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Looper's Delight
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Louie Angulo wrote: > I think through the > information Andre freely gives out at the end it only > increases his web traffic and i think André will sell > a lot of records through the world anyway! Well you're absolutely right on the first part: somewhere over 15,000 seperate sound file downloads in the last 16 months or so, and about 70-100 unique visitors per day, with the EDP analysis pages being the main draw. Selling a lot of records, unfortunately, is still in the realm of the hypothetical - in the same period that 15,000 sound files were downloaded, about 30 CDs were sold through my website. Even someone with math as bad as mine can figure out that's not a very good deal for me. Web traffic in particular, and noteriety in general, in and of themselves, do NOT mean that I'm generating income. About a year and a half ago I decided to see what I could do with the Echoplex if I really rolled up my sleeves and tried to dive deeply into it. That meant making the EDP my primary musical focus, and I spent most all of my time and energy on Echoplex-related projects - practicing, recording, writing the analysis pages, and now mixing/mastering/coordinating the release of a new CD. The downside is that, while a few thousand folks are reading my web site and listening to my music, I've had to start working a day job again for the first time in almost four years. Tonight I spent five and a half hours in a market research call center, phoning strangers to ask them questions about how well their door frames insulate against outside weather, and what kind of light bulbs they use in their front porch. Now, that's a better fate than assembling Nike shoes for $2.00 an hour, or crawling out of rubble in Baghdad right now. But when I think about all the traffic going through my site, and how little of an impact it has on my actual day-to-day existence, it makes me wonder how much time I may have wasted by focusing so intensely on the EDP, as opposed to more bread-and-butter things that might actually lead to my generating some income from the music-related skills I've been cultivating for about 25 years. The fact of the matter is that there's a hell of a lot I can do musically that has nothing to do with live looping, all of which is at least as financially viable as giving away free mp3's to untold thousands of listeners. If looping doesn't bring in some bread, my guitar works just as well without an EDP in the signal flow, and it feels a hell of a lot better on my hand than the telephone reciever I've just spent five and a half hours holding up to my ear. So, I'm very grateful that people are interested in what I'm doing, I'm happy to have made a positive impact for some folks, and I'm particularly gratified that Matthias and Kim's genius is finally getting a little bit of the attention it's deserved for so long. When Normalized is released, perhaps the "free" exposure I've built up will finally pay off, literally. That's ultimately up to the listeners out there, and whether or not my latest work will be worth ten-odd dollars to them. And in the interest of visualization, maybe next time I'll register "Opportunist Music Dot Com" as a web address. Anyway... --Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com