Author: Sammy G

Yo music makers! I just bought Finale 2004 and I wanted to share information and get your feedback on what I think is finally a breakthrough in home-based sound design for the average composer.

Finale has always been a notation software program. Getting a score to sound good by using this program has required external sound-font apps like Kontakt or GigaStudio. People were exporting MIDI files created in Finale to Cakewalk (for example) and then using samplers to assign high-end sounds. This required sound cards, manual integration, extra hard drive space…basically $$$.

Finale 2004, released four months ago, has finally embedded good sound fonts within the program. You can now compose and hear quality playback with only Finale, a computer, and a controller keyboard. Also, you can “save to .wav” and directly go to stereo file.

I’ve been a hard core Finale products user because I compose for live musicians and do a ton of studio recording with horn players. Thus, I’ve always been more of a composer/arranger for live groups and less of a digital studio design guy. I believe that F2004 finally gives the home-based composer the ability to get good sounding playback from scores without the need to purchase all kinds of gear.

Since F2004 is a somewhat new release, I just posted at finale.com/forum to see if there are any secondary market sound-font apps developed specifically for F2004. I’m waiting to hear back from the experts on anything brewing there.

Anyway, point here is that I would also like feedback from folks who have any experience in mapping high-end sounds to notation software programs. Is this too good to be true? I got contracted to compose a score for an musical theatre concept and hopefully can create final copy right here from home…

Those of you watching the Democratic pre-Primary debates have no doubt been amused by the moderator’s now-familiar refrain: “Can you sum up your entire campaign in 45 seconds?”

What I find interesting is that the whole prospect of effective campaigning rests on the candidate’s ability to distill an entire platform down to a snappy bromide. And then deliver it on television.

Right? I mean, all we hear from both the media and congressional pundits is the banal obvious: the party’s breakthrough nominee will be the one that figures out how to provide a breakthrough message. So from the 11,346 pool of Democratic Presidential candidates (so angry at the Democratic National Office for the size of the letting the field of hopefuls get this big), one of them needs to have a snappy elevator pitch. It’s ridiculous. But understandable given that television is the primary media for reaching and coercing voters. You would think that the candidates and their campagn teams would recognize the need to concoct a memorable phrase and consistently use it, time and time again. Because everyone knows the majority of the American voting public doesn’t actually read up on the candidates and the issues. The voters want action-adventure politics served up in a miniaturized matinee.

It’s probably true that those not old enough to vote know more about the candidates than the adults. Schools are studying this stuff everyday.

I wish I was Mosely-Braun’s campaign manager so when the question comes…”Carol, taking less than 45 seconds, can you explain what are you going to do for the American people?”…

“Kill the white man.”

She’d get my vote. 🙂

As I’m fond of stating, there are two seasons here in Minnesota: Winter and August 14th.

What I find interesting is that there’s an actual debate raging (yes, I say, raging) amongst the academics and weather experts among the proper way to measure the wind chill. Apparently, the old way to measure the wind chill was to fly some hybrid anemometer/thermometer contraption at 20 feet above ground level. So, for example, on a day like today, when the air temperature was a balmly 3 degrees, the winds careening in from Canada at 25MPH (FYI — Canada is responsible for more than just polluting our beef industry) made the wind chill at -15 at 20 feet about the ground. However, the pundits opposed to the 20 feet level, think that the reading should come at ground level, which would lessen the impact of the wind and cause the wind chill to read at something like only -5 degrees.

Keep in mind here people that we’re talking Farenheit.

Either way, 20 feet vs. ground level, I still classify it as RFC: Really Cold.

I think that we should create a national holiday in honor of the person who invented the thermostat.

Sam

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/031219/1071831840_1.html

Apparently, Matt is not the only person who feels .ppt is a terrible presentation package.

I’ve never had reason to gripe, but that’s only because my background in business management is about crunching complicated concepts and arguments into concise points. Everyone always tells us, “Make it simple for them to understand…Pretend that we’re five years old.”

If you’re five years old, what are you doing in a VP’s chair?

Excited to see what Apple has put on the market.

Sam

So, over the past 24 hours, an idea has been brewing in my head for a type of new musical product that we can collaborate on in developing. This idea is based on recent ongoings and changes in the music industry, consumer habits, and my experiences at Best Buy.

My concept is for a new type of musical audio product that functions as a cross between prerecorded album, old-time radio, and soap opera.

In my opinion, the reason that album sales have been falling isn’t just due to file sharing. It’s due to a couple other reasons as well , including 1) Lack of good product and 2) A shift in consumer dollar spend to other cost-like software entertainment products (DVD, games). File sharing does make an impact because the music industry’s primary sales target has always been 18-34, and those are the techies who are now burning and sharing, of course. However, if you’ve got $20 are you going to window shop it on an album or on a movie? Right. So here comes the new idea.

The concept is to create an ongoing story, full of characters, situations, and compelling conflict that is set to music. A rock opera in a sense. Except that between the voice overs, music, and singing are a subtext of arias. Arias, for those unfamiliar with the term, are the hit songs in Operas. So, individual radio-format tunes are built into the works but it’s not complete without hearing and collecting the works in its entirety.

The product format would require actual screenwriting for plot, characters, and development. The music would be the feature, but the music would be built into the screenwriting format. Whatever the format is, be it magical sci-fi, historical, present-day romantic comedy, etc. it should be flushed out so that there can be endless streams of new characters and plot developments. Thus, the story never ends and it’s meaningless to hear the individual hit songs outside of the entire context.

The physical delivery format would be something like 45-60 minute installments on CD. It would be entirely done in audio, no visual or software add-on elements embedded. In my mind, installments would be released every other month. Any artwork placed on the external packaging wouldn’t brand the individual artists or the performing bands, but the larger concept instead.

I think it would be compelling because there would be a dramatic component involved. This would evolve the music from a simple stand-alone “hit” function to a broader theatre-like stance. We would serialize pop music. People would be waiting for the next installment to follow their favorite characters and wait for the next string of songs. Also, because multiple bands and artist could get involved, we could have a wide range of musical styles, which would open up appeal to a larger audience base.

Let me know what you guys think.

Sam

Is the cost for web hosting low or what?

I’m preparing to switch web host providers and astounded at the low cost of hosting. When I joined the Board of an organization last summer I noticed that they were spending $100 a month for web hosting. If you look at today’s market rates, $100 is about 5 times more than we should be paying.

Such offers from Dreamhost.com and Omnis.com make it so that you can have a website up an running for under $150 a year (n/i domain registration, of course). How have prices fallen so far for bundled host services? My guess is that as processing power increases while the cost of technology decreases, it’s easier to cram multiple domains on one web server without losing reponse and service time.

I thought I was going to get screwed with the obligatory multi-year contract and early cancellation fees but everything has been waived, including set up fees. Is it too good to be true?

Anyway, wondering if the techies want to ring in with their thoughts on the matter…

Sam

People never cease to amaze me when it comes to the opportunity for receiving free food.

For those of you lucky enough not to live in the Upper Midwest, let me bring you up to speed on the Minneapolis “situation”. I walked into the local sub joint a couple weeks ago. As standard with most walk-in retail food operators, a fishbowl is perched near the checkout register, asking people to drop in their business card for a chance to win a free six inch sub.

Retail value of six inch sub: less than $5.00.

I noticed that next to the free-sub fishbowl, was yet another fishbowl. This second fishbowl had been placed there by another business looking to drum up sales leads. This second fishbowl, placed by the largest Minneapolis athletic club had an pretty cool offer. Somebody’s card would be chosen at random at that winner would receive a free year’s membership at the gym.

Retail value of annual membership: $250.

Of course, you all see where this is headed. The ratio of business cards in the free-sub fishbowl to the free-membership fishbowl was, approximately, 4,567 to 1.

Thought #1: What is wrong with people? Thought #2: Never underestimate the power of food to coerce, soothe, impress, broker introduction and ingratiate.

Must start using food as an advertising gimmick for the business here…