Tag: music

The effect of spotify on music generally

Dear musicians who make £0.0033 per stream on our utopian music platform
Dear musicians who make £0.0033 per stream on our utopian music platform, haha, hahahaha – Spotify. Thanks, 2016 we made lots of money via Jason Lytle

It was Mike who sent me a link to this classic piece of culture jamming seen in Bristol. Of course it’s not by Spotify, but they (whoever is responsible for this work of genius) went as far as to use their logo and typeface.

It was only less than 24 hours previously at my new years eve party, when a couple of people wanted to control the music playing. I know wanting to control the music isn’t anything new; but I’m finding people are assuming the music is from Spotify.

Before the holidays, I was at a party where the music was chosen by people typing names into a laptop connected to the sound system. As you can imagine, people would select a few tunes and queue them up. Then someone else would come over and select more. Some  would then shift around the playlist to move their tunes to the top, etc. It was a bit of mess with different people deleting other people’s selected tunes and others hogging the playlist. The inner DJ in me, choose to turn my back on everything and ignore the chaos.

The mindset has changed and although I love what Pacemaker are doing. I do slighly wonder about the future of mixed music. Theres a sense of instant gratification in playing track after track in a playlist and bumping things up and off the list, rather than trusting a mix to take you on a great journey. Maybe this is why I never use spotify and use mixcloud more? Delayed gratification is something which seemed to go right out the door with the increase in blood alcohol levels

Of course this is absolutely nothing compared to whats happening with the artists of course. Which leads right back around to the culture jamming in Bristol. Like Uber, the big behemoths across the sharing economy (if thats what we are to call it) are most likely to feel pressure in the long run from more humane practices such as Juno. Or at least I certainly see becoming true…

What if Spotifiy was a Coop?
Seen this during the mozretreat at BetaHaus, Berlin

There is a blog draft which I’ve had saved about the state of business now and into the future. Its big and likely needs slicing into smaller blogs but cooperatives are certainly a big part of it.

Ben pulled me up on this recently surround Evernote…

Ian, are you against these companies making money/turning a profit? I’m curious how you otherwise see them paying for both the innovation and the on-going costs of running the service?

I replied without the links (but now I can finally put them in)…

No I’m not against that Ben Metcalfe, I’m in favour of up front telling people up front what they are getting into. You have to be honest and say EULAs are a joke no one reads except myself and a few others.

I’m also not a fan of massive endless profits growth which ends up ruining the companies…like Twitter, Pebble, Evernote, etc, etc. I see it over and over again and I think the likes of the media are also part of the problem – huge valuations attracting/temping more startups to get involved.

Its a mess and killing the long term sustainability of a exciting future.

This starts to summarize some of the main points of the longer blog post…

The alternative classic trance set

I mentioned in my trance set from July, that I had recorded two trance sets; and was deciding which one I preferred. The full’on classic trance set won out but I wanted to share the alternative one too. It pretty raw and short but I quite like it, especially since I love out of the blue by system F so much that it was played twice!

Enjoy and remember sharing is caring!

  1. Communication 2 (armin remix) – Armin Van Buuren
  2. Pearl River (vocal mix) – Johney Shaker
  3. Love Stimulation (Pvd Love Club mix) – Humate
  4. Please Save me (Push remix) – Sunscream vs Push
  5. Seven Cities (V-One’s Living Cities Remix) – Solarstone
  6. Out of the Blue – System F
  7. Avenue – Paul van dyk
  8. I can’t help myself – Lucid
  9. Sunrise (Here I am) (Ratty mix) – Tenshi
  10. Grooveline (Matt Darey) – Blockster
  11. Gamemaster (Matt Darey 1999 Remix) – Matt Darey Presents Lost Tribe
  12. 1999 (Gouryella mix) – Binary Finary
  13. I’m in Love – Star Party
  14. Out of the Blue – System F

Photo credit comes from lneprz.

Dj Hackday: Jan 14/15th 2017 in Manchester

Remixing a part of who we are - Doug Belshaw

In my last mega blog post about Futurefest, I talked about millennials thinking.

Millennials charactistics include

  • Multiple things going on
  • More likely to do things they are passionate about
  • Blur work and play and enjoy it

This very much applies to something I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a long time (5 years!).

DJ Hackday, is a hackday for not only for DJs but for remix culture.

Remix culture, sometimes read-write culture, is a society that allows and encourages derivative works by combining or editing existing materials to produce a new product. A remix culture would be, by default, permissive of efforts to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of copyright holder

My personal thoughts are, DJ culture was new exciting and things were moving and changing all the time. We had vinyl, record players and mixers. But people were innovating and doing new things on top of that. Then the technology changed from spinning discs (Vinyl, CDs heck even Minidisc if you must) to Solid State/Digital. There was a lot of push back and there still is… But you can’t stop the future.

However we adopted the digital methods to do exactly the same thing. You can see this in the vast amount of digital dj tools, 2 decks and a mixer. Skeuomorphism hell! And it needs to die! Because a good 20 years after the first Mp3 dj software (virtual turntables by Carrot innovations). The interface, method and general approch is exactly the same.

virtualturntables
2 decks and a mixer (kinda) – 1996
hqdefault
2 decks and a mixer with extras – 2016

That’s more than half my life time! That has to be some kind of a joke!

Ok under the hood things have changed but not far enough and wheres the distruptive changes? The DJ world still seems to be stressing out about auto BPM? Its happened get over it. For a whole culture built on innovation and creativity, it seems highly ironic?

5 years ago at Mozilla Festival I convince the lovely Michelle Thorne of this and I was able to run a prototype of DJ hackday during the festival. Out of it came a DJ first multitrack stem/format called 8trk.

But this was just scratching the surface of a much larger problem with DJ/Remix culture. I put together some slides which horrible to read back through as they are 5 years old, but its been super useful when talking to people and companies about what DJ hackday could be about. It was due an update and thankfully I can finally tick this off my list.

While talking to many people and companies over the years, some of got it and some have asked why isn’t it part of Music Hackday?

I have spoken to the Music hackday people about DJ hackday and made a very clear distinction between what they are doing and what I’m trying to to.

My estimations is the internet 1% rule applies here.

The 1% rule is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio), which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content.

90-9-1

In the case of DJ hackday; out of 100 people…

  • 90 will be consumer (lurkers/watchers)
  • 1% will be makers (creators)
  • 9% will be remixers (editors)

Music hackday cators for the 1% and of course moving remixers and consumers into makers. DJ hackday is moving consumers and makers into remixers. Its a very viable area with plenty of people doing interesting great things already. Everyone we have spoke over the last 5 years have gotten the concept and really want to see it become a real things now.

Myself and Simon have started a Lanyrd page to start building support and getting more people interest. Its also one of Mozilla Festival’s Fridge events, which is fantastic as it shows the progession from its small prototype to a full blown event and Mozilla are always a supporter of remix cultures.

Capitalising on the recent interest in the Get Down on Netflix, which sums up a bit of why DJ/Remix culture is important. I created some simple teaser posters. Expect a proper poster in near future but right now, its about getting the word out. And we’re really targetting those who never thought of themselves as DJs or participating in remix culture. People like you!

As the year counts down towards Winter, I’ll be looking for people to help and other companies to join the DJ Hack. We already have some great names (tbc) and starting to sort out venues for the night events. Of course we already have the MMU Shed for the main hack which is a great space for a hackday. The actual hack dates are Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th January, with a social event on the Friday 13th January and post hackday party on Sunday evening somewhere we can try out some of the hacks.

If you are interested in helping out on the day, know a great venue, like to support in some way, set a challenge or want to come help organise it. Get in touch…

Feel free to ping myself a tweet or drop a message via email, my contact form, comment, etc… I’m quite easy to get hold of.

Showers & Thunderstorms, my latest Pacemaker Mix

Showers and thunderstorms mix by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

Its been ages since I have published a Pacemaker Device Mix.

This one I have been listening to on and off for the last few weeks on my phone as I wonder around Manchester. Lots of new tunes and a less hectic pace of about 135bpm, but plenty of hands in the air moments and smooth mixing.

I also added chapter marks to give you can idea of what was influencing my tune selections.

Enjoy!

  1. Perpetual Motion – Protoculture
  2. Hold that sucker down (Jerome Isma-Ae’s 10 year anniversary mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae
  3. Running up the hill – (Jerome Isma-Ae bootleg) – Placebo
  4. Humming the lights – Armin van Buuren pres. Gaia
  5. Shelter (Photographer remix) – Dash Berlin feat. Roxanne Emery
  6. Hello (Jerome Isma-Ae Remix) – Above & Beyond
  7. Whites Of Her Eyes – Simon Patterson
  8. Stellar  – Driftmoon
  9. Brush Strokes  – Simon Patterson
  10. Imagineer (Alex M.O.R.P.H remix) – Lange
  11. Seven Cities (V-One’s Living Cities remix) – Solar Stone
  12. Higher State – Above & Beyond
  13. Intruder – Armin vs MIKE
  14. Hystereo (KhoMha Remix) – Armin van Buuren
  15. The Evil ID – Max Graham
  16. Shenanigans – Orjan Nilsen
  17. Dissolve – Simon Patterson feat. Sarah Howells
  18. Timebomb – David Gravell
  19. Anahera (extended mix) – Ferry Corsten presents Gouryella

BBC Proms 2015 Season: Radio 1 Ibiza Prom

Prom 14: Prokofiev – the piano concertos

Anybody who loves dance music MUST watch this BBC Radio 1 special from the BBC Proms in the Albert Hall.

Who says electronic music and classical don’t mix? Well Dance music was elevated to one of the highest levels at the Proms.

Pete Tong takes charge of the BBC Radio 1 Prom and decides to employ the Heritage Orchestra to play a selection of Ibiza classics. The Royal Albert Hall has never seen anything like it!

Jules Buckley conducts the orchestra through dance masterpieces by Fatboy Slim, Eric Prydz, Shapeshifters, Robert Miles, ATB, Moby, Frankie Knuckles, Orbital, Inner City, Daft Punk, Faithless, Stardust and so many more, with the help of Ella Eyre and John Newman.

I had this playing out over BBC iPlayer with my Philips Hue lights dancing along side the music. My favourite part has to be Orbital’s Belfast which stokes up many memories for me, although I would have love it if they did Chime instead.

Amazing to watch and certainly another chapter in the continuing cultural domination of dance music.

On the beat with the BBC

I had the pleasure of attending the BBC’s on the beat conference.

The conference was in beta state as LJ Rich announced at the very start. It is a example of the way the BBC is changing. More people within are able to push the organisation the way it needs to go. More risks taken, more gained for the general public.

Beta or not, it was a good afternoon with speakers from across the music industry. Each panel was backed up with somebody from the BBC.

The sessions were centered around the audiences, discovery and metadata. The keynote was given by Mark Mulligan, whom I gather is well known for his blog and writing about the future of music.

It was interesting to hear how the music industry has parallels with the film industry.

Artists need to ‘find their popcorn’

In the audiences panel it was interested to meet and hear from DJ Charlie Sloth and  Shazam. There was also a interesting reflection between the Charlie’s focus on the BBC Radio 1xtra audience who may not own a hifis and use their phones for music discovery. Against a talk by Jeff Smith from BBC Radio 2, with audiences who still buy CDs.

In the Metadata session which included Music Brainz, there was a debate about the lack of metadata  in music and they only scratched the surface. When it came out that theres not really a well used standard for music classification.

To which I tweeted…

In who’s your music dealer? with  Spotify, PingTune, BBC R1/1Xtra, the question of algorithms for discovery came into call. But even more interested was the power of the DJ to bring forward music unlike anything else. Something the music algorithms fail at.

The event was top and tailed with musical demos from many companies and our own BBC R&D UX team showing off the scalable documentary. However there  was also, LJ’s impromptu’s play on the piano.

…and live music which I thought was odd, however I really enjoyed the quite unique voice of Layla, one of the many artists who signed up with BBC Introducing.

All excellent stuff and ultimately reminded me that DJ Hackday needs to happen… Love to team up with BBC Music to consider the future of participation, remixing and music discovery from a slighly different standpoint.

The dark brush strokes mix

Dark brush stokes by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

Its another mix from my new pacemaker. This one is a combination of the mixes I was doing to test the firmware downgrades and upgrades of my new and old pacemaker. Its a nice selection of tunes and I have been throwing this around on my phone for about a month. Slight issues with file encoding caused me delays in uploading it. Have a listen and don’t forget to share… because sharing is caring…

  1. 3rd earth – solar stone vs scott bond
  2. Ninety – Sander Van Doorm
  3. Voices from the inside (album mix) – M.I.K.E
  4. Intruder – Armin vs M.I.K.E
  5. One for you (oliver klein remix) – Oliver Klien
  6. Seven days and one week (tomcraft mix) – B.B.E
  7. Brush Stokes – Simon Patterson
  8. Blood Angels (chris liebing remix) – John Startlight
  9. Stellar (TV Noise remix) – Daddy Groove
  10. Rewind (Mikkas Remix) – Emma Hewitt
  11. The Expedition (Indecent noise remix) – Armin van buuren and markus schulz
  12. UFO – Shogun
  13. Tomorrow 2006 (jamx and de leo) – Dumonde
  14. Torrent – Dave 202
  15. Humming the lights – Armin pres Gaia

The future of digital music? Space for the DJ?

BBC Music on the beat

Thanks to Simon for pointing this out to me. I am very interested as I mentioned to BBC on the beat team.

I’ve been pushing for the future of Djing for years and I thank Mozilla Fest for letting me run something a while ago. One of the outcomes was stem based djing, we called it 8 track. I always felt like we were just scratching the surface and there were many other scenarios which needed to be explored. I especially like the quantified club. I wonder about the line up, it seems very singles music driven rather than looking at mixing/djing. I do wish Mixcloud, Pacemaker and Mixxx were all coming along too!

See you in London?

Live pacemaker mix from Mozfest2014

I had the pleasure to play the Mozilla Festival again in October. It was meant to be 2 djs but only myself showed up. Here’s a good hour of dance music for you’re lovely ears to take in. Recorded live using the Pacemaker device’s build in recorder (now I’m using the old firmware). I did a longer mix but the Karaoke took over and to be fair I was pretty much messing around by that point.

Enjoy! And blog post about Mozfest is coming soon.

The Mozfest 2014 party live mix by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

Perceptive music and beyond

Pet Shop Boys at the Brits 2009

Media relies on the ability to engineer peoples emotions. This can sound pretty bad but all media from romantic comedies made for cinema to the old classics from Shakespeare. The effect of media and ultimately storytelling has always fascinated me and I’m sure its the same for most people. Its hardwired in to us as Jason Silva puts it.

The ability to engineer someone’s emotions is interesting from a story point of view. However if you add broadcast, you can do this to a nation or the whole world. But like the 10% of any audience, which are highly suggestible, how do you reach the others?

A 600,000 person study Facebook and Cornell University did a while back but recently came to light might have a clue about how. However there has been a major push-back on the study for ethical reasons.

Facebook’s controversial study that manipulated users’ newsfeeds was not pre-approved by Cornell University’s ethics board, and Facebook may not have had “implied” user permission to conduct the study as researchers previously claimed.

Starting from a different place is Moment.us.(little disclaimer to say I may be working with this Manchester based startup in the near future, but only because their technology is mind blowing)

Moment.us, tracks and follows the users media habits. It watches as you choose songs (bit like scobbling apps like last.fm) when you pick them and records the context of when. Like certain types of song when your going for a ride to work on a sunny day.

Our proprietary algorithm, contextual database, analytics, understanding of and expertise in media, technology and user behaviour. Highly relevant, hyper-personal, socially integrated, context driven mobile experiences for consumers and unrivalled contextual consumer data for commercial organisations.

A while ago we pitched a project loosely called In Tune at the BBC Radio One Connected Studio which we felt was very credible but unfortunately the judges disagreed. Maybe it was the way we pitched it but there was a lot of doubt we had the data to do what we planning to do.

I have seen first hand the data points and been amazed at what patterns of activity our music listening can reveal about ourselves. Imagine what you could do if you were have access to that data and could engineer the music and therefore the experience?

Interestingly Google is getting in on the idea as they recently bought Songza.

The firey drive mix

The firey drive mix by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

Time for another one of my mixes, done with the Pacemaker Device rather than the Pacemaker App. Still loving the device and this mix is a slower mix at 135bpm over the usual 140. A few brand new tunes mixed with some older classics. Nice beat friendly mix with plenty to keep you going on those long drives in the mountains.
Tracklist is below…
  1. Breathe (Blake Jarrell Remix) by Anna Nalick
  2. Take me away into the night (purple haze remix) by 4 strings
  3. Humming the lights (radio edit) by Armin van Buuren, Gaia
  4. Stella – Ferry Corsten vs Markus Schulz
  5. The Evil ID – Max Graham
  6. The Spring – Ernesto and Alex Fisher
  7. Orbion (Max Graham vs Protoculture Remix) – Armin Van Buuren
  8. 3rd Earth (heatbeat remix) – Solarstone vs Scott Bond
  9. Megalodon – Dash Berlin
  10. Attention – John 00 Fleming Vs Christopher Lawrence
  11. The Storm – Eco
  12. Sundown (Sneijder remix) – Thomas Bronzwaer
  13. Rainmaker – Des mcmahon
  14. Shadow World – Thomas Bronzwaer
  15. Big Sky (Signum vs RAM Remix) – John O’Callaghan feat. Audrey Gallagher
  16. Solarcoaster (protoculture Remix) – Solarstone
  17. Wonder of Life (f & w remix) – Tukan Light
  18. Diss! – Ferry Corsten
  19. RoseGarden 2.0 – JS16

Escaping the interstellar fall mix

Escaping the interstellar fall mix by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

Been a while since I have uploaded a decent mix, but don’t worry I have been messing with the pacemaker quite a bit on long journeys. I felt this one was good enough for public consumption, hence the upload to mixcloud. Most of the tunes are brand new and theres a slightly feel of break dance to this with the addition of Knife Party which I can’t get enough of. Also absolutely love Mogusa’s Laserbeams! Of course, Max Graham’s Evil ID and the excellent remix of Southern Sun are great stuff. Its a long one but well worth playing loud, where ever your listening.

  1. Tokyo (beatman and ludmilla remix) – Paul Oakenfold
  2. Laser beams – Mogusa
  3. Boom – Marlo
  4. The Expedition (Indecent Noise Remix) – Armin van Buuren and Markus Schulz
  5. Fools for life (club mix) – Dash Berlin feat Chris Madin
  6. Trespass (Antillas Dankann Club Mix) – Andy Moor feat Sue McLaren
  7. Megalodon – Dash Berlin
  8. Ecstasy – Eddie Makabi feat Einat
  9. The Evil ID – Max Graham
  10. UFO – Shogun
  11. LRAD – Knife Party
  12. Ten (original club mix) – Sander van Doorn Mark Knight and Underworld
  13. The Storm – Eco
  14. Thunder – W&W
  15. EDM death machine – Knife Party
  16. Stellar (TV Noise remix) – Danny’s Groove
  17. LA (Juventa Remix) – Super 8 Tab
  18. Communication (Tomas Heredia remix) – Armin Van Buuren
  19. New york city – Alex M.O.R.P.H
  20. Headliner – Jornvan Deynhoven
  21. Cannonball – Showtek and Justin Prime
  22. Southern Sun (Moe Aly Remix) – Paul Oakenfold
  23. Gauntlet – DNS Project
  24. Deep impact – Will Atkinson

Soundclouds dispute grows up… a bit

One of the my big issues with Soundcloud was the dispute process…

Well it seems to have grown up and learned a trick from Youtube.

Our automatic content protection system has detected that your sound “The impossible wall of trance mix” may contain copyright content. As a result, its publication on your profile has been blocked.

You can dispute this report, if you believe the copyright content has been mistakenly identified or if you have obtained all the necessary rights, licenses and/or permissions to upload and share this material on SoundCloud.

Please do so by filling out our dispute webform at the following link:https://soundcloud.com/settings/disputes/

Unlike before you can dispute it but of course its hard to understand which part is being disputed in a mix… So its not exactly great…

Pacemaker is Paradigm shifting?

pacemaker_sonar_june_2007_07

I was explaining to someone over twitter about the Pacemaker device since I was using it at the Future Media North Christmas Party. They were interested in buying some dj kit and was seeking advice from myself and Simon Lumb.

I know the pacemaker device (as its now called) isn’t coming back because frankly there wasn’t enough demand but that shouldn’t affect how ground breaking of a device it was/is. I would go almost as far as to say it was a paradigm shift in djing and mixing. No other device before it had attempted to cater for a niche like djs before and with something so bold.

I was thinking about this when my sister laid claim to my all but dormant BlackBerry Playbook which the pacemaker guys got me. Even the pacemaker guys will be first to admit the tablet isn’t a great platform for djing. Maybe I could push them to say the original vision was compromised when moving to the tablet, but its a compromise which has kept them in the game.

pacemaker_sonar_june_2007_06

The Pacemaker device was mind blowing, I would suggest almost paradigm shifting.

Everything up to that moment was aping vinyl and then some guys came along and built something which was so radical I can only suggest it was like a paradigm shift in djing. There hasn’t been such a major shift in the way you dj since direct drive turntables.
Not only that the mission was always the democratisation of djing, such a fine and impressive goal.

Of course thats my view, many would disagree? One of the best quotes I heard before I ordered my own over 5 years ago.

“I wanted a PlayStation Portable for music” – Jonas Norberg

The Pacemaker in use

Never forgotten and I still use my every few weeks, in fact because of it I now buy more music legally than I had before (at least till when I was buying vinyl). What I’m wondering is if this might be a good time to do some crowd funding? A kickstarter would be easy for these guys because they have a good track record and certainly know what there doing to a certain point. I don’t know if I would pay through the nose again for a pacemaker but I’m seriously thinking about buying another one on ebay just in-case my one goes wrong in some way.

Where is spotify for dj mixes?

I see Spotify is  updating its linux users with new features first… But I still wonder where and if there is interest in a spotify for dj mixes?

A while ago I wrote about the differences for soundcloud vs mixcloud then went on to write about mixcloud. I highlighted these as problems with mixcloud…

  • The ability to license content including creative commons
  • Allow people to download the mixes if the dj allows it, like soundcloud do…
  • Allow alternative versions of the same mix (this could be a nice pro feature, pro users get access to the transcoder)
  • Add the ability to comment on sections of the mix and the whole mix if they want to
  • Groups are a good idea (they work well on flickr and soundcloud)
  • Spend a little more time on the design of the site if possible

The download one was always a problem. Something which strikes at the heart of mixcloud’s licensing and something spotify seemed to have solved too.

So I wonder if mixcloud will ever release a desktop client or if anyone else will jump in and do it first?