8 Things Better Than Free

From The Techmium:

At its core the digital copy is without a body… And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive.

Truth. Quit perfecting tracks in your home studio. Quit debating the merits of different music software on forums. Play shows. Play lots and lots of shows.

Coulton describes music industry perfectly

From Jonathan Coulton’s blog (via Daring Fireball)

But somewhere along the way the bottom line started improving, and I became less obsessed with tracking every little thing. Now I sort of think of the whole engine as a special genetically engineered cow who eats music and poops money — I have no idea what’s going on in its gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars. […]

The state of the industry makes a lot more sense when you think of it this way, all these new business models rising and falling, internet radio choking on insanely high performance royalties, Radiohead and NIN giving stuff away and making a killing. This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop.

I think that’s the best description of the current state of the music industry I’ve read. In long over-beer discussions with friends I’ve called it a black box: put music in one end, money comes out the other and don’t even think about trying to directly correlate inputs with outputs.

But man, feeding a cow and waiting for it to poop is a much more vivid way to put it.

iDrum ‘Best Technology of 2008′

iDrum for iPhone is the only iPhone application to make Beatportal’s ‘2008 Technology Top 10,’ in the very heady company of Korg’s Kaossilator and Yamaha’s Tenori-On:

Some naysayers still think the iPhone is a toy and not a functional production tool, but we’re inclined to disagree.

Strongly.

Thanks, Beatportal!

‘Making beats is fun. For Everyone.’

Mission Accomplished.

iDrum for iPhone shipped a week ago, and the initial response has been fantastic, but for me, nothing tops this video.

Soundcloud. Invite?

-1 for using ‘cloud’ in their company name, but +1000 for what looks like an *awesome* service. Check out this blog post at SvN: Soundcloud Expands The Audio Player

And the site itself: Soundcloud

For anyone that participates in far-flung collaborations over the internet that don’t involve a webcam and a towel, this looks like the business.

Registration is closed, so if any of my dear readers are already members please invite me!!!

A tale of two support incidents

I’ve had two occasions to contact a software company for support in the past week–two occasions remarkable in how different they were from each other.

First, I had need for Xendai’s Bellhop to automate some FogBugz typing. I downloaded it, wrote some scripts, and found a pretty serious bug. Not a showstopper, but definitely annoying. I fired off an email, not expecting much–Bellhop is donationware, after all. Well, the author got back to me in a couple hours, thanked me for the bug report and told me he wouldn’t be able to get to it until the weekend.

First thing Saturday, I get an another email from the author telling me he’s reproduced the problem and that he’ll have an update ready shortly. He thanks me again for taking the time to send in the bug report:

As far as I’m concerned, your bug report is donation enough–thanks for reporting it.

Wow. I’d be blown away with this level of support from any company, but from a part time indieware developer on a donationware product? Just try to stop me from donating. Sure enough, an update was available a few hours later and now Bellhop works perfectly.

Cut to my other support experience. This one for Digital Performer, a $500 application developed by a company with a full-time support staff. Digital Performer 5.13 just refuses to run on my new Mac. I tried everything, repairing permissions, uninstalling, reinstalling, installing an earlier version then installing the 5.13 update, etc.

So I give up and sheepishly create a new support ticket on MOTU’s site Sunday afternoon. Well, check the screenshot above: it’s Wednesday and the ticket is still ‘Unread’. This would have pissed me off anytime, but in light of my experience with Bellhop, well…

And yeah, I have Jim Cooper’s number, so I could call the batphone and get this sorted out in a jiffy. But you know what? Good support shouldn’t just be for insiders. So fuck you, MOTU. I give up on you and my favorite music software. I’ll spend my $195 for the DP 6 update on something else. I’ll also take the $3,500 I had earmarked for HD192 interfaces and spend that somewhere else.

Can anyone recommend a music production application with passionate user support?

And special thanks to Faizel at Xendai for raising my expectations.

On being a bastard…

Advice: When you’re being a bastard to someone, don’t say, ‘It’s so much fun being a bastard!’ That’s just dumb.

NYT covers Direct Note Access

There’s a nice piece at the New York Times’ web site on Peter Neubäcker, Celemony and Direct Note Access. I had dinner with Peter and his wife a couple of NAMM’s ago. Awesome guy, and easily the smartest person I’ve ever met.

This whole Direct Note Access breakthrough reminds of me of a bit of advice I got once (and have shamefully never followed): Ask yourself, “What’s the hardest problem in my field?” Then ask yourself, “Why am I not working on it?”

The best resignation letter I’ve ever read

Steward Butterfield, founder of Flickr, leaves Yahoo!

… who would have thought that Electronic Mail would supplant the nation’s own great and venerable post?!

In related news, any bets on how soon till you have to suffer horrible dancing silhouette mortgage ads in order to look at family photos? Photoshop Express, anyone?

Wow.

I got a once-in-a-lifetime shock today.

My dad is an avowed Mac-hater from back in the day.  Hates ‘em, thinks they’re only good for ‘desktop publishing.’  You know the type.  

Today we’re talking and he tells me that he’s getting an iPhone 3G for him and Mom when they come out in July.  Now this isn’t surprising… he’s been drooling all over ours since we got them.  In fact, I’ve probably sold about a hundred iPhones since Friday was born–peoples eyes start glazing over flicking back and forth between baby pictures.  Must.  Have.  iPhone.

No, the two new iPhones isn’t what’s so surprising.  What shocked me is that he’s also planning to pick up a 24″ iMac to go with them.  ”Why go halfway?”  he said.  

So, if there’s any question in your mind whether or not iPhones upsell Macs to the PC faithful, there’s your answer.  Hell, I’d have been less surprised if my Dad told me he was registering Democrat.