MUSIC|MEDIA|DESIGN

Create Digital Music has a piece on the latest front in raging Loudness Wars, which I highly recommend: Dynamic Range Strikes Back with Campaign, Plug-in.  Campaigning against hyper-limited, over-loud CDs is nothing new, and largely a failure.  CDs, and now MP3s, just keep getting louder.  The problem is there’s no way to know what you’re missing, since virtually nothing released has any dynamic range to speak of.  So there are few positive examples of benefits.  The new development is a plug-in that displays dynamic range in a positive way.  The plug shows a simple, single number representing the average level of the program.  Human nature being what it is, bigger is better, so a bigger number suggests more of something, dynamic range in this case.

Dynamic range refers to the difference between quiet and loud parts of a song.  The greater that gap, the more impact the loud parts have, and generally, the more expressive the music can be.  In earlier generations, this expression was a precious commodity, understood by everyone.  Think of marching bands or symphonies: the loud crescendos, as the music peaks, are what defines excitement.  So it’s ironic that rock and pop music, with intrinsically greater potential for dynamics and excitement, lack this quality entirely.

Algorythmix’ plug-based meter will probably be used by few normal folks.  But we can hope artists, engineers, producers and music professionals take notice.  If they do, music will quickly start sounding much better to us fans.

Here we go: check this piece from Create Digital Music » The Generative iPhone-iPod Touch.  Finally, it seems things are shaking off the dust of 20th Century music – rediscovering that music can be more than a spectator sport, the piece links to some cool interactive music, but also the tools you need to make it. Now we’re cookin’ with gas…

Back during my days at Sound Images I was responsible for advancing the art and science of podcasting.  I’ve flexed those muscles further as a teacher, using podcasts academically; my students turn in most projects as podcasts!  So I was intrigue by a story I read (yeah, I know, reading is obsolete) in Peter Kafka’s column  on the AllThingsD blog about Radio Refugee Adam Carolla.  What’s interesting is this: Carolla elected to stick to podcasting, rather than seek another morning talk-radio gig.

This decision is interesting for a couple reasons.  First, it appears Adam Carolla’s audience has shrunk to the point where he wasn’t getting the kind of bucks he’s accustomed to, so he’s rolling the dice on this “new media thing.”  Still, a comedian with Carolla’s resume should be able to land a paying gig.  To trade a paycheck for a speculative project like this indicates radio’s erosion continues – the paycheck must not have been very steady!  Talk radio’s appeal is naturally limited, but the shift away from live broadcast to recorded media indicates the model is in trouble broadly. No surprise: Narrow, legal strictures make talk boring, while satellite and now podcasts let the talkers push any and every envelope.  But geek that I am, Carolla’s workflow and process led me to write this post.

Apparently Carolla is applying a principle we’ve been talking about for the past 5 years.  Continuous creation is a process that assumes interesting, useful products surround us.  A new creative role is to recognize, capture and re-package the ideas, images, sounds, or experiences in real time.  All information has value, but we can’t quantify that value when that data is created.  We have to wait.  Only application can unwrap the value of a given bit of information.  Carolla’s show differs from his radio work in it’s recognition and embrace of this creative shift.

According to Kafka, Carolla stumbled onto this paradigm naturally.  He’s been plugging away, doing random, uninterrupted talking on a daily basis.  It appears to be the classic internet startup, moving from a spare room at home to a rented garage.  This adds some costs, but the article pegs them at $3000/month.  No problem: Carolla is prohibited from earning a living with his mouth by a non-compete with his former bosses (been there, done that!), so he needs no steenkin’ revenue model.

This is good.  On a personal level, it can’t hurt Carolla’s chops to keep working the mic.  But in building an audience of 400,000+ listeners, he’s created something akin to a private-label radio station.  The real value of 800,000 ears is actually knowable, thanks to radio.  Carolla’s operations are tiny, far more efficient than any radio station, so he commands an audience of salable size with a much lower investment than his competition.  

It’s not yet obvious to The Powers That Be, but the value of those ears can grow in ways broadcast audiences cannot.  Podcast audiences are more similar to public radio listeners, focused on content and appreciative of curatorial talent.  They are more likely to support sponsors than commercial radio listeners, because those sponsors seem to share intrinsic values.  Public radio sponsorship works because listeners want to support businesses that support the programming they care about.  Well-integrated podcast promotion can have similar appeal.  Interesting times, as they say…

So a guy named Steve Lambert has given me SelfControl. A cool little app that blocks access to incoming/outgoing social and networked media tools!  You select the biggest distractions, define the amount of access to grant yourself, and bob’s yer’ uncle!