COLUMN: Right this minute, one of your songs could be playing somewhere in the world and you may not know it. Your composition might be on terrestrial radio, internet radio, broadcast television, satellite radio, cable TV, satellite TV, in a nightclub, at a bar, or a myriad of places where you cannot hear it.

As a creator or artist, you may be thrilled by this exposure; but as someone trying to make a living from your music, you have very real questions and concerns: is the song being used for free or will there be legal compensation for your work?

Artists, songwriters, music publishers, managers, agents and others share this concern. The only people who are not bothered by this state of affairs are fools and thieves.

Among the firms that are extremely interested in tracking the playing of songs are the three North American performing rights organizations (PROs), ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, and the Production Music Association.

Audio Recognition
A promising development in this area is known as real-time audio recognition. One such technology, called BlueArrow, is owned by Landmark Digital Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Using a patented algorithm acquired from Shazam Entertainment Ltd. in Great Britain, any song entered into Landmark’s system has its unique identifying features mapped and stored with the attached metadata in their database.

From that point on, BlueArrow only has to capture a digital sample from an audio source to identify it. The audio may originate anywhere: radio, TV, internet, satellite or cable broadcasts, even a mobile phone.

If your song has been detected by the monitoring system and has been fingerprinted in Landmark’s database, it can be identified from even a short segment from almost anywhere in the song. Background noise can be at nearly oppressive levels and the BlueArrow technology can still I.D. your song.

“Audio recognition for the purpose of identifying music is a reality for millions of people around the world every day,” said David De Busk, Vice President, Business Development, Landmark Digital Services, LLC. “We are beyond the point of determining whether it is viable.”

Fingerprinting vs. Watermarking
The BlueArrow approach is what is called fingerprinting. This is opposed to watermarking, which involves imbedding some sort of identification code into the song, an idea that seems workable but which has a number of problems. One is that a remix of the song, or sometimes even just a digital copy of the song file, may jumble the watermark. Another problem is that anything that can be added to a file can also be stripped out of the file if someone wishes to do so. But the sonic shape of your song, or what you might call its digital fingerprint, remains constant despite copying, file-sharing, or all but the most radical remixing.

Data You Can Use
Best of all, when a match is made by the system, BlueArrow provides not only the title of your composition but also the date, time and source of the audio. A music publisher, for example, can compare that data with the reporting – or the checks – from whoever licensed the song (or contact the user if there isn’t a contractual use of the song already arranged).

Landmark Digital states that their testing has shown BlueArrow to achieve 99% accuracy for song samples within two seconds of playing time. Even allowing for music industry hyperbole, they are making a bold statement and one that bodes well for everyone concerned with a career in music.

“BMI embraced the significance of audio recognition because it is a core function of BMI’s business,” De Busk noted. “BMI established Landmark Digital Services LLC to be the home of the BlueArrow technology. Landmark’s continued strategic development of BlueArrow ensures that the accuracy and quality of music identification expected by BMI will well serve the needs of the affiliates in the future.”

Mediaguide
Created through a partnership between ASCAP and ConneXus Corporation, Mediaguide has been in business since October, 2002. Mediaguide accurately identifies music and advertising in broadcast, cable and the Internet. Now monitoring more than 2,500 U.S. radio stations in real-time, 24/7 across all commercial and non-commercial formats, MediaGuide utilizes patent-pending fingerprinting and patented watermarking technologies.

The result is valuable data for performing rights organizations, record labels, promoters, publishers, advertisers, agencies, media buyers, market research companies and broadcasters. Best of all, individual artists, composers and songwriters can subscribe to the data and get instant airplay detail on their copyrighted works.

Their fingerprinting methodology doesn’t rely on meta-data nor require copyright owners to modify the digital content of songs. And the company acquired audio watermarking technology (from UK-based Ishce Ltd.) to further extend their monitoring capabilities. Mediaguide has an international capability and is being used to monitor radio stations in Italy, the Caribbean and South Africa.

Over 200 customers use Mediaguide data everyday, including ASCAP, who uses the data to deliver the most timely, accurate monitoring of radio performances for its 375,000 members. The range of Mediaguide products include MusicMonitor, ArtistMonitor, StationMonitor and SeeSpotRun. Mediaguide also powers Blackberry and iPhone applications, including the award winning Radio Companion on Blackberry.

As summarized by Mediaguide’s CEO, Steve Lubin, “Mediaguide is delivering today what others are simply promising. We’re leading the field because we’re fully deployed. And the comprehensive and accurate business intelligence our technologies provide are of measurable value to all involved, whether they be creators, publishers, broadcasters or advertisers.”

Broadcast Data Systems
A part of The Nielsen Company, BDS utilizes digital-pattern-recognition technology. SESAC is one of the clients of this firm, which claims to monitor more than 100 million song performances on radio (satellite and network) and music video channels in North America. As you might expect from a Nielsen firm, BDS supplies chart data to Billboard Magazine.

SESAC was the first PRO in the US, and perhaps the world, to utilize audio recognition technology. “Starting in 1994, we did a deal with BDS to create the first PRO dedicated to Latin music (SESAC Latina) and the first PRO to use pattern recognition technology to track performances,” states Hunter Williams, Sr. VP, Strategic Development, SESAC. “In 1996, we expanded the use of BDS to include all formats of music being monitored at the time.”

In 1998, SESAC began using the Aris watermarking technology with the hopes of tracking music on television. Aris had become Verance by the time they launched their monitoring network and SESAC subsequently became the first to accept and pay royalties on Verance tracking reports. In 2003, they contracted with Audible Magic for digital fingerprinting to expand radio coverage to include formats not monitored by BDS. That led BDS to monitor about 150 stations in formats including Black Gospel, Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Americana, and College. “Today, through BDS, we monitor about 1,600 radio stations 24/7/365,” Williams points out.

SESAC isn’t stopping there; they are experimenting with other technologies. “Last year we entered developmental relationships with BMAT, Activated Content, and DigSound for the purposes of expanding our monitoring coverage into television,” Williams continues. “BMAT offers advanced fingerprinting solutions, while Activated and DigSound focus on watermarking. Ultimately we believe that a combination of multiple technologies (fingerprinting and watermarking) will win the day. Fingerprinting is easier to apply, but doesn’t solve all the issues. In the digital space, watermarking can provide significant advantages like proving ownership, facilitating forensic monitoring, and tracking re-titled works.”

The goal is providing copyright owners and music users “greater accuracy, efficiency, and transparency. We at SESAC are proud to have pioneered the use of audio-recognition technology in the U.S. through our outstanding relationship with BDS,” says Williams.

TuneSat
Also moving forward in the area of audio tracking is TuneSat. Currently monitoring music use on more than 100 TV broadcasts in the USA and more than 65 in the EU, the TuneSat methodology involves clients providing metadata for each song. The metadata identifies artist, album, composer, publisher, PRO, percentage splits on ownership of the song, song title, and custom ID. Clients also provide a hard drive containing the music files.

TuneSat’s approach also involves fingerprinting instead of watermarking. As their site puts it, “Fingerprinting is a passive technology in that it does not embed an external file into the master recording.” The music is analyzed along with the metadata to create a unique identifier, a musical DNA, if you will.

Everybody Wins
Who benefits from audio recognition and song tracking technology? Songwriters, music publishers, and PROs, obviously, but the gains go beyond that. Advertisers, ad agencies, and media buying agencies can verify when material is aired. Radio and TV broadcasters can use this technology to track programming on a 24/7 basis. Production music libraries will have a new tool for monitoring use of their catalog. Carriers of all types need to know when and where copyrighted content is used because non-reporting can lead to legal action.

“The new fingerprint technologies from companies such as Landmark, Tunesat and others, are exciting for the PMA (Production Music Association) members because for the first time in history we’re getting a more complete idea of where our music is performed,” says PMA Chairman, Randy Wachtler. “I applaud ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for getting behind this technology and bringing even betters ways to track their members’ music.”

As was mentioned in an earlier column, the PMA has pushed for breakthroughs in the metadata that can be embedded or encoded into music tracks. As Wachtler noted, “The PMA, with the help of the PROs, has developed a metadata standard to help new production music libraries encode in a way that is acceptable to the PROs and help establish a standard for the industry.” You can view the standard at the PMA’s site, pmamusic.com.

COLUMN: The description on Amazon was interesting so I purchased “The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution” by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard (Hal Leonard/Berklee Press, $16.95, ISBN: 978-0-87639-059-7), not realizing it was written in 2004 and released the following year. Sure, the publication date is on the site but my mistake was in thinking they would be offering an updated version of the book. My bad, caveat emptor, there’s one born every minute, etc.

Yet there is great value in reading a half-decade-old book about technology in the music business. Sure, some of their predictions seem antiquated today, but try making prognostications of your own and then seeing them remain in print for five years. Reading what Kusek and Leonhard got wrong is entertaining but seeing what they got right is enlightening.

This is only partly a book review as I am using their work as a launching pad to assess the state of music and media in terms of modern and ever-changing technology. Follow along and see if you can find a place for your music amidst today’s gleaming and pulsating shards of techno gizmo interconnectivity.

Noteworthy
Kusek and Leonhard’s book causes a lot of reaction from the reader. There are 176 pages of text and I made comments on 41 of them as well as on numerous post-it notes affixed to various chapters. Engaging? You bet, and I enjoyed the book quite a lot. (Do you feel a “but” coming? You’re right.) I recommend the book as a fascinating read, BUT certain themes pop up in chapter after chapter.

Water Over the Dam, Music Under the Bridge
“Music like water” is a central premise to their book. I knew this right away because that concept is mentioned twelve times in the first 14 pages. Only later on in the book do they get to the fact that everyone PAYS for water. It may be only pennies per glass, but water isn’t free, nor should music be free.

C in a Circle
This might be a good time to point out that many of their arguments, ideas, statements, and theories are overt or covert attacks on the concept of copyright. On page 45, they argue that a digital copy of a work “does not in any way deplete it or remove it from further use” and therefore copyright is not needed in the digital age. In other words, they are making the outrageous claim that your song can be pirated ad infinitum and no one gets hurt.

On page 46, they claim that copyright infringes on everyone’s’ “right to be inspired,” completely overlooking the Fair Use provision of copyright law.

Also on page 46 is an argument against copyright based on the fact that the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to grant copyright to “authors” and so they feel that “large companies” like music publishers should not possess copyrights. This ignores the right of authors to allow music publishers to administer their songs for them or to sell their copyrights as they see fit.

On page 49, they quote a line often attributed to Pablo Picasso: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” as if to legitimize piracy. Allow me to quote a line often attributed to me: “Average writers steal, great writers create original works.” Not as humorous, but more to the point.

On page 53, you’ll find them writing ominously that “powerful middlemen and their bean counters and legal eagles have artificially but nevertheless skillfully propped up the definition of copyright.” Their conclusion is that musicians must “give freely.”

On page 103, they write of “the maze of legal obscurities and public propaganda that surround copyright, courtesy of Big Music and Big Mouse,” referring to the major record labels and Disney. What they do not acknowledge are the myriad of schemes concocted by Big Corporations to steal copyright in any way possible, which is what has lead to legal methods to stop them.

On page 149, they contrast the copy protection of computer software with copyrights on our songs, stating “…preventing the easy copying of professional-grade software products is very different than preventing consumers from having a great and simple experience when they want to watch movies or listen to music.” In their view, the fact that people want what I own without paying for it is good enough. I’d love to extend their argument back to them, substituting a few things they own. For example, what if we wanted their book without paying for it? Or their cars, wallets, bank accounts, or their very identity?

As you might imagine, I do not mind confessing that the Kusek and Leonhard viewpoint on copyright is offensive to me as a music publisher and morally repugnant to me as a songwriter.

You would think anyone engaged in creating something (like a book, for example) would be in favor of copyright and would therefore be against efforts to eradicate it. Yet in the author acknowledgements, they thank John Perry Barlow and Lawrence Lessig, two people who are dedicated to destroying copyright, the former apparently because of synapse damage from too much illegal drug use and the latter because of pocketing large checks from hardware and software firms seeking ways to steal music without being subject to punitive damages in copyright infringement cases.

C in a Circle – again
To anyone who is thinking of remaining neutral on the point of the value of copyright, please consider these three points: Kusek and Leonhard copyrighted their book; Lawrence Lessig copyrights his books and articles; and John Perry Barlow copyrighted his songs (he now chooses to give them away, which is his prerogative, but his largesse should not become mandatory for any other writers). Strange actions, indeed, from folks who would casually annihilate your right to control your own possessions.

Putting Musicians into a New Line of Work
There is a common feeling among people who do not create anything that those of us who do should somehow earn our living in ancillary jobs. Songwriters and musicians, for example, should go into the business of touring, selling merchandise, and/or dealing with advertising agencies for commercial licensing of our work to compensate for the theft of our work in other areas of business.

As an example, they cite U2 appearing in an iPod ad with their song, “Vertigo,” completely overlooking the fact that this occurred 18 years into the band’s highly successful global career and was an opportunity not open to ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all other artists. Another example they blithely write about is licensing songs into Tony Hawk video games, which is not available to ninety-eight-point-eight percent of all other artists and rather conveniently sidesteps the fact that “Tony Hawk” is a one billion dollar corporate enterprise – exactly the bogeyman they use in many of their other arguments.

Porn
Yup, they use the porn industry as a guideline for the music industry, pointing out that the Internet is changing everything for both industries. Well, duh. Okay, that’s being sarcastic about a topic that does have some merit. “Niche marketing will certainly become a dominate way for musicians to reach their audiences, in much the same way that porn reaches its audiences.” For those of you who look to the porn industry for direction, their discussion occurs on pages 72-79.

Predictions
Kusek and Leonhard were prescient in a number of areas. Among their forecasts was the explosion of wireless services. Give them props for that. They also were able to foresee the much-maligned 360 deals as being a big step in the music industry, using the U.K. Sanctuary Group as an example, which was a powerhouse at the time but has managed to hang on through one of the worst economic contractions in the history of Republican presidencies.

Today, Sanctuary is a firm that provides its musician clients with recording, management, visual entertainment, tour support, booking, music publishing, marketing, merchandising, and more. Unlike some of the big record labels and their onerous “all rights” deals, Sanctuary actually seems to be helping its clients, which include (as of this writing) classic artists such as ZZ Top and relatively newer acts such as Lonestar and Velvet Revolver.

In any case, the authors saw something big that was coming and reported on it before almost everyone else.

Product Placement
This is an area where they saw the future and embraced it. They give an entire page of their book to a warm and loving (and undoubtedly paid-for) description of a company called Hot Topic. Or, as they put it, a place where “you can find a huge assortment of street wear, retro-influenced lounge, punk, club and Gothic clothing and merchandise, including lingerie, hosiery, cosmetics, belts, handbags, shoes, body jewelry, make-up, rings, shoes, gifts, furniture, candles, magazines, vinyl and CDs, action figures and more.” They go on to write about the firm’s success and provide the URL for the company and one of their subsidiaries.

$$$ From ISPs
Here is a brief excerpt from the book that is certain to strike fear into the hearts of rapacious and smug ISPs (internet service providers) throughout the land: “Just as ASCAP or BMI collect blanket licensing fees from radio stations, so could similar organizations collect blanket licensing fees from the P2P companies or ISPs…”

Other than leaving out SESAC, which is the third of three performance rights organizations in North America, that 26-word phrase is astonishing in its implications and could contain the idea that saves the record industry and enables songwriters to create music now and in the future. If ISPs would simply collect a statutory rate whenever a song is exchanged over their servers, the livelihood of musicians could continue into the foreseeable future. (Well, until the coming explosion of mobile2mobile file transfers, but that’s another argument.)

Hits and Misses
As you would expect with any book on technology that is now a half-decade old, there have been marketplace changes that could not be prophesied. After all, they expressed high hopes for Shawn Fanning’s Snocap to create revenue for copyright holders from the P2P networks (that’s peer-to-peer, for anyone who has been ignoring both music and the internet for the past decade or so) and Snocap has pretty much come and gone in the meantime.

On the other hand, they do direct readers to Terry Fischer’s Alternative Compensation System for music and media, a 66-page document that recommends either a compulsory or voluntary system to compensate authors for use of their work on the internet. The entire document is perched online at this intuitive and easy-to-find URL: cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/PTKChapter6.pdf .

They hold out great hope for the eventual success of music recognition software, now emerging as audio recognition programs such as Landmark’s BlueArrow. “Within five years, most of the world’s formally recorded music catalog is likely to be recognizable by software, whether is uses waveform analysis, audio spectrum comparisons, fingerprinting, or watermarking ID processes.” I certainly hope this is the case and I have seen evidence that others feel the same way. The Production Music Association is very strongly in favor of this new technology and is urging ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC to work out the software for the benefit of all composers.

Wishful Thinking
Near the conclusion of the book, Kusek and Leonhard invite readers to “join us in a dynamic and interactive forum online,” a sort-of living book, if you will, with continual updates on the many topics they’ve raised. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. When you visit the site, it is no more than a blog with links to tidbits about one of the authors and attempts to sell you things. In fact, of the book’s final 45 words, 24 of them are attempting to sell you consulting and business advisory services.

Compensation
Despite the malicious mischief in much of their book, Kusek and Leonhard do acknowledge musicians’ right of ownership and our right to make a living from our creations: “A challenge for the future is to find ways to better measure and report the commercial uses of a given work… based on a more fluid flow of knowledge and ideas, and the sharing across some form of alternate, contributory compensation system.”

Fair enough. Now if we can just rid the world of the “safe harbor” provisions of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) that lets ISPs off the hook for copyright infringement and piracy, that goal might be reached sooner rather than later. But this is a topic for a whole new article.

COLUMN: One of my great joys in life is loving a product made by a great company that stays in business year after year and perhaps decade by decade. I can count these types of companies on one hand as I settle into my 40’s, and so I’m making an effort this year to spread the word about them. The first of these companies I’ll be talking about in my DIY column series is the wonderful CompuCover Company who has been around since 1979. These folks make custom-fit dust covers for any type of hardware, be it a mixer, a drum box, keyboard, or really anything that you can shake a measuring tape at.

I first became a customer back in the days of my IBM Selectric typewriter in the 1980s and then my SCI Prophet 600 and Pro One keyboards, then for my various Macintosh systems (Quadra 840AV, etc.) in the ’90s. When I needed a custom cover for my Kurzweil K2000 or Korg Wavestation keyboards, or MPC 3000 in the late ’80s, my first thought was to go back to CompuCover and have them make covers for me. Yes, you can buy those stretchy nylon covers at many music stores these days for most standard 61-key or 88-key keyboards, with the drawstring, but I find them to be slick and an invitation to drop the keyboard when picking it up endwise – and they often don’t fit odd shaped keyboards (think the Korg Oasys for instance, or the Open Labs MiKo and NeKo).

The custom-fit covers from CompuCover can be made to order in any dimension you can measure, and in a variety of materials, and they fit perfectly since you do the measuring. To order, you would simply go to the CompuCover Website (www.compucover.com), and using the form, first choose the material/color, and then the box style (see below). You simply enter width (i.e., the length of your keyboard), the depth (front to back), and the height (the length of the pieces which fall down from the top cover). This process works so well, I even made a custom cover for my Minimoog Voyager for keeping the back-panel open and tilted at all times, where the normal commercial covers require you to flatten the synth to cover it. With CompuCover, you can fit any shape you need to. One tip is to measure just slightly larger, so that there is room for anything like knobs, sliders, or whatever.

If you look at the images I’ve included (above), the first one shows an example of my Triton 88-key, Kurzweil 61-key, and Akai MPC 4000 uncovered, and then in the second image covered with CompuCover’s products. Black Nylon for the MPC, and anti-static Vinyl for the keyboards.

Pricing? Prepare to be surprised. Even after all these years, the direct pricing is equivalent to wholesale. If you’re used to seeing covers that cost $50-70, how about this: an anti-static vinyl, 2 inch down back open style, and 60Wx25Dx4H cover is just $16.95. Seriously — you can afford to cover all your gear for less than what some companies charge for one retail cover!

They used to only come in Black Nylon (and used to have the CompuCover logo on them, but they dispensed with the logo to keep the price low), but now come in Navy, Gray and Tan; and even frosted (semi-clear) anti-static Vinyl. New this year, they now have added an “Outdoor Canvas” cover material, which might be ideal for touring.

From their days of making covers primarily for typewriters and PC keyboards they offer options for how the covers are “boxed,” meaning the part of the cover that falls down from the top sheet covering.

For example, the default option would be “open in back,” which has room for wires, connectors, etc. The second option would be “2 inches down in back” which provides for a lip to help keep the cover on (useful if you have instruments on keyboard stands, tilted forward). The final option would be “four sides,” which provides essentially a box with an open bottom.

All nylon covers have black trim and are polyurethane coated for extra moisture resistance. Outdoor covers (priced higher than the normal covers) are made of rugged marine-use UV resistant outdoor canvas.

I’ve made covers for items as diverse as my Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard, my Open Labs NeKo TSE and XXL, my Hartmann Neuron keyboard (with extra height to protect the joysticks), and my vintage gear like my Oberheim Matrix 12. They made a cover for my Korg Oasys 88 also (which really should have come with one for the price). I think the only cover I didn’t get from CompuCover was the OEM Europe Yamaha cover for my 02R96v2 digital mixing console, since the cover also was fit for the meter bridge.

An additional benefit of getting the custom dust cover made, besides keeping dust out of the keyboard (on the Open Labs XXL, you can’t do without one — it’s a dust magnet!), is if/when you choose to sell your instrument, you have an additional selling point which the other five Joes selling the same item on eBay that week won’t likely have.

If you look at the image of some of my keyboards on a custom keyboard shelf in the closet (subject of upcoming DIY column), you’ll see covers on all of them, and in the various color choices (except Tan). This keeps them safe and clean for when I want to use them. Nothing more annoying than having to clean a keyboard when the mood strikes to actually play it!

As to CompuCover, they have always delivered a perfect product (allow a week or two depending on their work load), their pricing remains unreasonably low for the quality, and these are a truly no-brainer “must have” for any studio. With the custom colors, it makes it easy to get a Navy, Black and Gray cover if you have three different keyboards. I like the Anti-static Vinyl format for some gear since you can see through it a bit. To protect vintage gear I tend to like the Black Nylon since it also protects from light (helps protect from fading). Simply nothing finer is on the market, and it helps protect the usability, resale value, and even the playability of your gear if you have any kind of humidity (I used to notice turning on my Triton Extreme 88, and the dust and my fingers would make the keys seem “sticky” – the dust cover solved that).

As an additional dust fighting tip, it also helps to keep a high quality dusting cloth handy (get the good kind which are designed for high end stereo gear and cleaning a LCD TV, with the non-scratchy fibers). I use the Quickie brand micro-fiber cloths (about $15 in a 3-pack at Office Depot, etc.).

So there you go; make your studio gear last longer and wrap that rascal affordably and professionally with covers from CompuCover.

COLUMN: In a somewhat stealthy mode, Open Labs has finally put up a page on their site promoting custom paint colors, bigger hard drive options, extreme motherboard upgrades, and various customization options for new and existing OL customers who buy one of OL’s keyboard or rack mount workstations. They call this their “Custom Shop.”

For example, instead of the basic black, you could get a new Open Labs NeKo or MiKo in “Glacier Blue” or “Italian Red” for $499 additional. A new “hot rod” option to install an Intel Core i7 with 6GB RAM (3×2GB) on a higher end motherboard, runs $1999. Custom band/brand graphics can be added to the case for $249.

Additionally, custom software installs, custom metal work, can be quoted.

Not sure why Open Labs hasn’t promoted this to their user base. I didn’t get any e-mails or postal mailings as a current customer having bought two NeKo models including the current Gen5 XXL. Looks pretty cool.

Check it out here: openlabs.com/customshop.html .

COLUMN: Music was at the heart of nearly three-quarters of the eleven million commercials that aired during Super Bowl XXXXVMLCDMIIEEEEE or whatever they were calling it. And music was the bleeding heart of the halftime break.

Even some segments of the game itself were set to music. For example, the player intros (“Let’s meet the Indianapolis Colts defense. . . “) were accompanied by pulsating faux metal guitar crunch that came from a production music library, but these sounds were in the background as we learned how to pronounce the athlete’s names (“Saints right tackle, Jon Stinchcomb!”) so the throbbing chords worked just fine.

Photo: Roger Daltry of The WHO during half time show.

A wonderful tone was set by the music in many spots, including the high-tech Callaway golf clubs spot, several wonderful Hyundai car commercials, and in the Audi spot featuring a parody of “Dream Police” that became the “Green Police.” I have the broadcast on my TiVo and can tell you that more than half of the more than five dozen commercials just are not effective when the sound is turned off.

For example, there were ads for upcoming motion pictures that look downright silly without their powerful music tracks. One was for a new film from M. Night Shamalamaham called “The Last Air Conditioner” (note: all spelling is approximate due to my having a martini prior to typing this report). The bass tones and compelling dramatic melody on this spot made it seem like Something Very Important was happening even though the visuals, upon second examination, appear to be outtakes from the 1986 flop “The Golden Child.”

An absolutely brilliant ad for Google used a mixture of sound effects and an ever-expanding musical theme that made you want to stand up and cheer. The visuals told the story of boy meets girl in Paris, boy wins girl, boy moves to Paris, boy marries girl, and finally celebrates the birth of their first child, all through the text of searches made on Google. The ad is outstanding in every aspect, not just the wonderful music track.

In one of several Bud Light spots, people get ready for and attend a party, with all their comments “sung” through an Antares Auto-Tune. This is usually an annoying gimmick but here it becomes a delightfully humorous commentary on today’s mainstream pop and hip hop music production. Literally, this ad wouldn’t work without the music.

Of course, just as music can make a spot, I am sorry to say that music can break a spot, shatter it, and utterly destroy it. Consider the ad for Boost Mobile. This is presumably a technology-based company, and yet they used a rap that sounded like one of those cloying Raffi or Teletubbies nursery rhymes. The message this sends to all potential users of Boost Mobile is something like “We are inept but we think you are too stupid to notice.”

The embarrassing Charles Barkley ad for Taco Bell also had a lame rap that just killed any possibility the ad would attract any customer above the age of six. (Although if that was their goal, why spend anything to hire Barkley?)

Dove for Men put a silly talk-sing vocal to Rossini’s “Overture: William Tell” in a misguided attempt to seem “lighthearted” as they sold skin care products to. . . well, to whom are they selling? Men? Gay, straight? Perhaps this spot is aimed at wives and girlfriends. “We know you spend a small fortune on creams, ointments, emollients, and so on, but shouldn’t you also buy some of that stuff for your man?” Guys, this is all part of the feminization of men. I suggest you play some strong country or rock music right now and get this Dove for Men nonsense out of your system.

Next up: the halftime show, which typically features six minutes of commercials (all with music tracks), three minutes of ex-players and coaches saying things like “if one of the teams plays better and scores more points then they’re gonna win it,” and twelve minutes of some well-known musicians playing their hit songs.

There have been some very entertaining mini-concerts at past Super Bowls. The Rolling Stones. Prince. U2. So this year’s appearance of The Who was highly anticipated. These guys first built their reputation on their live shows. The “Live at Leeds” album is consistently rated one of the most commanding and essential rock performances in recording history.

But they weren’t any good at the Super Bowl. In fact, other than the bass, drums and backing tracks, they were a mess. Off-pitch. Off-tempo. Wrong notes in the solos. My guess is that CBS and the NFL could have hired the third-best Who tribute band in any city on the East Coast and had a much better show.

Roger Daltry’s “where is the key” approach to lead vocals made Taylor Swift’s Grammy performance seem pleasant and assured by comparison.

Pete Townsend’s music stands up even when subjected to his own piss-poor guitar work. Fact is, he has composed great songs that are still quite exciting even when the performers have seen their talent exit the building.

The breakdown (and I use the term in both meanings) went something like this:
5:01 p.m. “Pinball Wizard” in a tentative rendition.
5:02 p.m. “Teenage Wasteland” in a “let’s see if we know the melody” version.
5:05 p.m. “Who Are You?” because it’s the main title theme to one of CBS’s top-rated primetime shows.
5:08 p.m. “Listening to You” in a “what song are we doing?” approach.
5:09 p.m. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” in a “thank heaven for all the instruments on the prerecorded tracks” performance.
5:13 p.m. Done.

The stage set and lights were superb.

COLUMN: Sure, the magnificent array of musical products known as The NAMM Show was just a teensy bit smaller than in years past, but you would never know it once you were walking through aisle after aisle of shiny, flashy, nifty displays. Could anyone get to see everything? Nope. Could anyone get to hear everything? Hah! (Or should that be Huh?) But I got a ton-and-a-half of input and was dutifully impressed with quite a lot of the gear. Here are some examples.

BEAMZ
Every NAMM show unveils new electronic tools and instruments, some for professional musicians, and some for non-musicians. But the Beamz is one of the few that is both. At their press event, I saw it used to make lovely music by chart-topping musicians Euge Groove and Craig Chaquico, both of whom regularly use a Beamz in studio and in concert. But someone with no music training can also use the Beamz. In fact, this new high-tech gizmo is utilized in hospitals and therapy sessions, even for patients with limited movement.

So, what is a Beamz? It’s kind of a synthesizer you play by moving your hands and fingers through six laser beams. At which point, some of you will say “no way” and others will say “let me get my hands on this!” With each of six beams assigned to different instruments, patterns, sounds, grooves, etc., you have a high degree of flexibility every time you flick the switch.

The unit is powered by computer through a USB port, which makes the Beamz a “plug and play” device, and with 30 pre-installed song tracks, anyone can jam right away on tracks in 20 genres, including: jazz, blues, hard rock, classical, reggae, hip hop, Latin, dance, smooth jazz and more.

For pros, the best news is that your own musical creations can be loaded in using Beamz Studio software. You can import MIDI, WAV and/or MP3 files into the studio application so you can edit any aspect of a Beamz song and compose interactive music songs of your own, making the Beamz an exciting new instrument for studio or stage.

Watching world-class players use the unit on the Press Room stage was hypnotic, but it was just as fascinating to see others play it when I dropped by the Beamz booth. Yes, making music on the Beamz is almost too easy, because no matter what combination of sounds you choose to play, every song is always in tune and harmonious. So, while you can’t play a wrong note, you can easily get repetitious if you’re not careful. Hopefully, the Beamz will help teach new players to listen.

“Some of the world’s greatest musicians are using the Beamz,” notes Thomas Gardner, a Beamz VP, “but so are amateurs, families, kids, seniors, and more. We are seeing great response from musicians in jazz, rock, pop, country, and the DJ world. It’s also a terrific therapy resource for children and adults with special needs and people who are recovering from strokes,” Gardner adds. Watching the look in the eyes of people who approach the unit for the first time, I can see why the Beamz brass is very excited about this new product.

The Beamz can be used on its own or in any jam session. It can be used to accompany a group of other instruments or it can be the lead instrument. This is not like Guitar Hero or Rock Band because you are actually making the music happen.

With the Beamz, it’s in your hands. Not just the playing, but everything. You can change the positioning of what instruments are assigned to the laser beams, but you can also adjust volume settings for each instrument and modify the overall tempo of the rhythm, all while the song is playing.

Beamz also launched a game component, ShadowBeamz, at CES 2010. Available as a free download, ShadowBeamz begins with three different skill levels and the game lets players engage with this interactive instrument from anywhere in the world. Pro, amateur, education, therapy, and gamers – Beamz does seem to have it all.
www.thebeamz.com

EIGENHARP
Like a lot of people who deal with the media, I get incredulous when reading announcements like this one: “The Eigenharp is a brand new instrument, the very first of its kind. Designed specifically for live performance, it is simply the most expressive electronic musical instrument ever made. Developed by a British company over 8 years, it redefines everything we have come to know about electronic instruments.”

Upon seeing something like that, some of us want to immediately disprove every point, every phrase, every word. So it was with a strong sense of skepticism that I attended their press conference and product demo.

But here’s the thing: the Eigenharp is pretty spectacular. Like a cross between a guitar, synthesizer, keyboard, saxophone, and perhaps twelve other instruments, the thing looks intriguing, if a bit daunting. Using it, a musician can play and improvise, play and record loops, change key, transpose, alter tempo, program beats, switch and layer sounds, all while performing live.

There are two styles of Eigenharp. The Alpha is designed with professional musicians in mind and features 120 highly sensitive keys, 12 percussion keys, 2 strip controllers, a breath pipe and a number of pedal inputs. The Pico is a smaller, more affordable version with 22 keys, a breath pipe and strip controller. Either way, the sonic breakthroughs seem to live up to the hype.
www.eigenlabs.com

GRUV GEAR
I don’t move furniture, studio equipment, stage sets, lights, speaker cabinets, or amplifiers, but if I did, boy-oh-boy would I want the Gruv Gear V-Cart Solo. Described as the “ultimate personal gear transport cart for musicians,” this is the best way to get your gear on a roll. In a fast-paced presentation at NAMM, they quickly took the cart through all of four configurations: 4-wheel platform, 2-wheel dolly, 4-wheel tilted “V,” and its compact folded mode. “We all love it when it’s time to get on stage,” says Jay Baldemor, Founder and CEO of Gruv Gear, “but there hasn’t been much progress in making things easier between gigs, so we got the idea to work in this arena. Before the V-Cart Solo, the choices were very limited: clunky carts, overpriced carts, carts that were made for other purposes.” From what I saw, all that has changed because the V-Cart Solo is the next best thing to having your own roadie.
www.gruvgear.com

BLUE MICROPHONES
Every time you turn around, Blue appears to launch a new microphone, and this year’s NAMM was no exception. In fact, they have two. The Encore 100i is a dynamic vocal mic, but its wider and flatter frequency response lets you capture a variety of instruments while its tighter polar pattern reduces off-axis noise. Starting with Blue’s proprietary dynamic capsule, the Encore 100i adds a custom-designed diaphragm and coil windings that are matched to a tuned acoustic circuit, a custom-built transformer for low noise, and high-pass filter to reduce stage rumble. Utilizing such matched components leads to accurate and consistent sound even at high volume levels on stage.

Moving up the scale a bit is the new “flagship” live stage vocal microphone, the Encore 300. Beginning with a custom-tuned condenser capsule mounted on a rubber suspension system, the mic also features a matched, phantom powered preamp circuit. The firm is proud to demo the mic, claiming vocal clarity and vibrancy with consistent tone and low noise no matter how long a cable is used. “The Encore 300 is the next best thing to bringing our top studio mics on stage,” says John Maier, CEO of Blue Microphones. “When the recording session ends, singers can now enjoy the same Blue sound they get in the studio.” I love the look of this mic, but it is not just a pretty creation as the Encore 300 is built tough, with a reinforced chassis that doubles as a protective ‘exoskeleton’ for the capsule, a heavy-gauge zinc barrel grip to protect microphone components and reduce resonance, electro-plated steel parts, and hardened paint finishes for scratch resistance.
www.bluemic.com

WALDORF LARGO SOFT SYNTH
Mirroring the technology used in Blofeld and Q hardware synthesizers, the Waldoff Largo Soft Synth version 1.5 offers three oscillators (two with sub-oscillators) and gives you models of classic analog waveforms running through two multimode filters with steep cutoff, resonance up to self-oscillation, and a drive stage to add even more punch and grain in the sound. The sonics are both fat and phat. The envelope generators are gazelle fast, the LFOs are as flexible as a Bulgarian gymnast and all the sounds are superb, at least as far as I could tell amidst the cacophony of NAMM (so I asked a friend who uses Largo and the reaction was “Largo sounds stone solid strange, man!”) Largo also contains a flexible arpeggiator and an array of effects such as chorus, flanger, phaser, overdrive, delay and reverb. The Largo works as a VST and AudioUnit instrument. The list of features goes on too long for us to include them all here. Ya gotta love it.

www.waldorfmusic.de

SENSAPHONICS 3MAX EARPHONES
Can someone tell me why in ear personal monitors are called IEMs? Shouldn’t they be IEPMs? Anyway, one of the world’s leaders in IEMs, Sensaphonics, has just come out with a custom earphone featuring a proprietary twin-driver bass system along with a precision high frequency driver. The sound is superb, plus the earpieces use soft-gel silicone so they seem to kind of hover on your noggin. “We were the first manufacturer to extend low frequency response by adding a second speaker to a custom earphone,” states Sensaphonics President and founder Michael Santucci. “To meet today’s demands on IEM earphone performance, we developed a triple-driver design that can deliver as much acoustic push as modern wireless systems can provide, while retaining the sound signature that has made our 2MAX and 2X-S models so successful.”
www.sensaphonics.com

SPECTRASONICS TRILIAN AND OMNISPHERE
Looking for acoustic, electric and synth bass sounds for your next production? Try the Total Bass Module in Trilian from Spectrasonics. This is a bottom-lover’s dream. Moving forward from where the Trilogy plug-in left off and based on their Omnisphere STEAM Engine technology, Trilian is extremely flexible, letting you carve out your bass sonics to sound real or to sound really out of this world.

Speaking of the Omnisphere, this is a monster power synth that puts tons of sounds right at your fingertips. The tones can be soothing or strange, pleasing or punchy, beautiful or “bombs-away.” The company is high on the hybrid synthesis and new control capabilities, including variable waveshaping DSP synthesis, granular synthesis, timbre shifting, FM, polyphonic ring modulation, high-resolution streaming sample playback, harmonia, dual multimode filter structure, chaos envelopes, a unison mode, and their Flex-Mod modulation routing system. Also impressive was the large library of sounds, including those created with a new composite morphing technique (CMT) which takes the harmonic characteristics of one instrument and morphs it into another. www.spectrasonics.net .

BOB KILGORE’S HARMONIC CAPO
You put this on your guitar at the fifth, seventh or twelfth fret and every note you play will now contain a harmonic tone. Brilliant! This is an absolute must-have for every guitar player.
www.weaseltrap.com .

Music Industry Newswire staff editor Scott G reports on his visit to this year’s Winter NAMM 2010 in Anaheim, Calif. While there is always more to see than the brain can always assimilate, Scott has picked out some of the things which called to him from across a crowded room.

NOTEFLIGHT CRESCENDO
Composing music? Do it in the cloud. Noteflight Crescendo is a cloud-based online music notation service that allows composition, collaboration, commentary, and social networking. The company describes its design as an affordable and easy-to-use alternative to such desktop notation programs as Sibelius and Finale.

There are two levels of the Noteflight offering, one free and one fee-based with advanced features. “We have already seen tremendous acceptance of Noteflight,” states Joe Berkovitz, President and Founder of Noteflight, “and now we are proud to be launching this more powerful online music notation platform for professionals, educators, students and music enthusiasts.” In addition, “there is a free model for the novice or occasional user,” Berkovitz adds.

The demo I received at NAMM was smoothly impressive. Looking back on it, I probably should have attempted to quickly compose a JSG Noteflight NAMM Theme right there on the spot but we had limited time and my mind was clicking off the people who would probably love this service: singers, songwriters, music teachers, composers, and even those people you meet at parties who claim they have written a hit song if only someone will listen to it.

“It’s a great tool for composers,” Berkovitz points out, “but we’re also proud to be a social networking community at the same time.” Since starting in 2008, Noteflight has amassed 50,000 users in 130 countries. You can choose your collaborators, decide to allow editing or comments, remain totally open or relatively private. Let’s face it, the product is noteworthy. www.noteflight.com.

SONIC REALITY EPIK DRUMS – A KEN SCOTT COLLECTION
First of all, it is very difficult not to go off on a fanboy tangent after interviewing Ken Scott. The guy produced David Bowie albums, for cryin’ out loud. He engineered “The White Album” by those four lads from Liverpool. I have plenty of great recordings in my collection bearing the credit “Produced by Ken Scott,” including works by Jeff Beck, Devo, Billy Cobham, Dixie Dregs, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and many more. Oh, also Happy The Man, a progressive rock outfit that made a mark overseas but not here in the States. (Note to interviewers: if you want to see a big grin from Ken Scott, mention how much you like “Crafty Hands.”)

But back to the NAMM news. There are several things shared by all those great recordings on which Ken Scott worked: clarity, power, dynamics, excitement, and superb drum sounds. Which is what prompted the folks at Sonic Reality to create a virtual instrument/plug-in product with the imposing title EpiK DrumS – A Ken Scott Collection.

So okay, what is included in the Collection? Well, first of all, Billy Cobham, Bob Siebenberg, Terry Bozzio, Woody Woodmansey, and Rod Morgenstein are the drummers who were recorded for the project, and they worked with Scott to provide us with drum kits and percussion in their own unique styles as well as recreating the subtlety and thunder of recordings by Bowie, Supertramp, Mahavishnu, Dregs, Missing Persons, Elton John, and The Beatles. You get more than 130 gigabytes of 24-bit drum samples and there are more than 2,000 grooves in rock, pop, and fusion styles.

Not only can you swap out various parts of the drum kits, each individual drum and “microphone” setting can be tweaked almost any way you would like. You can play the samples from a keyboard or any electronic drum kit. The drums and grooves are packaged with the Infinite Player powered by Kontakt so they will work on every major DAW and work on both Mac and PC. The demo I received from Ryan Holquist at the Sonic Reality NAMM booth was eye-opening (and yes, ear-opening), and it didn’t hurt that people like Stanley Clarke were dropping by to take a peek.

Scott has spoken of the genesis of this project: “For decades people have asked me how I got this sound or that drum sound on so and so’s record. Now they can not only have that information but they can get the authentic drum sound itself.”

Authenticity was an important aspect of the venture. “It’s amazing we were even able to find all of the original vintage gear to make this product in 2008 but now Ken’s classic warm 70s drum production is preserved for all time,” observes Dave Kerzner, CEO of Sonic Reality.

When I mentioned to Scott how the most impressive thing was not the astonishing sounds but the way they could so easily be altered, he noted that “Flexibility was one of our goals in developing this project.” In my interview with Scott at NAMM, the topics ranged from music to sonics to studios-in-the-box to copyright issues to mobile2mobile file communication. And then one final point emerged: “Education is a surprising side-benefit to the way we approached this project,” he said. “By having so much flexibility built into it, it not only works well for professionals, it becomes an excellent teaching tool for anyone learning how to blend and balance drum sounds in a mix.”
www.sonicreality.com .

IK MULTIMEDIA STEALTHBOARD and AMPLITUBE 3
Guitarists and bassists often fall into one of two categories: those who play with their instruments plugged into hardware, and those who play with their instruments plugged into software. The former are still highly respected and may be saluted for their dedication to the “old school” approach. But they are limited to whatever sonic control is offered by the stomp boxes they have arrayed on the floor in front of them.

The musicians who have embraced the modern age have no such limitations thanks to firms like IK Multimedia. Let’s take two of their new offerings to use as examples. AmpliTube 3 is software gear that gives you instant access to 160 audibly truthful modeled pieces of gear, including 51 stompboxes and effects, 31 amp/preamp/power stations, 46 speaker cabs, 17 post-amp rack effects, rotating speaker effects, reverbs, choices of microphones and their placement, and even room ambience. You can take control with a new “drag & drop” feature so experimentation is quick and easy.

Also new at IK is the StealthBoard, which is able to replace any pedalboard on the planet. It uses a USB MIDI port to connect your instrument to your computer, plus MIDI in/out connections for any other MIDI controllable gear, including amps. The demo I got at NAMM showed how easy it is to take your guitar or bass (or whatever audio you run through it, for that matter) to any arena of audio splendor.

Additionally, the StealthBoard, StealthPedal wah, and AmpliTube 3 are available as a complete software + hardware solution for playing and recording.
www.amplitube.com
www.stealthboard.com
www.ikmultimedia.com .

COLUMN: — When the word went out that Dave Smith was going to introduce something “new” at NAMM in January, many of us immediately presumed it would be a keyboard version of the highly popular Mopho. And, lo and behold that’s what was revealed. Due to the economy, demand, and other factors, it’s clear we won’t see the niche Linn drum anytime soon — and perhaps this is also due to the explosion of the Ableton Live generation, Open Labs Dbeat, etc.

But the Mopho brings all the juicy goodness of the little yellow box to a more playable keyboard, and is perhaps the full circle back to the Sequential Circuits Pro One (I was one of the first in Los Angeles to own one, the day they got them in at Guitar Center, back in the day). Since the Mopho is (mostly) a one-voice version of the Prophet 08, it brings an affordable keyboard monophonic analog synth to market with the Dave Smith pedigree. I had to laugh when I heard a couple of folks ask if it were polyphonic … no, the Mopho box isn’t either. The Tetra is the polyphonic version. And, it doesn’t make much sense to do a Tetra keyboard since the jump up in price puts you in the Prophet 08 price point anyway.

It’s also an ideal upgrade for those already owning a Mopho box, as you can chain it together with the keyboard (which has potentiometer pots), to make a 2-voice, or chain with the Tetra box to make a 5-voice instrument.

Also worth nothing, in case anybody missed it, is that Dave decided to bring back the rack mount version of the PolyEvolver (I have both the keyboard and rack). This is essential since the keyboard is technically a 4-voice synth, and begs to have the rack unit chained for 8-voice playability (for you non players out there, it means if you play a 4-note chord and while it’s decaying, if you play any other note, it steals from the first chord, which can sound odd). I was hoping to see a full 8-voice version of the PolyEvolver in one keyboard at some point, but it doesn’t look like that will happen.

What else can Dave come up with at this point? He’s got the analog/digital hybrid with the Evolver line, and the one, four, and 8-voice analog covered with the Prophet 08, Mopho and Tetra. While I’d love to have the next generation LinnDrum, I don’t know that makes much economic sense until the world economy improves.

One thing he could do, in my opinion, is build a “rack” for Tom Oberheim’s new SEM modules, a special keyboard plus case to hold up to four of the SEM modules, and basically recreate the old Oberheim 4-voice set-up. Dave is better set-up to do such a thing than Tom is right now, and I don’t know it would really throw a competitive wrench into his own business, as the SEM module is a real niche thing by comparison. Just my two cents.

Of course, ahem, I’d love to see a resurrection of the old Prophet T8, perhaps an 88 key hammer-action (Fatar) board, with two Prophet 08 boards inside, or perhaps three of the Tetra, to make a Prophet 12? Just thoughts. But again, most folks can just hook up their existing 88-key controller to a Prophet 08 module to do the same thing.

Keep bringing the gear to market, Dave. I’ll keep buying!

COLUMN: Songwriters need to be savvy about song structure, chord changes, modulation, harmony, and lyrics. A songwriter might know all that yet still remain poor and undiscovered. If that describes you, don’t despair and don’t give up. There are a number of ways to make money from your music. In this article, we will attempt to cover a few of the basics.

Protection
First of all, protect your music through copyright. Technically, you own the copyright to your work the minute it is in fixed form, such as sheet music or a demo recording. But if you obtain proof of copyright with the Library of Congress, you have far greater protection of your work because you now have a “paper trail” showing the date of your ownership. Several music business attorneys, including Sindee Levin, Dorothy Richardson, and Steve Winogradsky, have emphasized another point about obtaining documentation of your copyright: if there is an infringement, your award for damages will be higher.

Work with a PRO
Next, you can register your work with a performing rights organization (PRO). In the United States, there are three PROs that collect money for copyright owners whenever a song is performed on the radio, on television, in a club or at a restaurant or hotel. This is why songwriters and music publishers affiliate with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

Although not of interest to songwriters, once a song is recorded, there is an organization called SoundExchange which monitors and collects money for performances of recorded songs on Internet radio, satellite radio, digital cable and satellite television, and this requires separate registration.

Are there flaws in the collection systems of these companies? Certainly. They can only pay to those people who are registered with them. And until there is a way to digitally code or “fingerprint” all songs, not everything can be monitored. So today, total payments include money for actual performances where monitoring is possible (such as on radio) plus money for an extrapolated or guesstimated number of performances where monitoring is not conducted (such as hotels) which is very unfair to songs with smaller distribution. You could, for example, have a privately pressed CD that was played in every health food store or yoga class in the country but if there was no monitored radio airplay, you might receive little or nothing from your PRO.

Joining Just One PRO
A songwriter may affiliate with only one PRO. If you are acting as your own music publisher, you might decide to simply affiliate with one of them under your songwriting name and do nothing more. But let’s say your songwriter friends see how good a job you are doing with your songs and so they ask if you would publish their tunes. If you’re all in the same PRO, your job is easy; just register as a publisher with your PRO. But what if your friends are in other PROs? Then you will need to affiliate with all three organizations. The PROs do not allow the use of the same publishing company name in all three of their firms, so music publishers need to have three names. So, for example, while I am with BMI as a songwriter, my firms are Golosio Publishing with BMI, Audio Masterworks with ASCAP, and Golosio Audio Masterworks with SESAC.

ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC
- ASCAP stands for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. As of this writing, they have U.S. membership of more than 360,000.
- BMI stands for Broadcast Music, Inc. Current membership is above 400,000.
- SESAC began as the Society of European Stage Authors & Composers to help European composers who were not adequately represented in the United States. SESAC selects songwriters and publishers with whom they wish to affiliate and is thus smaller than the other two organizations.

Mechanical Rights
You can also register recorded songs with a mechanical rights society, sometimes called an MRO (for mechanical rights organization). There are two such societies in the U.S., the Harry Fox Agency (HFA) and the American Mechanical Rights Agency (AMRA), Basically, a mechanical license allows someone to reproduce and distribute copyrighted musical compositions on what are anachronistically called phonorecords.

Phonorecords?
In practice, the word “phonorecords” means more than it might seem. The term is taken to mean vinyl records, compact discs, tapes, and even certain digital configurations of audio. It refers to any other material object in which sounds are fixed with the exception of those accompanying motion pictures and other audio-visual works.

Master vs. Mechanical vs. Synch Rights
First, do not confuse “mechanical rights” with “master rights.” Once there is a recording of a song, whoever paid for the recording has the right to decide where and how that recording is used. For example, if an artist makes a recording for a record company, the “master” is almost always controlled by the company.

If someone wants to feature your recording in a commercial or on a movie or TV soundtrack, the master rights must be negotiated, perhaps from you, perhaps from your record label.

At the same time the master rights are obtained, the songwriter (or publisher or whoever controls the use of the song) must grant a synchronization right for the composition to appear in that commercial or movie/TV soundtrack.

This is why you might have heard a Lennon/McCartney song recorded by the Beatles used in a commercial for Nike (they paid for a synch and master use right) but you might hear a Lennon/McCartney song recorded by some studio musicians used in a commercial for a phone company (either they didn’t want to pay to use the Beatles master recording or it was denied to them for their requested use; in which case they had no choice but to license only the synch rights and record a new version of the song).

HFA, AMRA
- The Harry Fox Agency is a for-profit organization owned by the non-profit National Music Publishers Association. HFA was created to license, collect, and distribute royalties on behalf of U.S. music publishers. HFA issues mechanical licenses for phonorecords distributed in the United States (including territories and possessions) only.
- AMRA issues mechanical and synchronization licenses and collects mechanical royalties in the U.S., Canada, and around the globe. AMRA represents 8 foreign mechanical rights societies in the U.S. In turn, AMRA is represented by 42 countries around the world.

Statutory Rates
Currently, there is a statutory rate of 9.1 cents for the sale of physical recordings and permanent digital downloads. (Okay, to be completely and technically accurate, the rate is 9.1 cents for songs of 5 minutes or less; but it is 1.75 cents per minute or fraction of a minute for songs longer than 5 minutes.) The rate for ringtones is 24 cents. The rates for interactive streams and limited downloads are determined by such factors as type of service, type of licensee, service revenue, recorded content expense, and applicable performance royalty expense. This, unfortunately, leads to convoluted rates structures. For example, the rate for “Standalone Non-Portable Subscriptions, Streaming Only” is as follows (I’m not making this up) . . .

(a) pre-12/31/07: 8.5%, 10.5% thereafter
(b) Lesser of $ .50 per subscriber per month, and if pass thru license, 18% (14.53% if pre-
01/08) of service roy. exp. for label, if not pass thru, 22% (17% if pre-01/08) of service
roy. exp. for label.” To which a normal person can only say WTF.

Music Publishers
Once you have written a song and registered it with a PRO, you are the song publisher unless you assign the copyright to a music publisher. Notice that word: “assign.” In order for a publisher to represent your song, they need the right to make decisions about the licensing. So, in addition to an agreement to publish the song, which should outline your percentage of payment, you will be asked to sign an “Assignment of Copyright.” This may sound scary because it seems like you are giving up your interest in the song. No, if you assign a copyright, you still own it but are letting someone else make decisions regarding where and how it will make money on film soundtracks, TV soundtracks, advertisements, and so forth.

Digital Income
A company that works with HFA should be mentioned here. RightsFlow specializes in obtaining bulk mechanical, DPD (digital phonorecord delivery), and ringtone licenses including streaming, tethered, and limited downloads rights. RightsFlow’s licensing service utilizes the bulk licensing system of HFA.

View from an Industry Insider
“There is one important thing to note concerning digital royalties,” states Eric Palmquist, Sr. Manager, Disney Music Publishing, “the digital revolution coupled with the proliferation of piracy has led to a difficult combination – more types of payments/licenses to be processed by (often) shrinking staffs. Songwriters need to have their statements reviewed to ensure they’re receiving full digital payments.”

Compulsory license
After the first recording of one of your songs is available in public, then anyone else may record it if they give you notice and pay the statutory royalty rate for each phonorecord that is manufactured (physical product) or distributed (digital product). This is why it is so vital that Congress establish statutory rates in the first place.

Print
“Songwriters first started getting paid per unit royalties when print music publishers starting selling sheet music in the early years of the last century,” Palmquist notes. “Print publishing is still an important income stream for songwriters today by selling sheet music/songbooks across the country in music stores and on-line.”

Firms involved with this area of the industry include Alfred Music Publishing, Music Sales Group Limited, and Musicnotes. Hal Leonard Corporation, representing more than 200,000 titles, is the leader in the music print industry, producing sheet music, songbooks, method book/CD packs for all instruments, reference books, band and choral arrangements, instructional DVDs and videos, CD-ROMs and other music software.

Mobile Income Stream
Another area that will be of concern to songwriters and publishers in the near future is in the mobile space. A company called DataRevenue.Org is already registering songwriters and other creators of content to be ready when Congress establishes a rate of payment for use of copyrighted material in the mobile-to-mobile marketplace. Currently, if you send a multimedia file (like a short music video) from your mobile phone to a friend’s mobile phone, BOTH of you are charged for the transmission by your providers. But the owner of the copyrighted material you used (song, movie, photography, etc.) is out of luck until a rate is established.

Last Word
While the best songwriters are able to practice their craft at a high level of artistic accomplishment, by being aware of the business side of songwriting, the songwriter’s art can also turn into commerce.

COLUMN: — Avid/Digidesign announced this week the latest update to their DAW application, Pro Tools, with a notable update in version 8.03. This new version supports Apple Snow Leopard (OS X), and has a public “beta” for Windows 7 32-bit AND 64-bit support. Also, notably, this new version no longer supports Avid’s oldest hardware interfaces (first Mbox), nor supports any PowerPC-based Macs.

Available in Pro Tools HD, LE, and M-Powered versions, PT 8.0.3 also has numerous “requested software improvements and fixes” according to Avid.

Avid has a detailed PDF (link below) which details over 100 fixes to PT8, but some of the more notable fixes include editing (keyboard shortcuts), video (QuickTime error under Vista), MIDI errors with Reason 4 via Rewire, and MIDI zooming; Digidesign databases are now stored on system drive rather than individual volumes (about time!), and memory improvements have been made when indexing; “don’t show dialog again” option added to many common error and warning dialog windows (again, thank you!); horizontal scrolling improvement with trackballs and Apple Mighty Mouse; fixes to system crash with certain Bomb Factory plug-ins installed (often inspiring ironic comments for the brand of the plug-ins!).

Notably for Windows users running Vista, or who have installed IE8 under WinXP SP3; a major fix for Pro Tools covers the DAW not launching when Internet 8 is installed on Windows. Some plugins will still not work properly if IE8 is installed (!), including Structure, Strike, Velvet, and Hybrid. They are working on the issue (this would be a good item to watch closely for “hot fixes”).

If moving to Windows 7, there are also updated hardware drivers. Primarily this update is a “bug fix” update, and not a “new features” update (which would be a full dot revision, or PT 8.1).

For those using Avid’s new ELEVEN rack hardware, there are some reports of “runtime errors” with Windows PT LE when launching a new session, and Avid is recommending users of that hardware NOT update to this version if using the Windows version of LE. This likely means there will be an 8.0.4 dot revision shortly, or a hot fix specifically for Eleven owners. Ultra paranoid folk may want to wait for that.

Link to PDF detailed the fixes to PT 8.0.3:

akmedia.digidesign.com/support/docs/Pro_Tools_803_Release_Notes_63870.pdf

Or, more information on the update for both OS platforms:

www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=48&langid=100&itemid=40434

Note: above links may not be permanent, but were valid as of Dec. 19, 2009.