Starting Over by George Ziemann -- July 1, 2009 When we did Hayden's Wall in 2002, the RIAA ended up inspiring us to more or less give it away for free on the Internet. Now that the entire music industry is irrelevant, a better plan is in order. A new record was in order, too, and that's a done deal now. Hurricane Alley's Category One is finished and already in the retail pipeline. What I haven't discussed yet is our current philosophy on what to do for free mp3 samples. As a band, we all agree that you've got to give the audience enough of an appetizer to make them want more, and we've got 14 songs to work with. On the other hand, Hayden's Wall was a freebie. We used it simply to gain some exposure and recognition. Now that this site has a solid daily readership, and more than 400,000 music downloads/streams, we feel that goal has been achieved. Category One is also about three technical levels above any previous recordings I have made. And so are the mp3s. So here's my full set of problems with all of this. I still want to be the good guy, who tells the RIAA and ASCAP to take a hike, and explains to everyone what's really going on. Carl needs new guitar strings occasionally. I need to eat occasionally. Ergo, we can't give it ALL away for free this time. The new mp3s sound better than ever. 420,000 downloads of the ones that didn't, but no income. 80% of the audience can't tell the difference between a 128k mp3 file and a CD. I think CD tracks are thin and lack depth compared to the 24-bit masters. So in my mind, putting a 128k mp3 on the Internet is still an advertisement for the real song. If the majority of the audience can't hear the difference, and never have been able to ("Well, gee, it's got a good beat and I can dance to it... I give it an 80, Mr. Clark." -- college student, American Bandstand, 1960), then you're stuck figuring out ways to use streaming-only, or, even worse, waste time making a Flash delivery system that everyone, including myself, will hate because it is DRM and is a step toward "You're stealing our stuff." Another approach would be to create the mp3s with a lower quality setting on the encoding. As the engineer/producer of this record, 128k is already an insult to the music. Make it sound worse? On purpose? I don't think so. Also, the possibility certainly exists that 420,000 people downloaded the music and were not impressed. Or only impressed with the songs we haven't put on a record yet (Cara La Femme's tunes are the central point of the next release). What we have decided is this -- We've put 6 songs up (less than half the album) at 128k. The album is scheduled to go live on or before Aug 2 at all the digital retailers (iTunes worldwide, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, e-Music, AmieStreet, LimeWire Store and more). After that date, we'll retire the 128k files and give you 256-320k versions of about 1/3 of each song. This allows us to give you the best possible samples, give a quality preview of every song, and still leave a reason to buy a copy if you really like it. If we get any sales to speak of, maybe we'll relax and give some lo-res complete songs again. Peer-To-Peer I know someone is going to want to know our opinion on P2P. Half the band doesn't own a computer, the other half doesn't have much of an opinion. On P2P, it seems rather impossible to find what you aren't looking for. I don't see what good it is. Or harm.