Spring Internet World or
"Stream a Little Stream of Me"
[ No. 31 - May 1999 ]
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What's New
Beatnik 2.0
Headspace, Inc., of San Mateo, CA, announces their groovy new
Beatnik 2.0 release, an upgrade for the powerful, great-sounding
Beatnik suite of audio tools. The new version supports MP3
compression. MIDI users rejoice! Now you can use MP3 compression
for RMF MIDI-controlled samples. Boasting 64 voice polyphony (up
from 32) and doubling the simultaneous audio instances from 8 to
16, a body no longer has to be a brain surgeon to have a bunch of
sonic stuff all happening at once! Content developers can create
"sonified" web pages once and have them work seamlessly within MSIE
or Netscape. Four new reverbs are available. The Pro version (at
$19) offers a fat, 6MB sound bank and 44.1kHz, 16bit CD quality
audio. The package is now available for Mac or Windows. Hooray!
<www.headspace.com>.
Microsoft Windows Media Technologies 4.0
Mentioned elsewhere in this column, this new technology brags FM
quality stereo streaming at 28.8k bitrates (!) and MP3 quality
audio at half the stream size (64kbps near-CD quality) using three
new advanced proprietary codecs (music audio, video and voice
audio). Also included are rights management, pay per view
capability and a host of other features.
Initial FezGuy at-a-glance analysis shows that, without delving too
deeply into the inner workings of the technology, the audio does
indeed sound far superior to their previous offering. Perhaps even
better than the new Real G2 (Cook) codec, making it potentially the
best sounding low-bitrate codec. Of course, you can trust us to
get under the hood with a more detailed report very soon. Our
FezPop always said: " If it's true, it ain't bragging."
<www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/>
RealNetworks Acquires Xing Technology
Also, in the continuing trend towards Web conglomeration,
RealNetworks has announced it is purchasing Xing Streamworks. This
should be a good thing for consumers and content producers alike.
The FezGuys trust that this will result in more tightly integrating
MP3 technology into RealNetworks' enormous user base. The downside
is that Digital Bitcasting, who have been providing MPEG plug-ins
for RealNetworks technologies, may be left out of the loop.
Digital Bitcasting is a small company that provides a great service
and we're hoping they'll find an appropriate arena for their
obvious talents.
<www.real.com>,
<www.xingtech.com>
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"It's difficult to predict the future without history." - Charlie
Gilreath
In the yawning chasm of the Los Angeles Convention Center hordes of
freshly minted e-business warriors descend upon each other, stoking
a feeding frenzy of commerce, cash and control. The usual suspects
are represented: Intel, MCI, Microsoft, AT&T and even the hoary old
United States Postal Service (using Steve Miller's "Fly Like An
Eagle" as their ad-line, proving how music suffuses life at every
level). From the eight T1 lines to the 35 miles of Category 5
copper cable strung throughout the buildings, the truly stupendous
level of resources and energy dwarfs the annual budget of all the
public schools in South Central Los Angeles.
"Excellent sales pitch. Not what I asked for, but..." - Michael
Tchong
Long lines of humanity snake in tortuous trails as Street Blimp
trucks waste tanker loads of gasoline driving the streets around
and around the gigantic halls, displaying orange and yellow
placards that tout products with names that can't be pronounced,
let alone spelled. It's the business of the Internet and it's
business as usual, but with an edge. Everybody, from gray-suited
corporate stiffs to promo flacks fresh out of junior college,
speaks in the language of "Internet Time." History teaches that as
soon as the big corporations start picking up the vernacular of the
street, meanings of words devolve into mere sounds. Your FezGuys
are there, to separate vapor from verity. We used the sharpest,
longest blade we could lay our hands on. And we went
snicker-snack.
Statistics flew fast and furious and what's left of Ronald Reagan
made it all too clear just how stupid facts can be when stuck in a
feedback loop. Try these: the business of music is worth $38
billion. Over 75% of Internet-based music companies didn't exist a
couple of years ago. 65% of music buyers have access to the
Internet. There are over 200 million email addresses. And the
brilliant observation that, at this stage of Web audio, we are
playing "Pong." All this mess to ask the question: "How the hell
can we make money using (and we mean 'using') the INTERNET
(acronym: Incredible Notion To Entertain Really New E-business
Techniques)?"
"The great thing about music is it's really complimentary." - Mark
Wachen
Spinner.com, an Internet radio station offering genre specific
music streams, stunned themselves by experiencing a 700% increase
in traffic since July of last summer. They reported the recent
news that "MP3" was the most popular word entered into search
engines, displacing, if it can be believed, "SEX". Human nature
must be headed towards extinction. The Spinner.com kids went so
far as to hint at future interactivity. Ground breaking! People
could potentially be their own DJ by programming personalized
streaming audio content from a wide variety of musical styles.
"MP3.com sucks balls." - A 19-year old geek quoted in Rolling Stone
Magazine
Of course the current hero of Everyman was there. Michael
Robertson, Chairman/CEO of battered, but still valiant, MP3.com sat
patiently, awaiting his turn to rant the good rant. He looked
pre-occupied, staring out into the crowd as if challenging them to
a duel. A true rock star without a guitar (he claims he has no
experience in music, except for some clarinet in high school) Mr.
Robertson fired his insistent tirade right down the throats of the
attendees. "Ten-thousand artists currently represented on the site
with 125 new artists being added every day." "250,000 visitors to
MP3.com every day." "MP3.com represents a change in the model of
the record industry from ownership of music into a service-oriented
business." "The Internet has made the consumer more powerful then
the corporation." He went on to announce that artists can receive
daily statistics on sales and downloads unlike the major labels,
which typically take eighteen months to reveal stats. Also unlike
the majors, artists can leave the partnership at any time and take
everything with them. Mr. Robertson offered this caveat: "MP3.com
is a meritocracy." That means: "a system in which the talented are
chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement." The
FezGuys know that because we looked it up.
"The software hides all that yucky stuff." - Michael Robertson
But something is slightly off-color here. Michael Robertson has
the power of righteousness in him. And though he is right about so
many things relating to how record companies treat artists, there
is a touch of the born-again Fundamentalist to his message. Mr.
Robertson might just be the Internet audio equivalent of the young
Annakin Skywalker, poised on the knife-edge of decision. Will he
go to the Dark Side and become Darth Vader? Will we be hearing
soon that MP3.com is now a wholly owned subsidiary of America
Online, in a stock swap worth billions?
Probably not. But after his talk he is mobbed by eager business
card traders.
In other rooms various new technologies were announced with much
hoopla. Microsoft unveiled its new Windows Media Technology 4.0
suite in a blowout at the House of Blues, on Sunset Blvd. There
was much rejoicing, sort of. Elsewhere, IBM and RealNetworks
announced an unsurprising partnership to develop a secure digital
download system that they hope will be adopted by the major
labels. A yawn was heard throughout the music community as
listeners pondered yet another offering in the bewildering array of
overly complex, totalitarian Internet audio software. Open
Standards? Major labels don't need no steenkin' Open Standards.
They're not interested in anyone's rights. They're interested in
control. God bless 'em.
"You don't need any bait with a net." - Andy Abramson
In the licensing session "Navigating the Licensing Minefield",
complex issues surrounding legally incorporating music online were
covered in a succinct fashion. An actual lawyer strongly
recommended musicians keep control of their publishing and master
recording rights. The FezGuys are grateful this formerly inside
information is making it into the mainstream conference agenda.
"The emerging dilemma is do you take a traditional label deal?" -
Brad Biddle
If the FezGuys have learned anything over the past few years, the
answer is probably no.
Hello, I am experimenting for the first time with downloading sound
files from the Internet. I need to take a downloaded RealAudio file
and convert it into Sound Designer II or AIF format for importing
into Pro Tools software. Digidesign tech support initially said
that Pro Tools v4.3 can convert RealAudio files into SDII. When
this proved untrue, Product Support told me to call WAVES, to see
if Waveconvert software would convert RealAudio files. WAVES said
no, and that they don't know of any software that does. Then
someone on the Pro Tools users conference said Barbabatch software
would do the conversion...but Barbabatch said no. So, my question
is: can RealAudio files be retained and converted? If not, how do
I download an audio file in a format that can be converted to
SDII? Thank you very much for your help. - Deb Driscoll
Hi Deb- Good question! People are often asking for tools to
convert a RealAudio file to a WAV or AIF file. Alas, RealNetworks
doesn't currently provide one. There are some hacker-type programs
floating around the Internet which are reported to do this, but the
most straightforward (though admittedly unpleasant) solution we've
come across is to take a line-out from your sound card into another
audio input (be it traditional analog/digital device or another
computer). Then it can be encoded. Remember that unless it's a
high-bitrate RealAudio file, the quality of the resulting AIF/WAV
file is going to be rather poor. One other detail to note is that
when you have a .ram file on your desktop, it's typically the
"metafile" which contains *only* the pointer to the actual audio
file, and not the audio file itself (which is named either .ra or
.rm). Your other options are to limit your downloads to formats
that are currently supported by Sound Designer II. If the sound
file of your choice is not available in a format you can use, you
might try emailing the site's creators with your request.
Good luck and happy converting! - The FezGuys
