Music Purchasing Habits

Here's a little survey I put together. It is probably far from scientific, but I am limited to 10 questions on a free Survey Monkey account, and I had to do some tweaking to get everything in.

I left out a few things like single tracks vs the album experience and whether people can tell the difference in quality between CD and MP3 (I think it is safe to say that most cannot).

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ggd7ztsAwXC_2fmvNY01_2b0OQ_3d_3d

The Paradox of Our Age

The Paradox of Our Age
by The Dalai Lama

We have bigger houses but smaller families;
More conveniences, but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense;
More knowledge, but less judgment;
More experts, but more problems;
More medicines, but less healthiness;
We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We build more computers to hold more information to
produce more copies than ever but have less communication.
We have become long on quantity,
but short on quality.
These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
Tall man but short character;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.
It's a time when there is much in the window,
but nothing in the room.

MINDSPEAK.COM is undergoing some restructuring

MINDSPEAK.COM is undergoing some restructuring.

Travelogues are still available:

http://www.mindspeak.com/travel.htm

Writings: http://www.mindspeak.com/writing.htm

For Jeremy's music stuff, visit www.shivasongster.com

More about Shivasongster

http://www.mindspeak.com/legal.htm

Any better on Mac?

This is just a test to see if Blogger works any better on a Mac. Watching "Ghost Adventurers" right now...

Did you hear that?

Merged postings from 2006 and new web site

I've merged a few postings from an old blog I started in July 2006 that was supposed to be for more candid reflections. You'll find them in the July 2006 archive of course.

Also, please note that moving forward I am using the built-in blog on my new website shivasongster.com

It's much easier for me to post there and keep it integrated with my content management system.

Read more about my new site.

Guitar Heroes

Something’s been bothering me about the music industry lately. Or rather, the way the music industry is perceived by those outside it. Take for instance the commercials for games like “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero.” If these games invite a young person (or even an adult) to pick up a *real* instrument one day and actually learn how to play, I think they are great. More often, I think all they do is propagate the clichés of music history (particularly rock), presenting a caricature of an art form that has already become diluted and over-commercialized by shows like “American Idol.”

All of these forms of media (video games, TV shows) have changed the playing field for many musicians. Those of us who explore music and sound for its own sake (not for the mythical rock star lifestyle, or the promise of hordes of adoring fans) have gained tremendously from technology and media developments. Digital recording, synthesis, sampling, wireless controllers, portable music players and more have all contributed to far more possibilities in music/audio creation than Alan Lomax would have thought possible.

However, some of those same helpful technologies are hurting artists in other ways. Music becomes devalued in terms of both cost and quality. Music becomes manufactured. Many people now expect music to be free. While I am glad that many artists are breaking free from major label control, I am concerned that many listeners now count “Idol” and similar shows as their central musical experience. Rather than discovering up-coming bands in their own back yard or local radio, there seems to be a tendency to follow the TV talent show filter.

We’ve had “Star Search” shows before, but how did they become so popular? I always thought these shows were rather corny. Perhaps the Internet has given people the power to truly feel like they are part of the vetting process for new talent. Without the Internet, these shows would be nothing more than gossip points for the few pockets of people who could watch the show. Now that television is much further reaching, and now that the Internet allows people to connect, viewers have more power to make or break an artist.

However, such shows lack legitimacy and create an influx of rock-star-wannabes that simply clutter the market for everyone else. The few truly talented people who get through are saved the character-building, dues-paying years of ground work most of us have to do. They are skyrocketed into a world that they may not be able to navigate because they did not have the real-world experience. If they do come out of it unscathed and successful, they have done nothing but reinforce the clichés that got them there.

Video game manufacturers are brilliant. After tapping into our sci-fi alien-blasting tendencies and our dragon-slaying dreams, they have finally found a fantasy that so many people – geek and non-geek – can relate to: being a rock star. Americans are particularly susceptible to this, with rock music being such an iconic emblem for everything cool and rebellious in our culture. While the game developers get kudos for being so smart, they may not realize what they have done to the process of learning an instrument, the spread of misguided ideas about music, let alone the value of interacting with musicians who are not connected by wires. We can only hope that people do not forget the original wireless technology – acoustic instruments, percussion and the human voice. Otherwise, one day we may be watching “American Guitar Hero Idol.” That will be a sad day indeed.

Sony Sucks

I have owned an MZ-M100 Hi-MD recorder for about two years now. I am a performer, producer and sound designer. I purchased the Sony MD after many years of resisting the MD format. The compression and DRM issues that I had heard about seemed like to much hassle. Prior, I usually used a DAT recorder, but I grew tired of the laborious task of transferring DAT to PC. When Hi-MD came out, I figured there was enough incentive for me to have one, and they are much more portable, which could aid me in my interest of capturing found sounds.

I really had very little trouble until some PC issues forced me to ghost my machine. A trojan horse and a bad hard drive - all within the course of the same week - forced me to upgrade to a new machine. I am smart enough to make regular data backups to other hard drives and DVD, but never even considered using the built-in Sonic Stage backup tool.

I was down for almost two weeks and it was exhausting getting back up and running. Reinstalling the MD software was not a priority, so it was a couple months later after having my new machine that I decided to get back to my found sound studies and see what else I may have recorded that was worth checking out. That's when the shi** hit the fan and I realized (like so many others on this forum) that I could not play some of my OMA files.

While in some cases I had converted recordings to WAV on my old machine, there were 4.5 GB of other sessions (CD release party gigs, rehearsals, hotel songwriting sessions, found percussion) that I did not take the time to convert to WAV on my old computer. So I now found them inaccessible from Sonic Stage. They would not play, and I could not convert or transfer them in anyway. Perhaps what bothers me most is that there are sessions that I don't have notes for, so I don't know what I might be missing.

I found an online forum at http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/ and began going through all of the steps presented there, and a few others. I was on the phone with Sony for 2.5 hours yesterday (12/18/08) with both 1st and 2nd level support. I was patient with them, but they were no help. They had me install an MP3 converter which was useless. I am still not 100% sure the three techs I talked to had any real clue of what the problem was or how to address it. I offered to mail copies of the files and pay Sony a fee to make the conversion to something I could read, and they said they do not offer that service. Since I am probably not the only person willing to PAY FOR the service, this just boggles my mind!

My old PC has a different hard drive now and is really just a junker, so I decided to see if I could "fool" it into accessing the files. After another two hours, no luck. I'm an advanced PC user and software designer, but I'm no expert when it comes to registry hacks, so I didn't have much luck there. I did have a backup of my old PC registry, so I attempted to overlay that on the ghosted old PC, but that didn't work. I noticed there is a registry element called Decrypt Splitter, so my guess is that it has some relevance. I can't work/think in binary, so this is a job for someone much more advanced. One thing is for sure, this stuff is locked down!

I am posting this for a few reasons. First, I want to echo what the folks have said about fooling yourself into thinking you are going to crack this by simple methods (changing extensions, etc). If you can not play them you are out of luck. Walk away until you hear of a true solution.

Second, I wanted to encourage the hacker community to get on this. Apparently OMA was discontinued in March 2008 (from other web research I noted). Sony should at the very least offer transfer options for people. If they will not, then the music/computer community owes it to itself to crack this. Sony has no right to lock us out of our own material. Users impacted by this may wish to see if there is grounds for a class action lawsuit, though I admit I am not a lawyer and do not know how you'd even start with that.

Third, my wife and I were in the market for a flat screen, and Sony was on our list of possible brands. Not any more. I realize this is a small form of protest, but perhaps others can make the same choice and vote with their wallets.

I am keeping the OMA files just in case someone cracks this. If anyone has information leading to that, please let me know.

Update: Feb 22, 2009 - Some more research on an Ethnomusicology list turned up a reference to Sony Media Services who may be able to help. My material is on its way to them so we'll see. Here's the link: http://www.sonymediaservices.com/

Also, some people who have read my post think assume that I still had the data on MD, which is not the case here. The data was transferred to my old PC in the native OMA format that Sony uses, and the problem lies in the fact that their copy protection doesn't allow another PC to access the files. Had I converted them to WAV at the same time that I transferred the original files from the MD, then I wouldn't have a problem (and in fact, that is what I typically do, but in these cases due to lack of time I didn't bother). I now make it my practice to convert to WAV immediately, whatever it takes. As for the original MD media, they are overwritten many times over with other projects, so were no good here.

All I have are the original OMA files, and they won't even play on my new PC because they are not recognized as belonging to me. If you read the web site I sent, you will see that if you can't play them, then you are stuck. There are many misconceptions about how to get around this, and many folks have spent many hours with no results. Yes, I know if I *could* play them then I could use an analog connection to capture the sound on another device. You would lose some quality of course, but at least you would have the files. But making an analog copy is not even possible if you can't play the material.

As for formats going out of style, and making backups - that's not really the problem here. I have many duplicates of the actual OMA files, but that did me no good. My error was not converting to WAV right away. Sony's error is not allowing for more flexible use of the device/files that we own. There is some small possibility that if I used the proprietary Sonic Stage backup process, that I might be able to recover the files. But with the added variable of a new PC, and protection software that seems to "know" what PC is being used to open the files, it is likely I would have the same problem.

And this was not a question of compatibility - I used the same operating system, software versions, etc for the new PC.

Persuasion Papers

I have finally posted my Dorje Shugden/Dalai Lama persuasive analysis papers:

http://www.mindspeak.com/writing.htm

Back from the BSD

My first two weeks in October were spent recovering from a Trojan horse and (as if that was not enough), a bad hard drive which forced me to replace my entire system. After five years it was time to upgrade anyway, but the time involved to do so took a lot out of my schedule. Thus the virtual silence.

Luckily I didn't lose any data, only time and sanity. In between my strains of profanity and re-installs of Win XP, Audra would see me emerge from the studio, bug-eyed and hair-mangled from crawling under my desk. Yeah, I know, perfect time to go Mac, right? Not necessarily. There are horror stories on both sides of the fence, and with nearly 20 years invested in the PC world, it is very hard to let go. Neither platform is perfect. The bottom line is that if we're going to rely on machines we have to be prepared for them to fail the week a paper is due.

Thanks to some legacy recording gear that I keep on hand (and Audra's laptop, which remained functional during my crisis), I managed to record a couple new commercials for Greenwood Friends School. Sometimes being a packrat comes in handy.

On the brighter side, a new website is on the way with artwork by Adam Lunger, who also did the Catch the Squirrel album art. For technical assistance I am pulling in Argraff Design, and we're using a content management system that will allow much more dynamic presentation and updates. It's helping me put some of the fun back into the task of managing a web presence, something that has become increasingly grueling. The best thing is, the new site can be maintained remotely, giving me some added flexibility while on the road.

Last week I attended a workshop on Hip-Hop music at the University of Scranton, hosted by NEPDEC. The group was small, but it allowed for some good discussion about the history, development and perception of this style.
The workshop brought back some fond memories of listening to Power 99 FM from Philly, and artists like Run DMC and the Beastie Boys who became a part of my own musical journey growing up in the 80s. Check my site for future workshops that are open to the public.

On Thursday, November 13, I'll be attending the "The President's Conversation on Diversity" at Bloomsburg University. The event is sponsored by the Office of Social Equity and the Committee on Protected Class Issues.
I'm looking forward to seeing what students and area residents have to say about the state of diversity in our area.

As for performances, I'll be hosting Greenwood's next Guitar Night at Phillips' Emporium on Saturday November 15, from 7:00 - 9:00. Cover will be
$6 and proceeds benefit the school's drama program. Audra, who is taking the reigns of the program this year, will be producing Peter Pan as her inaugural production.

No other shows are planned at this point. Right now I am concentrating on school which currently involves an analysis of the Dorje Shugden controversy in Tibetan Buddhism. I chose the topic after seeing protesters at Lehigh University during our visit to see the Dalai Lama's talk earlier this summer (see my YouTube site for a clip).

Otherwise, I'm bracing for the winter, which is usually my most productive writing/recording season. I'm expanding my knowledge of audio production through some self-guided study. The studio upgrades have been inspiring. Two albums are currently in production - one derived from socio-political ideas from the last several years, and another that ventures into more experimental, instrumental territory. Stay tuned for samples.


PS: BSD = Blue Screen of Death, an expression for the error screens one sees on PCs.