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Axiology Repress?

Started by bingeneer, January 10, 2015, 10:03:48 pm

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Repress Axiology

Press it on vinyl, I'll buy one.
53 (86.9%)
Repress the CD, I'll buy that.
6 (9.8%)
Already have the CD, not interested in either.
2 (3.3%)

Total Members Voted: 61

gustr15

Quote from: ichimatsu on February 17, 2015, 06:35:28 pm

It seems to have 2 sellers !


$50 to Sweden is a bit much unfortunately  :( Getting affordable buckethead stuff in Europe is almost impossible...

EHughes528

Here's Norman's official Discogs page if anyone is still looking to buy direct from the label:

http://www.discogs.com/seller/normansoundvision/profile

ichimatsu

QuoteHere's Norman's official Discogs page if anyone is still looking to buy direct from the label:

http://www.discogs.com/seller/normansoundvision/profile


yes but here it is 5$ cheaper   ;)

ichimatsu

baggedcereals

This sounds great if we can make it happen! I will buy 2 on Vinyl as well!

seattlehead

TheArtThief

Hey Travis,

Any word on a vinyl pressing?

Travis

I think it's safe to say all my efforts to prolong the viability of tangible media here have been unsuccessful. No one is less shocked then me. Over the last several years the popularity of CDs diminished to now non-existent. As the poll here would indicate there are about 50 dedicated collectors and supporters that continue to invest in collecting, but thats just not enough.

My attempt to tease a little more out of the last Thanatopsis recordings was a gamble on my part that enough folks would come out of the woodwork to enable to pay for the Requiem CD, re-press Axiology and look at vinyl. And, had this been 2008 that would have been no problem. As it is, I still haven't accomplished the first goal.

Really the problem is much more serious than just tangible product. Even the download sales have become rare. The world has gone to streaming and frankly sharing. There is no money for artists in either of those models. in 10 years what looked like a opportunity for independent artists to profit from their music on the internet through direct sales and social media with out the need for major record companies has been soundly defeated. Ironically and not surprisingly as thats the way power works, by the same corporations that have always controlled art and any profit to be made. CD sales industry wide are down, digital downloads are down and as these articles you read about music sales always say, the bright spot is vinyl sales are up 35 percent. What they always fail to show is it's 35 percent of nothing compared to all other media.

Whats left of the big record companies now is three corporations. Gone are the record moguls that although ruthless where still music fans. Now its all just business people. These companies have been investing in streaming. They have been buying up small streaming start ups and leveraging music rights and rates with streamers they can't own. The revenue streams are diverted through sweetheart deals and as usual independents get the short end of the stick. Artists typically see about .0007 per stream. Even if your selling huge numbers, thats nothing. What about Bandcamp and Tunecore? Really I think these are just predator ventures that promote the music dream to artists pooling as many as they can and take a pretty health chuck of what is really small sales from a lot of artists. I was really shocked to see Thanatopsis Requiem at number 18 of download sales for the week it was released on Bandcamp. Shocked because it sold 20 downloads, do the math.

In short, streaming belongs to the big corporations . Steaming is the future of music delivery. Streaming will be in direct competition to sharing. For Streaming to really work, a sweet spot of universal music availability and price will have to be reached. Corporations have a tendency to be greedy. Here now, sharing wins. Unfortunately in either case artists lose.

In a perfect world, a streaming service that offers any music you want at high quality on demand for around $50 per year with a fair price paid to the artist might, just might have a prayer of competing with file sharing.

Without going into the whole copyrights thing with file sharing. Thats a whole other side of the spectrum, ISPs and how big media really makes money. I'm more interested in legal streaming and fair payment both by record companies and directly to independent artists.

Now, it's a nice day to make music, I think I'll go gardening.

MuldeR

May 02, 2015, 01:55:59 pm #113 Last Edit: May 02, 2015, 02:02:58 pm by MuldeR
Only 20 downloads sold in the first week? That's really not much :-[

But my guess would be that simply not enough people knew about the new album. I mean, how would I have known that there is a new Thanatopsis album, if I didn't check out this forum at regular intervals? I guess I wouldn't - until I stumbled upon it "by accident". So I think there might be quite a lot of people who would have bought it, if they only knew it exists. And the "hardcore" fans, who do check out the TDRS forum regularly, they probably pre-ordered the CD and then didn't buy the download too (at least I have to admit that I didn't buy the download in addition to my CD). I don't know of a solution, but I guess the situation would be much different, if this wasn't a "studio only" band project. Probably a whole pile of CD's could be sold at every live show. I go to live shows quite a lot. Most of these bands will sell CD's and/or Vinyl after the show. And I see quite a lot of people buying CD's and Vinyl at shows. That's in year 2015, by the way.

About streaming: I'm not a fan of streaming at all! It's because it is totally up to the streaming provided to decide what tracks are available and how long they will be available. What if some of my favorite albums/tracks were available only via streaming services, because "everybody has moved to streaming", but one day they have just disappeared (e.g. because the contract between the streaming provider and the content provider has ended)? Streaming providers come and go. So do download shops. But once I bought a DRM-free MP3 or FLAC download, I can play it whenever I want and wherever I want. And without time limit - provided I do a proper backup of my files . With streaming I will always be depending on the "goodwill" of the streaming provider.

Yes, for the usual "throw away" music that you hear in radio and television, this all doesn't matter. That music is made to run on replay for one month and then it will be moved to trash to be forgotten. So nobody cares whether it will still be available after that month. Streaming fits perfectly here. But it's a totally different matter with "quality" music, like what TDRS creates. This deserver something better! (offering streaming in addition to downloads and/or physical discs would be perfectly fine, of course)
My free software projects: http://muldersoft.com/

Travis

Mulder, Im just riffing off our conversation. I know your a software developer and you know all this stuff so I'm not really addressing you but I get asked about this a lot and I'm just taking advantage of this thread to vent. You and I may be from the same generation and I feel the same as you about  a lot of this. However....


It's true this site and in fact most independent music relies on the networking of fans. I don't need to reach all the fans here at this site, just enough so that it networks to other fan sites, forums, Facebook and so on. We have always worked that way and without a label thats the only hope. If I can't spread the word by networking it means I have no fan base, no interest in what I'm doing. As I said before, I know the word is out, just Google Thanatopsis Requiem and you get page after page of the CD posted on download sites all over the world, bless their hearts for spreading the word. This isn't just about this CD. All CD sales are down to nothing, touring band or not. Downloads are down over last year globally as well.

I was really speaking more universally about the music business than here locally about the trends, though I see the same things here. I had just finished a few articles on Forbes about them. Like it or not there is no doubt that streaming in the next few years will be the dominate means of music delivery it's already half way there. You will stream to your computer, mobile devise, car , shower head, everywhere. No worries about transporting anything, everything will be networked. Not just music, the cloud is here, video, gaming, music, applications absolutely everything. World corporations don't want you owning anything, they want you to suckle the pipe and pay for the service. Don't pay, no pipe.
There is already a universal cloud library with all the music ever recorded, one stop shopping. It's called file sharing and the price is right. If there is any hope for making money off music it has to compete with that.

I know I'm sounding a bit jaded but really I'm not. None of this is new, I've been posting about this for years. I'm only speaking about it now because we started talking about re-pressing CDs and this comes up often.  This is all part of a global revolution that will sort it self out. Its one of many technological revolutions that came before. Try to find a good tube radio, icebox, or powdered wig. I'm old enough to say I had a good run. I made my living in the music business and will work to retirement. I don't think that can be done any longer for someone starting out.

Really it will come down to the value of intellectual property rights and finding a way for people who create things to make some of the money everyone else is making off their creations. That will make for a healthy music economey.

Travis

Just to beat a dead horse a little longer. For those that say money is in touring here's a good read:

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/04/guest-blog-dar-williams-looks-back-two-decades-touring/#.VUYo3f4xFwk.facebook

Most musicians I know, it doesn't pay to take a band on the road. iPod back up sound familiar?

She talks about streaming in the article too.  10 years ago in my Artist support page I mentioned the ISPs will have to take some responsibility for copyrights. I think the Youtube model might be the way.  It's needs to pay a hell of a lot better but the way it works now is like file sharing, anyone can upload anything. The artist has the option to have it taken down or monetize it. In the case of Youtube ads are placed on your copyrighted stuff and you are paid revenue. It works because the finger printing that recognizes songs identifies the copyright. Just like Facebook can use facial recognition to identify you in a picture someday posts of you.  I can image ISP identifying copyrighted files as they  in anyway pass through an ISP.  Then a fraction of a cent would be paid to the copyright holder, either by billing the ISP account holder or more Netfix like, working it into the monthly fee.  Now it wouldn't matter who uploads what where. It's a global library monetized by the ISP using file recognition software. If everybody who downloads any copyrighted file paid a fraction of a cent for it, it could be a bargain for the consumer and add up for the copyright holder.

seattlehead

Quote from: Travis on May 01, 2015, 04:15:58 pm
Over the last several years the popularity of CDs diminished to now non-existent

the majority of music sold is sold on CD. over $7 billion worth of CDs were sold last year. 94% of physical music sales were on CD last year.

who buys CDs anymore? a lot more people than buy any other way to hear music. Yes. $7 billion is less than $20 billion. But it's still a lot of money. It's still hundreds of millions of CDs. Every fucking year. Let's not delude ourselves into believing a lie.

Travis

I'm talking about here. Cd sales here. No lie, I can assure you!