A Message From Longtime Big Band Jazz Drummer Nick Barker On His 18″ Yamaha HipGig Kick Drum

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Sean

What I found with the Kickport was that it provided both low end sound and a better projection.

And the attack doesn’t decay during the louder segments of music where all the orchestra is playing! You still get a great punch.

I would definitely recommend it for this type of application. The combination of small bass drum sound with added punch seems to be perfect for Big Band scenarios (and probably anything else). It will be a permanent addition to my kit, I can assure you!! I am based in the UK so I am happy to spread the word!

Best Regards,

Nick Barker

New KickPort Artist Ronnie Ciago Drum Clinic at Sam Ash in Cerritos, CA Feb 11

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Sean

Ronnnie from the band Branx will be appearing live at the Sam Ash in Cerrritos on Feb 11th.

Ronnie Ciago was born in Long Island, New York, USA. He began playing drums at age 5. With a lot of dedicated practising, Ronnie started playing live performances with local rock and funk bands when he was 12.

He also is the author of two drum books, “Ambidexterity” and “The Ultimate Study In Independence”. From 1991 through 1997, Ronnie has toured and recorded with many known artists in the business including, Patrick Moraz (Yes, Moody Blues) Ricky Lee Jones, Riverdogs, Rob Lamothe, Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones) Brand X and many others.

Put more KICK in your Cajon!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Sean

The CajonPort significantly expands the presence and sonic range of any Cajon – adding unbelievable bottom along with a fuller and richer frequency spectrum.

Similar to the way the KickPort works in bass drums, the CajonPort compresses the airflow through its tube and then allows the rapid expansion of the air through its flared opening. This increases the depth, punch and power of the sound while creating greater distinction between the Cajon’s bass and snare sounds.

The result is a dramatically less boxy, more versatile and musical instrument, which “opens” the Cajon to a variety of exciting new applications.

Neil Young on music and Steve Jobs: ‘piracy is the new radio’

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Sean

Neil Young came to the stage of D: Dive into Media to talk with Walt Mossberg and Peter Kafka about the current distribution and quality of digital music. Young is primarily concerned about whether the MP3 files we’re all listening to actually are pretty poor from an audio-quality standpoint. He says that your average MP3 file only contains about five percent of the audio from an original recording and he says Apple Lossless only offers “10.3 percent.” The concern is twofold, which Young called the “front and back end” of the donkey. The back end is the devices we’re using to listening to audio, and Young hopes that we’ll get better devices than what’s currently available. For example, on Beats Audio, he says “I think they make it look better, and I think they make it have more bass.” Young also wants to see better music recording and high resolution recording, but we’re not anywhere near that yet. He hopes that “some rich guy” will solve the problem of creating and distributing “100 percent” of the sound in music.

One rich guy Young knew was Steve Jobs and on that subject, Young had this to say:

Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music, his legacy was tremendous. [...] But when he went home, he listened to vinyl.

Young is calling for a new digital ecosystem of high quality music files and he believes that Jobs would have gotten there had he lived long enough. On the distribution side, Young isn’t particularly concerned with the effects of piracy on artists, he’s more concerned that the files that are being shared are of such low quality:

It doesn’t affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around. [...] That’s the radio. If you really want to hear it, let’s make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it.

Despite that attitude, Young is still on the side of record labels because they care about music and about supporting artists — but somehow we doubt those studios take the same attitude towards piracy that Young does.

The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Large & Growing… Not Shrinking

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Sean

Today, in Cannes, at the Midem conference, I did a presentation that was something of a follow up to the presentation I did here three years ago, about how Trent Reznor’s experiments represented the future of music business models. This time, the presentation coincided with the release of a new research paper that we’ve spent the past few months working on, sponsored by CCIA and Engine Advocacy, in which we did a thorough look at the true state of the entertainment industry. For years, we’ve been hearing doom and gloom reports about how the industry is dying, how customers just want stuff for free, about analog dollars turning into digital dimes… and (all too frequently) about how new laws are needed to save these industries.

Yet, what we find when looking through the research — from a variety of sources to corroborate and back up any research we found — is that the overall entertainment ecosystem is in a real renaissance period. The sky truly is rising, not falling: the industry is growing both in terms of revenue and content. We split the report up into video & film, books, music and video games — and all four segments are showing significant growth (not shrinking) over the last decade. All of them are showing tremendous opportunity. The amount of content that they’re all producing isgrowing at an astounding rate (which again, is the most important thing). But revenue, too, is growing. Equally important is that rather than consumers just wanting to get stuff for free, they have continually spent a greater portion of their income on entertainment — with the percentage increasing by 15% from 2000 to 2008.

This all points to the fact that what is happening within the industry is not a challenge of a business getting smaller — quite the opposite. It’s about the challenge of an industry getting larger, but doing so in ways that route around the existing structures.

The Sky Is Rising

Some of the key points:

Entertainment spending as a function of income went up by 15% from 2000 to 2008
Employment in the entertainment sector grew by 20% — with indie artists seeing 43% growth.
The overall entertainment industry grew 66% from 1998 to 2010.
The amount of content being produced in music, movies, books and video games is growing at an incredible pace.

Of course, some of this is a challenge for many existing players, but it should be seen as an opportunity. In fact, we conclude:

For consumers, today is an age of absolute abundance in entertainment. More content is available in more ways than ever before. If we simply go by the terms of the US Constitution’s clause from which copyright came, it seems clear that the “progress of science and the useful arts” is being promoted — even as copyright is often being ignored or foregone. There is just a tremendous amount of content, a tremendous variety of content, it’s more accessible to more people than ever before.
For content creators, it is an age of amazing new opportunity. Traditionally, to take part in the entertainment industry, you had no choice but to go through a gatekeeper, which served to keep the vast majority of people who wished to be content creators from ever making any money at all from content creation. Today, that is no longer true. More people are making more money from creating content than ever before — with much of that coming via new tools that have allowed artists to use the internet to create, promote, distribute and monetize their works.
For the traditional middlemen, the internet represents both a challenge and an opportunity. There is no doubt that the internet has eaten away at some traditional means by which these businesses made money. But, as the data shows, there is more money going into the overall market, more content being created, and many new ways to make money. That shows that there is a business model challenge — and a marketing challenge — but much more opportunity in the long run. The key challenge for business is in figuring out how to capture more of the greater revenue being generated by the wider entertainment industry. Legacy players certainly face a lot more competition (and fewer reasons that artists have to do deals with them) — which can explain some of the public complaints about the “death” of various industries — but overall, it’s clear that by embracing new opportunities, there are plenty of ways to succeed.

We’re hopeful that having this kind of evidence and data will shift the debate from how to stop the sky from falling (when it’s not) to one that looks at how can companies and individuals tackle the key challenge: succeeding in a much more competitive market.

KickPort Review From MusicRadar.com

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Sean

KickPort drum insert £42

A must-have accessory to boost your bottom end

When it was launched in 2009, the KickPort created a genuine buzz within the music industry. A simple device that is easily fitted to the front bass drum head, it claims to ingeniously enhance low frequencies. While its rise seems to have been meteoric, its development was anything but, as the small US-based team responsible spent years perfecting the design before marketing it.

The KickPort is made of acoustically-specified plastic, rubber and foam. Its main component is a 4″-long pipe which flares out in the style of a horn at the front end to a diameter of 5.25″. A rubber cup is attached to the outside of the pipe half way along its length. The cup is shaped to follow the contours of the flared section of the pipe.

For the time being, KickPorts only come in one colour – black. A white version of the KickPort will be available soon, with other colour options to follow later this year. A fitted KickPort actually grips the front head – the rubber cup ends up inside the drum and flips forward onto the head while the flared part of the plastic pipe visible outside the drum is foam-backed.

Trapping the head in this manner creates an intentional dampening effect, making any usual dampening unnecessary.

The function of the plastic pipe – the majority of which is located inside the drum – is to slow the exit of air produced from each stroke, compressing it along its length. The flared exit then allows for rapid expansion of the air as it meets the outside world.

Hands on

I tried a KickPort with my vintage Premier 20″x14″ bass drum which is fitted with an Evans EQ1 batter and a Remo Ambassador front head. Due to its size and design, the drum is not as naturally deep as many contemporary kick drums, and so it made for a challenging test-bed.

Fitting the KickPort was straightforward and took a few minutes. Once in, the effect was instant, giving the drum a noticeably fatter and altogether larger presence. There was also added focus to the sound, which made for a marked increase in punchiness.

Rather than simply being a ‘loud button’ for the kick, it followed the tuning of the drum sympathetically – wherever we pitched it – so proving far more versatile than we anticipated. What impressed us the most, though, was that the drum still sounded natural and warm – not as though it had been manipulated in any way.

Verdict

It’s not very often that a product comes along that is so simple yet capable of producing such impressive results. Such effectiveness and ease of use comes on the back of the four years of testing and developing that took place before the KickPort was launched.

MusicRadar rating:

5 of 5 stars

Billy Ward’s Four Tips For Studio Preparation

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Sean

By Billy Ward
Originally published in the March 2006 issue of DRUM! Magazine

Billy Ward: Four Ways To Prepare For The Studio - DRUM! Magazine

It’s About Experience

“And that means taking that Greek-wedding-band gig just so that you’ve done that, and it’s in your musical suitcase. I think you have to show up and be totally overqualified stylistically — to be able to play all styles and to have had playing experiences with lots of different types of musicians and lots of different types of music. As far as you walking into the studio, that’s what you bring. I bring my wardrobe of past experiences, and I draw from that. We all draw from that when we perform. Those are the filters through which the music goes.”

Listen Up

“Your ears are your toolbox. There’s been a great change in the last ten or fifteen years, where recording equipment is now affordable to people. People should record themselves. They should become engineers. They should learn how to record drums. It’s a worthy investment at least to have a tape recorder, even if it’s from RadioShack, and just to put yourself, two days after the gig, what you put your band through — listen to it. It’s sometimes pretty stunning to learn the grid of a good performance — because there will be a gig that went really well, and you listen to the tape and it turned out you were maybe overplaying and rushing. And then there could be another tape that you listen to where your drum pedal broke all night, and it was a horrible gig. In fact, maybe you even turned the tape recorder off at some point in your frustration, but in listening to the part that you recorded, maybe that pedal actually distracted you enough to play music.”

Getting Gigs

“There’s no secret handshake. There’s no secret black book that you can pay money for to get phone numbers. I’ve never heard of anybody sending demos and getting work from that. It’s all word of mouth. So maybe the keyboard player in that Greek wedding band is in seven years going to be producing something, and he calls you for it because you were so competent and because you’ve remained in touch. Whoever it is you’re working with today — whether it’s unpaid work or it’s just in your basement or garage — these are people that you may be making really great music with down the road. You never know.”

In The Studio

“It’s important to understand when they [engineers] say, ‘What do you want in your headphones?’ then to ask for the right things so that you’re not handicapping yourself. You might not want to say, ‘Everything.’ You want the good musicians in your headphones. The guys who will help you perform a great drum track are the guys you want in your headphones. So sometimes, you have to maybe walk into the control room and say, ‘I don’t want any of this person’ and keep it quiet, or just say, ‘I need a lot of this and not a lot of that.’

There’s an extension off of that, which is as a drummer our headphone mix is not their concern. Their concern is the headphone mix of the star. And I’m not as a professional going to interrupt the flow of the session to say, ‘Gee, I can’t hear this other guitarist right now,’ unless I really, simply can’t do my job. Part of the reason I think people hire the sort of A-team guys is because there will be a lot less hassle. They won’t ask for anything: They’ll just do the damn job.”

Reunions will heat up the roster of summer concerts

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Sean

Many of music’s biggest names will light up concert venues in 2012, including several — among them, the Beach Boys and Van Halen— who will be getting the band back together after years of anticipation.

The live music industry is coming off a year in which revenues steadied after a sobering 2010. Touring trade publication Pollstar estimates that the top 100 tours ofNorth America grossed $2.3 billion, up 6.3% over 2010′s $2.2 billion, but still below the 2.5 billion earned in 2009. Those tours sold 34.7 million tickets, a drop of 2.6% from 2010′s 35.7 million but offset by rising ticket prices, which climbed 8.8% to an average $67.22.

The industry has reason to expect a very good year, says Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni.

“There are a lot of major attractions touring, and given the current sense of growing optimism with the economy and consumer spending, (we) would probably project a record year in terms of revenue,” he says. “The only question will be if we push the envelope too far on ticket prices and there is push back in the other direction.”

Brian Wilson rejoins the Beach Boys as they celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary with a 50-date tour that kicks off April 27 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The reunited band released debut albumSurfin’ Safari in 1962,

Top tours of 2011

Artist | North American gross (in millions)

Source: Pollstar

Van Halen will be joined by lead vocalist David Lee Roth, who left the band to go solo in 1985. A Different Kind of Truth, the band’s first album with Roth since 1983′s 1984, is due Feb. 7. Black Sabbath will hit the road with frontman Ozzy Osbourne and record a Rick Rubin-produced album for release later in the year. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have said they will be back with Fleetwood Mac. There is speculation that theRolling Stones, who are also celebrating a 50th anniversary, will go out again.

“It would be a surprise if the Stones did not capitalize on their anniversary, but it’s getting a little late in the game for a full-blown arena or stadium tour for this year,” saysBillboard‘s senior editor, touring Ray Waddell. “If and when they tour, particularly if it’s billed as their last, it will be massive.”

No dates have been announced, but British singer Adele is expected to mount what would be one the biggest tours of the year. Bongiovanni says there’s a lot of pent-up demand for Adele, whose second album, 21, has sold more than 6 million copies and topped the Billboard album chart 16 times. She was forced to cut her tour short in October for vocal chord surgery.

Madonna will be going on the road for the first time since 2008-2009′s Sticky & Sweet tour, and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band will make their first trek without late saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Roger Waters, Katy Perry, Drake, Neil Diamond, Kelly Clarkson, Brad Paisley, Lady Antebellum, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga will also be crisscrossing the map.

Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw’s 19-city Brother of the Sun stadium tour promises to be huge and will feature Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Jake Owen as special guests. The tour kicks off June 2 in Tampa.

“Country remains strong with a healthy mix of arena-level headliners and developing acts,” Waddell says. “Rock is making a comeback of sorts. Nickelback, Radiohead, Coldplay and a wealth of heritage acts are sure to sell tickets, and Black Keys are moving up to the arena level. Electronic/dance music is now a solid ticket seller beyond just the festivals, and there are some hard-working young hip-hop acts that have revitalized that genre.”

Festivals will continue to attract top acts and droves of fans. The premier Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., for example, this year expands to two weekends — April 13-15 and April 20-22 — with identical lineups headed by the Black Keys, Radiohead and Dr. Dre.

“The festivals remain the most robust part of the business in North America,” says Waddel.

One of my favorite KickPort quotes by Andre Boyd

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Sean

Andre “Sre Energy” Boyd

Cirque du Soleil/Quidam, Golden Gospel Singers
“I must say….KickPort is like a dream come true. Every drummer wants their bass drum to have an enormous presence, and KickPort allows that to happen. I am definitely a 100% fan and avid user of KickPort…thanks for making the dream a reality…”

Now Sopa has been shelved what’s next for the music industry?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Sean

Amazon sold Lady Gaga’s latest album for 99c. Photograph: Koji Sasahara/AP

The timing of this week’s IFPI digital music report 2012 put an interesting spin on its content. After immense pressure from digital technology companies it appears US politicians backed down over the Stop Online Piracy bill and put it on hold last Friday. The day before the head of “cyberlocker” site MegaUpload and three of his associates were arrested and their assets seized, resulting in “Anonymous” targeting music organisations’ and Universal’s websites.

It’s not easy to be optimistic about the future while trying to implore governments to do more about piracy due to its threat to the music industry’s future, but Rob Wells, Universal’s president of global digital business, was willing to have a go. He praised the rapid pace at which legal digital alternatives to piracy have grown in the past three years, with two of the US streaming services, one of them being Spotify, gaining more than a million subscribers in the past year – and yet there’s been no decline in digital song buying.

Considering the size of the US population that’s not much, however, but these services are still in their infancy compared to Spotify’s penetration in Sweden. Despite the record labels’ (though, notably, only majors were represented at the IFPI presentation) overwhelming support of Spotify and their claim that it produces significant revenue for artists, it appears many artists (and smaller labels) disagree and still have their reservations, illustrated by Adele’s, Coldplay’s and Black Keys‘ – among others – decision to withhold their most recent albums from the music service. These decisions did not come from the labels but from the artists.

There is also growing discontent from the songwriter community, which questions why the split between labels and collection societies such as PRS (who represent songwriters) should be the same as it is for CDs – or sometimes even more tilted in the record labels favour – when the label doesn’t have to deal with manufacturing and returns when it comes to digital files. The split can be anything from 20% down to as little as 10% of the royalties “cake” going to the writers, depending on the music service, with the rest going to the record labels/performers. If the labels want to prevent the songwriters from withdrawing their songs that must surely change.

Google was in for some serious criticism too, with IFPI pointing out that the $60m the corporation has promised to spend on fighting piracy is a minute portion of its $290bn revenue. They also criticised Google for capping the number of infringement queries at 100,000 a day, with a cap of 10,000 when it comes to take-down notifications.

Wells maintains that the fact that Google has launched a music service means that they can be convinced to do more about piracy, though he still sees the lack of proper revenue from YouTube as a massive problem. Music fans may have noticed that many of the official videos they find on YouTube have the Vevo logo. Vevo is owned by some of the record labels – and pulls in a lot more ad revenue for labels than YouTube – but is currently in partnership with YouTube. When asked to confirm or deny the latest rumours about Vevo considering leaving YouTube for Facebook, Wells smiled and said: “No comment – even though I am on the board.”

Though many ISPs have refused to take any voluntary measures, instead choosing to take each site-blocking case to the high court, Wells also believes partnerships will play a pivotal roll in getting ISPs on board. “The ISPs know exactly how much music goes through their pipes,” he said. “The moment one ISP breaks ranks [and partners with the music industry on a music service], and we throw extras and artist exclusives at them, the others will follow.”

It’s worth noting that though global digital revenue grew by 8% in 2011, the number of purchased downloads (combined singles and albums) increased by 17% – in other words, the average price per download decreased. It’s debatable if Amazon’s 99c sale of Lady Gaga’s latest album contributed to this. It was a loss maker for Amazon and they had to pay the regular royalty rate to Universal. But there has been increasing number of reduced price albums in the past year. Wells also confirmed that some of the increase in revenue was due to legal digital music sites being introduced in countries that previously had none.

And what about the MegaUpload arrests? IFPI says legitimate cyberlockers that don’t peddle copyrighted material on an industrial level need not worry – those who do should be wary. It’s too early to tell what effect the MegaUpload shutdown will have on piracy, but there are some early numbers on the drop in web traffic here.

Regarding the back-down on Sopa, Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI, said the US is still very much committed to fighting piracy, citing atweet by senate majority leader Harry Reid: “Americans rightfully expect to be fairly compensated 4 their work. I’m optimistic that we can reach compromise on PROTECT IP in coming weeks.”

And Rob Wells even saw the public anti-Sopa reactions as something positive: “It flushed out the resistance – something I like” – although it’s not clear if that sentiment extended to those who brought down his company’s website on Thursday.

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