Re: quintuple CD

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 06:01 PM 12/2/97 -0500, Michael Peters wrote:
>Kim:
>
>>How about if we just do a cd on some regular basis, like every 4-6 months
>>or something? Might make it easier to manage the project than trying to 
>do
>>it all at once, and then there is not the pressure to get everyone in on
>>the first one. That would also allow for somewhat longer tracks. If
>someone
>>doesn't get on this one, there's always the next one. Then maybe we could
>>start doing themed versions after a while, and a "best of" which should
>>rocket up the charts....
>
>sounds like a very good idea. By now so many people have expressed their
>interest (some of them not happy with a 5-minute-limit) that not even a
>double CD would be room enough.

another thing I like about this approach is it gives more opportunity to
overlap the projects and divide the production aspects among more people. 
So
while Ray is (hopefully) finishing up the first cd, Matt is geting started
on the second cd, and while Matt is in the midst of finishing that one
someone else would be getting started on the third. If one person's 
generous
volunteering becomes overwhelmed with reality for a while, there is still
another project moving along somewhere in parallel. So we don't suffer with
long bouts of silence, and all of the budding recording engineers get an
opportunity to practice a bit. 

And next year, when someone from the first cd wants to show off the new
music they have been working on, they can just hop onto the next cd project
with a free spot. There isn't so much of a "this is the only chance" kind 
of
feeling. You might even want to schedule who goes on what cd by who is most
ready. Some folks could probably fedex a dat to Matt tomorrow, some will
want a little more time to edit some things, some even more to compose and
record a special piece. And some probably still need to save their pennies
to get a dat recorder. :-)   The folks who are all ready shouldn't have to
wait for those still working on it, and those working shouldn't feel too
rushed to do their best.


>One other thing: If we want this to be a commercial success, how about
>asking somebody famous (like Torn) to contribute a short clip. (cries of
>disgust) Ok, ok, this is a stupid marketing trick, and of course we *are*
>all fine enough musicians and our music can stand for itself ... it was
>just an idea. What do you think? (I'm sure Torn would contribute one of 
>his
>cool loops which are only available on expensive CDROMs.)

That might be fun if Mr Torn or some of the other more successful folks
around were interested in joining in. He does lurk around here sometimes, 
so
he sort of qualifies. I see a couple of problems with that, though. One is
that the more famous person might overshadow the others sharing the disc, 
so
that the average folk's work doesn't get so much an opportunity to stand on
its own. And second, while Mr. Torn manages to be quite diverse himself, he
still only represents a limited spectrum of the styles that might be on the
same disc. His audience would likely dominate the sales of the cd, and they
might not be so appreciative of other musicians employing loops to create
radically different styles, which might not be so fair to those folks. Just
some thoughts, any others? 

Commercial success of these things doesn't have to be that huge, just 
enough
to pay the costs and hopefully a little extra to help with the ISP bills 
for
the site. I kind of like the grassroots approach where everyone gets to put
their stuff out and share it around, and we say individually and
collectively, "hey, this is who we are." It should be fun, right?

kim
_______________________________________________________
Kim Flint                       408-752-9284
Mpact Systems Engineering       kflint@chromatic.com
Chromatic Research              http://www.chromatic.com