertising and word of mouth sell things...I know I'd buy some, the prob is getting the general public in on it.......gibs
 
I agree with Fishmed and gibs. It would be nice to have a place to offer our music for sale without BBS members feeling like we're just trying to make a quick buck. I would love to be aware of everyone's stuff.

XXX, I posted a new thread with regard to this whole debate. I sympathize with your position and would greatly like to hear your comments and anyone else's.

:)
 
I think the Comp CD would be the best pilot for such a service. If the BBS has problems with ONE CD, I don't see it supporting mutiple CDs.
 
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