why are distributions keep going broke?

[Ritzi Lee]

Just when I think we had the worst,
the hurting keeps going on.
Now i'm hearing bad news from the German sellers that it's a matter of time before some distributions are going down again.

Some say the market is just overkilled with a lot of crap.
Some say there are too many small labels with music from unknown artists. And so you can think of a lot of reasons....

But i think it has totally nothing to do with the music.
I think it's a matter of doing marketing. How the system works now.
And ofcourse the state of our economy.

I mean; in the last 14 / 16 years there was a lot of techno.
And also from the little unknown people. And the music and / or quality was good. I think this isn't changed at all. People are still making quality stuff. But the people who deal with the system of selling records doesn't care for music. They just look at the sale sheets, and catagorise music in genres, and famous artists. And without listening they decide if they want to sell it or not...

We're still dealing with a system of 4 years ago from where it all went wrong!

My suggestion: Start all over again!
Just look back at how the people did it 12 / 14 years ago.

Objective or not?

[dirty_bass]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.

[MARKEG]

i think you've got a massive point. loopy shit is just not selling. its time to re-evaluate and re-assess. mp3's/cdj's - they're all playing a massive part. maybe vinyl is finally on it's last legs - perhaps a few more years left and then that's it.

i just cant help but feel that the only place buzzin right now is the internet, but artists and labels are too slow to capitalise on it and find a way to make the money to keep their heads above water.

[Tony]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.
couldnt agree more, but also, theres plenty of other electronic music out there for those who might have stopped the all nighter element of electronic culture, this is shown in the current rise of the more click oriented nights. i really think that not many people can be arsed to really hammer it out anymore, and when faced with the subjective strangeness of the more prevalent dance music genres, ie hard house/pop trance - people just feel totally disconnected from that and dont want to be a part of something that seems so alien and comical to them.

punk and rebellious attitudes from electronics will seep back through to the rock kids, slowly but surely. but the loop must die!

[Tony]

i just cant help but feel that the only place buzzin right now is the internet, but artists and labels are too slow to capitalise on it and find a way to make the money to keep their heads above water.

agreed, the established set up of label/distrib/record shop seems to be going out of the window. there are too many egos and people who'd sell their gran, or a record that took five mins to make, for a fast buck or with no real knowledge of the repercussions of their actions.
this is why i post my lists on forums, if people can see that i am passionate about what i stock, and not just getting in anything that might make that fast buck for me, and then see that theres a shed load of quality stuff thats on my catalogue, then it can only go to serve the customer, me and the labels. i think some cogs in the machine have forgotten what their task is and are making it worse for everyone by proxy.
we thought it (all the collapses) was all over, but its still evolving and repairing. the framework may have fallen down only to be rebuilt in the same manner, so it will happen all over again. god help us!

[Internal Error Records]

i believe a large part of the damage is caused by record shops not buying vinyl from distributors anymore but just posting up distro's new release sheets on their websites and ordering a piece of vinyl when a kids asks for it online.

i have found 14 record shops online 'stocking' my labels vinyl but only 3 actually have bought copies.

online record shops with 'immdiate inventory ordering systems' are what is killing distributors.

regardless of level of technology the techno industry is grassroots. technology cant change that. for distributors to survive they have to sell vinyl. than means stores have to buy it and place it on shelves and kids have to walk into the store and pick it off of teh shelves.

the internet is going to shut down all but one record shop. because in cyberspace you only need one.

[Internal Error Records]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
[quote]


i have to say i dont think that is relevant. all too typical apocolyptic mentality.

rave originally sprang forth from nothing!

[Ritzi Lee]

regardless of level of technology the techno industry is grassroots. technology cant change that. for distributors to survive they have to sell vinyl. than means stores have to buy it and place it on shelves and kids have to walk into the store and pick it off of teh shelves.


In the old days it was really simple.
When you're a record store,
you had to be a member of the distribution.
One of the rules: You had to buy a minimum amount
each month of almost anything the distri had to offer.
Say each month a minimum sale of 500 dollars for each recordshop.

[schlongfingers]

Distributors int the traditional sense are being cut out of the loop because of the internet - no way around it I'm afraid aside from thinking out the box. Any label can sell direct to DJ's without the dist taking a cut.

[Tony]

Distributors int the traditional sense are being cut out of the loop because of the internet - no way around it I'm afraid aside from thinking out the box. Any label can sell direct to DJ's without the dist taking a cut.

agreed, but distributors could use the net more, for more information for the man on the street, and (horrible phrase coming) direct marketing. so long as they're not 'buy buy buy' and all semi-secretive about it, thenthe distributor could become an identity that you come to trust as to having the good shit you may be after. its the way i play it, i import lots of stuff and intend to quite chirpily promote it via the net, no harm.

i know whats meant by the listings being posted up, but it is a kind of streamline way of doing business. better to acquire a definite order or sell the promo to show it sells, than buy ten and be left with 9 after 6months, thats not good for business at all.

[FUSION]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.

WORD, its a natural progression though dirty give them rock kid`s anouther year or so and there tastes will progress, basicly when they feel board or a bit old at the rock nights they going to week in week out they will try something different, it is after all the same energy

[FUSION]

thats what happened to me anyway :twisted:

[Tony]

and OH SO MANY of us ;)

yet still, some saddos still go to the same clubs and dance to the same tracks in the rock realm. theres no getting through to those people.

[FUSION]

yeah but you like what you like and some people are more adverse to change than others, i mean dont get me wrong i do still go to rock clubs sometimes for novelty value (and the women) and if im gunna listen to a cd at home it would more likely be tool or alice in chains or sepultura than techno (save that for the dex) so im not slagging the sceane. I really do think that more and more people are realising the feeling you get off music is whats important and some thing that goes BANG BANG BANG and something that goes ROOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR is in fact alot more similar than you at first thought. this will surely rub off more and more on the techno sceane as time goes by :rambo:

[Jimfish]

I think one of the biggest killers of things is the disproportionate ratio of labels to punters.
Dont get me wrong - up to a point the choice of tonnes of labels is great, but there is too much now, it has gone too far.
There are no profit margins now, and there need to be profit margins to make it work. People need money for heaps of reasons i shouldnt have to go into.. right now there is no money.
In my opinion every new label that starts is another nail in the scenes coffin.

[Jimfish]

I do think things have swung into more live music realms at the moment but eventually it will start to swing back.. a few years ago there was no good rock or indie music about but i think there is a lot of good stuff now.
Thier scene got shit so they had to pull somthing out of the bag - which they did, and now its polularity has undergone a huge rejuvination.
According to the general pattern i notice in fashions and tastes i think dance/electonic music will hit a low and then pull somthing out of the bag itself and swing back after a few years... that is if its not too late by then and everyones making thier own music on some ultra high tech one-button-hits-the-spot ejay garage band type thing..

[Tony]

I think one of the biggest killers of things is the disproportionate ratio of labels to punters.
Dont get me wrong - up to a point the choice of tonnes of labels is great, but there is too much now, it has gone too far.
There are no profit margins now, and there need to be profit margins to make it work. People need money for heaps of reasons i shouldnt have to go into.. right now there is no money.
In my opinion every new label that starts is another nail in the scenes coffin.

yup! as much as i'd wish everyone in the universe to be creative, there are just TOO MANY records coming out. most shops i call are already swamped with releases, and thats such a shame. some shops literally have to say no, even though my exclusives are from prominant labels around europe, because they have many other techno companies looking after their own labels. its a shame that they'd close the door to the extensive amount i can offer them, but it does seem like there too many labels, a mild amount of punters, lots of wannabe artsits and djs, but not actually many people buying vinyl.

margins, curse those margins. i think most people would be shocked if they knew the pence that was made on each record. and though we can be gracious and say 'i'm not in it for the money', sorry but 'i'd still like to eat please' :cry:

[Jimfish]

exactly, we still need some dollar for all these fancy pants gadjets to make the music in the first place.. let alone so we can get on with making good music instead of beating back the bailiffs from the door..

[Heroes]

Yes you got it totally right Jim, too many people making average stuff on a 400 quid dell computer and fruity loops. Also i have to put a lot of blame on the distributors because they will take a 400-500 selling label and make a quid on each copy, which in most cases is more than the label. What frustrates me is they cant see that they are all fuelling the rot of vinyl, I know from owning a shop you try to have as broad a selection as possible, something has to give though, Instead of ordering 25 of something you take 10, dosnt take long for a label to see its sales dip.............

[fatcollective]

i have metioned before that i think the scene is having a bit of a dip...like the trend is waring..after all it has had a good 10 years...hopefully things will get better...its just a big fingers crossed for me...i hate the idea of everything going under...i have put alot of my money and time and LIFE into starting a label and now it seems i may be too late to actually see it progress...its quite sad...lets just hope things get better :?:

[tocsin]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.

I agree with this part. But, with music that doesn't often have words, it can be hard for people to pick up on that. Needs a visual element.

[Ritzi Lee]

Maybe it's a good idea to picture this market.
Now we all talk about:
- There are too many labels.
- There are too many crap releases.
- The distributions can't take it anymore.
- The record shops go down by an overkilling release offer.

I'm in need for (and maybe you to) a registration system where we can see:
- Who are the labels?
- What releases are planned in the next view months?
- Who are the distributions, and what do they have to offer?
- Who are the recordshops? What do they have to offer?
- Are all releases covered / filled in / homogeniously covered worldwide?

I think if we know what's moving along,
we can have more control in the market.
This will benefits the market.
But the only way is to organise a worldwide manifest.
Maybe through internet. And we need some guidelines to register all music in a proper way, with an account for all labels, stores, distributions. And all the data accesible for all these people, including the artists who make the music.

There are enough motivations to think of why everyone should cooperate. :)

[Fake DJ]

Just when I think we had the worst,
the hurting keeps going on.
Now i'm hearing bad news from the German sellers that it's a matter of time before some distributions are going down again.

Some say the market is just overkilled with a lot of crap.
Some say there are too many small labels with music from unknown artists. And so you can think of a lot of reasons....

But i think it has totally nothing to do with the music.
I think it's a matter of doing marketing. How the system works now.
And ofcourse the state of our economy.

I mean; in the last 14 / 16 years there was a lot of techno.
And also from the little unknown people. And the music and / or quality was good. I think this isn't changed at all. People are still making quality stuff. But the people who deal with the system of selling records doesn't care for music. They just look at the sale sheets, and catagorise music in genres, and famous artists. And without listening they decide if they want to sell it or not...

We're still dealing with a system of 4 years ago from where it all went wrong!

My suggestion: Start all over again!
Just look back at how the people did it 12 / 14 years ago.

Objective or not?

IMO i think the biggest thing that is killing the scene in this way is downloading, simple as

there arent enough people (in my mind) that care nough about the scene that they r willing to buy tunes instead of gettin them off soulseek etc.

End of day i donload shit loads but i see it as a way of listening to a tune and trying it out before i buy it, if i do like a tune or if there is gonna be a chance i may play it in future etc i will buy it simple as, supposrting the scene, supporting the artist, supoorting the label keeping food on table for everyone and a nice 12" in my box :lol:

but not everyone is willing to do that, for some people it is easy come easy go and so it will just be easy go and then who will be to blame then!!!!


Rules of fair trade!!! You have to pay! (And no that doesnt mean giving a small donation to ppl that run soulseek because **** all of that goes to any artists!!!!)
just my thoughts

[fatcollective]

so like other dodgy download sites...shouldnt soulseek be illegal and shut down...i know people get there mp3s for free but surley it is causing a major problem to the market :?:

[dirty_bass]

I`m not even sure it`s down to downloading.
the majority of record sales were to Bedroom DJ`s. All with a hope of someday being Jeff Mills or Pete Tong or whatever. Now the bubble burst with superclubs, as it was a pisstake, and superstar DJ`s just aren`t cool and dreams have been shattered and so there is less hope of success.
Most of the bedroom DJ`s are now buying up fruityloops and Ejay, and because they see that anyone can release a record, due to the amount of little labels in techno, they are looking at this as their dream.
Bedroom DJ`s have become Bedroom Producers.

[Dave Elyzium]

someoen ementioned the days when record stores HAD to go with a distributor and HAD to buy a certain amount each month..so the dists had a certain element of control over the scene...nowadays though its so easy to buy your records direct from the labels/artists involved that distributors dont carry that much clout anymore.......i remember a few years back when Infectious Distribution packed their bags and ****ed off soon after i signed a deal with them to carry Elyzium Records releases....i remember half the ****ign scene lost out big time both in terms of money and future prospects......kev energy did a wicked job gettign his collective back up after that fiasco and look where he is today.....bottom line i dont trust distributors!

[fatcollective]

I`m not even sure it`s down to downloading.
the majority of record sales were to Bedroom DJ`s. All with a hope of someday being Jeff Mills or Pete Tong or whatever. Now the bubble burst with superclubs, as it was a pisstake, and superstar DJ`s just aren`t cool and dreams have been shattered and so there is less hope of success.
Most of the bedroom DJ`s are now buying up fruityloops and Ejay, and because they see that anyone can release a record, due to the amount of little labels in techno, they are looking at this as their dream.
Bedroom DJ`s have become Bedroom Producers.

i think you got a good point there.

[Larney]

Main problem is too many P&D deals by distributors leading to too many labels pushing out inferior records. If labels had to pay their own manufacture costs upfront there would be less records and less crap!

[tocsin]

I'm all in support of downloading. I actively encourage people to download anything I've worked on and, for the tracks that have been released, they've often been floating around on the net for a good amount of time before a label hears it or decides to release it. I think it is crazy to fight downloading. Especially if you are about DIY. There is nothing more DIY than the internet. It is strict word of mouth. It is also free when people want it to be. There has been too much going on over the past 8 years, a lot of which has been discussed in this thread, which has contributed to the decline in record sales. Downloading may play a part but I have a hard time believing it's the soul contributing factor. I've seen one person use Final Scratch at any event I've attended and that was to play their own music. I hear more cutting edge music through what I find on the internet than I ever find on vinyl. By the time I pick something up on vinyl, I'm usuallu hearing the same artist pushing themself even further with mp3s they are giving out over the net. However, I've never really cared for the money structure in this "industry" so I'm probably the wrong person to talk. Not that I have a problem with people who want money for their music. But, I appreciate artists who give it out on the net a lot more. That music tends to reach further as well since it's not limited to physical nodes conected to stores, distributors and number of pressings. You lose the sentimental value by bot having a hard piece of black plastic or vinyl in your hand but that is about it.

[TiagoTechnoHead]

Excellent topic !!!!!! :clap: My view is : Labels needs to expand distribution !!!! It´s hard to buy some vinyl here in Brazil , we have to order it in the internet and when we do this , we pay expensive prices !!!!! Maybe , if the tunes were sold here , surelly people will buy ......

Better distribution will not solve the problem , but it will help it in parts !!!!

[Ritzi Lee]

Excellent topic !!!!!! :clap: My view is : Labels needs to expand distribution !!!! It´s hard to buy some vinyl here in Brazil , we have to order it in the internet and when we do this , we pay expensive prices !!!!! Maybe , if the tunes were sold here , surelly people will buy ......

Better distribution will not solve the problem , but it will help it in parts !!!!

You see this is my point!
There's totally no overview at all.
We are all blindfolded by the system. :)

And we never talk about places like Russia, Asia,
Afrika. Or even the f***ng nordpole. :lol:

[Ritzi Lee]

Maybe it's a good idea to picture this market.
Now we all talk about:
- There are too many labels.
- There are too many crap releases.
- The distributions can't take it anymore.
- The record shops go down by an overkilling release offer.

I'm in need for (and maybe you to) a registration system where we can see:
- Who are the labels?
- What releases are planned in the next view months?
- Who are the distributions, and what do they have to offer?
- Who are the recordshops? What do they have to offer?
- Are all releases covered / filled in / homogeniously covered worldwide?

I think if we know what's moving along,
we can have more control in the market.
This will benefits the market.
But the only way is to organise a worldwide manifest.
Maybe through internet. And we need some guidelines to register all music in a proper way, with an account for all labels, stores, distributions. And all the data accesible for all these people, including the artists who make the music.

There are enough motivations to think of why everyone should cooperate. :)

and this will create some overview if anybody believes in it.

[Ritzi Lee]

so like other dodgy download sites...shouldnt soulseek be illegal and shut down...i know people get there mp3s for free but surley it is causing a major problem to the market :?:

I don't believe mp3's are killing the market.
it just doesn't work this way.

[dirty_bass]

I think we`d all like to get more of our records to brazil, unfortunately your tax system makes import costs soooo high to get stuff in.

[tocsin]

I think we`d all like to get more of our records to brazil, unfortunately your tax system makes import costs soooo high to get stuff in.

I think that maybe he meant buying digital files off of this website when he said "maybe if your tunes were sold here." I understand that labels can make a little more than the artists. But, given the mark ups and other expenses, does it ever really amount to more than $1 or so a record? What are the reasons to keep pressing music to hard mediums if the profit margin isn't that great, that cost of import duties keeps the music largely unavailable in certain regions, and more people are using the net to look for this type of music than they are using physically located record stores?
I'll admit that I almost never go to record stores anymore. It's not even so much because I wouldn't buy records. It's because they usually don't stock anything I like. The ones that did stock music I like cut back on the supply of music that I liked so it was often gone by the time I could get to one and most have recently closed their physical doors. In fact, from about 2000 through present, if it weren't for friends connected to distro houses or companies, I would not have bought any records at all largely because I would not have found many sounds I liked. I'd be limited to the choice of polished jungle, house, or trance. I spin none of that. When I was buying records that I liked at stores, before I had the distro hook up when things went down hill, it would cost me $12 USD to buy something like one SUF record with 2 songs on it. If SUF was selling digital copies of their music for download at the time, I would have definitely bought through their site and it would have cost me much less than
$12. Just wondering if any of the label folks here have considered doing that and, if they have, why they may have decided it's not the way to go? Piracy concerns? Less visibility?

[AcidTrash]

In my opinion every new label that starts is another nail in the scenes coffin.

That's complete toss. It's only a problem when it's a label knocking out exactly whats already out with little to distinguish it from the rest. We need more new labels with more variety.

[tocsin]

Why not do the website sales thing though? Most of the people on this forum at least that have something to do with running a label seem to play out frequently. How much of your living is made from actual vinyl sales? How much promotion is there behind a label? For some reason, I doubt there is lit poster promotion around cities for the artists. ;) Doesn't the hype/promotion for the labels that got other people into it deeper largely come from when you play out? Couldn't just as much effort be put into promoting something like this website to purchase tunes from through CD sales at venues and through distributors? And, hell, couldn't one sell both digital and vinyl? People copy vinyl to mp3 anyways and spread it around. So, it just seems that possibly selling the tunes for a buck or so would be realised profits that are being lost right now. People already have sites so what exactly is the overhead on digital distribution? It's been paid for already without digital distribution.

[fatcollective]

not sure who can answer this but is it only the techno scene that is feeling the effects or is it trance, hardhouse..pop even...or just the more underground market? .... i mean are the big trance labels and hardhouse labels going under aswel :?: :?: :?: :?:

[eviled303]

i couldn't speak for the more popular music, hard house, drum n bass etc, as i have no contact with them, but i'd hazard a guess the record selling side is probably healthier than techno, but because they're more popular doesn't mean they won't struggle. i think techno is seriously struggling in this country, as is the clubscene in general and for the last few years, the people leaving the scene aren't being replaced. the bar culture, the moronic masses festering in town centres up and down the country, alas, are the majority these days, and there are fewer and fewer techno dj's buying the vinyl that the distribution companies need to stay afloat. i know its not as black and white as that, but its a major contributor, along with other factors which have been covered in previous replies to this thread. techno is more underground than its ever been in this country due to a basic lack of interest in that culture. running a techno night is getting harder, making a breakthrough as a new producer or dj is becoming harder, and it needs alot of time, technical knowledge and money to carve out a name for yourself. i think mark e.g. had a good point about the internet and mp3 market, especially with advances like final scratch. if the progression takes dj's to digital, instead of buying a record from a shop, or ordering a record on the internet, why not just pay for the same tune as a download? surely that would help the cost of distribution if it was all digital? its an important issue if the scene here is to stay alive, i really hope it does, this music is in my blood, but at risk of sounding like a pessimist, i don't hold out alot of hope for the future of techno in 'i'mabigbrotherpopidolgetmeanaenima' generation of ben sherman shirts and peroxide hair. phew!!! rant over i think!!!

[Craig McW]

So what y'all saying is anyone out there who is new to production and wanting to make a name for themselves by starting their own label should forget it because they're killing the scene? And that those people should leave it to the professionals or something?

What a load of self important toss....

[fatcollective]

So what y'all saying is anyone out there who is new to production and wanting to make a name for themselves by starting their own label should forget it because they're killing the scene? And that those people should leave it to the professionals or something?

What a load of self important toss....

not sure who this was directed at Craig...i think eviled303 has got a fair point there. at the end of the day, things are bad at the moment...and its hard to pin point exactly whats happening and why things are so bad...too many labels?...Mp3?...illigal download?...fucx knows...is the trend coming to an end..i hope not...but who knows :cry:

[fatcollective]

I think we`d all like to get more of our records to brazil, unfortunately your tax system makes import costs soooo high to get stuff in.

im sure if we could get more tunes abroad, this woud help distributors a little, i think i places like brazil, the people there are crazy for british techno...but unfortunatley cant get hold of as much as they would like...therefore Mp3 downlaods are the only other solution.

[miasma man]

Good good threads, v useful, spot on people...

[Craig McW]

intentionally not directed at individuals. I just think it's irrelevant to the problem. Yes things are bad, everywhere. Why? Multiple reasons..... each as impactful as the other..... illegal downloads, new technology, lack of interest, too much to choose from, too many genres,.....

Dunno how to fix it. I live in Australia, and it's fecking isolated. Luckily we have a few people brave enough to import good music (substrata.com.au) but it's not enough to sustain the whole country....... if it's bad over there, imagine how it is over here!



So what y'all saying is anyone out there who is new to production and wanting to make a name for themselves by starting their own label should forget it because they're killing the scene? And that those people should leave it to the professionals or something?

What a load of self important toss....

not sure who this was directed at Craig...i think eviled303 has got a fair point there. at the end of the day, things are bad at the moment...and its hard to pin point exactly whats happening and why things are so bad...too many labels?...Mp3?...illigal download?...fucx knows...is the trend coming to an end..i hope not...but who knows :cry:

[Komplex]

Do people even know what techno is? I think that issue should be adressed before you guys crap on and cry about poor sales and distribution problems.

Everyone knows what HipHop is, theres so much of it around and the majority is shit too, just like with techno. But they don't seem to be having as hard a time.

Let's look at why and not point fingers.

[fresh_an_funky_design]

the problem is there is too much crappy loop based techno out there, producers need to break out the box and create interesting and fresh techno, by doing this hopefully we will get new listeners and thus more dj's buying vinyl.

also i have recently started a new label, now i know a lot of people diss new labels, but when i started dj'n when i went records shopping i was limited by my wallet not by choice. Now days i genuinly want to spend my money on tunes but i cant find that many that i like. Now with my label i am releasing tunes that i would genuinly go out an buy if i heard them, and by the way there not my own tunes.

Another point: i live in north wales an i have recently noticed a rise in people listening to dance music as a whole amongst kids. For instance my sisters and her mates have listened to hip hop ever since it became fashionable to listen to it, and know there all listening to dance. Also i've noticed a lot more people coming to the hard dance events, all a sort of new generation of kids into raving. Maybe the scene could be on the rise again. I dont know time will tell.

[Komplex]

FAFD - I dunno what you mean by loop based techno? Techno itself is pretty much based on repetitive rhythms... And whether repetitive sounding or not, its an awesom form of art and expression. But does it entertain the general public and punters? NO. Not really. You have to "get it" to like it.

Anyway, the music itself may not be the problem. There is so much quality and variety around. Especially from the younger guys.

The fact is it just isn't popular right now. People don't market it and people don't know of it. It's just music and to anybody who isn't a connoseuir or chinstroker it is overlooked and unheard. And it is sold on a medium called vinyl that limits the market even more, mainly to people who mix records in their spare time.

Oh and add the fact that it has gained the image of being classed as music for speedfreaks and drug fiends.

Its not sexy either.

Chicks don't dig techno.

Basically Techno digs its own grave by being what it is. A neiche form of expression.

[schlongfingers]

Its not sexy either.

Chicks don't dig techno.


:shock: :lol: Well, I gotta disagree there!

re// loop techno - go to Juno, listen to ten clips, the nine clips that sound the same for the length of the minute long sample - THAT is loop based techno.

[Komplex]

Its not sexy either.

Chicks don't dig techno.


:shock: :lol: Well, I gotta disagree there!

re// loop techno - go to Juno, listen to ten clips, the nine clips that sound the same for the length of the minute long sample - THAT is loop based techno.

Ah i get ya :)

WORD! **** that shit off for sure. Thats not expression. Thats lazyness.

[Ritzi Lee]

Maybe a stupid suggestion:
Everybody who downloads mp3's,
are doing this through their own internet connection.
Or when someone downloads something through a company connection or internet cafe, it's still an internet connection.
Doesn't all connections go through some provider?
And these providers do get hold of log files... so they all know exactly wich files are downloaded and how many times.

Isn't it an idea to start up some extra registration where you can automatically see how much mp3's are downloaded, and of wich type and music it is? And i assume internet connections are not for free. :lol: So the music market wouldn't have to be killed by the downloading affair. Legal music royalty organisatiosn can get the money en registration download logs through the providers, who automatically calculate a little fee to the users.

Think about it. Internet providers are totally legal, as far as i know.

[Internal Error Records]

OK. somewhat off topic but still very relevant -

How many of us are TRUE businessmen?

How many up us have 4, 6 or 8 year degrees in finance or eceonomics?

I just wonder how qualified any of us are to make real forecasting desicions about the music industry.

just because we all have record labels, shops and distro's doesnt automatically make us credible sources.

I know this may be a bit offensive, but I find some sense of reassurance in the fact that we maybe all be a bit more glum about our outlooks because we just dont know the real deal about what we are talking about.

[tioneb]

Last Saturday i had a great discussion about this topic in my local record shop. The guy i was chatting with was the one who sold me my frist records, and that i lost contact once he stopped working at the shop… So 5 years after here is the situation :

The loop based techno has not evolved, the tracks have the same sounds, the same sequencing. Jeff Mills is an example, Ben Sims another. Whatever they try to do, they may succeed in convincing a few people like me who like thie rmusic anyways, but obviously they will bore more and more people that will never see the evolution, becasue its not perceptible.

SO instead of being democratized, techno got stuck into this nerds wold, who are the only ones that can tolerate this non-evolution, because they are too much passionate for that. Obviously the spectrum of potential buyers has seriously narrowed.

And among all these nerds, remove the ones that download and dont buy. Remove the ones that find more interesting to produce than to DJ (the guy who posted about « Bedroom producer » made a really goos statement).

1st conclusion : the techno records DEMAND has seriously gone down.

So, what about the OFFER ? Well, instead of going down, like in every market (we’re talking about sales, so why not about market ?) where the demand is reducing, it has risen up in an expected way. WHY ?

Because the people prefer to produce than to DJ. Because the DJs, even the good ones, need to release a record to get gigs, even if most of the time their production skills are not realted to their DJ skills. Because distributors, to keep their activity, accepted to issue crappy records that sell few.

Less demand, too much offer : it just seems techno world has not enouch read history books about what happened in 1929.

But i think we can find some good solution, who will come from people suffering from this situation. As Im among them, here are a few ideas :

- as shops do not deliver us the good stuff we expect from them (the unknown good producers, the not yet recognized newcommers, the unexpected stuff), then dont buy there. If there is a real demand for that stuff, after the successive collpasing of crappy shit dstributors and shops, then the real quality companies will emerge again. OF course that needs some years where u will die to get your stuff, but you need that to « clean » this situation. The « good » shops sell anyways the « same all the time stuff » anyways so get it there if u like, the « good » guys desserve more to earn money even with that stuff.

- If u want to start producing and expose your music, here is my personnal technique. Send it to established labels, the ones that have good tastes, whatver they’re new of old. If u are good enough, they will release you, if not that means you have to improve your sound. After having done this for some years im sure youll succeed. The other way is to distribute for free your music through internet (ex : by creating some netlabel). If your stuff is good, youll be heard, if not , at least you did not lose money and did not pollute the regular record market.

- If u are DJ and produce to get gigs, well, do the same as above. But first it means you have done all your best to expose your DJ talent. Put sets to download on the net, broadcast radio shows on FM / internet, send CD to promoters, DJ contests, whopever, youll never know who else will listen to it ! ! !

- Imagine other solutions, im sure your imagination is better than mine !!!

Was just my two cents... In conclusion i would to hear all your solutions. I dont care anymore about WHY were in such a crap, we all know we are in it. SO we need to know HOW to get out of this, and fast ....

Waiting for your ideas

[fresh_an_funky_design]

re// loop techno - go to Juno, listen to ten clips, the nine clips that sound the same for the length of the minute long sample - THAT is loop based techno.[/quote]


thats exactly what i mean, by loop based techno, i love techno but a lot of it is far too repatative.

[Jimfish]

craig, i think you could have been refering to a point that i had a big part in making on the previous page.. let me clarify a little for you..

Im not for a minute saying anyone should 'leave it to the professionals' or not start labels - i just think there needs to be less in total as there arent the buyers to support it.
If we had it so there was less labels and less releases then each release would sell more. Therefore more money would go to the artists so they wouldnt have to release so many records (and lower the quality by rushing things). Also less records but selling more of each release means less money is leaving the scene via prodcution costs. We need to keep the relativly small amount of money there is circulating within techno.
I also personally think it wise for new artists to take a policy of trying to get music released on established labels rather than doing thier own label (at the moment anyway) its better for everyone - and much better for the artist themselves as thier music will get noticed much quicker on established labels. And if it is good music someone WILL pick up on it.
There is no way in the world i would ever start another label myself and i probably shouldnt have started humanoid.
Ideally i would like to see labels go back to how they used to be when there was a much more diverse selection of music on each label rather than all these 'sister' labels for all these silly subgenres.
And obviously labels need to put out less music and be much more selective about what goes out. Trouble is it wont make a difference untill everybody does it at the same time.

[techno_smack]

interesting :eh:

[Ritzi Lee]

2 Internal Error Records:

I found found some tekst from Paul edge explaining the distribution scenario a recordlabel has to deal with. Really an outstanding piece of reading:

Rethinking Music Distribution in an Global Online Marketplace

Ok...So you`re a label..You`ve got your product. You`re happy with it. The DJs are playing it, the dancefloor is dancing to it. Magazines are reviewing it favourably, your website is getting great hits, its getting Radio support, the message boards around the world are praising your release and your artists are getting booked out on the strength of the release. No problem, you`re set... Oh I forgot to mention one thing, you`re a dance label.

Now quite why Dance Labels differ from every other commercially available product out there still remains a mystery to many people, but apparently, the rules of economics, as defined by the economist Adam Smith, and rules that apply to every other business from porn to religious artifact sales, just do not apply to Dance Music. No one can explain why this is the case, no one can counter the argument that these basic economic rules apply to the DJs who play your records, to the promoters who throw events around your music and similar labels, to the magazines who sell their issues on DJ and music etc. But you`re a label, so what do you know?

If, and this is a big if, you are lucky enough (if you can call it lucky) to be deemed important enough to be picked up by a "distributor", you will logically think, hey, I`ll sell some records..I mean look at the actual facts about costs;

To press, promote, pay advances, office expenses we`ll allow 2500.00 GBP. So assuming you get 2.00 a record, you only have to sell 1250 units to break even. Lets break that down further. Assuming your artist is international and playing in the major countries; UK, USA, Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Spain, Eastern Europe (I`m giving distributors a break here), Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Portugal.

1250 units / 17 Countries = 73.52 units per country.

Assuming that each event your artist plays has an average of 600 people in attendance to see him DJ/Perform that is a potential marketplace of 600 - 73.52.. So, the reality is that a minimum of 600 people will pay to see your artist perform, but 73 of them won`t buy his work..Try telling Eminem that of all the people who go to see him perform, one in seven people won`t buy his record.

Starting to get a little pissed off..You should be. As should every label out there.

Here are some of the excuses you will hear when you suddenly realise all your work and that of your artists have produced a paltry 1000 sales;

1) You`re an unknown label, so people don`t want to pick you up.

2) Dance music is suffering.

3) What DJs play isn`t what people want (yes I have heard this one too many times it ceased being ludicrous after the first time.)

4) Radio and press exposure doesn`t matter (Try telling this one to Sony)

5) Noone wants....(insert generic music term here)

6) Noone is buying records when they can download them for free.

7) My dog, bit my neighbours horse, who then talked, and he slagged off (insert generic music term) so noone wants it now...

Time to tear your hair out? Welcome to the bald label owner club, the quickest growing community in the world - no wonder all these DJs have shaved heads..

About this time you will also start to notice a worrying trend. Your artists will start bitching at you that wherever they play out at least 10 people ask them where can they get their records, as noone is carrying stock. Furthermore, the email will start coming from your website confirming this. Irate, you will phone up your distributor and ask him what is going on...He will respond with;

1) Shops only buy 1 or 2 copies...

Now far be it from me to point out the obvious, (but having worked in retail for 6 years), as a shop, if a product sells, you get as much stock as you possibly can...This is what shops rely on..Big selling products...Its how they make their money. Go to any retail outlet, ask the manager what their big sellers are, and they will point out shelves and shelves of the stuff..

So where do you go from here? Consumers want the product, but they aren`t getting it. As a result you have your staff, artists, bank manager etc on your back. Shops are bitching that they aren`t making any money so they are closing down. The clubbers and wannabee djs are moaning they can`t find any original music..There is only one common thread here, the middleman, the distributor. The technic 1210 for the last 10 years has outsold the guitar in retail sales. What are people playing on these? Pancakes...??.

For the last few years distributors have blamed everything from the gulf war to 911 as an excuse for not selling records..The reality is that record labels have allowed a bunch of untrained salesmen to sell their product and sold every label short. I will give you a personal example. When we released Metamorphosis Of Narcotics in 1996, it was rejected by every distributor known to man. Why, noone wanted trance apparently. What did we do, we hired a van and drove around Europe visiting every shop we could find with 4500 records in the back. We sold out within 3 weeks. 6 months later, Nitric licensed the track and ended up selling over 30,000 through the very same distributors who had rejected the record only 6 months earlier.

The sales process is a complicated thing. Every sales orientated industry spends thousands of pounds training their salesforce. They don`t allow their product to be sold by amateurs. They would go out of business. Ask your distributor what sales training their employees go through...I will guarantee you, that no distributor invests in the people that your livelihood relies on. You as a label don`t stand a chance in hell of succeeding..The law of averages states that put an infinite amount of monkeys in front of an infinite amount of computers, in time one will write war and peace. Of course the sheer talent out there will result in successful labels selling 4000 units, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the distributors.

Instead they make excuses, and more excuses, whilst driving surprisingly nice cars, being in surprisingly nice offices. Then again they make their money no matter how many the sell or don`t sell. They have no risk. They don`t need to sell 5000 units of your records, they just need to sell 5000 units..If it takes them 500 labels, they still make their money. Interesting point to note, compare your sales with the inhouse labels sales, when they do actually have some financial risk. You`ll probably get even angrier then.

So, you`re a label..What options do you have? Well you have to realise that in fact distributors are unnecessary. You have been blagged. Control of sales has to be assumed by the labels. Now this may seem somewhat daunting, and I understand why, being a label owner myself.

The benefits of controlling sales;

1) You control the market price

2) You get paid more money, bringing your break even point down.

3) You deal directly with the retailers, so you can see how the demand is going.

4) You control supply, and can divert it to where is necessary.

PHX Distribution - Rethinking Music Distribution in an Online Marketplace

Imagaine an global multilingual online community, all with their own personal state of the art personal flash websites. Imagine this community being based around dance music. Imagine being a label and being able to access this community, directly, with a 30 second flash movie promoting your product, with sound samples, straight onto their home pages. Imagine being able to sell your vinyl for 3.00, in either a digital/cd/vinyl medium. Imagine being able to deal directly with the shops, allowing them to hear your whole record online instead of hearing snippets down a telephone line? Imagine monthly generating valuable extra income through customisable cd sales. Imagine getting your money with 7 days of someone buying the record. And all this can be controlled from one central computer, eliminating 90% of all overheads for you as a business

The internet is becoming the most important marketplace for music distribution. The generation prepared to spend money online is now in a position to do so. The sociological changes that were always going to take 10 - 15 years to implement are now starting to happen.

Regards

Paul Edge
http://www.djpauledge.com

[SlavikSvensk]

this is just my personal opinion, but i find that techno has, by and large, lost its edge. not that there aren't a lot of people making great music out there (there are), but that very little new stuff i hear gives me that same exhilarated feeling i used to get when hearing a new red planet, plus 8 or hybrid record. there are some exceptions...i absolutely loved secret cinema's revenge of a nerd, but without that spark, newbies may not find techno to be the same breath of fresh air us veterans once did...and without new blood, as people have pointed out...who is going to keep buying all those records?

[Jack]

also clubs seem to be stopping doing techno nights, probally because cash, can make more with cheesy club nights more on bar etc. Less clubs less vibe less records sold. Birmingham hardly has any techno compared to 3-5 years ago. Have seen the crowds get less too. Also noise regulations are a problem has stopped us doing a night back home (Ludlow) which has been going for over 3 years. Unless we use the in house shit rig which ain't gonna happen.
So less scene, less records sold.
Roll on the summer and the great outdoors...

[eviled303]

i think everyone should just listen to slayer. its all about the thrash metal, then no one would worry about labels and stuff. (and before i get a tirade of abuse, i'm just a bit pissed and having a bit of a laugh. but seriously, slayer are well good and they'e got nothing to do with techno. did anyone recently see them blow away slipknot??)

[Internal Error Records]

i think everyone should just listen to slayer. its all about the thrash metal, then no one would worry about labels and stuff. (and before i get a tirade of abuse, i'm just a bit pissed and having a bit of a laugh. but seriously, slayer are well good and they'e got nothing to do with techno. did anyone recently see them blow away slipknot??)

Let me quote Wayne Campell (from Waynes World)

"Led Zepplin didn't want to impress everybody, they left that to the Bee Gee's"

IMO thats a common techno mentallity. In other words you do techno cause you love it, not because you are after easy cash.

[Evil G]

on the subject of importing records to countries with high import taxes, has anyone investigated the possibility of doing local manufacture in those countries? instead of pressing 2500 copies at one plant and trying to distribute them to the whole world, press 500 copies each in 5 countries? i know you would lose out on your volume discount for pressing, but would the reduced import tax and shipping costs make up for it or not?

and re: what dirty bass said about teaching the kids that techno has that rebelious counter culture thing going for it, i wonder about the negative impact of hippies. when i first got into the scene, i did so because of the counter culture, temporary autonomous zone, yadda yadd, more so than the music. at first it was being preached by solid people who knew what they were talking about. but eventually, those people got jaded and tired, and now the ones doing the preaching are unrealistic hippies who make fools of themsevles every time they open their mouths. (that's how it went were i live at least). so people hearing about rave culture for the first time are turned off and think it's stupid and childish. maybe we need to take control of our own PR more?

[fatcollective]

i think you have great idea there, pressing tunes in other countries is something that could easily be done. :clap:

[Jimfish]

I cant see how that would save money though.. the first 500 copies are by far the most expensive.. let alone the hassle factor and cost in time.

That is, if you are selling 2500 copies.. you'll be lucky to do half that right now..

[xfive]

I think you'd have to worry about the integrity of the final product varying from pressing plant to pressing plant... thus US or UK records will more than likely end up higher quality than the couterparts..

Do labels and artists want to risk this quality loss for more exposure?

[Evil G]

i dunno. if you are currently selling zero copies in brazil, pressing a few hundred there and having them shipped directly to a distributor there might be worth it, even if the margin is low.

[Jimfish]

unofrtunatly i think the margin on a couple of hundred copies is 0 :(
plus i doubt you would sell that many there anyway.. :gutted:

[Craig McW]

I see what you mean Jim (about the previous page post) and my comments weren't directed totally to you.....

It's just fecking tough to get label recognition, I'm sure you know what I mean. Sometimes doing your own is the only way. But I do see what you're saying.....

[Internal Error Records]

i know at least one label on this forum that presses vinyl in both US and in England :-)

[Komplex]

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

[gunjack]

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...


WORD.

[Ritzi Lee]

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

great words,
but try to manage this in the real world.
(I don't want to sound negative)

[TiagoTechnoHead]

Hey Dirty Bass .... I would appreciate your releases here in Brazil .... I would buy almost all ... I´m here cause I love Techno music :love: and whatever I can do help your distributions here , surely I will ...... Techno is going on all over the country .... Every month more and more djs are comming and more and more people are getting interested in Techno music ...... There aren´t many stores , we can count it in hand ...... The labels and the independent could use that !!!!!!!!!!

[gunjack]

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

great words,
but try to manage this in the real world.
(I don't want to sound negative)

talk about the real world? ok! TECHNO AIN'T SHIT man, making records WILL NOT get you fat paid. jumping through hoops and licking ass might get you gigs, then you might get paid, but making little techno records ain't gonna bring home the bacon anymore. being a good producer is only 30 percent of the battle. i learned that the hard way. f*ck man, i wish i could do it all over, but i cant so i try to take it day by day... techno will never be the industry it should, and the countries where techno is the at forefront of popularity, like in eastern europe etc, cant even pay flights for gigs most of the time. whats left? the UK?? yeah right if your dave clark. spain? i suppose so, if you got the balls to get away with it. tokyo? if you still play user records and have tons of connects. the germans cant keep up and the usa is a joke for techno, so what the f*ck are we supposed to do?????? why do distributers keep going broke? because techno is a slapstick and the artists are the butt of the jokes.

[Tony]

not sure who can answer this but is it only the techno scene that is feeling the effects or is it trance, hardhouse..pop even...or just the more underground market? .... i mean are the big trance labels and hardhouse labels going under aswel :?: :?: :?: :?:

from talking to peoplein more scenes than just even dance or electronic music, it seems all music is suffering regurgatation. shame really.

[Tony]

i liked someones idea of a website where all distributors advertise what out and it becomes a focal point for fans to see what is really out there. it would be nice to say that the site wouldnt have to run a profit, but it could sell copies of the tracks to survive.
but isnt that what shops are supposed to do anyway, if not stock everything, then at least advertise it and give people chance to see the full spectrum.

also, downloading IS KILLING MUSIC SALES.!!!!!!! to say its not is to say 'i didnt kill that guy, he was stabbed a hundred times, i only stabbed him once'. britney and kylie can afford to loose a percentage of their sales, but your average electronic music producer cannot survive that dent to their sales. you are literally taking food out of their mouths.

[gunjack]

yea man, but what the f*ck can we do about downloading? the question is making the music more accessable, commercially. folks need to be able to go down to the shop and pick up our shit, in every spot.

but, as an artist, without cross marketing like afx twin or richie, no one stands a chance of breaking away from the pack. where is the power to get the music to all of the folks who actually buy it? money, big label contracts like luke slater or ken ishii, shit like this? where the f*ck is the money in techno?


regurgitation indeed.
in many senses of the word!

[gunjack]

the music more accessable, commercially.



and i am not talking about compromising the music i am talking about making the paper to back your shit up and expand. it's like a constant bug out because you gotta be like walking the line all the time and there is nobody to believe in you. **** it what did jay say? the whole industry could hate me i'll thug my way through.

[Mucky Beats]

As a label owner this is a mad time we live in ..... one of the main problems i can see is local record shops are on there last legs! its always been a realy hard thing to keep a shop going... but now with internet shoping people tend to search the net spending there cash at only a few of the big name online stores who tend to have the cash and high number of sales to aford getting all many many diffrent labels ... unlike you local store who find it hard to get a tune in in less they know for shure it aint gonna sit on the shelf for 10 years! Also how many of us put a bag of tunes aside to buy later and then dont get um for ages! thats normaly in small shops cash they are needing to pay the distributors. SO buy ya bags on time :rambo:.
I hear you say "yeh but if there still buying the tunes online why are distributors going under?" well I got into dance music years ago and the the local record shop was the place that help point me in the right direction and show me new labels and kept me buying tunes. and they helped push local nights and keep djs networking in there local area.
I know this is just one factor that is hurting sales. but if we start by sorting out one thing at a time then the scene will get bigger!

kinda whent off on one there :oops: and i hope i made some kind of sense?

[Jimfish]

and they helped push local nights and keep djs networking in there local area.

thats a good point actually..

[Tony]

yea man, but what the f*ck can we do about downloading?

this'll be a very unpopular thing to say, though you all know it makes sense.
BAN SOULSEEK!

it doesnt seem like its a malevolent entity. i'm sure it doesnt mean the artists harm, and i'm sure the people who run it are very much into their music. but when stuff just hits promo, but then its straight onto soulseek, thats undeniably got to hurt sales. if anything this attitude of 'i d/l a track to see if i like it' makes people so much more blase about their music. if it was on vinyl on a platter in a shop i think you would have a different perspective on it, but skipping through an mp3 is such a disposable way of treating something that took time and effort on someone elses part to create (not allowing for shit music here). and then you'll prob keep the mp3s anyway, go on, admit it!

i know something else would appear to replace soulseek, but for right now i do think soulseek is heftily kicking every electronic music scene, and many other aspects of media based information, squarely in the nuts.

[Internal Error Records]

downloads dont put music on vinyl.

[viagratek]

[/url]http://www.groovegate.com

[Ritzi Lee]

downloads dont put music on vinyl.

Sounds like a Bruce Lee statement:
"Boards don't hit back!"


:lol:



But even when downloads are not on vinyl,
you can still make some benefit as the owner of your music.
The only problem is that people still didn't think out a system,
where we all can survive from this....


Poeple should elaborate.
Not repeating, pissing and moaning about the problems again and again.
That's what i was hopig opening this topic. So we maybe could find out what's going on firstly. And secondly if we can solve problems. :)

[Internal Error Records]

technically speaking every time you publicly spin a record you are stealing from the artist/label.

retail purchased music is legally intended for private use.

there is no difference between publicly spinning a piece of vinyl or an illegal download because the artist isnt being compensated.


you might as well sue the makers of Final Scratch if you are going to try and shoot down illegal download sites. they are all part of the same market.

the only answer is to adjust your business strategy to include these new factors.

[Ritzi Lee]

there is no difference between publicly spinning a piece of vinyl or an illegal download because the artist isnt being compensated.


In Holland we're just doing a testcase with a system where you can give your repertoire to the Buma Stemra. Each party, club, shops where music is used; these people have to pay a percentage or amount for using music. Each time the artists can warn the Buma Stemra their music is played by delivering a repertoire...

This system is not really perfect yet, because not everyone delivers a repertoire. So it's still difficult to calculate a kind of compensation.

Don't you have an organisation in the US yourself where they keep hold of this?

Maybe there is: But then people are not yet well informed how to use it.

[Internal Error Records]

theft is theft is theft.

in the underground you simply cant survive without getting comfortable with it.

i know for a fact that all the clubs in Disney Worlds resorts keep play logs and once a month the club managers sent money to the publisher of the records that were spun in the venue.

back in the early 90's techno dj's were obcessed with telling the capitalist music industry to **** off. now there is alot of us sweating profit margins. yes i am one of them too. maybe we have strayed a little too far from the path.

[jon connor]

i think we all may as well start practising our live sets, to perfofm that way ? or is there a chance for vynyl and distribution to servive, well i think there is and im confident, wot distributers and every 1 in the vynyl indusrtry needs to look at is, a new market approach, mabey the vynyl its self ,jaz it up a bit, develope new vynyl, witch can hold more tracks without sound reduction etc, the vynyl its self, i no we have picture discs etc we have had for years, but anyone will tell ya the sound quality is normaly crap, also expensive to stamp,or mabey find a new material witch can hold diffrent file formats and still be played like a vynyl will speicial needles developed etc, as for the distribution you wont be able to stop online shopping,. also another big blow to small record shops was hmv and virgin , they also have had a big inpact on the destruction of small outlets.but its this day and age doods like all small shops grocerys etc ,they are all taken out by the big wallmarts and superstores.

personaly i dont want to see vynyl go under, we are all righting it off to quick, manufactures need to modernise the vynyl,i dont mean cd mixing ill scream if someone says that i regard that as swearing. ;) no wot i want is to see a development in the vynyl itsself, if we start here it might be a good start. lets just look at it, people just want more for there money these days. playing decks is not just playing music its an artform when perfected,. digital generation is well and truly here even the multy million pound record industries are feeling it to,its not just the underground. well any way thats my point of view personaly i think the vynyl industry is due for a shake up, development is needed, but again that begs the question who is willing to pay for it, if i won the lottery i certainly would be launching a load of cash in to the development, but we can only dream ! :eh:

[dirty_bass]

personaly i dont want to see vynyl go under, we are all righting it off to quick, manufactures need to modernise the vynyl,i dont mean cd mixing ill scream if someone says that i regard that as swearing

Vinyl is shit, as a medium it is old.
In terms of manipulation, the new next generation CD players are spot on.
No one is going to invest money to try to develope the phonographic disc, as it is s destructive medium and not the best way to record sound.
Every time you play it, you damage the vinyl, and the needle, little by little.
The problem then is, moving releases to CD format. Much cheaper to produce, much better quality masters, smaller, lighter, reducing costs and increasing margins across the board.
If the price of the high end CD players would only come down I personally would gladly embrace the death of vinyl and the beginning of a change in the way our products work.

[Ritzi Lee]

2 dirty bass:

I still have some difficulties trying to image you walk into a recordshop;
and only seeying releases on CD.

And is it really true that the production costs for doing CD's is cheaper??
Do you have any price references?

[dirty_bass]

Yeah, it`s hard to imagine a record shop full of CD`s, but we can`t hang on to the past, this is TECHNOlogy Music after all.

Current prices I have been quoted.

For 1000 CD`s
Including
Mastering from production ready DAT
Test CD
Glass Mastering
The printing of all paper parts
Jewel boxes/trays
On body 2 colour printing
Shrink wrapping

£795

[SlavikSvensk]

And is it really true that the production costs for doing CD's is cheaper??
Do you have any price references?

pressing cds is infinitely cheaper than pressing vinyl...think about it...a little piece of optical plastic versus a hulking mass of black vinyl...a little paper cover inside a dinky plastic cover versus a massive cardboard sleeve...one weighs close to nothing, the other is heavy as sh*t...

...if your margins are tight, and people one day are willing to exclusively spin cds instead of vinyl, it would makes financial sense for labels and distributors to scrap vinyl, sad as that would be.

personally, i love vinyl, but i'm a nerdy collector and like all kinds of anachronistic sh*t.

[Ritzi Lee]

And these CD's;
It should be nice if there is a coded system,
where it's not possible to strip it down on harddisk directly.
So only people with really advanced equipment can do this.
For reducing the risk of illegal copying.

Anyway what's the point for illegal copying if you can get the CD's for a really cheap retail price. £3,- or something.

[Internal Error Records]

the entire information age from 1920 until now the world has embraced vinyl.

the djs who love vinyl dont love it because its cheaper.

you cant put a price on quality or love.

its cost cutting and people who arent committed to vinyl that switch to cds.

god bless them, let them go. no loss to the vinyl people.

true vinyl sales havent changed in 20 years. its a medium for people who obcess it.

its time to accept that we live in a world of 'cd dj's and 'vinyl dj's and neither is a threat to, insult to the other.

[dirty_bass]

don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.

[Internal Error Records]

don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.


i suppose its asking to much for to see a quality such as FAITH in a man whose location is 'london the big shit hole'

good luck in all you do.

[jon connor]

[quote="dirty_bass"]don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.[/quotyes

yes it bloody well will. :protest: your takeing away the raw skill and art work of a proper dj, ive used cd j`s etc ok for my own tracks yes, but they are s.h.i.t compared to mixing vynyl. your taking away the whole concept of dj performance. wot raw skill can you do with a cd, ummm could it be the on board effects ? oh s.h.i.t weve got a good beat counter so any joe bloggs can use and mix. im a hardcore vynyl lover take it away and i wont be playing cds or useing cdjs i will be using final scratch or just playing live instead, i will not serender to cdjs. :rambo: only time i will use 1 is for along side the decks when i want to give 1 of my new tracks a test drive.

in any case vynyl has a dirty more grity sound and thats underground.and i no dirty bass you will say no its not digital is etc etc, but i had a course on this in collage and im going to dig it out, about how vynyl is diffrent to cd. do a test your self guys like i did in collage on a rig over 5 k. get the same track on cd, and vynyl play them each, then cum back and tell me wot sounds better. i already no coz anologue kicks digitals ass in sound quality. ;)

this is killing me i will have nighmares tonight about the death of vynyl :cry: there like jewelry to me to preisious. :pray:

[dirty_bass]

I have put more of my life into techno than most, and during my free party years, risked arrest, inprisonment, the destruction of my soundsystem, and when the gangs muscled in, my life.
I have more faith than most probably.
But I also accept and embrace change, and always live in the now, and look to the future.

[dirty_bass]

haha, vinyl has a smaller frequency range than CD. Bad stereo imaging and the list goes on, it is in no way "better" on a 5k rig in comparison.
My live PA is generated digitally, and the audio quality is always so much fuller and clearer in comparison to the DJ`s I have just followed.

RAW dj skill is in the mixing and eqing.
The actual beatmatching isn`t a skill, it`s a mechanical process that gets in the way of making a good mix.
Personally if I could have a tune instantly qued up and beatmatched with some magic piece of kit, I would buy it straight away, because I know and accept it would give me more time to do the important and skillful and artistic part of DJing, ie, the eqing, sorting the mix point, tricks etc.

Anyone and their gran can beatmatch, and a good DJ it does not make.

[Internal Error Records]

risked arrest,

youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation.


dood. just let it go. you are coming in swing shit to people who love vinyl. vinyl is dead preaching is unwanted. you qualify as a flame starter for no reason other than to hear yourself.

once you get arrested for techno, do loose 5 grand in sound gear, do have a few guns pointed at you, and then invest 5 grand more into a VINYL record label, than maybe you will be qualified to participate.

[fresh_an_funky_design]

dont get me wrong I LOVE VINYL, but technology will always progress, and for those who arn't willing to progress and change with the times will get left behind.

For example as much as we all hate mp3's i've just sorted out mp3 distribution for my label through trackitdown.net. Bear in mind there are no set up costs, and if someone buys all four tunes of a release i still get the same amount that i would of my distributor.

If techno is too survive we cant live in the past, we've got too move forward and embrace new technologies.

[fresh_an_funky_design]

[quote=dirty_bass] risked arrest,

youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation.


Yeah you can get arrested if you run a free party, as you are breaking the law under the criminal justice act! Dont slag him just cos he makes a good point :nono:

[Internal Error Records]

dont get me wrong I LOVE VINYL, but technology will always progress, and for those who arn't willing to progress and change with the times will get left behind.

For example as much as we all hate mp3's i've just sorted out mp3 distribution for my label through trackitdown.net. Bear in mind there are no set up costs, and if someone buys all four tunes of a release i still get the same amount that i would of my distributor.

If techno is too survive we cant live in the past, we've got too move forward and embrace new technologies.

a good design is a good design is a good design.

Trains, PLanes, Boats, LIGHBULBS, are hundreds of years old.

Quit preaching. This is a thread for people concerned with continuing with VINYL.

[jon connor]

haha, vinyl has a smaller frequency range than CD. Bad stereo imaging and the list goes on, it is in no way "better" on a 5k rig in comparison.
My live PA is generated digitally, and the audio quality is always so much fuller and clearer in comparison to the DJ`s I have just followed.

RAW dj skill is in the mixing and eqing.
The actual beatmatching isn`t a skill, it`s a mechanical process that gets in the way of making a good mix.
Personally if I could have a tune instantly qued up and beatmatched with some magic piece of kit, I would buy it straight away, because I know and accept it would give me more time to do the important and skillful and artistic part of DJing, ie, the eqing, sorting the mix point, tricks etc.

Anyone and their gran can beatmatch, and a good DJ it does not make.

hahaha sorry man but i thought keeping the records beat matched and having ability to manipulate in a unique style was all about beeing a good jock,ballance delicatsy,timeing,mabey 1 day i show ya! your way mate is just god dam lazy. call me old fashioned but i will stick with my own method for now ,the 1 thats took me the best part of 10 years to develope. take away decks djaying will be crap. :roll:

[Internal Error Records]

the issue here is the complainers are not vinyl label owners. they have no COMMITMENT to VINYL therefore they are free to talk negative.

you guys dont seem to relize that you are just muddying a good thread. not helping out at all.

[dirty_bass]

youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation
I got cuffed a few times, but I was lucky and allways managed to talk things around.
Never lost my kit, cos I wasn`t stupid.
Stared down the barrels of a few guns in my life

once you get arrested for techno, do loose 5 grand in sound gear, do have a few guns pointed at you, and then invest 5 grand more into a VINYL record label, than maybe you will be qualified to participate.

Have a record label, and realise that things need to change.



This is a thread for people concerned with continuing with VINYL.

No this is a thread for the continuation of techno as a business.

It makes me laugh really, we like to think in techno we are at the cutting edge, and it just sooo isn`t so.
the psychadelic scene has embraced CD and they are doing fine.


way mate is just god dam lazy
no it isn`t at all. It`s using technology to allow me to do a better job.
Anyone can learn how to beatmatch, I have taught so may people. It just takes repetition.
BUT not everyone can be a good DJ, because the aspect of good DJing, is the blending technique, knowing when to mix, good tricks, good eq, reading the crowd, blah blah.
Beatmatching is just that. Beatmatching.

[jon connor]

risked arrest,

youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation.


dood. just let it go. you are coming in swing shit to people who love vinyl. vinyl is dead preaching is unwanted. you qualify as a flame starter for no reason other than to hear yourself.

once you get arrested for techno, do loose 5 grand in sound gear, do have a few guns pointed at you, and then invest 5 grand more into a VINYL record label, than maybe you will be qualified to participate.

hewr hear man! well said. has every 1 forgotten wot happend to lawri emersions rig in amsterdam i think it was when the police actully smashed it to bits , well just look how lawri come out of it , ummm curve pressings mutiple outstanding releases, more to come, the guys a legend ,still i dont hear him complaining just getting on with the job in true emersion style.

[jon connor]

forgot to put this before guys but will now, i think the vynyl is an instrument for a dj, a cd is for comersial use full stop. :study:

[eyes without a face]

this topic is getting too silly to really warrant a serious reply but here goes

its EACH TO THEIR OWN! as a dj i love vinyl, and will use it for as long as it is possible, i hate the thought or idea of using just CD's alone to dj, its not djing to me and looks and feels completely alien and its not something im willing to embrace or promote, apart from the obvious Cd deck alongside technics for playing new productions etc, this to me is embracing current technologies and also a good way to stick to your beliefs and loves i.e vinyl djing.... as for beatmatching, of course anyone can do it, but there are levels to beatmatching and i know alot of top jocks who still struggle with it and of course it makes a good dj, u go see a top jock whose dropping beats everywhere and believe u me they wont worried about effects, they'l b more worried about their rep after such sloppy playing

lets not get heated with this one people

[Mauro Alpha]

I think that Vinyl will always survive because Vinyl is a Professional Instruments for DEEJAY.

Cd is commercial.

I think that is better to view one dj mixing with vinyl, feeling the power sensation touching vinyl disc..Cd is owned by a machine and is a cold sensation..

vinyl sound is more "hot"

I know that cd is more cheaper to stamp but Everyone one that is a professional dj prefer vinyl than cd.
This time analogic is better than digital ehehehehhe

:cool: ;)

[jon connor]

this topic is getting too silly to really warrant a serious reply but here goes

its EACH TO THEIR OWN! as a dj i love vinyl, and will use it for as long as it is possible, i hate the thought or idea of using just CD's alone to dj, its not djing to me and looks and feels completely alien and its not something im willing to embrace or promote, apart from the obvious Cd deck alongside technics for playing new productions etc, this to me is embracing current technologies and also a good way to stick to your beliefs and loves i.e vinyl djing.... as for beatmatching, of course anyone can do it, but there are levels to beatmatching and i know alot of top jocks who still struggle with it and of course it makes a good dj, u go see a top jock whose dropping beats everywhere and believe u me they wont worried about effects, they'l b more worried about their rep after such sloppy playing

:lol: thats the spirit scot. well said lad. :clap:

lets not get heated with this one people

[jon connor]

I think that Vinyl will always survive because Vinyl is a Professional Instruments for DEEJAY.

Cd is commercial.

I think that is better to view one dj mixing with vinyl, feeling the power sensation touching vinyl disc..Cd is owned by a machine and is a cold sensation..

vinyl sound is more "hot"

I know that cd is more cheaper to stamp but Everyone one that is a professional dj prefer vinyl than cd.
This time analogic is better than digital ehehehehhe


owww! this topic is getting hot. well put mazza! :clap:
:cool: ;)

[dirty_bass]

Well the point I`m making is that, there needs to be an embracing of new technologies.
I`m making suggestions and looking at the future and not trying to piss on everyones chips.
But people here are already moaning like old women about vinyl living forever.
Embrace change or fall behind, simple.
I have a vast vinyl collection, and I`ve DJ`d for around 10 years.
So I love vinyl, and also look for things that will allow me to do a job better and more efficiently.
But at the same time, I`ve fully investigated the new, rotating platter Cd players, by technics and numark, rather than just commenting on heresay, with my fingers in my ears.
They are damn good. Try em.
You will see that this is the future, and the technology will keep getting better.
Meanwhile vinyl sales will keep falling, and will get to the point where there is no infrastructure to support it.
Don`t stick your head in the sand, but rather pre-empt and prepare for the coming change, so that it happens without it affecting you.
I don`t want to see anyone losing out because of the way things are going.
But also, I wish people would wake up and smell the coffee cos it`s pretty damn strong now.

[eyes without a face]

thats the diff here, i get ur points and they are definately valid, but to say vinyl needs to die is offensive to alot of people mate...

i see the pro's and con's of both arguments, thats whats important here

[djsirround]

Don't you think that vinyl had survived a long way? there was many mediums where music could be recorded but vinyl was the source who dominated DJs.

Why the hell RNB record labels still release Vinyl alongside CDs? Because cds are to listen them for home, or in car, but a DJ to play want something to touch by his hand, as Mauro Alpha said its something hot.

Any record label out there, try to release CDs and check your sales. Ok someone mention that we are communicating by Internet now not by smoking... then born the net labels, but jesus christ, how many artists play tracks from net labels? ok who have final scratch...and how many?

Alpha mentioned also the analagoue and digital thing, we master our records on analogue equipment? bette sound isn't it?

So... regard developing and modernisation... so in Malta we have crab as part of the traditional food, so we now start eating humbergers? to be modern...

[djsirround]

Alpha mentioned also the analagoue and digital thing, WHY we master our records on analogue equipment? bette sound isn't it?

[jon connor]

youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation
I got cuffed a few times, but I was lucky and allways managed to talk things around.
Never lost my kit, cos I wasn`t stupid.
Stared down the barrels of a few guns in my life

once you get arrested for techno, do loose 5 grand in sound gear, do have a few guns pointed at you, and then invest 5 grand more into a VINYL record label, than maybe you will be qualified to participate.

Have a record label, and realise that things need to change.



This is a thread for people concerned with continuing with VINYL.

No this is a thread for the continuation of techno as a business.

It makes me laugh really, we like to think in techno we are at the cutting edge, and it just sooo isn`t so.
the psychadelic scene has embraced CD and they are doing fine.


way mate is just god dam lazy
no it isn`t at all. It`s using technology to allow me to do a better job.
Anyone can learn how to beatmatch, I have taught so may people. It just takes repetition.
BUT not everyone can be a good DJ, because the aspect of good DJing, is the blending technique, knowing when to mix, good tricks, good eq, reading the crowd, blah blah.
Beatmatching is just that. Beatmatching.

does this mean that we will be recieving the next dirty bass releases on cd ? a dam shame if this is the case, your a good producer i think you should calm down a bit, im sorry to say but if labels start relesing on cds and stopping there vynyl i will not for 1 be playing them. i may aswell make my own take my computer to a venue skin up sit on me arse and oh click my mouse button now again. :eh: if you say scrap vynyl then why are you still releasing on vynyl, why dont you be the 1 to make the first move then. ?

[dirty_bass]

Who knows what I am up to?
I`m certainly looking into new methods and means of everything.
Will DirtyBass go entirely CD yet?
No, as the infrastructure isn`t there yet, but as soon as it is, then yes it will, of course.
I really do wish it was on Cd because I hate the fact that when you make music, you have to struggle with the vinyl engineer to get the cut sounding vaguely close to the sound you made.
Vinyl has survived for so long, because there simply wasn`t anything to replace it that you could manipulate effectively. there is now, and in another year, the technology will leap again, and we will have really good analogue/digital interfaces for manipulating digital audio.
Hopefully the cost will also come down.

This is all by the by though. The slow death of vinyl is only part of the process of the change of music as a business. The nature of how music is listened to and transported is changing so radically now.
One of the major downfalls of the dowload/ipod age is the death of the album, and this is really scaring major artists.
Because rather than parting with the cash for the whole album, people are just downloading the tracks they want. Unfortunately some albums are a work of art meant to be played from start to finish.
But this is all happening, and it is change we must embrace. The kids of today all walk around with tunes on their ipods and mobiles, and that is just how it is.
I`m an old ****er and I find change difficult, but I am also into techno both musically and philosophically and it has allways been about the "new" and the future.

John, your shunning of technology is a bit odd (I bet you use effects though right?), you seem to think that unless you are touching vinyl every 5 seconds then you are lazy?
If beatmatching is all you do when you play records it must be very boring.
Auto beatmatching means you can do MORE not less, becuase you have more time to play around and concentrate on the mixing rather than the beat-matching.

This is actually making me chuckle now, cos people are taking htis personally, and just defending old methods, rather than suggesting new methods.

[Internal Error Records]

This is actually making me chuckle now, cos people are taking htis personally, and just defending old methods, rather than suggesting new methods.

its a shame you had to wrap up a good line of thinking with another sharp stab at offending people

people are offended because of how your said things.

its too bad. you were bordering on a good point. then had to throw in the chuckle line.

[jon connor]

the future.

John, your shunning of technology is a bit odd (I bet you use effects though right?), you seem to think that unless you are touching vinyl every 5 seconds then you are lazy?
If beatmatching is all you do when you play records it must be very boring.
Auto beatmatching means you can do MORE not less, becuase you have more time to play around and concentrate on the mixing rather than the beat-matching.

shunning technology no mate, there is playing live and djaying. if you would of read my genuine ideas properly in a post a few page back you will see i quite clearly stated, vynyl needs a shake up not death, so i see your question to me as invalid . as for wot do i do when i perform , i put every single ounce of energy in body into the performance ,make tracks chase each other, tricks, and if using effects them to in a artfull way, not a maniac way. i was down london this year in hakney , i think it went down well considering i had a lot of people into wot i was playing and the way i played it,. in anycase im not gunna stand ere and bitch about how i play my techno, im here because im deffending somthing i love, mabey the time will come man when vynyl dies, but there is no need to force it.
for as long as ther is people about who beleive in vynyl it will servive, but only as a dj instrument. ;)

[jon connor]

the future.

John, your shunning of technology is a bit odd (I bet you use effects though right?), you seem to think that unless you are touching vinyl every 5 seconds then you are lazy?
If beatmatching is all you do when you play records it must be very boring.
Auto beatmatching means you can do MORE not less, becuase you have more time to play around and concentrate on the mixing rather than the beat-matching.

shunning technology no mate, there is playing live and djaying. if you would of read my genuine ideas properly in a post a few page back you will see i quite clearly stated, vynyl needs a shake up not death, so i see your question to me as invalid . as for wot do i do when i perform , i put every single ounce of energy in body into the performance ,make tracks chase each other, tricks, and if using effects them to in a artfull way, not a maniac way. i was down london this year in hakney , i think it went down well considering i had a lot of people into wot i was playing and the way i played it,. in anycase im not gunna stand ere and bitch about how i play my techno, im here because im deffending somthing i love, mabey the time will come man when vynyl dies, but there is no need to force it.
for as long as ther is people about who beleive in vynyl it will servive, but only as a dj instrument. ;)

hear is a reminder of my origanal comment and one i beleive will satisfy vynyl lovers. :lol:

i think we all may as well start practising our live sets, to perfofm that way ? or is there a chance for vynyl and distribution to servive, well i think there is and im confident, wot distributers and every 1 in the vynyl indusrtry needs to look at is, a new market approach, mabey the vynyl its self ,jaz it up a bit, develope new vynyl, witch can hold more tracks without sound reduction etc, the vynyl its self, i no we have picture discs etc we have had for years, but anyone will tell ya the sound quality is normaly crap, also expensive to stamp,or mabey find a new material witch can hold diffrent file formats and still be played like a vynyl will speicial needles developed etc, as for the distribution you wont be able to stop online shopping,. also another big blow to small record shops was hmv and virgin , they also have had a big inpact on the destruction of small outlets.but its this day and age doods like all small shops grocerys etc ,they are all taken out by the big wallmarts and superstores.

personaly i dont want to see vynyl go under, we are all righting it off to quick, manufactures need to modernise the vynyl,i dont mean cd mixing ill scream if someone says that i regard that as swearing. no wot i want is to see a development in the vynyl itsself, if we start here it might be a good start. lets just look at it, people just want more for there money these days. playing decks is not just playing music its an artform when perfected,. digital generation is well and truly here even the multy million pound record industries are feeling it to,its not just the underground. well any way thats my point of view personaly i think the vynyl industry is due for a shake up, development is needed, but again that begs the question who is willing to pay for it, if i won the lottery i certainly would be launching a load of cash in to the development, but we can only dream !

[dirty_bass]

I doubt whether the updating of vinyl will help at all. It would be nice if there was someway they could improve materials and the sound quality, but I think it would just hike prices in the process.

The point we all forget is this.

It`s all very well saying that vinyl will survive as a DJ instrument, but it won`t if things carry on.

DJ`s can only play vinyl because it supports itself as there is a commercial infrastructure, ie customers who also buy vinyl.
If it gets to the point where the only people using vinyl are professional Jocks, then that`s it, vinyl is dead. Because pro jocks don`t pay for it either. therefore the labels won`t be able to afford to press the vinyl, therefore there will be no more vinyl.
Do you see where this is going?
Less and less "customers" ie bedroom DJ`s are buying vinyl. Deck sales are down, distributers are falling down like flies, dance music is out of fashion, club attendance is down.
Add it all up.

The shit is hitting the fan folks. Now more than ever, we need to start grouping up, pulling together, figuring a way to sort this shit out.
Too many of us are just content to run our little labels, and dream of beng Dave Clarke one day (or whoever).
ie, thinking I rather than WE

What we need is to pull in and figure out a way of sorting this shit out.

Now personally, I am doing what I can, I`m sitting down with all the people I know, and talking about this seriously, discussing what we can do, where we can go, doing research etc. Trying to pull some cohesive plan that we can have, and then spread it to others.

It`s gonna take a lot of time and effort, and the more of us who can discuss it seriously, the more ideas and resources we can pull together, the stronger we will be.

This forum, and this thread is a start. But more needs to be done.

And don`t start posting up replies of "well what are you doing then smart arse etc"
But think more on the lines of "what can I do?"

I would love to seriously and calmy discuss our future and what we can do about it with anyone here. If anyone has any good insights about this subject please, let`s talk. Lets get on the phone, or meet up, or whatever.

We need to communicate more.

Distributers, artists, label owners, DJ`s etc
Lets talk.

[gustavo]

why distributions....etc


ive read here lots of valid reasons

and i could write 8 more pages ...

just one thought

if u put an online mix in mp3... in a good international site...nice mix good dj blablabla

see how many downloads u are going to get ( extimative) 1000

imagine each people had to pay 10 cents per download

100 euros ..divided equally by the labels /artists and the dj (or maybe just the labels/artist´


(u can do thsi in paypal etc)


u know how many hundreds of thousands techno downloads are made per year??


a very low prive per downl would certainly help a lot...

no i dont live in a world with elfs and fairys...this can be realistic...

good servers , great speed blabla...10 cents...20 cents?? i would pay..and everyone who is interested (seriously in techno would pay)

if people dont pay .then its harder to release records..start labels..etcetcetc its a vivious circle
u dont put money in
everything will get hard...and for u too..


basically cause i think MOST of the people are clever enough to understand that if they finance techno they r helping themselves!!!!

i think this would work...

and this idea can be transformed and developed in may ways...

we need to use the technology ..come uo with ideas

instead of losing time and not focusing in what really matters


l8rzzz

[Internal Error Records]

good points.

i think people dont have much problem with paying to support music. the issue is in convienence.

maybe if paypal was literally instant. and no extra typing was done.

i think lots of people dont mind paying $1 for a track, they just dont want to bother going thru the effort.

[Internal Error Records]

other good idea's to consider would be

1)making dj cd players more cost effective (And still have people pay for music not steal off soulseek)

and

2) bring down the cost of vinyl to a level the encourage more purchasing for the vinyl lovers.

as long as people get illegal mp3's no artist who has to pay their rent will support cd's. and if vinyl cost a bit less than that would take some of the edge off aswell.

[dirty_bass]

I doubt vinyl costs will ever go down, as they are a petroleum product.

[Internal Error Records]

I doubt vinyl costs will ever go down, as they are a petroleum product.

i also doubt people will stop downloading stolen songs. so there goes legitimate cd player use.

you gonna make a useful post or just me a know it all with no answers?

[jon connor]

ok dirty bass i will now reveal a part of my secrets, you are not on your own here wot do you think ive been planning to do with supertech my label, not dreaming of dave clarke i can asure you fella! you miss judge me my man, yet i am cooler craftier and cleverer than you think.

i will reveal part of my secret i will not reveal anymore because in this bisniness things are stolen from you rather quickly.

1 market .

ok here we go who do we aim at ? well here it is extreme sports skate boarders/snow boarders etc for 1, first a mission to get techno and stuff cool to them, already ive unleashed a fare bit to them already, sponsor ship, from companys like red bull for events , surrounded by futuristic terrains, lets go play station land, like tony hawks skate park, but have wind tunnels and all sorts of features for the clubber or raver to do., i am currently working with a number of partners to make a uk teknovul with this happening as an experiment for 2006, in a few countrys not just this 1 my son. and i can tell you now i have a very big extreme sports backing.
we need to combine our stuff together with other artist, even bands, how many techno producers i no who have been broght up on guitars i just dont no. the liberaters for example punk dudes who created the whole spectrum of london acid techno with pals etc.

next step why dont we contact manufactures ourselfs with designes ideas, etc, mabey they are screaming out for this but we just dont no it, i have also prepared sum things like this which when completed i will be forwarding to pionneer etc.

dont right off the deck its not the vynyl im getting at steve, its the way us real techno boys like to play it, we like action, energy flying off the decks, making the crowd go whooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! you just dont get same effet with cdjs dude!

i think i was onto a good 1 with a new material etc to put more music on 1 plate, that way we can put a whole new concept into our release and also sattisfy the customer with more value for money. could you imagine beeing able to put 10 tracks that play beutifly on 1 plate. it would be so much more interesting, you could have tracks loops atmospherics,cuts all on 1 disc. :shock: but still able to play like a vynyl. i think cillacone may do it, there has got to be somthing there.

young dudes in collage next year i will be doing dj work shop skills once again after a long time off stupidly gettin into promoting, young guys coming up, teaching them. i loved doing this with kids and cant wait to start up again a couple of days a week. i love the smile on there face when they get first mix together,it grips them by the bollox and they are hooked. then aswell as learning them dj skills i will also be showing them how to use start up software like fruity loops, acid etc. its a gate way.

also my freind, dude schranz is getting massive and i meen big, abroad they are singing from the roof tops with it, 16 year old lads etc sending me bombs in the post from malta etc. i can use guys like this as a role model to my students next year.

there is 1 rule tho we have to try do all this and keep under the underground boarder line without going commersial. of course sum electro techno will make charts etc, but dont matter coz they act like messages to people who dont no there is other stuff out there.

im on the same mission as you steve, because i aint got f.u.c.k all else in life but my techno, ive suffered at the hands of ganster twats like your self and feel your passion, lets cut the bull s.h.i.t now and get on with the job, after all music calms the beast, with all other crap going on in world people will always need a bit of freedom.
there is enough power in this thread for all you guys to think hard, and think back to the time you first learnt to mix vynyl, take a note of that now you are a producer, yes we need all these new gadgets, but dont forget there is people out there who cant afford them.vynyl is sacred and it is our job to protect it for as long as we can. ;)

[eyes without a face]

open ur eyes dudes, Dirty is speaking sense... u might not agree with it (i dont agree with some points!) but its the truth

if u wanna get down to the bare bones of it, vinyl is derived from oil thru a process known as fractional distillation, and oil is not cheap, and its not getting cheaper either, plus not enough people are buying vinyl so if anything costs maybe expected to go up rather than down etc etc etc

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................... i even bored myself there but come on, everyone needs to see both sides of the coin here

[eyes without a face]

i think this post has gone way off its original meaning now, which is a shame

[Internal Error Records]

open ur eyes dudes, Dirty is speaking sense... u might not agree with it (i dont agree with some points!) but its the truth

if u wanna get down to the bare bones of it, vinyl is derived from oil thru a process known as fractional distillation, and oil is not cheap, and its not getting cheaper either, plus not enough people are buying vinyl so if anything costs maybe expected to go up rather than down etc etc etc

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................... i even bored myself there but come on, everyone needs to see both sides of the coin here

Dirty isnt saying alot wrong. He's just digging deep for ways to get on peoples nerves.

I gotta step out of the forum for a bit. Dirty is working hard to make sure nothing positive is said for furthering vinyl. No point in trying to have a pleasnt coversation when someone is just a trouble maker.

[jon connor]

open ur eyes dudes, Dirty is speaking sense... u might not agree with it (i dont agree with some points!) but its the truth

if u wanna get down to the bare bones of it, vinyl is derived from oil thru a process known as fractional distillation, and oil is not cheap, and its not getting cheaper either, plus not enough people are buying vinyl so if anything costs maybe expected to go up rather than down etc etc etc

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................... i even bored myself there but come on, everyone needs to see both sides of the coin here

exacltly why im looking for a new material to be devoloped whitch can be played like vynyl on a normal deck, im not having it no way, hands on dj ing is raw, live, and hot stuff. mabey we should get intouch with cambridge university or summit and put it to them to see if it can be done ?
i just cant serennder scot, playing cdjs is boaring to me it just my opinion,(u no wot im talking about scot coz you are a brother in the dance, why not go 1 better and find somthing we can all enjoy and be inspired by, lets revolutionize vynyl, :rambo: im up for it. who`s wit me ?

i no there is a way! my grandad who is no longer with us was a drafts man and inventor, he redesighned the lancaster bomber in the war, because he found a fault, with the middle of the plane.he found the plane would snap in half on take off when fully loaded with bombs, well im inspired by that because he found a solution to a problem which was effective ,i beleive we can do this to. ;)

[dirty_bass]

Dirty isnt saying alot wrong. He's just digging deep for ways to get on peoples nerves.

I gotta step out of the forum for a bit. Dirty is working hard to make sure nothing positive is said for furthering vinyl. No point in trying to have a pleasnt coversation when someone is just a trouble maker.

haha, erm ok.

nothing positive to say about vinyl?

erm, I`m just going through facts.

I`m not anti vinyl, I`ve got tons of the stuff. I`m just beng realistic.

Starting trouble?

Yeah, that`s all I want to do, start trouble :dontevengothere: :roll:

Now John is talking more sense with the sponsorship and stuff, good show man, good idea, not sure the extreme sports folks will really go for techno in a big way, big phuck it, that`s definitely worth a try.

I think the actual nature of the business needs to change as well.

CD or Digital files, either way, some form of encryption is needed there.

I`m looking into organising more Live gigs in non nightclub enviroments too. Getting the college and UNI crowd into it. But there will be no work for DJ`s within this venture, just live acts. :cry:

As for distribution going down. More quality control is needed really. Got to keep the standard up.

I think the vinyl argument is going to come to a head within the next year though.

anyhow john, I think you took too much of what I was saying far too personally. I was being generic in a lot of comments, such as the Dave Clarke thing, and it wasn`t directed at anyone specific, in fact I said WE as part of it, so it included me.

[The Overfiend]

open ur eyes dudes, Dirty is speaking sense... u might not agree with it (i dont agree with some points!) but its the truth

if u wanna get down to the bare bones of it, vinyl is derived from oil thru a process known as fractional distillation, and oil is not cheap, and its not getting cheaper either, plus not enough people are buying vinyl so if anything costs maybe expected to go up rather than down etc etc etc

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................... i even bored myself there but come on, everyone needs to see both sides of the coin here

Dirty isnt saying alot wrong. He's just digging deep for ways to get on peoples nerves.

I gotta step out of the forum for a bit. Dirty is working hard to make sure nothing positive is said for furthering vinyl. No point in trying to have a pleasnt coversation when someone is just a trouble maker.

I don't think he has time to take the piss just to piss anyone off, I think he is just that experienced in the situation. Truth does tend to bother people though.

[Internal Error Records]

there is no doubt the this is all rooted in truth.

this thread was started with a fear of what the future may hold.

obviously this was started by someone with a rooted interest in vinyl.

any answer close to 'you are doomed' doesnt really make good advise.

and everybody here has good points.

but using lines like 'the reality is'- translates to imma be a dick and hide behind a fascade of truth.

its amazing how people use the truth to be a jerk.

if this thread can get back to improving the vinyl distribution industry, that would be great. any post other than how to improve vinyl distribution should be in another thread.

[dirty_bass]

no one is doomed, unless they sit on their hands and let themselves be doomed.

[The Overfiend]

there is no doubt the this is all rooted in truth.

this thread was started with a fear of what the future may hold.

obviously this was started by someone with a rooted interest in vinyl.

any answer close to 'you are doomed' doesnt really make good advise.

and everybody here has good points.

but using lines like 'the reality is'- translates to imma be a dick and hide behind a fascade of truth.

its amazing how people use the truth to be a jerk.

if this thread can get back to improving the vinyl distribution industry, that would be great. any post other than how to improve vinyl distribution should be in another thread.

You're the only one turning this kind of outlook towards him man.
Reality and truth hurt. Honesty hurts.

I am getting involved because one it is not anyones place here to discern what belongs where in what thread.

From someone who is a fellow label owner what underlying interests would he have to do anything that was not productive towards this subject matter?

[Evil G]

trends will always come and go, but the fact remains that the world is a big place. all it takes is one person in a million to buy your record and you'll sell a few thousand copies. surely with a bit of clever marketing that's an achievable goal.

some good fresh ideas are needed, but hope is far from lost.

[Internal Error Records]

yes i am one of the heated ones. and defensive. i should get a breather.

i just need this thread to reveal some good suggestions in regards to the several thousand dollars ive spent on the label this year.

[jon connor]

Dirty isnt saying alot wrong. He's just digging deep for ways to get on peoples nerves.

I gotta step out of the forum for a bit. Dirty is working hard to make sure nothing positive is said for furthering vinyl. No point in trying to have a pleasnt coversation when someone is just a trouble maker.

haha, erm ok.

nothing positive to say about vinyl?

erm, I`m just going through facts.

I`m not anti vinyl, I`ve got tons of the stuff. I`m just beng realistic.

Starting trouble?

Yeah, that`s all I want to do, start trouble :dontevengothere: :roll:

Now John is talking more sense with the sponsorship and stuff, good show man, good idea, not sure the extreme sports folks will really go for techno in a big way, big phuck it, that`s definitely worth a try.

I think the actual nature of the business needs to change as well.

CD or Digital files, either way, some form of encryption is needed there.

I`m looking into organising more Live gigs in non nightclub enviroments too. Getting the college and UNI crowd into it. But there will be no work for DJ`s within this venture, just live acts. :cry:

As for distribution going down. More quality control is needed really. Got to keep the standard up.

I think the vinyl argument is going to come to a head within the next year though.

anyhow john, I think you took too much of what I was saying far too personally. I was being generic in a lot of comments, such as the Dave Clarke thing, and it wasn`t directed at anyone specific, in fact I said WE as part of it, so it included me.

i no dirty we all on same team here, but there will still be no way i would give up my vynyl, ive waited years to be able to put my tracks on vynyl, wot your saying is probably true it just herts me and makes my stomach chern man. if i bloody have to i will try and find my own inventions, but mate i see a future of not cdjs man, yes for an extra use for performance mabey, but i want to see the same firing performance on turntables played and controled the same way but with a new material for hands on mixing.

1 theory ive thought of is ( + dont laugh at me anything is possible ) :study:

look at your sim card on mobile phone, see how it is lade out in form of a chip, mabey them grooves could also be developed into a circular disc, witch can carry multiple sound files, this also could be accompanied by special needles, with magnetic force keeping them held fast to the plate, or mabey a laser. the discs them selves could be made out of any old materials, even recycle old vynyl which is due for the dump or no longer wanted etc.
i no it could be done just takes somone with the right knolage to try.
im hearing you on the live thing dirty bass i also want to do live stuff when i experienced enough to do so, but your world seems arrogant towards dj`s, you say its not but your making out it is, there is no skill also in swithing knobs on cdjs to make mixing more easier, bollox to that, people want to see the dj flying man, so mabey we should look and study new ideas inventions ,not just follow the comersial industry like your doing, we need a product distributers can take up, if vynyl aint cool anymore lets give it a make over.

also distributers themselves need to become more carefull, look at prime for instence how many free records did they send out, my freind and old north colleage dj m zone is a hard trance hard style dj, he used to give me piles of records he dident want and it was always a big box off prime,(and quality techno to i might ad) how many more people did they send unwanted techno to. fools! anytime somone wants to send me records from abroad etc, i always offer to pay them at least the whole sale price and shipping cost, its coz im a gentleman with manners, they still dicline and send anway. how many of you beg labels for free records, well stop it.lets see sum strict ruling from distributers, i pay for my records and i rarely get promos now days, so i think here we can make a start of actually paying for it.

as far as my far out radical inventions i hope its a few years yet b4 i will feel the need to have to cum up with somthing. think ill av a word with father christmas. ;)

lets cut the bullshit now and try cum up with ideas for VYNYL sales to help our distributers, and keep people like lawri emersion and all the curve pressing family well and truly afloat. ;)

[MARKEG]

I just can't believe how this thread has gone. And I'm GOBSMAKED - no, in fact totally BEWILDERED as to why no-one picked up on its true meaning. Read Tioneb's post, and the Paul Edge article. In fact I could delete the whole rest of the pages here in between and finally we might have a good discussion. But seeing as though you've alll gone of this mad mission I'll say my thoughts...


Dirty Bass is SPOT ON. Vinyl is dying, we're all a bunch of junkies just grasping at straws. This forum is about finding the future, CD is NOT the the future either. MP3 is the latest technology. Interent what we have to look at. Understand.

I've read so much crap in these last 7 pages, I'm about to explode. Who cares about old fashioned ideals and the 'old' way of running the game. Sure we'll make it last as long as we can but, we're alll about to become lonely old men. We have to move on and find a solution.

READ PAUL EDGE'S ARTICLE AGAIN. PLEASE.

[MARKEG]

NOW PLEASE get back on track.

This forum is about solutions, not getting upset that you're about to be pushed into the background. Can we please get back to the original direction and topic matter???

[MARKEG]

Jon, I'm not reading clear cut to the point replies. It's always got to involve you or your label. GRRR. Look at the general picture mate, take yourself out of your box. Then I think you could really make a seriously great contribution to this discussion. We really have to find a solution here.

[jon connor]

I just can't believe how this thread has gone. And I'm GOBSMAKED - no, in fact totally BEWILDERED as to why no-one picked up on the Paul Edge article. In fact I could delete the whole rest of the pages here in between and finally we might have a good discussion. But seeing as though you've alll gone of this mad mission I'll say my thoughts...


Dirty Bass is SPOT ON. Vinyl is dying, we're all a bunch of junkies just grasping at straws. This forum is about finding the future, CD is NOT the the future either. MP3 is the latest technology. Interent what we have to look at. Understand.

I've read so much crap in these last 7 pages, I'm about to explode. Who cares about old fashioned ideals and the 'old' way of running the game. Sure we'll make it last as long as we can but, we're alll about to become lonely old men. We have to move on and find a solution.

READ PAUL EDGE'S ARTICLE AGAIN. PLEASE.

i no mark mp3 is the future its why im trying to think of ideas which can enable us to play the same way with updated technology dude! . mp3 is the way forward, final scratch etc is also a huge breakthrough, but man i dont no there has to be sum answers. :eh: u no me when pasionte bout summit! i love the whole concept of the skill and way we play vynyl ,its just me. suppose im starting to greeve early, vynyl is my freind and will be sadly missed when it goes, it will be like the final scene in lord of the rings , when frodo and elfs etc leave forevever.

vynyl is part of the earth also it is played by part of the earth to. a diamond on the needle mabey thats wots give it its energergy and sparkle and unique sound. oh well! if its guna appen its gunna appen. :cry:

[MARKEG]

Grieve and get over it quick. Make it last as long as you can. Fair play if that's you're game. But we all need to find the future and I believe the Internet is that future.

Right now back on topic. And I want to talk about Paul's article. Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????

Oh come on, please someone take control before I weep.

[jon connor]

Jon, I'm not reading clear cut to the point replies. It's always got to involve you or your label. GRRR. Look at the general picture mate, take yourself out of your box. Then I think you could really make a seriously great contribution to this discussion. We really have to find a solution here.

woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying ,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive put in my profile bothering you i will remove.
;)

my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else ? i feel like a fool! :scratch:

[jon connor]

Grieve and get over it quick. Make it last as long as you can. Fair play if that's you're game. But we all need to find the future and I believe the Internet is that future.

Right now back on topic. And I want to talk about Paul's article. Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????

Oh come on, please someone take control before I weep.

i no mark you are right, people av gone crazy!!!!!!!!! and the world gone mad.the internet is the new force!

[MARKEG]

>woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying >,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive >put in my profile bothering you i will remove.


>my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of >welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at >me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well >and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, >unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to >get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. >mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else > i feel like a fool!



kewl jon, would like to continue this discussion about this is another post. i've made a topic about 'Keeping to the subject matter'.

PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?

Answers to follow (hopefully!!)

And what are we going to do about it?>>!![/quote]

[jon connor]

>woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying >,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive >put in my profile bothering you i will remove.


>my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of >welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at >me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well >and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, >unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to >get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. >mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else > i feel like a fool!

;) no probs.

kewl jon, would like to continue this discussion about this is another post. i've made a topic about 'Keeping to the subject matter'.

PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?

Answers to follow (hopefully!!)

And what are we going to do about it?>>!![/quote]

[jon connor]

no problem mark ;)

[Ritzi Lee]

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????


Ehm Mark.
I'm wondering.
Do you have some kind of Publishing company and / or A&R department for your label? Arn't they the ones who need to take on the promotion activities?

[Louk]

> PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?



this is a personal dig but im surprised some distributors are going broke when the owner of them manages not to pay staff on time or SEVERELY underpays staff

sorry for the negativity

Louk

[jon connor]

peoples jobs are at stake here, a whole network of vynyl industry, i see no support here from the big guns, only death. :evil:

well i hope all your distributers and people who work hard to sell your vynyl support your comments.

promotion i personaly have busted my ass to sale my label by promoting it, im not greedy, i dont want to sale a few thousand units im quite happy with a smaller amount. why coz im 100% underground dats why! i see greed here, people who have over played themselves hmmmmmm!
im trying to think of ideas to help distributers, and its working actually ive already worked my ass of to help my own.,yes mark the internet is the place for promotion and networking,and im sorry if distributers have gone under its probably the fact that they av brought it on themselves through loss of control.sending multiple free units out all over the place for a start,postal costs,etc etc etc it all has to be paid for
mabey people like you who get there post box filled with promos every week should pay a fee. lets say a membership type of thing, a small fee out of your rather large wages each year my son.to the distributer, all you big guys get it to easy, well i suppose its like footballers more succes u get the more free goodys ay!, ;)

look im not having a go at you mark, but instead of blasting all over the place vynyl is dead, cant you at least try a few things to help distributers ?
i no im gunna get shot for this post but i dont care im free to voice my opinion.
;)

now im leaving this thread to cool off! you have touched sum weak spots !
i will cum back tomorrow. i will think hard tonight of more things i can do as an artist to help my distributer ;)

[crbn]

Just thought to express my own personal opinion on things and get back to the point regarding the scene as a whole (vinyl vs cd is irrelevant compared to good vs bad music).

Ive been thinking this over the last few months and at the minute I think radio stations are the missing element. The clubs are there, the record shops are there, the labels are releasing enough stuff but the problem for me as a buyer is that Im too damn lazy to sift through the bad music to find the good tracks. Internet radio is giving me the chance to listen to lots of material while I do other things at home (ie not having to spend hours in a record shop digging crates) and most of them broadcast track info and web addresses for the tracks they play. Obviously the clubs are playing tracks but my idea of a good night out isnt leaning over the dj booth doing a bit of trainspotting.

When I look at successful scenes I think of the UK rave scene 88-92 and more recently London (DnB, Garage, Grime). Both these scenes had pirate radio stations to reach a wider audience. I really think theres no point in doing a techno/electro only pirate station as the listenership would be too small in any one area, so internet radio is the way to go (with ID3 info broadcast). Then listeners can buy directly from labels and we can wave bye bye to the distributors. PnD deals have flooded the market with sub-standard product and with the possibility of MP3 being the format in the choice in the near future, its actually going to get even more flooded. So for me, its the radio stations that will have to be the 'filter'.

Any opinions welcome...

[Tony]

Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.
am fully in agreement, i am one of them, but i do have a lot of business knowledge in this area, and no real ego or super-id to cloud my judgement. i have just seen and heard of a lot of the reasons why many companies failed, and i have learnt to not make those same moves.

EVERYONE who is involved in this INDUSTRY should be a decent business man, even artists etc. then the frameworks that build up will be strong and not fragile because a buch of yes-men agreed to things they shouldnt have, labels didnt get complacent cos they're on a pnd, and artists dont go 'oh, i just do the music side of things'. no you dont, you all want to get paid!! you need to know your shit so people dont rip you off.

i think the people who have returned to selling vinyl are mostly solid, but still there are too many releases for the amount of people buying the tracks. some companies will still die, and new ones will surface. others will become benchmarks and wont shift for years and u will get to know them very well by the noise they make.

even if vinyl is dying, it wont be dead for 20years yet, it will take a long time, and i am thinking more and more about that point in time. but for now, STOP TYPING AND GO OUT AND BUY SOME BLOODY TECHNO :) (and i mean buy!! not blag promos!)

[jon connor]

tight control is needed, random splash marketing is not the answer, its wreckless, and foolish. the big distributions who av gone under have just got to big for there boots and paid the price. mabey its the end of record shops to, online marketing is so much more convient to people, or mabey the record shops themselves like many should go online.

already i can see this post is helping people. wikid! ;)

more gentleman`s please in distribution, :cool:

[tocsin]

I just can't believe how this thread has gone. And I'm GOBSMAKED - no, in fact totally BEWILDERED as to why no-one picked up on its true meaning. Read Tioneb's post, and the Paul Edge article. In fact I could delete the whole rest of the pages here in between and finally we might have a good discussion. But seeing as though you've alll gone of this mad mission I'll say my thoughts...


Dirty Bass is SPOT ON. Vinyl is dying, we're all a bunch of junkies just grasping at straws. This forum is about finding the future, CD is NOT the the future either. MP3 is the latest technology. Interent what we have to look at. Understand.

I've read so much crap in these last 7 pages, I'm about to explode. Who cares about old fashioned ideals and the 'old' way of running the game. Sure we'll make it last as long as we can but, we're alll about to become lonely old men. We have to move on and find a solution.

READ PAUL EDGE'S ARTICLE AGAIN. PLEASE.

Ok, then I guess I'll kinda repeat myself. For label owners, what is the objection to MP3? Is it a promotional issue? Piracy issue? What? The way I see it, especially for acid, is that the labels already have websites that people visit. If you're selling records for a buck or two, how much money is made through using vinyl in comparrison to something like MP3? Has anyone done a test with both? Given the limited run of vinyl anyways, I'd be inclined to think that more money is lost through not selling MP3s. But, that is an assumption of course. I don't even agree that vinyl is dying. I think it's already dead where I am. Record stores and distributors have been closing and I myself have not bought a record from any such locals in coming up on probably 2 years. I was the market at one point. The kid who would save up and blow all his money on $400 worth of records every month or so. Now I don't buy shit. If more labels actually had tracks I could purchase in digital format straight from a
webpage, I'd be more inclined to buy it. It would even turn the tides on piracy since, a lot of the music I have pirated, I simply cannot find as easilly as I could in the past.

So, I can see the argument for distirbutors and stores being good since there is something tangible in their hands that people can see. A file isn't the same. But since so many techno labels that are good and relatively established are all run by artist's anyways, couldn't one arguably get more exposure just by hyping the site on something like a mix CD sold or given away at gigs? Wouldn't the ability to not deal with distributors and stores greatly increase the profits of the label? If I ran a label, I would be doing a test right now rather than hanging on to one thing. For a next release, I'd do the vinyl run and also offer the songs online in MP3 format. People will save as much as probably $6-$9 through buying the songs at the site and I Would have cut out my middleman thus making a bit more. Then, one could sit back and see how much they earn from digital sales and vinyl sales combined and see if it's worth making a choice for one over the other or possibly doing both. Hell, it could even be run
like the indie label approach where you advertise the price of the songs as available directly through digital on the record itself.

[tocsin]

Sorry, I hit submit to soon as usual (I'm largely dependant on editing for boards). If online sales are working and the promotion is working, you will have a significant visual point for the music. From there it would be possible to work with other labels doing the same thing and set up your own virtual distro network that is run entirely on your terms with significantly less cost than using exclusively vinyl.

[MARKEG]

peoples jobs are at stake here, a whole network of vynyl industry, i see no support here from the big guns, only death. :evil:

well i hope all your distributers and people who work hard to sell your vynyl support your comments.

promotion i personaly have busted my ass to sale my label by promoting it, im not greedy, i dont want to sale a few thousand units im quite happy with a smaller amount. why coz im 100% underground dats why! i see greed here, people who have over played themselves hmmmmmm!
im trying to think of ideas to help distributers, and its working actually ive already worked my ass of to help my own.,yes mark the internet is the place for promotion and networking,and im sorry if distributers have gone under its probably the fact that they av brought it on themselves through loss of control.sending multiple free units out all over the place for a start,postal costs,etc etc etc it all has to be paid for
mabey people like you who get there post box filled with promos every week should pay a fee. lets say a membership type of thing, a small fee out of your rather large wages each year my son.to the distributer, all you big guys get it to easy, well i suppose its like footballers more succes u get the more free goodys ay!, ;)

look im not having a go at you mark, but instead of blasting all over the place vynyl is dead, cant you at least try a few things to help distributers ?
i no im gunna get shot for this post but i dont care im free to voice my opinion.
;)

now im leaving this thread to cool off! you have touched sum weak spots !
i will cum back tomorrow. i will think hard tonight of more things i can do as an artist to help my distributer ;)

good points but you'd be surprised how much vinyl i actually buy. everyone thinks i and alot of dj's get shit loads of vinyl, but 1/2 of it is really bad and i make sure the labels that send me stuff i don't like know about it. sure alot of labels send me stuff, but i always try to review the records, support the labels and do my bit. you know, if the labels i really loved did a dj pool and charged a fee that covered the cost of the records AND postage i would have NO problem paying it.... but i really can't see this happening as most dj's really do think they 'deserve' these records. absolute bollox. but that's the way marketing works i suppose.

[MARKEG]

Just thought to express my own personal opinion on things and get back to the point regarding the scene as a whole (vinyl vs cd is irrelevant compared to good vs bad music).

Ive been thinking this over the last few months and at the minute I think radio stations are the missing element. The clubs are there, the record shops are there, the labels are releasing enough stuff but the problem for me as a buyer is that Im too damn lazy to sift through the bad music to find the good tracks. Internet radio is giving me the chance to listen to lots of material while I do other things at home (ie not having to spend hours in a record shop digging crates) and most of them broadcast track info and web addresses for the tracks they play. Obviously the clubs are playing tracks but my idea of a good night out isnt leaning over the dj booth doing a bit of trainspotting.

When I look at successful scenes I think of the UK rave scene 88-92 and more recently London (DnB, Garage, Grime). Both these scenes had pirate radio stations to reach a wider audience. I really think theres no point in doing a techno/electro only pirate station as the listenership would be too small in any one area, so internet radio is the way to go (with ID3 info broadcast). Then listeners can buy directly from labels and we can wave bye bye to the distributors. PnD deals have flooded the market with sub-standard product and with the possibility of MP3 being the format in the choice in the near future, its actually going to get even more flooded. So for me, its the radio stations that will have to be the 'filter'.

Any opinions welcome...

Internet Radio... brilliant. For years I've tried to sort this out for Blackout but i've either run up against a technical hitch or cost issue. Last week I sorted it out and now have a station ready to go, but just need a server.

Again, cost comes into play. I really can't see many of the 'underground' sites having access to cheap servers. But every so often someone comes along that is really willing to help you for the love of the music. A bloke called Sinner put his heart and soul into helping me set this forum up. And this is such a great thing about this music - ppl are willing to help in the end. But everything is done off love and there's no hard cash involved and this is where we all slip up. We're all music ppl and we have no real promotion, or business or programming knowledge.

In the end, we have to learn everything ourselves, to make a difference. None of us have the money to put into real marketing. It's the same with distributors. It's usually a bunch of mates who get into music and really don't know the true ins and outs of business. That's why so many of them go down. And also why, perhaps, underground or new music finds it very hard to survive...

Just my thoughts...

[MARKEG]

If more labels actually had tracks I could purchase in digital format straight from a
webpage, I'd be more inclined to buy it. It would even turn the tides on piracy since, a lot of the music I have pirated, I simply cannot find as easilly as I could in the past.

This is just what I was thinking. If I could go straight to my fave label and d/l the mp3 rather than a) wait for the track to go on soulseek (not that i do this cause i dont) or b) wait for the track to come out on vinyl @ a record shop and then take 3 days in the post, then i would. It would be book marked and I'd check it out every few days.

Now this means EVERY techno label needs to get online and have an way of doing this. But to be fair, most techno labels just do not have a presence on the web, let alone have learnt how to create an mp3 download facility. This just isn't going to happen. The only way is a record shop that all the techno labels trust. But with Jetgroove showing that this is not going to be easy (anyone here trust them????!!), then I'm thinking that the techno industry is a long way off getting truly connected to the net...

[fatcollective]

this is something we are thinking of doing...we already have tracks unreleased on our site for d/l, but we are looking into how people can buy an Mp3 and i think this will be through paypal, which isnt really hard to set up, glad to see this thread is getting back on track aswel...some good ideas over the last few posts :clap:

[g]

yes but no. there are 6 or 8 decent sites already running where you can buy mp3s. rather than labels dealing first and foremost with distribs, it looks like they need to get their heads around this new sales channel.

those websites already sell tons of 'dj' music, it's just that most of it is house oriented first. there's nothing stopping the adoption of the labels i/we care about here; they just need to get out there. OR the distribs need to help them do so.

so far one of the only labels i can point to that's really doing this right is inigo kennedy's asymmetric. you can buy the whole catalog, in 256kbps files, at foryourears.com. i'm sure that slowly we will see more and more of this.

[Joseph Isaac]

A bloke called Sinner put his heart and soul into helping me set this forum up.


Sinner is the man! He hosts all of my sites! Truly a gem in the world rocks...

Check out his hosting site...well worth your money: www.prohosted.net

[MARKEG]

I'm sure many ppl would say the same thing. It's ppl like this we need in our industry.

[fresh_an_funky_design]

ok for all you labels that wanna sell mp3's go to www.trackitdown.net
they sell hard dance (all forms) there brilliant.
If u wanna sort out distribution contact John (his emails on the site)
ive just sorted it our for the new release on my label so when its out i'll let u know how the mp3 thing works

[Ritzi Lee]

Livesets.com Radio! (http://www.livesets.com)

We are on the lookout for more dj's that can spin LIVE on our radio station.

In the new system we can give dj's access to the programming module. They see a complete calendar and they can fill in the times they would like to spin the decks. So dj's won't have to arrange a lot of things, just fill in your name in the calendar at the right time and you reserved the stream for that period of time! It's comparable with your Outlook calendar..

Just to make it clear, it doesn't matter where you live, as long as you have decks and a decent Internet connection

The requirements for playing at our radio station are:

- 14 kb/s upstream (normal cable / ADSL is enough)
- turntables connected to PC

If you are really interested or just want more information, email Desron desron@livesets.com, they are the administrators of LiveSets Radio.

------------

[The Divide]

Mp’3 Advantages...

A) Cheap

B) Quick

Mp’3 Disadvantages...

A) Not everyone has a pc

B) People look down on digital software mixing when compared to turntables.

C) Lower sound quality!!!!

D) There is nothing that’s physically sold to the costumer

E) They can be easily abused by piracy

For me, the bad points outweigh the good points. I would rather be sold a cheap, well packaged CD that's been purchased online or in a shop. I would also like to see the new CDJ technology been a success. At least with CD, I would feel like I have purchased something which still has its 'quality' and its collectable value. I really don’t like the idea that you have to compromise your audio quality for the sake of ease however I do think that in some instances, vinyl is overpriced.

CD’s would make an excellent new format as far as cutting costs and ease of purchase is concerned. If everything is kept on CD’s, Mp’3 could be used to sell the product (and ffs none of that low 96kbs crap which you get on most online record shops, I hate that shit!!). As far as piracy is concerned, it would require a much more conscious effort for someone to start file sharing something from cd. Ok, it’s fairly easy to do but at least there’s a moral boundary as well as physical one. Little things like that can make a difference.

[The Divide]

.......But to be honest I think the root of the problems facing this industry isn’t the format on which the music is sold on.

[The Divide]

There`s simply not enough people buying records.
The rave generation is growing up, and turning into middle age wine bar lounge lizards who don`t rave any more.
We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.


:clap: :clap: :clap:

[crbn]

The buyer doesn't necessarily have to buy mp3 but they do need to know the name of the artist and track name in order to track a copy down. Also maybe a web address for the artist or label so they can go and buy a copy on CD, mp3 or vinyl. Or Discogs is good for tracking down releases.

Internet radio at the minute can be good but the problem is that a mixed set done on CD or vinyl leaves the listener clueless as to what the tracks are called. So IMO a radio station needs to broadcast mp3 with track info and not vinyl, unless they are willing to go on the mic every five minutes to read track lists. Once the listener knows the track name they can then head off to buy it on the format of their choice: vinyl, CD, mp3, aac or ringtone. Record companies need only produce mp3s as promotional tools for the radio stations.

Ive been listening to these two stations (amongst others). Its a different style to the stuff thats discussed here (IDM, electronica, ambient) but they broadcast ID3 tags so I can find out who the tracks are by.

http://www.limbikfreq.com/
http://www.staticbeats.com/

Also check out the Classic Techno broadcast on Digitally Imported:

http://www.di.fm/

I reckon that the cost of internet radio needs to be footed by either record shops or distributors as they both carry material from a range of labels and of course have an interest in letting people know whats out there. Clone have CBS radio (not sure if it carries track info though) and I really think Warp's Bleep.com would benefit from a similar radio station showcasing the labels they distribute.

The one downside is that with unmixed broadcast is that it would be easy to record tracks from the broadcast. People in underground scenes need to realise that if they don't want to be listening to Britney and Aguilera in five years time, they need to support the labels, pay for releases and stay away from outfits such as Jetgroove/Audio1.

[crbn]

.......But to be honest I think the root of the problems facing this industry isn’t the format on which the music is sold on.

Your right that isn't the problem, lets leave MP3 vs CD vs Vinyl for another thread. For me personally the problem is getting to hear the best tracks when they are so hard to find in all the mediocre releases.

Any more opinions? Maybe we could put together a list of the real issues that are causing problems...

[tocsin]

If more labels actually had tracks I could purchase in digital format straight from a
webpage, I'd be more inclined to buy it. It would even turn the tides on piracy since, a lot of the music I have pirated, I simply cannot find as easilly as I could in the past.

This is just what I was thinking. If I could go straight to my fave label and d/l the mp3 rather than a) wait for the track to go on soulseek (not that i do this cause i dont) or b) wait for the track to come out on vinyl @ a record shop and then take 3 days in the post, then i would. It would be book marked and I'd check it out every few days.

Now this means EVERY techno label needs to get online and have an way of doing this. But to be fair, most techno labels just do not have a presence on the web, let alone have learnt how to create an mp3 download facility. This just isn't going to happen. The only way is a record shop that all the techno labels trust. But with Jetgroove showing that this is not going to be easy (anyone here trust them????!!), then I'm thinking that the techno industry is a long way off getting truly connected to the net...

Actually, someone has already created the download facility for you. If you go to a place like http://www.hotscripts.com you can find a bunch of CGI/Perl, PHP, etc. scripts that are designed with the purpose of selling a library/catalog of digital media. Some are freeware. Some have a purchase cost. It wouldn't even be so much of a problem of every label getting online either. The downloads could grow in 2 ways:

1.) Labels upload their new releases to anyone's server.
2.) People send you or someone else a CD of the new tracks. The new tracks can be ripped and encoded through a simple batch process that would take less than 10 minutes total on most of today's machines.

You wouldn't even need everything on one central server as far as the media is concerned. You'd just need a script interface that references an SQL database which holds information such as media links, account info, credits, etc. I've seen scripts that mask the media links as well so people can't download a track and then pass a link on to anyone who hasn't paid.
I really think this could work out for a number of you guys. Just from the action on this board, I doubt you have any shortage of visitors per month. Plus, since this is a network, once other labels start doing or attempting the same, you hook up with them in the database and grow that way. In a nutshell, you'd become a completely new type of distribution network that is run by the labels and artists themselves rather than middlemen.

To the person who brought up the negatives on MP3, I will respond to each point in numerical order.

A) Not everyone has a pc

I am willing to bet that, for the number of people who don't own PCs, there are a lot more people who aren't DJs but enjoy the music with PCs and no turntables.


B) People look down on digital software mixing when compared to turntables.

People used to look down on techno music in general. I used to be one of those people. Who gives a rat's ass what other people may think? Techno didn't become what it was by sticking to the laws of tradition.


C) Lower sound quality!!!!

That all depends on the bitrate setting. I'm usually hardpressed to be able to tell the difference once something is at 192kbit. I've never been able to distinguish a difference between 256kbit or 320kbit and the actual source material. We're not exactly dealing with string quartet music here. ;) This, however, can also be offset through selling CDs of straight digital audio on demand based on custom orders from the buyer.


D) There is nothing thats physically sold to the costumer

This is really the only one I see being a big deal. Some people just like t have something to hold on to. Some people also, no matter what, will not accept digital format. But, they are now the minority from what I've experienced at least. So, the simple thing to do would to be continuing vinyl for a bit and seeing if there is still a demand. I think the sales of digital media though could help offset some of the losses or minimal gains one can get through dealing with distributors.


E) They can be easily abused by piracy

Piracy is already very real without MP3s being available. Most of the techno MP3s I have are vinyl rips downloaded through filesharing networks. They've got the crackle and all. It just takes one rip to spread like crazy on any network and more than enough people are willing to do it. I don't see how offering mp3s for sale is going to increase the piracy that is already occurring. Rather, I think if the prices are right it would disuade a lot of the people who use networks to pirate material. You'll always have the pricks who just refuse to pay for anything. But, the copyrighted material I've downloaded has been either out of print or near impossible for me to find around my vicinity. In addition, no distributor from overseas seems to be willing to send me one or two records per order. If a true online store that was runs by artists/labels and specialised in techno truly existed and legally stocked what I enjoyed, I wouldn't be downloading shit illegally. I can afford a dollar or two per track
considering it used to cost me roughly $6. Add that up for the labels/artists too. Rather than seeing a whopping $2-$3 per record bought by a distributor that is later sold, after shipping, promos, and every other cute means of screwing people is used, the label stands to make anywhere from maybe $4-$8 per record direct profit minus cost of the webpage, royalties to artists, etc.

I dunno. I have no idea which label is going to be the first to take this step that has already made an impact with vinyl. But, whichever one does, they will have my support and most likely a loyal customer.

[mattboyslim]

cant be arsed to read all this, but i gota say a big part of the blame lies in the hands of the record shop owner. if you are going to class yourself as specialist, then you need to be clued up and be talking to the kids and findng out whats gona sell. not jsut whack your safe bets out and hope for the best. the record shop 'vinyl pusher' is the first link between that tune you heard in a club and actually getting your hands on the ****er, so its important for these guys to be in the know, and they perhaps would be if they listened to the clued up distributors.

DON'T EMPLOY ARSEHOLES should be the first rule

[Larney]

For a start shops should not have records on a sale or return basis. If they pay for them up front they are more likely to want to sell them. Better then that they take less and sell all than take more and return 90%!

[The Divide]

To the person who brought up the negatives on MP3, I will respond to each point in numerical order.


A) Not everyone has a pc

I am willing to bet that, for the number of people who don't own PCs, there are a lot more people who aren't DJs but enjoy the music with PCs and no turntables.


Good point, maybe that’s to change for the next generation whilst the older generation avoid this pc voodoo malarkey. I am baised because most people I know from clubbing dont really like sitting around in front of pc's :lol: . Does give a CD a bigger market imo as the cd can be played on the pc.



B) People look down on digital software mixing when compared to turntables.

People used to look down on techno music in general. I used to be one of those people. Who gives a rat's ass what other people may think? Techno didn't become what it was by sticking to the laws of tradition.


I'm talking about regular punters in the clubs not everyone and anyone. There's less respect for someone mixing on a lappy than a deck. Whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant. It’s what the punters think that count. I personally like lap top performances, whilst a lot of people I know look down on them as lacking in showman qualities. Some even think its a hoax! haha. Believe me I am the one whos arguing for and not against on this one. I am just making a point



C) Lower sound quality!!!!

That all depends on the bitrate setting. I'm usually hardpressed to be able to tell the difference once something is at 192kbit. I've never been able to distinguish a difference between 256kbit or 320kbit and the actual source material. We're not exactly dealing with string quartet music here. ;) This, however, can also be offset through selling CDs of straight digital audio on demand based on custom orders from the buyer.

Tis a minour difference but then again people dont spend hundreds of pounds of pounds on hardware equipment for it to be comprimised at a post production stage. Why take a step backwards to go forwards (MP3) when you can just step forwards (CD) :P :lol: Again I am biased! haha

Bring on a super super fast wave file transfere's down an internet connection and I'm in on this one. As the technology goes forwards so should the music. Oh and while we are at it, lets up the sample rate and bit depth while we are at it! Oh and dont get me started on surround sound! Wooo hooo :rambo:



E) They can be easily abused by piracy

Piracy is already very real without MP3s being available. Most of the techno MP3s I have are vinyl rips downloaded through filesharing networks. They've got the crackle and all. It just takes one rip to spread like crazy on any network and more than enough people are willing to do it. I don't see how offering mp3s for sale is going to increase the piracy that is already occurring. Rather, I think if the prices are right it would disuade a lot of the people who use networks to pirate material. You'll always have the pricks who just refuse to pay for anything. But, the copyrighted material I've downloaded has been either out of print or near impossible for me to find around my vicinity. In addition, no distributor from overseas seems to be willing to send me one or two records per order. If a true online store that was runs by artists/labels and specialised in techno truly existed and legally stocked what I enjoyed, I wouldn't be downloading shit illegally. I can afford a dollar or two per track
considering it used to cost me roughly $6. Add that up for the labels/artists too. Rather than seeing a whopping $2-$3 per record bought by a distributor that is later sold, after shipping, promos, and every other cute means of screwing people is used, the label stands to make anywhere from maybe $4-$8 per record direct profit minus cost of the webpage, royalties to artists, etc.

Like you say, if someone’s going to do it they are going to do it. It’s a matter of whether you can get the majority of people on board and all sharing the same mentality on the morals of piracy

[Internal Error Records]

this thread is devastated by numerous unmentioned differences being over looked.

many vinyl nutz are djs first techno heads second.

most vinyl labels cater to djs, not home listeners.

mp3s are ideal for home listeners.

and my favorite - as long as money is only being made on vinyl, then labels have no point to switch to mp3.

and so on.

its like many people in this thread arent speaking about apples.

[Ritzi Lee]

For a start shops should not have records on a sale or return basis. If they pay for them up front they are more likely to want to sell them. Better then that they take less and sell all than take more and return 90%!

Yes this kind of business is killing us.

[djshiva]

this thread is devastated by numerous unmentioned differences being over looked.

many vinyl nutz are djs first techno heads second.

most vinyl labels cater to djs, not home listeners.

mp3s are ideal for home listeners.

and my favorite - as long as money is only being made on vinyl, then labels have no point to switch to mp3.

and so on.

its like many people in this thread arent speaking about apples.

i think the problem here is that people forget that part of the reason that is distros go under and labels die deaths every day is that our genre is SO specialized that the average punter can't really get their hands on it unless they grab a dj mix or really search for it.

i think it's a damn shame that music goes unheard (and in the case of this particular debate) unsold to the general listening public.

i know i know...we're SO bloody underground. but we're so underground we're killing ourselves and our abilities to actually keep labels, distros and artists afloat in this crazy competitive world.

as long as labels ARE selling vinyl, then why the hell not get off our asses and make the tracks available to:

a) final scratch djs who want quality mp3s and will pay for them, and

b) everyday schmoes who dig techno but aren't djs and just want some good tracks (i know plenty of people in this category)

i am all for BOTH methods of distribution being put together and really broadening the influence of techno.

oh, and in reference to the djs first techno heads second...uh...gotta disagree there...i had to love it before i wanted to spin it.

just some random mouthing off in the wee morning hours...sorry if any of this was unintelligible...

[GothamGrooves.com]

Many of you have made very valid points in ths barrage of opinions, and I think its great that there is so much passion for the scene here. However I do not think one factor can be the underlying cause for techno losing its ground... I remember some1 blaming file sharing programs like soulseek, I would say its the total opposite, porgrams like that allow music to be heard by people wolrd wide, and with the use of a built in chat word of mouth spreads like wild fire... I have personally bought records that people recomended to me through slsk that I probably would not have found using convetional means.. Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. Hip hop has the thug mentality, rock appeals to kids through its lyrics especially when in school and you are dealing with a mountain of changes in your body/life. Progressive has now been attributed to women in bikinis, and titties sell!! Even D n B has an image.. Unless you have very synthy techno, people just think of it as repetitve music... The answer is not putting a girl in a bathing suit on the cover either because the music does not evoke that image. The key is to give "kids" something that appeals to them to hook them in. Originally it was new music in a non club enviornment, it was new and different, and word of mouth worked very well. Now the scene is over saturated with tons of shit and it comes down to what will allow the fans to relate to techno? The scene is chaging faster than ever and techno which prides itself on being the most current as technoogy changes, seems to be the most left behind. Be it through only sticking to vinyl (which is very expensive now!!!!), its means of promotion, and even the mentality of tech heds themselves. I have been called a techno snob by friends in jest, but I know others who will piss on u if u dont have an awesome knowledge bank of techno.. how it works, where it came from etc... I know too many people who want to keep the scene "pure" and that in my opinion is a major factor hurting us. You need numbers to survive its that simple, going back to an abandoned warehouse with 60 kids.. (as fun as it would be) will not make the scene thrive. You need quality beats pumped out, an easier means to get it to others, and some type of image to get them hooked! Once they are hooked they will discover everything else. I personally grew up as a metal hed and hated all electronic music. I discovered core, and once I got bored of it I found techno. The thing about techno was that there were almost no limits to its sound, and now many things seem to sound the same.. :neutral: One thign someone mentioned about 8 pages ago was soem type of central location for getting music. I think that would be a great idea. This forum is great for fans and artists aliek to interact, I think the same should go on a more profesional level. Communication is key and if all the channels of production are in the same loop then the end product should e acomplished easier. Sorry for the long post, and believe me I have plenty more to say, but you all have covered many good aspects...

[Internal Error Records]

maybe techno would do better if it pushed itself back into the rave scene :-)

afterall, thats where the real dj money is anyways...


there is so many good points in this thread that its getting hard to remember half of them.

the different views on this thread could be split into a 40 room forum each getting there own area of intense concentration.

maybe the answer is for us to spend less time online and more time out showing people how much fun techno is!

[borisXHL]

We need to make the kids realise that the rebellion, punk attitude and alternative standpoint they perceive to be a part of the rock genre, is an actual reality in the world and music of techno.

wha da ? :roll:

[Ritzi Lee]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. ...


Well actualy it does have an image.
If we go back to where it all started,
techno was created in a fantasy world.
It's everything that's not real yet.
Like Science fiction. It's the human link with virtual reality.
It's everything that has to do with the mind,
and all things that exceeds the boundaries of science,
and beyond....

This also explains the thing why techno doesn't have a definite form. Technology and science always develops. It's a matter of time and human evolvement.

Many kids are now in the hype of Playstation and computer games and all.
These things are created with the same intentions of how we want to create techno music.

So there is your image!

[Tony]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. ...


Well actualy it does have an image.
If we go back to where it all started,
techno was created in a fantasy world.
It's everything that's not real yet.
Like Science fiction. It's the human link with virtual reality.
It's everything that has to do with the mind,
and all things that exceeds the boundaries of science,
and beyond....

This also explains the thing why techno doesn't have a definite form. Technology and science always develops. It's a matter of time and human evolvement.

Many kids are now in the hype of Playstation and computer games and all.
These things are created with the same intentions of how we want to create techno music.

So there is your image!

that was almost poetic :lol:

[crbn]

I think the point raised about the imagary of techno is very valid. Techno seems to have lost its way a little, lost its vision. Think of early Rhythm is Rhythm cover artwork and 313 compilations, URs Rings of Saturn and so on. It'd be good to get back to the visual side of things. Electro has a style and visual language but techno has forgotten its. I know things evolve and move on but the imaginative visuals of techno have been lost.

[crbn]

Another thing regarding the quality of the music thats out there, but probably not on topic >>

I'm always impressed by how supportive DnB heads are of new producers. Check out Dogs On Acids production boards, Spinwarp or google for DnB Production:

http://www.dogsonacid.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=4
http://www.spinwarp.com/

There are discussions on arrangement, sound design and so on. Maybe it's because its a more popular style (??) but there's also more of a desire to help each other out and forward the scene as a whole. Every techno board out there has its own Production forum, but as a whole they're not up to the same standard.

[Internal Error Records]

i dont know. now a days, to me it seems techno is obcessed with being 'dark' and 'moody'.

dark and moody dont lure girls into parties.

[crbn]

dark and moody dont lure girls into parties.

I like your use of the word 'lure' :twisted:

Dark 'n' moody might not but a great mood for weekly parties (esp when here in the UK most of our weather is dark n moody), but I like the dark n moody vibe. Think Bladerunner, Matrix, Dune and so on. HR Gigers stuff is good too. Its not going to get the furry bra Ibiza crowd though. ;)

[GothamGrooves.com]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. ...


Well actualy it does have an image.
If we go back to where it all started,
techno was created in a fantasy world.
It's everything that's not real yet.
Like Science fiction. It's the human link with virtual reality.
It's everything that has to do with the mind,
and all things that exceeds the boundaries of science,
and beyond....

This also explains the thing why techno doesn't have a definite form. Technology and science always develops. It's a matter of time and human evolvement.

Many kids are now in the hype of Playstation and computer games and all.
These things are created with the same intentions of how we want to create techno music.

So there is your image!

That is why we all like it, especially since we are already into the scene, but do u seriously think that will entice many more people to come? The image you described will keep them into the music once they understand, but dont forget many people can be simple minded and you still need something to hook them in.

[Ritzi Lee]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. ...


Well actualy it does have an image.
If we go back to where it all started,
techno was created in a fantasy world.
It's everything that's not real yet.
Like Science fiction. It's the human link with virtual reality.
It's everything that has to do with the mind,
and all things that exceeds the boundaries of science,
and beyond....

This also explains the thing why techno doesn't have a definite form. Technology and science always develops. It's a matter of time and human evolvement.

Many kids are now in the hype of Playstation and computer games and all.
These things are created with the same intentions of how we want to create techno music.

So there is your image!

That is why we all like it, especially since we are already into the scene, but do u seriously think that will entice many more people to come? The image you described will keep them into the music once they understand, but dont forget many people can be simple minded and you still need something to hook them in.

No, that's why the computer games do have more succes then techno.
The kids see what's happening. It's like people lost the ability to use their fantasy.. And our job is to stimulate this need. We have to help the people to see why techno is interesting...

Like 'crbn' told: Artwork with a story inside is one way to boost it up a little bit. Or using computer generated movies, or even games. Simple things. And that way to make the connection with techno music, the producer 'has' to make something good.

[jon connor]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! We live in a world where sex sells and techno for the most part has no definitive image. ...


Well actualy it does have an image.
If we go back to where it all started,
techno was created in a fantasy world.
It's everything that's not real yet.
Like Science fiction. It's the human link with virtual reality.
It's everything that has to do with the mind,
and all things that exceeds the boundaries of science,
and beyond....


This also explains the thing why techno doesn't have a definite form. Technology and science always develops. It's a matter of time and human evolvement.

Many kids are now in the hype of Playstation and computer games and all.
These things are created with the same intentions of how we want to create techno music.

So there is your image!

That is why we all like it, especially since we are already into the scene, but do u seriously think that will entice many more people to come? The image you described will keep them into the music once they understand, but dont forget many people can be simple minded and you still need something to hook them in.

No, that's why the computer games do have more succes then techno.
The kids see what's happening. It's like people lost the ability to use their fantasy.. And our job is to stimulate this need. We have to help the people to see why techno is interesting...

Like 'crbn' told: Artwork with a story inside is one way to boost it up a little bit. Or using computer generated movies, or even games. Simple things. And that way to make the connection with techno music, the producer 'has' to make something good.

totally on that level man, i no exactly where you coming from, already i have plans in process on this. time will tell, . ;)

[jimmy west]

why then is it not possible for the distributors to sell records directly to the public thus meaning records will not be getting lost or sitting in record shops with no possability of getting sold eg a record shop selling underground records with no history of any proper sales of that genre.Plus there must be a way of doing this either putting shop services on distributors websites or distributing to the correct shops with good buyers of underground music

[GothamGrooves.com]

why then is it not possible for the distributors to sell records directly to the public thus meaning records will not be getting lost or sitting in record shops with no possability of getting sold eg a record shop selling underground records with no history of any proper sales of that genre.Plus there must be a way of doing this either putting shop services on distributors websites or distributing to the correct shops with good buyers of underground music


What you describe is called "just in time"... The problem with it is that you cant make vinyl one at a time because it is too costly, so you have to make a run of a certain amount you think will sell. Secondly there already are websites that distributors sell too that you can buy vinyl from that sell directly to the people... As far as getting lost or stolen usually there is insurance that covers things like that. I really dont know the underlying cause of the problems on their end are? Maybe the industry is changing so fast and they were so set in their ways that they were not able to keep up with the new ways customers shop?

[Internal Error Records]

within legal terms,

Distro's sell wholesale to shops. Shops sell retail to Consumers.

There is more paperwork/tax stuff to do with retail.

A distro can theoretically get by with a few dozen clients while a shop would need hundreds, if not thousands or clients.

Many consumers arent even aware of many distro's existence.

Just industry talk.

[Milesy]

Trains, PLanes, Boats, LIGHBULBS, are hundreds of years old.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

a lot of vinyl lovers like vinyl because of the medium itself.
i doubt a cd dj would say they love the feel of a cd and they
love handing the medium itself. its just a means to playing
the music on them.. in which i think will die out in favour of
digital formats.. i would go digital before cd anyday.
and the vinyl lovers will still stay with vinyl because they
love the medium as well as the contents.

[Milesy]

as far as mp3 goes i think mp3 is crap and is the next technology to die.
there are loads of lossless encoding techniques coming out :)

and with broadband connections getting bigger and bigger and
storage space getting more and more we should be able to download
and store every track as raw pcm's anyway

[jon connor]

:lol:

[dirty_bass]

mp3 is crap, but there is a lossless audio compression format available.

[Komplex]

:lol:

[Tony]

within legal terms,

Distro's sell wholesale to shops. Shops sell retail to Consumers.

There is more paperwork/tax stuff to do with retail.

A distro can theoretically get by with a few dozen clients while a shop would need hundreds, if not thousands or clients.

Many consumers arent even aware of many distro's existence.

Just industry talk.

theres no more paperwork in it, except vat which some shops sort out anyway, and i do see massive benefit selling to individuals. especially, and exactly becuase, when the market is so flooded with similair sounding releases, shops might only take single copies of each title and never restock on a majority.

speaking as a distributor, if some shops dont want to deal with you, in a reaction to a glut of similairity from techno in the market place and dwindling interest from the general public, but other individuals will place several hundred pound orders, and the mark up on individual sales is better for me AND cheaper for the customer, it can only work well.

KNOW YOUR DISTRIBUTORS KIDS ;) :lol: LOL

[detfella]

as far as mp3 goes i think mp3 is crap and is the next technology to die.
there are loads of lossless encoding techniques coming out :)

and with broadband connections getting bigger and bigger and
storage space getting more and more we should be able to download
and store every track as raw pcm's anyway

ok mp3 might be old, but its the most widely used format atm. from top of my head i can think of mp3, wma, ogg, atrac-3, flac, aac, mpc & monkeysaudio. these are already out, yet i dont see many people sharing these files online and those new digital players tend to only play the first 3 anyway. also wouldnt giving raw pcm's out just be same as selling original master tapes. high bootlegging maybe???

some really interesting points in this thread (even if it did take an age to trall thru some offtopicness! i really liked this post that ritzi lee found:



Rethinking Music Distribution in an Global Online Marketplace

Ok...So you`re a label..You`ve got your product. You`re happy with it. The DJs are playing it, the dancefloor is dancing to it. Magazines are reviewing it favourably, your website is getting great hits, its getting Radio support, the message boards around the world are praising your release and your artists are getting booked out on the strength of the release. No problem, you`re set... Oh I forgot to mention one thing, you`re a dance label.

Now quite why Dance Labels differ from every other commercially available product out there still remains a mystery to many people, but apparently, the rules of economics, as defined by the economist Adam Smith, and rules that apply to every other business from porn to religious artifact sales, just do not apply to Dance Music. No one can explain why this is the case, no one can counter the argument that these basic economic rules apply to the DJs who play your records, to the promoters who throw events around your music and similar labels, to the magazines who sell their issues on DJ and music etc. But you`re a label, so what do you know?

If, and this is a big if, you are lucky enough (if you can call it lucky) to be deemed important enough to be picked up by a "distributor", you will logically think, hey, I`ll sell some records..I mean look at the actual facts about costs;

To press, promote, pay advances, office expenses we`ll allow 2500.00 GBP. So assuming you get 2.00 a record, you only have to sell 1250 units to break even. Lets break that down further. Assuming your artist is international and playing in the major countries; UK, USA, Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Spain, Eastern Europe (I`m giving distributors a break here), Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Portugal.

1250 units / 17 Countries = 73.52 units per country.

Assuming that each event your artist plays has an average of 600 people in attendance to see him DJ/Perform that is a potential marketplace of 600 - 73.52.. So, the reality is that a minimum of 600 people will pay to see your artist perform, but 73 of them won`t buy his work..Try telling Eminem that of all the people who go to see him perform, one in seven people won`t buy his record.

Starting to get a little pissed off..You should be. As should every label out there.

Here are some of the excuses you will hear when you suddenly realise all your work and that of your artists have produced a paltry 1000 sales;

1) You`re an unknown label, so people don`t want to pick you up.

2) Dance music is suffering.

3) What DJs play isn`t what people want (yes I have heard this one too many times it ceased being ludicrous after the first time.)

4) Radio and press exposure doesn`t matter (Try telling this one to Sony)

5) Noone wants....(insert generic music term here)

6) Noone is buying records when they can download them for free.

7) My dog, bit my neighbours horse, who then talked, and he slagged off (insert generic music term) so noone wants it now...

Time to tear your hair out? Welcome to the bald label owner club, the quickest growing community in the world - no wonder all these DJs have shaved heads..

About this time you will also start to notice a worrying trend. Your artists will start bitching at you that wherever they play out at least 10 people ask them where can they get their records, as noone is carrying stock. Furthermore, the email will start coming from your website confirming this. Irate, you will phone up your distributor and ask him what is going on...He will respond with;

1) Shops only buy 1 or 2 copies...

Now far be it from me to point out the obvious, (but having worked in retail for 6 years), as a shop, if a product sells, you get as much stock as you possibly can...This is what shops rely on..Big selling products...Its how they make their money. Go to any retail outlet, ask the manager what their big sellers are, and they will point out shelves and shelves of the stuff..

So where do you go from here? Consumers want the product, but they aren`t getting it. As a result you have your staff, artists, bank manager etc on your back. Shops are bitching that they aren`t making any money so they are closing down. The clubbers and wannabee djs are moaning they can`t find any original music..There is only one common thread here, the middleman, the distributor. The technic 1210 for the last 10 years has outsold the guitar in retail sales. What are people playing on these? Pancakes...??.

For the last few years distributors have blamed everything from the gulf war to 911 as an excuse for not selling records..The reality is that record labels have allowed a bunch of untrained salesmen to sell their product and sold every label short. I will give you a personal example. When we released Metamorphosis Of Narcotics in 1996, it was rejected by every distributor known to man. Why, noone wanted trance apparently. What did we do, we hired a van and drove around Europe visiting every shop we could find with 4500 records in the back. We sold out within 3 weeks. 6 months later, Nitric licensed the track and ended up selling over 30,000 through the very same distributors who had rejected the record only 6 months earlier.

The sales process is a complicated thing. Every sales orientated industry spends thousands of pounds training their salesforce. They don`t allow their product to be sold by amateurs. They would go out of business. Ask your distributor what sales training their employees go through...I will guarantee you, that no distributor invests in the people that your livelihood relies on. You as a label don`t stand a chance in hell of succeeding..The law of averages states that put an infinite amount of monkeys in front of an infinite amount of computers, in time one will write war and peace. Of course the sheer talent out there will result in successful labels selling 4000 units, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the distributors.

Instead they make excuses, and more excuses, whilst driving surprisingly nice cars, being in surprisingly nice offices. Then again they make their money no matter how many the sell or don`t sell. They have no risk. They don`t need to sell 5000 units of your records, they just need to sell 5000 units..If it takes them 500 labels, they still make their money. Interesting point to note, compare your sales with the inhouse labels sales, when they do actually have some financial risk. You`ll probably get even angrier then.

So, you`re a label..What options do you have? Well you have to realise that in fact distributors are unnecessary. You have been blagged. Control of sales has to be assumed by the labels. Now this may seem somewhat daunting, and I understand why, being a label owner myself.

The benefits of controlling sales;

1) You control the market price

2) You get paid more money, bringing your break even point down.

3) You deal directly with the retailers, so you can see how the demand is going.

4) You control supply, and can divert it to where is necessary.

PHX Distribution - Rethinking Music Distribution in an Online Marketplace

Imagaine an global multilingual online community, all with their own personal state of the art personal flash websites. Imagine this community being based around dance music. Imagine being a label and being able to access this community, directly, with a 30 second flash movie promoting your product, with sound samples, straight onto their home pages. Imagine being able to sell your vinyl for 3.00, in either a digital/cd/vinyl medium. Imagine being able to deal directly with the shops, allowing them to hear your whole record online instead of hearing snippets down a telephone line? Imagine monthly generating valuable extra income through customisable cd sales. Imagine getting your money with 7 days of someone buying the record. And all this can be controlled from one central computer, eliminating 90% of all overheads for you as a business

The internet is becoming the most important marketplace for music distribution. The generation prepared to spend money online is now in a position to do so. The sociological changes that were always going to take 10 - 15 years to implement are now starting to happen.

Regards

Paul Edge
http://www.djpauledge.com

:cool:

PHX Distribution - Rethinking Music Distribution in an Online Marketplace

a global (but only internet based) community could be the answer or at least a good start. im up for it!! is there a website out there which is doing this, if so we should all sign up and help them out, otherwise we should work together and create something. i suppose discogs has the biggest database at the moment. it would be cool, if this global resource allowed any user to add info on techno and even make a way for people to sell their own releases if they want.



I'm in need for (and maybe you to) a registration system where we can see:
- Who are the labels?
- What releases are planned in the next view months?
- Who are the distributions, and what do they have to offer?
- Who are the recordshops? What do they have to offer?
- Are all releases covered / filled in / homogeniously covered worldwide?


another good idea, could tie these two together. so where do we take it from here?

many people have said techno vinyl sales are down, but at our shop total vinyl sales are up. maybe there's too many techno releases that sound alike, thru too many distributers. dirty bass raised a good point about bedroom producers, & if people are mixing digitally the vinyl itself serves no function other than a pain to rip to digital frmat - maybe people find it easier to download (legally or not). maybe more techno followers are needed, but i remember when a techno dj played on judge jules or fergie show and people were complaining, so maybe those same people dont want more people into techno...

also, it'd be nice to think anyone making money from producing music buys the software they use to make it. otherwise anotehr industry could be down the pothole.

[Internal Error Records]

within legal terms,

Distro's sell wholesale to shops. Shops sell retail to Consumers.

There is more paperwork/tax stuff to do with retail.

A distro can theoretically get by with a few dozen clients while a shop would need hundreds, if not thousands or clients.

Many consumers arent even aware of many distro's existence.

Just industry talk.

theres no more paperwork in it, except vat which some shops sort out anyway, and i do see massive benefit selling to individuals. especially, and exactly becuase, when the market is so flooded with similair sounding releases, shops might only take single copies of each title and never restock on a majority.

speaking as a distributor, if some shops dont want to deal with you, in a reaction to a glut of similairity from techno in the market place and dwindling interest from the general public, but other individuals will place several hundred pound orders, and the mark up on individual sales is better for me AND cheaper for the customer, it can only work well.

KNOW YOUR DISTRIBUTORS KIDS ;) :lol: LOL

:clap:

now send me your distro requirements! :cool:

[dirty_bass]

Well, the CD magazine I have planned is underway now, I`m looking for more labels who want their releases to go onto the magazine.
The electronic magazine will contain a monthly release section, each release having audio clips, and direct hotlinks to the labels website and a online seller.
So far it`s looking like we have an initial run of between 5 and 10 000 for issue one, we are still sorting out advertising, and other features.
The main thing is we need more labels interested in going onto the product (which will be free, at record shops, nightclubs, clothes shops etc), we will have a tight A&R for what goes onto the release section, so people will hopefully know that all the releases promoted on the magazine are of the highest quality.

[Ritzi Lee]

Well, the CD magazine I have planned is underway now, I`m looking for more labels who want their releases to go onto the magazine.
The electronic magazine will contain a monthly release section, each release having audio clips, and direct hotlinks to the labels website and a online seller.
So far it`s looking like we have an initial run of between 5 and 10 000 for issue one, we are still sorting out advertising, and other features.
The main thing is we need more labels interested in going onto the product (which will be free, at record shops, nightclubs, clothes shops etc), we will have a tight A&R for what goes onto the release section, so people will hopefully know that all the releases promoted on the magazine are of the highest quality.

Nice!

Can you arrange a press text release?
so we can send it through different mailinglists.
you need something to reach as many labels as possible.

When do you have time to write something down?

[Ritzi Lee]

2 Mark EG:
There are already like 5000 members on this board.
Is it possible to do a one time mailing for this project?

[loopdon]

Another thing regarding the quality of the music thats out there, but probably not on topic >>

I'm always impressed by how supportive DnB heads are of new producers. Check out Dogs On Acids production boards, Spinwarp or google for DnB Production:

http://www.dogsonacid.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=4
http://www.spinwarp.com/

There are discussions on arrangement, sound design and so on. Maybe it's because its a more popular style (??) but there's also more of a desire to help each other out and forward the scene as a whole. Every techno board out there has its own Production forum, but as a whole they're not up to the same standard.


So true, i have come to the same conclusion. This must be a techno-related problem, not related to countries. You could ask just about anything related to production on the german techno board I'm on and the first thing you'll hear is: There's no formula, find out yourself and so on... :evil: Obviously, if you are determined to create techno music, you will, but where's the problem in helping others? Does one have to go through such mental pain at times in order to be a tech-producer??? :shock:

Sure as hell, you will never find any 'real' help on arrangement (say a techno-tool broken up into its parts etc. , on a techno board, this is somewhat strange, i find, compared to the amount of tutorials on d'n'b/trance/hip-hop and so on.

I suppose lots of tech-producers fear to give 'real' advice, because the people they're giving that advice could progress to fast, becoming some kind of 'enemy' shortly after.

[MARKEG]

2 Mark EG:
There are already like 5000 members on this board.
Is it possible to do a one time mailing for this project?

of course. just let me know when you need it :)

[djshiva]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! .

i was just saying the other day that techno needed a good injection of punk rock...

most djs bore me because watching some guy calmly staring at the turntables is...well...boring.

i wanna see mofos going off, shaking their asses, throwing shit...whatever...i do enjoy a little bit of performance, i admit.

[loopdon]

Another problem that I have discussed with my friends is that techno has no image! .

i was just saying the other day that techno needed a good injection of punk rock...

most djs bore me because watching some guy calmly staring at the turntables is...well...boring.

i wanna see mofos going off, shaking their asses, throwing shit...whatever...i do enjoy a little bit of performance, i admit.

true aswell, but that probably, won't change. i suppose if i'd spin at events i would be carried away and at least look at the audience, which a lot of djs just don't seem to manage. :doh:

[Ritzi Lee]

Just when I think we had the worst,
the hurting keeps going on.
Now i'm hearing bad news from the German sellers that it's a matter of time before some distributions are going down again.


Didn't wanted to tell wich distribution it was, because it was speculation.
But now it's official.

Message from Technique label owner Paul:

since this week CPL Distribution has stopped it's business.
This means that at this moment the labels Technique, Work Hard Play Hard and Electronique are without distribution.
Fortunately I went to Germany last wednesday and was able to get my stock from CPL before the curator was there, so this saved me a lot of money.
However they've sold quite some copies of the 'TASTE' CD and also already a couple of hundred copies of the new Technique release for which I'll probably never see a penny.


-----
So it was indeed a matter of time,
but really a bad timing.