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A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music - Wikipedia

A while back, I set out to try and classify all the music I have in my library. Mostly, this was in order to try and figure out what it is that I actually listen to. But I also wanted to see if I could actually spot the difference in all of these genres.

Sadly, I must report that I got caught up in the splinter genres before too long and was classifying things as chill/rnb/soul/ (Lewsi Taylor - Bittersweet - Awesome Track).

More and more it feels like it's all mashing its way to just becoming Music. Genre divides will become smaller and smaller until eventually they disappear. These days, I use artists or bands as Genre Markers. It's the same principle that Pandora and LastFM work on. If I like a band, I'll probably enjoy music from other bands who sound like them, or like the song I like.

I've found that this way of finding music is a lot more accurate than trying to buy within a genre.

My friends think I'm odd. Weird things like fonts and cable connections make me smile. I spend hours reading about mic placement and CSS float rules. And I don't like socks. all of these together make me a geek, I guess. Which is why I'm annoyed today.

I'm trying to find the answer to a sound geek question, and I can't get to an answer. The question in question is whether or not using an XLR to 1/4 Jack will deliver a lower quality signal hen compared to an XLR to XLR mic cable.

The reason this particular question has captured my attention span is because I'm thinking of getting a new mixing desk for the StereoType Records live performances. The desk has 8 x 1/4 line ins with mic preamps. I'd like to mic our drum set using the line jacks and save the XLR inputs for the lead and backing vocals, but I' worried that this might not be as good as sending the drum signal straight to XLR.

If XLR is better, it means finding a different and more expensive desk which can take all the mic ins that we need. Bleh.

If you know the answer let me know.

This month, I'll be working on my musical balance. For the last year I have been immersed in the live music scene and have seen and worked with some truly talented artists. But the down side is that the other electronic glitchy thumping squelchy world of electronic dance has been neglected. There's no balance and the scale its decidedly lopsided.

But that is about to change ;)

The first step was to get the right toys for the job.

• 1 x MacBook
• 1 x pair of Sennheiser HD202 headphones
• 1 x Beghringer BCD3000

Now that I have these all nicely assembled, it's time to rebuild my musical arsenal with a selection of tunes so good they'd make the pope swear out loud.. The last mix I put together was called The Swinger's Club and was made up of killer house tracks inspired by Swing and Jazz from the 1940s and 50's.

This time around, I'll be pulling together my 1990's influences from Hip Hop and RnB and fusing this with house music (of course).

The results should be...interesting.

Here's the last mix that I put together. You can go ahead and download it if you like, or jut listen to it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Lester

A while back I purchased the Defected Acapellas packs to have some fun with when I spin a house set. While I was checking out the "Preachers" sample pack I got the idea that some of the vocals would fit nicely to a new groove I've been playing with.

What I wound up with is a funky new groove using some of the classic acapellas. Classic house heads will recognize quite a few of the samples dropped in to this track (DJ Gregory, The Matrix, Gil Scott Heron)

So far, the track is called "7 Minutes" cos that's how long it took to lay down the bassline. Have a listen and let me know what you think.

I've always that it would be cool to have my own TV show. You know, sit around and talk with cool people about cool stuff. Sort of like Ellen without being gay. Or blonde. Or a woman. Anyway, last week the myself and the rest of the team at StereoType Records launched a new YouTube channel called StereoType Live.

This one is definitely worth the bandwidth. Check the subtitles they're hilarious!




I couldn't find the really funny version, which has subtitles, but you can find it here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/billy-bob-goes-ballistic-with-subtext-titles/

As Dan Bailey pointed out on his blog, Susan Boyle has been this week's BuzzWord, notching up over 45 million views of her performance at Britain's Got Talent. After a bit of snooping I've found a clip of what is allegedly Susan Boyle doing a rendition of Cry Me a River by Diana Drall from a 1999 recording she did for a charity album. Now, regardless of whether or not this is actually her, it's bloody brilliant regardless.

Have a listen:




For more detailed stats on Susan's rise to online fame, hop on over to Dan's blog and have a read.

John Mayer shows his funny side when in studio with Kanye West talking bout their collaboration "Bittersweet."




One of the things I've always admired about Kanye West is his willingness to experiment with different styles, genres and artists.

You might also find this Kanye West spoof funny

I guess you can talk about clothes so much before people starting poking fun at your sexuality,so Kanye West is a gay fish.

Tasha took this pic while when we went to see Chad Saaiman perform with Loyiso Bala at the Kirstenbosch Summer concert. I figured this one just had to be postered ;)




You can see some more non ninja pics on the StereoType Records site

StereoType Records is inviting Cape Town bloggers to attend their next gig (this Sunday night) at Barmooda in Observatory. The idea behind this is that bloggers are the new media and that they should be present at events shaping their city and their areas of interest. The event is called The Chad Session and is hosted on the first Sunday of every month at Barmooda in Lower Main Road, Observatory. Cover charge for the event is usually R25, but bloggers are being offered a free pass this month. All they need to do is email their name, blog url and mobile number to vip@stereotyperecords.co.za and they're on the list. On the bill this month is Claire Phillips, the 2007 SAMA award winner for Best Soul/Rnb album as well as Chad Saaiman, Byron Clarke, Lloyd Jansen, Liberation High, Christopher Jo and Gio. All music performed on the night is00% original and more often than not is written by the artists themselves.

I hope to see you there supporting our local music industry!

Lester

I need some help. In a big way, and fast. First a bit of background. I'm a partner in a new record label that's just been started in Cape Town, StereoType Records. We have some great artists that we're busy recording at the moment and the music that's coming out of studio is of the highest quality (Chad Saaiman, one of our artists is getting lots of radio play for his new single Moving On.) I accept and understand that mobile is the future, not only in our country, but globally and as such would like to make our artists music available to download to a cellphone. So, I did the first logical thing and started googling about to see how it all works. Not much there unfortunately. I remembered seeing iTouch selling some music available as a download, so I decided to look them up and call. I picked up the phone, dialed the number on the website and I was put through to the Content Department, which made sense. And then nothing. Three messages later still nothing. I finally managed to speak to someone in the content department who said that they would see what they could do for me and get back to me via email. Then nothing. Called them back, and finally managed to wrangle out that they need me to send them a copy of the song I would like to sell and they would then consider whether or not it's worthy of selling on their service. I also got a rough breakdown of how the service works:

• User pays R5 for a mobile download.
• The cellular network (in his example it was vodacom) takes 50% of that. Cheers R2.50
• iTouch takes a (mythical) percentage for marketing the song
• iTouch takes 75% of the 'royalties' (I'm not sure what exactly that means)
• The record label gets 25%. This is then to be split between the producer, singer, songwriter, etc.

So, if I were to sell my tracks online for R5, I'm looking at getting about R1.25 per download (his figures). Not too bad considering that iTouch are doing the (supposed) marketing for me through their respective channels. 'Cool' said I, send me the documentation outlining the specs of the service. 'Great' said he. Then nothing. As things stand it's almost two weeks down the line and all that's happened is that MTN's made a fortune off me calling iTouch trying to convince them that they should let me make them some money and send me the damn details so that I can go ahead and start selling music. So, after that long winded story, I have a question: Are there any clever people out there who know how I can go about setting up a mobile content delivery system so that I don't have to use a service such as iTouch. Or even better, does anyone know of another service besides the all seeing i that I can contact? In all likelihood, if I get a reply to this post sometime in the next week, take three months to build the mobile download service and another for marketing the music, I might have my first single on sale before iTouch even send me the technical specs. Then nothing.

For the last while I've been writing intensively and almost exclusively for other artists, so I thought it was time that I had a bit of fun and made something just for me.

After listening to loads of Funkadelic, Parliament and Average White Band records, I figured I'd try my hand at something a little more funky. So, here it is then - four hours later. For now it's called "Down On" and I had a little help on the guitar from Robin Lang (a genius with six strings i tell you).

To Listen, skip to track 2 on the player and enjoy

Today's that I've decided to finally take some time and dig in to the way that Mxit music will work and how we can use this channel to get our South African music out and to make money online.

Full report on Mxit music to follow soon, bur for now check out www.mxitmusic.co.za

Cheers,

Lester

So, I promised a follow up to my post last week, but instead of following up in the same vein, I thought I'd take a different approach. I started thinking about different ways in which artists could get their music out, and possibly monetize it too.

1. The Radiohead model

A time limited offer where customers are invited to pay whatever they think the album is worth, with a minimum value. Might be worth testing a completely open model where customers can enter whaveter they like tested against a model where a minimum price is already set, i.e. – “pay anything from R10 up for this album.”


2. Freemium

Selected tracks are made available for free in order to give customers an idea of what they can expect to hear on the album. So, one or two tracks available for free and the rest are for sale at a premium.


3. Standard Digital Model
This works like any traditional online download store (itunes, etc)

There are two options here:

1. The label/artists sets up their own site and the album is available for download at a set price from the website via an ecommerce solution. Customers are able to purchase singles, or the full album.

2. Listing with existing download stores (itunes, musica.co.za, etc) and make the album available that way.



4. Standard Delivery Model

Have the album listed for sale at online shopping portals (e.g. Kalahari.net) and available for purchase with delivery handled by the online store.



5. Mobile

5.1 Premium rate SMS service for singles using WAP

Customers send a sms to a premium rate number and receive the song of their choice available for download via WAP. This only applies to singles. Again, there are 2 options here:

1. The label/artist creates their own message service and supplies directly.

2. Registering with an existing service (35050, etc) and having them manage the distribution.

5.2 Premium rate SMS service for albums using internet

Customers send a sms to a premium rate number and receive a download link to download the entire album. This link can then be entered into a web browser and the album can be downloaded.



5.3 Mxit Music

I’m not exatly sure of how the business model for Mxit music works yet, but it’s good to see that the Mobile Instant Messaging giant has taken an interest in the music industry. My initial take on the service is that local artists can upload their music to Mxti Music for free, once their track is on the Mxit chart users will be able to preview tracks for free and download full tracks at a cost of 250 Moola (R2.50) each.


You can read more on this service here:
http://www.mxitmusic.com/music/how_it_works.seam
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Cellular/1981.html


If you can think of any more channels, please drop me a comment or send me an email using the contact form.

Cheers for now,

Lester

Music is my hobby and my passion, and I try to keep up with what's going on around me in the music biz, so it was quite refreshing to see this new angle on distribution from Pioneer Unit, a local hip hop record label.





The boys at Pioneer Unit have been impressing me for some time now with the way that they've taken to the social stream and engaged their audience in a way that puts the consumer in control of the transaction at all times. Here' s a short example:



Facebook:Pioneer Unit Facebook group

Pioneer Unit regularly makes free or exclusive tracks available to members of the Facebook group. The tracks are hosted on a zshare.net, a free file hosting service, so PU doesn't have to shell out for hosting space. The label has a record out (Planetary Assault) which it also promotes on the group.
In addition to these, the group also makes extensive use of FaceBook video to promote music vidoes made by the artists. FB vid doesn't have the tracking benefits of YouTube, but it seem to be getting the job done

Mxit
Pioneer Unit has use the Mxit Music facility (still in beta) to make their artists' music widely available and ay a low cost. I received a message on Facebook saying that Rattex (who seemsto be their feature artist) had some music out on Mxit Music.

Rattex has 3 tracks on the MXit Music Audition Charts so users can go and show some love by voting for the track.

To vote for Rattex Mxit users follow these steps

1. Log in to MXit and add MXit Music as a contact via Mxit's Tradepost)

2. Once in MXit Music, enter Charts & Voting

3.… then MXit Auditions

4.… then Voting

If any track gets 500 votes it is entered into the MXit Playlist. Once it’s there users can download the entire track for just 250 Moola (R2.50). Voting is free for users, and if their track gets enough votes, they can then buy it very cheaply.
I think that this is the first of many labels that we'll see going down the route of distributing their music via mxit. As has been noted many times before, South African youth seems to have bypassed the net to a large extent and hopped straight on over to mobile.

Blog
This is definitely one of the slicker blogs I've seen lately. The group uses the blog in much the same way as the Facebook group with pictures, videos, and free tracks being available for download directly from the blog. The blog was nominated in the 2008 SA Blog Awards in the music blog category (the winner was the Peak Performances blog).

Damn - I don't have time to finish this post right now. will be back tomorrow with more, I promise.

Lester

Found this on the imod blog this morning and I was completely blown away. Makes me think of a huge Aerosmith concert or something like that :)

Well worth the bandwith



Lester Hein