BLU MAR TEN | @HighRankin yes # |
Let’s say, just hypothetically, that we were to make available the parts for one track from our Natural History album for people to remix.
Which track would you like to have a go at?
If you’ve never heard the tracks before scroll down to the player below…
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Loading ...Blu Mar Ten – Natural History by Blu Mar Ten
Our Natural History Photo Competition Giveaway ended at midnight yesterday, and we’ve had some amazing submissions.
We’d love to give the prizes to everyone who entered but unfortunately we can’t. However given that so much effort went into the entries we’ve decided to give vinyl copies of both the Natural History Remixes to the 2nd and 3rd place runners-up and we’ll also send some stickers to every person who entered.
So please can all of you email us your addresses as soon as possible.
So, without further ado, the winners are…..
Tonight we bought Melodyne Direct Note Access. You’ve probably never come across this software, but we’ve been impatiently waiting for it ever since it was first talked about more than two years ago.
The original version of Melodyne was pretty incredible. The program would take a line of monophonic audio, (a sound that only plays one note at a time, like a vocal or a trumpet), split the sound into its component notes and then allow you to change the pitch of each part as you like. You can use it to correct wrong notes, or completely re-write the melody, if you choose. Pretty amazing.
However, this new version of Melodyne, ‘Direct Note Access’ (DNA), not only allows you to change a monophonic melody line, but it will also analyse polyphonic audio, bursting the sound out into individual, manipulable parts. To give you a basic example, when you load a piano chord into the program it will separate out all the notes from the chord in front of you and allow you to change the pitch and position of each one. Take a look at this video to see for yourself…
Now as incredible as this is, I wouldn’t ordinarily write about something as geeky as new software as it’s only really of interest to us. However the ramifications for copyright and intellectual property that Melodyne DNA suggests have been gnawing away at me since I first saw it demoed, and now using it for the first time and seeing how powerful it is has sparked off these thoughts again.
A huge portion of dance music is, and always has been, based around sampling, the act of taking a portion, or ’sample’, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording in one’s own work.
Without going into the legal ins-and-outs of sampling, Melodyne presents a brand new twist on the claims creators have against people who sample their works.
Let’s carry on with the piano chord example.
Let’s say I sample a series of piano chords from Coldplay. There are many ways we could manipulate this sample. We could pitch it up or down. We could chop it up and only use parts of it. We could reverse it. We could do all sorts of things to it, but fundamentally it’s very, very hard to alter the genetics of the sample. The notes are still the notes that the band played, the relationships between the notes are still the same and remain immutable no matter what alterations we make to them. The changes we would make to the sample are, relatively speaking, cosmetic
The confusion that Melodyne DNA throws over this situation is that you can now alter a sample fundamentally, rather than just cosmetically. If we use DNA to deconstruct every element of the Coldplay chords and rearrange them into a completely new set of notes, then alter their sequential relationships, at what point does it stop being anything to do with the band?
If we end up with notes they never played, making up chords they never played, in an order they never played, what claim do they have over the sound? Is it the texture of the sound? Is timbre a copyrightable thing? Probably not, or the 20th Century would have been full of piano players suing each other for having similar sounding recordings.
Melodyne DNA represents an absolute paradigm shift regarding intellectual property in music, as well as offering sample-based producers ways of taking advantage of the timbre of a sound without having to also steal someone else’s sense of melody or harmony.
Big subject, big ramifications. If you have any thoughts then add them in the comments section below.
Anyway, aside from that…excellent software and highly recommended. You can buy it here. Our sample library just got a new lease of life.
Date: August 21st 2010
Time: 14:00 until whenever
Where: Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, London, NW3
On August 21st we’re having a little get-together to celebrate 15 years of knocking out incredibly niche electronic music, and everyone who’s ever bought, pirated, played, laughed at or otherwise enjoyed our little tunes is invited along too.
Balls to some dingy nightclub…we’re going to sit in the sun in the middle of London’s biggest patch of green with munchies and drinks, and you’re very welcome to come and join us.
If you don’t already know the location, Hampstead Heath isn’t far from central London, with loads of buses and overground trains stopping right next to it. Parliament Hill overlooks the city.
There will be other kids there, so if you want to bring yours that’s fine by us. And if you want to bring friends of friends of friends etc.. then go right ahead.
Email Us if you need more details, or join the Facebook page to be kept up to date with info.
Alternatively you can stick your email address in the box below and get updates direct from this site..
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Conversations about whether musicians should use social networks tend to be completely polarised, and usually take no account of the fact that there are about as many different motivations for writing music as there are people writing it.
In this recent article, we see Universal Music suggesting that they are disinclined to work with acts who aren’t knee-deep in social media tech…
There may be some indie hipper-than-thou artists who want to let the music speak for itself. They are probably not for us. We believe an artist has a responsibility to communicate with their audience…We embrace the world of technology and the vast improvements in communication
While there may be some validity to this, (after all there are far too many people in music who labour under the delusion that ‘if you build it they will come’), I think that the use of this sort of technology must necessarily come down to a question of temperament.
We, (Blu Mar Ten), are pretty sociable people and we’ve always enjoyed talking to people who like our music, and other music in general for that matter. We’ve been chatting with ‘fans’ ever since this guy sent us our very first email of support some time back in the mid-nineties. Many of these people have stayed with us for a long time and some have become firm friends both on and off line, giving us access to a globally connected network of nice folk who all enjoy more or less the same things. As time has moved on we’ve embraced all the new forms of social media, not because we think we should but because we enjoy basic human interaction.
However we recognise that it’s not something that everyone likes, or should be involved in. There’s nothing worse than seeing someone trying to engage with their fans when they clearly don’t really want to be doing it. It’s as awkward as watching someone who’s been forced to go speed-dating trying to muddle through and make the most of it but ultimately cocking it all up. Engaging with people in a disingenuous fashion is as easy to spot in the virtual world as it is in the real world, and is just as repellent.
There’s an argument to say that artists shouldn’t get involved with their fans because it destroys any sense of mystique and distance that serves people like Prince so well. I think that’s probably true, but then when I look at the state of the music industry and the way in which avenues of compensation are being shut off to musicians on a virtually daily basis, (sales collapsing, sync opportunities being eroded, live work diminishing), it seems a shame to close off something that gives you pleasure. There’s little enough reward in this game as it is.
It’s my feeling that you should use these tools if you’re already predisposed to a sociable sort of behaviour, (many musicians are), and avoid them if you aren’t, (many musicians prefer being private). In either case you should accept that there will be benefits and disadvantages as a result of your (in)actions, but for anyone to suggest that musicians should do one or the other displays a woeful lack of understanding regarding artistic motivation.
Been playing around trying to get Last FM to talk to Twitter and finally figured out how to tweet out the tracks that we’re listening to, along with a link so you can hear them too.
I’ve set up a brand new channel for this, twitter.com/BluMarTenTunes, and what you see there is what Leo and I are listening to on our various players…(Michael’s grumpy and refuses to play). I set up a new channel to avoid flooding the main Blu Mar Ten Twitter with tracks, which can be really annoying. This way people can dip in and out if they feel like it.
How is it done?
Take the RSS of your Last FM ‘Recently Listened Tracks’ and pass it to a friendfeed account, then sync your Twitter channel with your friendfeed account and push the stream out to Twitter from there. I also set up Tweekly to collate our top artists for the week and post the result every Monday
This song of mine will wind its music around you,
like the fond arms of love.The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.
- Tagore
In years to come people will stagger home down lonely streets singing your song to the strains of regurgitated vindaloo, all memory of who was behind the song lost. It is you, though, who will be responsible for bringing back those lost tastes, smells, tears, pangs, forgotten years and missed chances.
Surely, for a musician, it would be criminal to reach for anything less.
Read ‘The Manual’
Interview with Ex:Ample Magazine, 21st Dec 2009
EXAMPLE: So guys first off, hows 2009 been for blu mar ten?
Chris: Busy and focused. One of our best years yet
BLU MAR TEN NATURALLY HISTORIC |
