Get On Bits.

Digital is the bomb. When I say ‘get on bits’ I mean get digital. Get on YouTube. Get on Facebook. Get indexed. Become bits. Bits outlive memories. Legacies live on bits. ‘All we are is bits in the cloud.’

Bring Me The Horizon singer Oliver Sykes pushes the edge of the Vans Warped Tour 2010 stage in Dallas, TX.
Photo: earlylove/Flickr

YouTube it.

In 2010, YouTube takes the cake as being the sweet spot for music. Their fact sheet reads currently that “people are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube” and that “52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.” Vevo, which launched in late 2009, saw screaming growth through 2010 largely due to its integration with YouTube. It’s pretty understandable why video is so engaging—it combines multiple senses: sight, hearing, and—if you’re pressing a keypad or touchscreen—touch. Triggering the brain from multiple angles makes for strong communication and vivid memories. Video influences people. Last month in Wired, TED curator Chris Anderson and Jon Chu talked about how access to free online video accelerates innovation. Chu used the example of kids who learned dance moves by watching videos of other dancers, “Kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while teenagers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it to create a whole new dance style in itself. This is happening every day. And from these bedrooms and living rooms and garages with cheap webcams come the world’s great dancers of tomorrow.”

Live is unique.

Seeing a live show is an experience—it’s not a product, but that’s not to say that it can’t be captured on one. Ask Aderra, a company who “records live concerts to flash drives and MicroSD wristbands which are available to the audience immediately after the performance.” Their USB drives can also be used to access exclusive content on the web. It’s important to realize that experiences have more intrinsic value than products.

Cut the intro.

Get right to the hook. Two time lessons in 2010 were seconds and clicks. At NMS NYC 2010, Jay Frank (@futurehitdna) said that artists have, “10 seconds to engage someone—to impress them.” He said to “clicks to content,” because the more clicks it takes, the more it’s bye-bye attention span. In a way this explains the addiction to YouTube, whose videos are one mere click beyond Google search results. “Anything more than two clicks and you’re missing out on the majority. … Impress them fast.” If you’ve made it this far into the post, you’re a champion, and deserve a video for the rest of the ride.

API breakout.

Expect to see more mashups based on music APIs. Most notable IMO are mashups built on APIs from The Echo Nest and from SoundCloud. The Echo Nest is a data-driven startup that launched in 2008. Its platform is in use on MTV Music Meter, MOG All Access, Indaba Music, Bandintown, exfm, and more. Based on data from Compete, web visits to SoundCloud were up 850% in 2010. A number of apps—many mobile ones—support integration with SoundCloud. Keep Grooveshark on the radar, their web visits were up 235% based on Compete, and unofficial Grooveshark API documentation is available on APIshark. The Grooveshark library is also accessible through the Tinysong API. Spotify too has potential for a mashup explosion. See the API list: 30 Music APIs.

Mystery tour.

There are several events/ticketing services out there beyond Ticketmaster/Live Nation, such as Eventful, Songkick, Ticketfly, and Live Music Machine. Ticketing is mysterious and because of that I think less music startups have gone in its direction. But live music is really what music is all about, and I think we’re going to see a lot more action in this space, especially when more people have smartphones and are using location-based apps. But the question I’m asking about ticketing is, ‘what could possibly stop Facebook from wiping away the entire online ticketing industry with an official ticketing service within Facebook Events?’

Brainmelt.

I’d like to write about licensing, but it’s just so boring and complicated, still, in 2011, and this article is already way to long for the YouTube Generation. I do think something about the licensing needs to change, especially in the U.S. where “WTF is SoundExchange?” is the typical reaction, and many musicians believe that receiving payouts from rights organizations is a straight-up myth—it’s not, but setting it up may melt your brain. For now what I think is worth knowing is that the majority of money that SoundExchange pays out comes from Pandora. So if you’re on Pandora, then you definitely want to be registered with SoundExchange. If you’re asking “how do I get on Pandora?” then read this. First, push to the end of this article. You made it this far. I promise you it’s worth it.

Born free.

If you asked Austin Powers what he thought about the internet, I know exactly what he would say..: “it’s freedom, baby, yeah!” His nemesis, Dr. Evil, would be saying “throw me a frickin’ bone here!” Who would you rather be? Free is the nature of the internet and what makes it such an advance. If you’re not embracing that free spirit, then you’re in the wrong industry. It’s like the accelerated innovation I mentioned at the start of this rap. Everyone is building on each other’s work. It’s human nature. Pablo Picasso would tell you that “good artists copy—great artists steal.” Picasso didn’t become famous by making a few great paintings. He became famous by making thousands of them. He only sold the ones that he needed to, keeping the rest in his possession, and nowadays I can’t help but wonder if he’d be getting them on bits. Really it comes down to more than creating fresh music, but being innovative on every front, and living it. That, my friends, is art. // @ryanve

Device Dependency

Apple continues to create a major dependence on iTunes through their mobile products—the iPod, iPhone, and iPad—and I don’t think that anything is going to “kill” iTunes without a war. iTunes is the 7-Eleven of media—it’s more convenient and expensive, but it’s closer to home. For many, the iTunes experience is ingrained behavior—a household name—and part of their daily commute so to speak.

Generation Gap

The second huge advantage Apple has is the generation gap. Older people are more likely to have money to spend, and are less likely to adopt something new—especially if it’s less convenient. For Spotify to compete stateside, it will start through today’s youth. I love the Spotify concept, its mobility, and its adaptivity. They are smart to develop/test/improve their service in one location (Europe) before attempting to roll it out in another market (U.S.)—that’s business expansion 101. I hope that Spotify becomes a hit in the U.S. mainly for the sake of the music. Who wants an iTunes monopoly?

Apple Affinity

Apple products have strong affinity, and an army of enthusiasts drinking their Slurpees. Anyone looking to compete with them has to have an equal or greater affinity, and/or introduce something totally disruptive (which Spotify has done to a degree). Spotify has game, but so does Apple, who made a calculated move with last year’s Lala acquisition. One big thing to remember is that music has always been about the experience, and it always has been.

Apple Shuttle

Style-wise how does iMatik compare to your previous albums?

TF: Well, I usually produce hip hop and rap albums that are vocal-based, with verses and choruses, etc. I thought about getting a bunch of artists to add vocals to the album, but once I started actually working on it, I thought the vibe was more upbeat than most of my other work. I used to love instrumental “Scratch DJ” albums like DJ Shadow, Invisible Skratch Picklz, etc. and thought maybe I could go in this direction.

Once I found Flare, the iPhone app that is remarkably like a real vinyl turntable and mixer, and found out how realistic it sounded, plus that it allows you to upload your own samples, I knew what I was going to do. I used to have a DJ rig when I was younger, and knew a little bit about scratching, so I just made it work with an iPhone.

I really love the result, since most of my other music is dark or just plain strange, and this album immediately seems to make friends with people, instead of scare them off!

Mobility is the obvious advantage to iPhone music creation, but how do iPhone apps compare feature-wise to software and drum machines?

TF: There are some limitations on the iPhone that are hard to overcome. The biggest issue is pressure sensitivity. Not having pressure sensitivity takes a lot away from the expressiveness of an instrument, since each note comes out with the same volume and timbre. There are ways to overcome this though, such as programming individual sounds to play just right, or editing velocity after the performance, on apps like Beatmaker that support velocity editing. Also, just picking the right sound sometimes is the solution without having control over volume, some sounds are better suited to fitting in, or can be edited to fit.

The second, and more obvious disadvantage, is the small screen. I can’t tell you how many times I pressed the wrong drum sound or key, and had to go back and try again. This is just something you have to live with if you are doing music on a phone, although some apps allow you to adjust the size of the playing area to try and make it easier. For me, the solution to this problem is in the iPad, which I am foaming at the mouth for already!

Besides these two limitations, it is amazing how much sound quality, programmability, and depth some of these apps have! Especially Intua Beatmaker, which allows you to import/export any sounds you want via wireless, so you can program sounds in your computer and load them on your iPhone. This is an area I just brushed the surface of.

You mentioned Beatmaker, iDrum, Flare, and Jasuto—can you give us a breakdown on the advantages of each app?

TF: Sure:

Beatmaker is definitely the most “pro” as far as looking and feeling like a real production device. It is very similar to an MPC with some of it’s functionality, having a 4 x 4 grid of pads to work with, and being able to assign anything to those pads. Beatmaker’s sequencer also lets you build complex arrangements, so if you really want a program that will mimic a computer application like Fruityloops or Reason for example, this will come the closest to doing that. iTunes link

iDrum was my first favorite, because it’s so easy to get hooked on its simple, fun, step sequencer. The main method of programming beats with this device is a visual grid of buttons that represent a note value—mainly sixteenth notes—that you can touch and they light up. When the button is lit that means it will play on that step each time around. You can use common iPhone motions like finger sweeps and shaking to get around in the sequencer. There’s an option for realtime sequencing as well. The built in sounds were awesome and well programmed, so even though I could have used my own huge arsenal of sounds on my main computer, I found using the built-in sounds almost always got me the sound I was looking for. iTunes link

Flare is the ultimate iPhone DJ app. It is a lot like having a mini actual turntable on your phone, with a built in DJ scratch mixer with features useful to a DJ. I used the mixer in hamster-switch mode for most of my scratching, since it allows you to punch in just little snippets of audio. The feature that truly makes this app amazing is it that enables wireless upload of any audio file you want to use. I grabbed weird found sounds, movie samples, old beats, just about anything I could think of, and uploaded it into the phone to scratch with. iTunes link

Jasuto is crazy—it is a modular synth and effects-creation environment on your phone! You can drag and drop modules such as oscillators, compressors, delays, and route or key them from all types of things. I’m a bit of a caveman when it comes to this stuff, so I just dragged objects until it made crazy sounds, and used that. In the future I plan on trying harder to learn how to use this app more, since I think the idea is so amazing! iTunes link

My desert island app is definitely Intua Beatmaker. That’s the one I can sit down with anywhere and feel like I’m in the studio.

What features would like to see in the next round of music production apps?

TF: I think everything right now regarding mobile music apps is limited to screen size. That is such a limiting factor, since you can’t add a lot of buttons or menus in a small area without killing the fun. So when the iPad is released, I really hope application developers take advantage of the screen real estate, and make apps that offer more features visible without having to hunt through menus. Also I hope apps start taking more advantage of the gyroscopic features of the iPhone—like I would want to be able to wave or tilt the phone to control filter frequencies, etc.

What’s your beat-making software of choice in the studio?

TF: It’s a toss-up between Reason and Ableton Live, and now sometimes Logic. My day job is testing music software, so I know all the apps, and I love little things about all the apps that keeps me switching from one to the other. I guess I would choose Reason just because I am almost guaranteed to not crash my system with that!

Do you prefer programming the beats or recording them live with your fingers? What’s easier on the iPhone?

TF: I’ve always been more of a live-recording guy, coming from a bass-playing background, so I usually record in realtime. But on some apps like iDrum, they make step sequencing so fun, I ended up doing a lot of that too. This album definitely has way more step-sequenced parts than I usually make.

Did you transfer the iMatik album tracks to your computer to do post-production, or was everything done on the iPhone?

TF: Yes, everything was transferred to a Mac Pro running Cubase 5, which is my main recording app, and I just used the computer like a tape machine. I used a mini-dual 1/4″ cable to get everything over to my Universal Audio 2108 stereo preamp, and tracked everything in using that, since it usually sounds great with line level sources.

Because the iPhone does not have the ability to run two apps simultaneously, I realized all overdubs would have to be done using a separate app. To me this still fits in with the mentality of an iPhone-only album, just like a saxophone-only album could be tracked into a recording app and still be considered “pure” if there’s anything “pure” anyway about an album made on a phone. ;-)

I used plugins and hardware in the mixdown, most notably a Summit DCL-200 on mix buss, Universal Audio EMT 250 and 140 for reverbs, and during the mastering phase I used the new UA Manley Massive EQ plugin, which sounded amazing!

What was the weirdest place you created a song with the iPhone?

TF: Well, since my commute to work is really far, and my girlfriend lives even farther away, I find myself staying in motels on a regular basis, just to make things work. It is usually a weird but fun feeling to be in some strange motel, sitting on the bed, with a basketball game on or something, and me with my headphones on making a beat.

I went to Mavericks surf competition recently, and the waves were so amazing I didn’t really use the phone a lot, but that was also a cool place to make a beat. The funniest place is probably making a beat while waiting at a place like Applebee’s or something—it’s just cheesy enough to work!

How long did it take you to make iMatik?

TF: About 4 months (3 months to make the initial beats and songs, and 1 month for overdubs, mixing, mastering, etc.) Really at first I didn’t start it as a serious project, I just started doing it because it was fun. But then I got, uh, kind of addicted to it, so I figured I might as well make it into an album!

In what ways do you think the iPhone is changing music production and the music industry?

TF: Well for one thing, I grew up with old drum machines, and none of them ever had wireless or 3G! Now I can upload any sound I want to a little device that I can carry with me. Sure, you can make music with a laptop, but that still involves wires, powercords, etc. Once the iPad comes out, and developers make the next generation of music apps, I think making music on a mobile device is going to explode.

What’s your take on touchscreens in general? Will computer keyboard/mice become things of the past?

TF: I don’t know, because I still hate typing on the iPhone. I always am missing the letter I was trying to hit. There is something about the tactile response of a keyboard that I love, so as far as communicating, I would still want an actual keyboard. The mouse on the other hand, I wouldn’t miss at all! It has been a great run for the mouse, and maybe for pinpoint accuracy in some apps, the mouse will always be needed by some people, but I hope to not need one in the future.

For music production, though, touchscreens are so necessary, due to the need to control multiple parameters at once.

Are there any up-and-coming local artists in the SF Bay area music scene that we should know about?

TF: Well I’ve been working with a lot of cats from the Hayward and Oakland areas, and they are mostly just kids, but I’ve never seen a more hungry group of talented individuals in my life. I just hope they can work together a little bit more to bring everyone up. Rappers like Too Much, The Kid AY, The Scholars, Studio Pete, New New, etc. Also from the South Bay I gotta give a shout out to Brycentenial, the workhorse in the south bay, Big Blac, No Mercy Records, Magruff Muttley, Marcus Weezy, and the list goes on and on.

Multitouch makes “sense.”

The idea of multitouch sensors has been around for years, but multitouch has yet to see wide-spread implementation in computers. I think it’s coming. I think a wave of multitouch operating systems is going to redefine how we interact with computers. But I think they’ll be touchscreens and gesture-based systems too. I mean after getting used to the iPhone’s touchscreen, I’ve noticed that I want to touch my computer screen sometimes to move things etc. Anyone else catch themselves doing that?

Touch by chrisevans

Computing needs to be intuitive.

Computing needs to be more intuitive. UI advances will address that. Our brain’s hard wiring is capable of a lot more that pointing a mouse—we need to give it the chance to be more creative and boundless. By using our hands differently, with more intuitive movements, we’ll be helping our mind work more naturally. It will make a better fit between the brain and the computer by way of the body. One day we might we have chips that connect to our brain energy, right? Our brain is a super computer, right?

It all relies on intuitive design. Pranav Mistry talked about intuitive interface design in his SixthSense technology presentation. It virtually connects us to the computer via our gestures. According to Mistry, “We are looking for an era where computing will actually merge with the physical world.” Think about the games and apps we could make with that. While not nearly to the extent of SixthSense technology, Nintendo’s Wii is somewhat based on gesture recognition but the player has to hold the controller which recognizes movements in 3 dimensions. The Wii is essentially a wireless mouse with an extra dimension—it’s fun but I wouldn’t characterize it as intuitive. Even still, it’s extremely popular.

Social Rocks.

The stage is lit—music has always been social, and the web continues to make it even more so. Communication is on the rise. People want to share and “everyone who shares is an influencer.” Music discovery is powered by your friends and by recommendation engines—the technology is only getting smarter, and, in their case, everyone who listens is an influencer. Web apps like Blip.fm and Twisten.fm rely nearly entirely on friend-powered playlists and realtime recommendations. Music streamers crave sharing, simplicity, and depths of controls for customizing their listening experiences.

Shareability and community spin music in the social web. Pandora and Last.fm’s widely popular iPhone apps encourage users to share songs they like with their friends as they’re listening to them. Grooveshark’s web interface heavily encourages sharing, and its integration with Twitter via Twisten.fm and Tinysong have helped fuel its rapid growth in 2009. Nearly all of today’s free (ad-supported) streaming sites include links to purchase mp3′s via iTunes or Amazon. Vevo has them, but, YouTube—arguably the largest and most engaging music streaming site—does not.

The Delicious user base has a relatively high concentration of developers, designers, techies, nerds, etc.—individuals likely to have above-average internet savvy. As a group they are an acute filter for quality content. The chart below shows the popularity of the same music websites based on data from Delicious. You can see there is some divergence from the traffic heat map. The most notable difference is MySpace Music, which showed the highest website traffic, but shows the lowest Delicious rank. Pandora is the top-bookmarked music site on Delicious by far, with last.fm second, and Grooveshark climbing quickly. Pandora is also the top-ranked music site on Xmarks.

Musicians—many are at the center of the social mix lifecasting on Twitter, Ustream, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. They’re communicating like never before, and evolving the industry. Revenue comes in new forms. The urge to be “indie” is contagious. The amplifiers are on.

Mobility Rolls.

Seven of the top twelve are radio/streaming apps. But smartphones are not just for listening to music. Gigzee is an events app—a location-aware tool for finding shows/concerts in your area. With more people on smartphones, more people can take advantage of location-based services like this. Music creation apps like Virtuoso Piano, Drum Kit, freestyle, NLog Synth, Digidrummer, Looptastic, and Jamble Music Mashups are wildly popular. Every human is an artist in some way—as technology improves more people will find themselves creating, and collaborating remotely. Who’s at center stage now? Creative Commons-released music encourages open remixing via sites like JamGlue, ccMixter, Indaba Music, Jamendo, SoundCloud, and more. Maybe influenced by NIN, many musicians are releasing audio source files for open remixing, fan remix contests, remix apps, or fan music videos.

Based on estimated traffic data from compete.com, this visualization compares November 2009 website visits for 27 popular, legal, music stream-or-download destinations. The heat map is to scale—larger map areas represent higher website traffic. Green indicates positive growth in 2009. Red indicates negative growth in 2009. Hold your mouse over each area for stats. Use Ctrl + to zoom.

Pandora is the radio powerhouse, but MySpace Music, disturbingly, has the highest traffic, and MySpace acquired both Imeem and iLike this year. iTunes is omitted here because it’s not web-based—yet—but clearly it is widely used. The top three percentage gainers were Grooveshark, Lala, and Spotify. Grooveshark has shown the most consistent growth throughout the year, and let me tell you I think it’s going to be a Jaws-like monster (especially when it goes mobile). It delivers free full-on cloud-based streaming and user uploads. Grooveshark’s iPhone app is pending Apple’s approval, but I wonder if Apple will be reluctant to approve it because it would be sharp competition with iTunes and their newly acquired Lala. It’s no surprise that Google was also looking to buy Lala—maybe they’ll turn to bite Grooveshark. Grooveshark’s minimalistic home page is even Google-esque, and there’s something to be said for simple design. Being curious as to mobile applications’ influence on website traffic, I listed available mobile apps with the sortable data below.

Tweets about Apple acquiring Lala have been flooding Twitter for 3+ days now. A number of sources have provided news and analysis on the acquisition. Personally I think Apple aims to move iTunes to the web in an effort to control mobile cloud-based music streaming via iPhones and iPods. Mobility is paramount, and I think that buying Lala was a sound move for Apple. By combining the best features of iTunes and Lala, Apple should be able to make a more seamless streaming experience with a simpler payment process—a simple payment process leads to more people buying. You can bet there will be an iPhone app that enables buying and simplifies the buying process.

Die-hard Lala users hope that Apple will keep Lala’s key features in tact, and many are looking forward to new feature possibilities. Hopefully with the help of its Lala’s developers, Apple will be able to build onto Lala’s platform making music more accessible. Lala enables users to upload mp3′s from their computer so they can access them from anywhere through their Lala account. In Lala’s words, “Play it anywhere on the web. Most of your music will be matched to Lala’s catalog [and] any remaining unmatched MP3s can be uploaded to Lala.”

A massive user-submitted music library is being built in the cloud. What I’d really like to see is for everyone’s uploads to be available to everyone, much like they are in Grooveshark—a free music streaming service that lets users upload tracks to the cloud. Let’s compare their relative popularity with other some streaming/download services—Spotify, MOG, and Amie Street—in the graph below:

What’s worth noting about MOG having the most visitors is that MOG markets itself more as a social network—their tagline is “Discover People Through Music and Music Through People.” Having social features clearly plays a big role in web-based music discovery—it’s social music discovery. Extended stats and analysis are to follow in Part 2 later this week.

• Photo: Lala Apple Logo Mashup by VirtualMusictv/Flickr
• View Lala screenshots.

With the smartphones coming, and all these apps coming, the music business gets one more kick at the can, and I hope they don’t fight this one, because there’s a huge opportune to grow the business faster than what they’ve ever considered. I think there’s a huge sense of optimism for the first time in about five years that this business can actually grow. –Terry McBride in his 2009 interview with tech reporter Matt Hartley [video above].

Music is becoming more of a service than a product and Terry believes that in these digital times, context trumps content, access trumps ownership, and customer service is as important as ever. P2P filesharing should cease to be an issue as listeners increasingly prefer instant-access streams.

The second interview details the history of the Nettwerk Music Group as a DIY all-in-one company that developed by adapting to meet the needs of musicians and their fans. Towards the end he talks about joint ventures between musicians and non-music brands as being likely in the next five years.

I really think that the paradigm is shifting. I think within the next five years you’re going to have other brands inside the market signing artists. Brands will look at this going, well, we already use music within all of our TV, and radio, and, you know, internet media. Um, why don’t we just sign the artist? –Terry McBride, in his 2008 CMU-Tube interview [video below].

On my previous post, Musicians—Money Is Not Motivation, Dave MacDonald had commented that Terry McBride recently spoke positively about the music industry at TEDxVancouver in November 2009. That video isn’t available yet, but I hope they air it soon on TEDxTalks—I’ll keep you posted.

[homepage thumbnail photo: Flickr/stephen_dyrgas]

Did I mention that these services handle the submission process to the Apple iTunes Store for you? Please share how you’re using these for your band etc. Plus, what other platforms am I missing? Update: we were informed about a new 4th platform via the comment section below. Here’s the 411:

Update 2: More app services for musicians have hit the scene—see app services.

DepecheMode.com brings us the expected features of a band website, and then some. The site is photo-rich and packaged in layers of sleek design. The tour tracker adds interactivity by letting fans share their concert experience via messages posted by map location and photos uploaded to an immense fan gallery.

Photos posted by the band at each tour location can be seen in the tour blog. I only wish it were easier to sort and share the photos by location and date. The tour blog updates are not included in their RSS feed and they lack permalinks but the band does post them on Twitter @depechemode. I would like to see them integrate commenting to both the tour blog and the news feed.

Depeche Mode is currently on their Tour of the Universe and they are compiling a Universe of the Fans in a fan mosaic comprised of fan photos. “The more photos are uploaded, the more clearly visible Dave, Andrew and Martin will be.” One can zoom in on the mosaic to see the individual photos.

The downloads page includes two Depeche Mode iPhone applications—one free and one paid—but they lack integration with the more interactive features of the site. I would like to see a free app that extends fan involvement to the mobile environment by allowing mobile fan uploads and geotagging as opposed to the existing free app that contains sound samples, tour dates, and iTunes links. The paid app is meant to let fans remix the songs from Depeche Mode’s latest album, Sounds of the Universe.

Depeche Mode in Lima, Peru on their 2009 Tour of the Universe / flickr.com/photos/jos_ec/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Music SOTM Series: Do you know a band, DJ, or musician with an ace website? Please let us know: contact RVE and we’ll consider it for Music SOTM. Entries are based on interactive content, fan engagement, and mobility. Visit virtualmusic.tv/msotm/ to see more MSOTM artists.