Goneril, Regan and Cordelia

EE times posted video and a short article on a symposium consisting of manufactures of three main technologies vying to be the wireless digital video delivery system.  While the event appeared cordial with pronouncements of coexistence and equitable market distribution, it is quite clear all are looking for blood in the water.  It is still possible at this juncture that all three technologies will find a place and coexist with the others but it will not, cannot be in the same market.

The full article and video clips are at http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208801236&cid=RSSfeed_eetimes_newsRSS

I suppose one's outlook all depends on whether you prefer the original play or the apologist performances of the 18th and 19th century.

I mean, once work's out there it's meant to be used. - Kathy Acker

I am a minimalist by nurture with regards to my physical space-(I like my art cluttered, my space sparse), as my family moved eight times before I was fifteen and each new place was totally rebuilt as we lived in it.  I shared a room with my sister more than I did not as walls were stripped down and rebuilt around us.  I remember the spackle dust most, not quite unlike animal hair; it tends to get onto and in everything no matter the preventative measures taken. Not having a lot of room for things you learned to keep tidy or lose all hope of finding something which would wind up buried in growing piles of clutter.  When my then girlfriend had first spent a few nights at my Spartan apartment and viewed my tightly folded and distinctly organized clothes she was convinced for months that I had either spent time in the military -(no, I did not) or might be a bit psychotic-(jury is still out) .  My Wife met me at a time during which I only wore black, every item of my wardrobe was black leave for one dark red 50’s shark skin sport jacket.  Wearing black had several advantages. It was hipster de rigueur for lower Manhattan, anything I wore would be back stage appropriate and everything could go in the same load of wash. When my then girlfriend –soon to be wife-and I decided to move in and ‘take the next step’ she needed a moving truck while I moved all I possessed in the back of a small van in one trip. Now I live with two kids under 5, my wife, 2 cats and a thousand toys – (I am convinced that the latter multiply overnight in some sick toy mating ritual\orgy) – and a secret part of me yearn’d for minimalist order of prior.

As I have been thinking about this I came across an article on Gizmodo about a set of ‘one line’ furniture by Aykut Erol.  Perhaps as I have been tinkering with concepts of space and environmental influence (see ‘My God it’s full of Stars’ and ‘I Sing the Building Electric’) and my growing comfort with overstuffed plush-ness of Victorian drawing rooms, I had an immediate, and unexpected, repulsion to the images.  The first two images suit me just fine and echo the Pompideu or the Blue Man Group Tubulum.  The third picture just does me in as I instantly associate it with Edward Kienholz’s ‘ The State Hospital’ and get a real uneasy feeling at how similar the color and lighting are. Both are most certainly places I’d rather not be.

I also like my Radio (Terrestrial, Satellite or Streaming) to be bare bones and simple. Gob it up with excess chatter, nonsense bumpers or too many ads and I will not listen – or at least I will find ways to note the non music cycles and avoid the station at those times. I have no issue with stations generating revenue but make it something I have the option of pulling up. Make it flashy, intriguing, and compelling but do not interrupt my access to content. Now the RIAA is equating General radio broadcasts as “a form of piracy”. Essentially the RIAA is attempting to push legislation to enforce radio stations to pay royalties on every song played. The RIAA already wants streaming stations to pay fees based on a per song \ per user structure. In the end this just means stations will pay for the added fees by playing less music and inserting more ads.  Will any of these collected fees ever go to any of the artists RIAA claims to be ‘protecting?’ 

To be clear here I have never been a supporter of the Napsters of the Inter-tubes. My strong opinion is that if the artist wants to sell the music based on per item fee structure, then obtaining it any other way is stealing, period. You can disagree with the concept but it is how this artist has decided to do business. If you have strong feelings about this do not buy their ‘product’ and do not go to their shows, the market will dictate.  If you like the music enough then you must respect the wishes of the artist, otherwise have nothing to do with them. More artists are breaking –(or attempting to ) from their labels, how can major labels survive when mainstream artists like Josh Stone proclaim piracy to be ‘great'.
 
NPR has been running a great series on the arts and Internet in China. The second article in the series of three is a real eye opener for me. The article entitled ‘Internet helps liberate, Create Music in China’ discusses the duality of the internet’s ability to expose millions –(or be exposed yourself) to music in a society where piracy is rampant to the point of cultural. China may be the test model for where the west will be in 5 years. Chinese artists are struggling to make a living from their music where selling content is already considered worthless. An early answer is to provide file sharing as a collective by offering the tools and content, pooling resources and drawing users to each artist’s live events. The article also has a link to the independent collective site and tools mentioned in the article. The Site is in Chinese but is fairly intuitive to negotiate – (although many of the links pop up new browser session which can be a bit of a clutter).

I just have to ask, who says pirates are a bad thing? Think of the environment people!

A word on subscriptions to T6

I have been made aware of an issue with my RSS link -(located at the top right).  The error is caused by Microsoft Word adding an HTML anchor at the beginning and end of some sections.  I mostly compose in word then transfer over to Typepad. 

In order to fix this I must edit every article shown on the main page.  I hope to have this done shortly. In the mean time the Google, Yahoo, Bloglines, etc reader links Do work. 

Just Record it in Dubly

Digital Audio has been the both the savior and root of evil for the music business, truly the conversation has migrated from the back rooms of audiophiles and tech geek into the general zeitgeist.  

While today’s populist conversation centers on the question of downloading in the digital domain with the repercussions on intellectual rights and distribution models, there is a more overriding debate- which has existed since its beginnings.  The question is of Sound Quality.

I was an inside witness to recording studios transitioning from the old Analog Studer A-800 24 track machines to the Sony and Mitsubishi 48 track digital units.  I consider myself lucky to have been involved at this particular time as I learned the venerable process of syncing two 24 track Studers’ via a Timeline Lynx- a very hands on process.  I was taught by some of the ‘old timers’ still practicing the ‘art’ while becoming familiar with the new digital machines as well.  In short I was given the privilege of learning the method and process which the digital machines incorporated behind the scenes.  (I would also be lucky enough –in much the same way- to learn from a number of ‘ole’ slide guys the process and method of setting up multi-image shows. Working with these gentlemen helped me understand the fundamentals of media presentation and better understand how to deal with the –then- new media (meaning the medium) in video–(CRV, Mavica, DVD, etc) then pushing slides into extinction.

One of the earliest and most persistent criticisms of digital recordings is the ‘coldness’  in the sound for which all manner of outboard processing is used in final mix down to help alleviate. The processing is used ostensibly to add back in the ‘warmth’ that harmonic distortion of analog tape provides.  When I worked in recording studios the amount of gear that was used to ‘correct’ the coldness of a digital recording astounded me (still does). 

At the time Stephen St. Croix wrote about the failures of digital’s promise but eventually he came around to ‘embracing ‘it, I especially recall an article praising the newest version of Sony’s ATRAC compression scheme for the mini disk – (which came too late and directly after one of the early Sony disasters of which would become all too familiar later on).  I too came along slowly to the revolution in digital media but now embrace my iPod and streaming media. I also miss the days of high quality recordings that could blow you away from the first note.  I also worry my sons will not have the opportunity to hear great recordings as there will be no great recordings.

Now I know of several close associates who will (and have) argued that a high quality MP3 is possible and have provided me with recordings to prove their point.  The recordings are truly beautiful, but the mass market will never accept them- at least enough to have those who record them make any money back. I am sorry, but the dynamic path of change rules out all but the midland formats for mass market distribution. While it is true the digital format and (more importantly) the playback devices have become astoundingly better then products offered only few years ago; and the recorded quality has become noticeably better in the 20 years of digital, I have trepidations. My question is whether or not we have reached a leveling off as the amount of music being played, shared, transferred and sometimes even sold can support a higher grade format en masse.  A bigger question is if we have already witnessed the peak and are now at the top of a descending arc.

I write about this after listening to a podcast of T Bone Burnett on WNYC’s Sound Check where he rails against the current poor state of audio quality in today’s recordings by calling it

 “…a Xerox, of a Polaroid of a print of a painting….”

T Bone’s solution is to provide a number of formats on the DVD audio disc, so the listener can utilize the format of choice but have access to better if desired.

Mr. Burnett also makes a great point that listening to compressed digital audio is akin to

‘…hearing a Stradivarius through a hallmark card speaker.’

Two comments which left me nodding my head but he follows it up with another classic argument surrounding digital recordings, that of sample rate. T Bone restates the pet peeve of a number of recording engineers- that 44.1 KHz hobbles the quality of the recording from the get go.  Even with the Nyquist frequency I have had trouble seeing any benefit from setting the sample rate to 96 or 128Hz. Yes, the music played at the time of recording produced frequencies far above and below the human threshold.  As a musician Mr. Burnett is appalled that all this information is just cut out.  I on the other hand feel that the extraordinary recording (one that captures every nuance and harmonic resonance) will go completely unnoticed by 90% of listeners who do not and will never have the equipment to reproduce the sound properly.  Perhaps someday everyone will be able to own music systems which will give them true sound in every environment, but that day is a long time off. 

I applaud the fighting of the good fight but there is a reason nearly every studio control room has an auratone located dead center on the mixing board, to simulate the average home system.  The engineer can insure that the essential instrumentation comes through even in mono. Indeed we are setting the standard to never exclude the Lowest Common Denominator.

It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

 

 

It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

                    It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

                                      It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

                   It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.

  

                  

Whether you know it or not, you use an invention of the 1940’s cinema star –(and ‘most beautiful woman in the world’) Heddy Lamarr every day, sometimes several.

The concept of spread spectrum frequency hopping had been conceived prior but none had applied in a useful manner.  Heddy and her associate, avant garde composer, George Antheil came up with the idea -(based on player piano rolls )- to help guide torpedoes and avoid jamming from enemy ships.

WNYC’s ‘The Take Away’ had an interesting article this morning about this and a play based on the unlikely duo’s contribution to the war effort called Frequency Hopping.

Alas their patented system was never used to defeat the Nazi’s but would be   ‘re-discovered’ by independent companies working on CDMA.  Every time you call on your cell you are paying homage to Heddy and Antheil – Now, do you think that I could find the Ballet Mecanique as a ring tone?

And Just because it makes me laugh:

Governor William J. Le Petomane: Thank you, Hedy, thank you
Hedley Lamarr: It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.
Governor William J. Le Petomane: What the hell are you worried about? This is 1874. You'll be able to sue *her*.

Aside:  I do seem to be on a Dadaist roll lately in my blog posting, not sure where this is going to go.

  

 

Missed It by That Much

 Does WiMax already have its best days behind it?  The strained relationship between the IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications) and Sprint in its push to make WiMax the 4g standard may be all for naught.

Verizion  and Alltel announced a deal to combine their services and thereby trumping Sprints main goal for WiMax, long distance wide coverage and higher data rates then current 3G networks.

Verizion and Alltel have existing infrastructures which will allow them to quickly and nimbly outstrip the pace of installation by Sprint.

In attempt to ease manufacture adoption Sprint  and partners created an ‘open patent ‘group to

"…to help ensure product differentiation and interoperability at a more predictable cost”

But one of the major 4G players –Qualcomm – is expressing indifference.

And what may be the equivalent of”Et tu, Brute” Nortel is shifting research funding from WiMax to LTE.

 

In addition there is  also the 60GHz band now under development for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) by the IEEE 80.11 study group on Very High Throughput (VHT) and the 802.153c group.  As the article as EE Times states

“The .3c group focused its standard on two applications. One is distribution of uncompressed high-definition video. The other is high-bandwidth synchronization of devices, such as wirelessly downloading a video from a kiosk to a portable media player.”

A direct strike at the other much touted possible use of WiMax. 

Sprint may invoked itself into a cone of silence

I Sing the Building Electric

David  Byrne has performed several exhibition pieces around the world by playing (and letting attendees play) buildings. The instrument consists of hooking up an organ keyboard to servos and motors attached  to the structures of buildings (columns, beams, radiators, etc) .  

 

David Byrne has more videos of the set up and performances on his website

 The sound is somewhat ambient, moves like dada, and has at its heart the early punk ethos –‘a musician could not play it any better a person off the street…’

 

 

Internet Radio is dead, long live internet radio.

 

I used to be what one could describe as a radio geek.  Living on the east end of Long Island your standard Realistic radio receiver would pick up signals from Connecticut, Rhode Island, NYC, New Jersey and sometimes ‘skips’ from as far away as Halifax  or  Harrisburg.  It helped that I lived on hill above town-one of the highest points in Sag Harbor.   I heard countless college and free form radio from all the listed above exposing me to the music and nomenclature of innumerable genres.  I built UHF amplifiers straight out of popular electronics or Radio Shack kits so I could tune in shows that I would not find locally.   I also nearly destroyed our families first VCR attempting to tap into its tuning section in an attempt to get better reception of WFMU.  You’ll recall that the early VCR’s used a series of tuning wheels to modulate the video out onto the TV channel – I learned so much by tinkering with it. Thankfully my mother never found out just how much I tinkered into that box, she would have been appalled at my opening such an expensive device.  In a very analog way I had my internet radio, just without the genre shaping Genome and Audioscrobble Pandora and Lastfm provide.  I pined for a shortwave receiver as I read articles about the stations in far flung parts of the world –or just the BBC- playing all sorts of music; alas I could never afford a decent one in high school.

I moved to NYC the summer high school ended and was both disappointed and intrigued.  Living on the top floor of a six floor walk up getting decent reception of WFMU, WSOU and a new find WNYU worked out fine with an ‘illegal’ antenna hook up on the roof. So I could hear the lone free form radio station much better and a new station came into my life which indeed opened my ears to the urban alternative rock movement. But that was it, aside from the few college stations or WBAI’s morning music-(I did love that Delphine Blue) broadcasting only at parts of the day- NYC radio was\is a wasteland.

This is why I fell so hard for early internet radio, it was brash, eclectic often shocking, sometimes dull and fidelity was a feature for a later date. It was just like to old days. Radio IO was my first and still my favorite.

Currently the number of internet ‘stations’ can be counted in the thousands but its mass cannot stop the rag tag collection from being washed out. Twice has published a report which shows internet radio is growing despite several forces which could in a perfect storm combine to wreck havoc like a tornado in a trailer park.  The article, based on findings from Soundexchange claims that the number of new stations registering with the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) increased by 400, although this is 100 less than the numbers from last year.  My question is just who is applying and why. 

Some evidence can be gleaned from Warner Bros recent decisionto pull out of its involvement with Lastfm, most likely to put its eggs in the MySpace streaming project.  The issue? royalties of course.  Warner Bros has been quite vocal about its desire to siphon off a share of the Ad revenues, not just from the main page but from the ancillary pages a user may go to whilst searching the artist. This is not a bad thing as it shows a traditional brick n’ mortar music company actively looking to compensate for the woeful sales of physical discs.  I am sure if WB could effectively set up its own streaming ‘radio’ and abandon the distribution model it would.  A number of labels \ artists are utilizing a single point of sale model already as evidenced by the fact that  AC\DC is just the latest in a line of artist to sell their CDs’   exclusively through Wall Mart.

  Why would an artist\label apparently limit distribution and technically expose the product to less folks?  - Control of margins and less expenditure on real world distribution.   How long before Label (X) only provides a song via Pandora or only on its own site?  Madness you say? Just another example of last gasp attempts by a limping to extinction record companies?   Answer me this, why are most record labels (such as Warner Bros \ Time Warner) are against the legislating for Net Neutrality?   Bandwidth equals access.   If the ISP’s get their wish media companies could purchase the lion’s share of bandwidth and elbow out the smaller niche players by having the playing field all to themselves.     Some have argued that the hoopla is much ado about very little, that the shakeout will leave a number of marginal players absorbed or destroyed but that in the end the independent music will find a way to get out there.  I counter, imagine you own a building in which your business resides, then one day someone tells you that a bigger competitor needs 85% of your space for stock storage.   Oh yeah, and you will have to move your sign and front door to the back and the street will be reduced to a one way dead end.  You may still get some of your dedicated existing clients but most new visitors will not even notice you.  Bandwidth.

Over the next few years the big question for installers or custom systems is just how and what are you going to install in your clients homes.  Most certainly there will always be the high client who will want-(or told) the Media System with ADA output cards but where will the content come from and can you tag a recurring income from it?  Is the newest dealership to be an offical provider of Warner Bros licensed receivers?  Will high end CE manufacturers  provide multi license players much in the way you can sell ‘radio’ receivers with built in Wifi  for  internet content  streaming? 

Can pirate radio exist in a world where radio is only online? Will we never see the likes of Mark Hunter (Hard Harry)   again?

 

My God it’s Full of Stars.

Just how does your space influence you?   NPR’s ‘On the Media ‘had an interesting show entitled ‘Space Odyssey’.

My industry is one of creating or enhancing the personal space of a corporation or home.  It’s simplistic and direct so this issue of OTM caught my attention immediately.   

Some regard personal space as a minimum of 3ft at any time (beware close talkers).   If you disagree, try living in NYC right after a major snow storm and navigating the barely cleared sidewalks.  Then talk to me about personal space.

Two sections of the ‘On the Media show’ felt particularly relevant. 

Clearing the Air

Discusses how San Paulo has banned all outdoor advertising, social issues it exposes and the apparent positive cultural effect this has had.

The article spurred some thoughts in me:

Love Piccadilly square but it can get a bit Enki Bilal or Blade runner.

I worked on an install at the Maiden Lane offices of TBWA\Chiat Day, creator of many Apple mac and the early wonder Bra ads. The company (the Chiat day portion)   had three floors of no offices- just wide open mobile work spaces, dramatic paint schemes, fire polls between floors- who needs’ stairs?  As well as a fantastic view of lower Manhattan and the meeting of the rivers.  I wanted to work for them right there.  The environment was perfectly suited to creativity, so much so that I wrote journal entries and poetry for each night I was there and weeks after.

It is interesting to note that the partner company TBWA was a strict black tie| white shirt culture, when they showed at Maiden Lane it became, well odd.

Sound Reasoning

Discusses the early 20’s research on how excess noise reduced productivity and the reactionary response of installing sound-proofing acoustic tiles- (they originally used the wonder product asbestos by the way).

 If you grew up or worked in studios during the early 80s you would still encounter some dead rooms. Dead rooms were popular from the late 50’ to the early 70’s where it was thought that a room devoid of any reflections or resonance was best for recording music.  My experience in these few remaining rooms was not quite unlike entering an anechoic chamber; for a young man who had the beginnings of tinnitus from too many roadhouse sessions behind the boards it was always a bit disturbing to have the ringing come from the background to front and center.

How many of us really understand the function ‘the space’ effects our interpretation of an event.  Acoustic, video and audio ‘sculptures’ clearly understand this and use subtle environmental queues to influence our reactions.   For the media this means branding via ads and viral campaigns  to associate image to feeling to sense of belonging .  For the Audio Visual industry it is about combining the elements of a physical environment toward a emotional result – usually excitement or relaxation or a mix of both.  

How often do you examine why you feel a certain way in a place, do you know who’s zooming who?