Mastering is the penultimate stage of audio post-production. Mastering engineers balance levels, apply compression, and tweak the sound to achieve professional results. It is always necessary to master music prior to release. Some producers are skilled enough to master their own music but this is the exception, not the rule. Even when a producer possesses the technical know-how to master their own music it always helps to have another set of ears involved. In essence, mastering is that final layer of gloss and polish that needs to be applied to any piece of music intended for public consumption.

Mastering services usually comes at a cost–which poses a slight problem for those of us involved in the free music movement. Nevertheless, I cannot understate the importance of professional mastering for netlabels and independent artists. If you feel your music is worth hearing then it is certainly worth paying to have it sound as awesome as it possibly can. I feel so strongly about the quality of free music that I have made professional mastering (or its equivalent) one of the technical requirements that must be met before a release is considered for distribution via Ektoplazm.

What should you be looking for in a mastering studio? Opinions vary, but I look for clear communication, prompt delivery, proper qualifications, good references, and a competitive rate. If you already know exactly what you are doing some of these criteria may be irrelevant but I find it is often useful to go back and forth a few times to arrive at a final product that sounds just right. Of course, mastering isn’t miracle work–you need to provide a good mix down for the engineer to work with. New artists should be very careful to select a studio willing to offer tips and suggestions. Some studios will simply master whatever you send them–even if the source material is suboptimal. It is wise to ask just how interactive the process is going to be. If you think you might benefit from a little assistance from a pro I suggest you ask whether this could be included in the fee. Generally speaking, any mastering studio worth their salt will work with you to achieve the sort of sound you desire.

Standard rates for mastering in the psytrance scene usually range from 20€ to 40€ per track, with full albums costing about 250€ to 400€ depending on the studio. Some studios may offer a small discount for non-commercial releases but this varies. It might help to mention Ektoplazm when you enter into negotiations–we have some allies out there! Be sure to investigate a studio’s homepage for technical requirements and other production advice. Most studios have a page listing what file format and amount of headroom is needed to achieve the best results.

As always, caveat emptor (buyer beware). Before dropping a bunch of money on mastering be sure to scope out the options, ask your friends for testimonials and recommendations, check the forums (starting with Isratrance and Psynews), and investigate the specific services offered by whatever studio you are interested in.

Below I have prepared a directory of links to a number of different mastering services catering to the psytrance scene. There is no shortage of mastering studios on the web but I prefer to work within the psytrance subculture. (I figure that engineers familiar with the conventions of the genre will had a bit of an edge but you may find this to be unnecessary.) At any rate, here are some studios I have worked with and would recommend, in no particular order:

• Colin Bennun @ The Stooodio, Bristol, UK
• Kri @ Audiovalve, North Carolina, USA
• Akhentek @ Ilum Studios, B.C., Canada
• Jeremy @ Attitude Recordings, Montreal, Canada
• Dark Elf @ KGB Labs, Greece
• Liam Dorff @ InYourPhaze Mastering, Sweden
• Tim Schuldt @ 4CN Studios, Germany
• Jay/Southwild @ Trailer Park Studios, Toronto, Canada
• Makus (Overdream), Sweden

Here are many more psytrance-friendly mastering services I have come across in my travels but have no personal experience with, roughly in alphabetical order:

• Anti Logic Studio, Berlin, Germany
• David Jewer @ Audio Voodoo Mastering, Canada
• David Mostoller @ Foods Librarys Studio, USA
• Electrypnose @ Intellinoise Studios, Switzerland
• Mind Distortion System @ Mad MaXstering, Belgium
• Jeremy Starseed @ Mothership Studio, Sweden
• Tommi Sirkiä @ Planetaria Studio, Finland
• Charles Michaud @ Preference Mastering, France
• Breto @ Psyks Studios, Kosova
• Andreh Torres (Bash) @ Rotten’s Dungeon Studio, Brazil
• Sonic Vista Studios, Ibiza, Spain
• Artifakt @ Timecode Records, South Africa
• Tim Larner (Sensient) @ Zenon Records, Australia

I am positive there are more mastering studios out there so I will be adding to this directory in the next few weeks. Testimonials, recommendations, suggestions, and horror stories are welcome in the comments! Have you worked with anyone you would strongly recommend? Let’s share this knowledge!

Photo credit: ‘Neve 8108 Mixing Console’ by johnnyalive.

Every now and then I gather up some of the more provocative or informative articles I find in my travels in order to compile a digest post such as this one. What follows is an assortment of music-related content I’ve been reading in the last couple of months. You are also welcome to check out the previous digest post from May 2010 for more like this.

Revealing Shakespeare’s Inner Pirate takes a close look at how culture reinvents itself with bits and pieces of the past. Copyright law, if it respects the public good, should allow for meaningful reinterpretation and outright copying of existing cultural products in order to maintain a healthy creative drive.

Paradox or Paradise: Music Choice in the Digital Age explores the psychological implications of the frustrating overabundance of musical options in today’s marketplace. Where do you even begin with all the music available these days? With an insane number of options available to us we often opt out of deciding and prefer to stick to what we already know.

The Free Music Mirage is a strong critique of the idea that music should be free by Jeremy Schlosberg of Fingertips. I emphatically disagree with his sentiment but this is certainly an article worth reading, if only to better hone our arguments for free music. Similar moral posturing can be found in Why You Should Pay For Music.

The State of Internet Music on YouTube, Pandora, iTunes, and Facebook describes exactly that–from a major label perspective. Graphs and figures illustrate the decline of the album format: “We don’t listen to albums now; we listen to collections of songs.” I’d wager that has a lot to do with major label abuse of the album format: wrapping a lot of forgettable fluff around one or two big hits.

Why Music Should Never Be Given Away For “Free” argues that music should always come at a cost to the consumer–even if it is as simple as an exchange of social capital in the form of signing up for an email newsletter and/or agreeing to share content. Bandcamp presently offers this feature but just about every other example I can think of just feels like spam.

The Problem With Music is an older article by Steve Albini that illustrates how bands are liable to become indebted to a major label after signing a contract, producing an album, and going on tour. It is an eviscerating deconstruction of rock ‘n roll mythology–and a warning to any artist still enamored with the idea of “getting signed.”

Torrenting The Future is an interesting speculative rant about the post-scarcity economy–and what that might look like based on our collective experience with music, movies, and other digital media thus far.

How To Solve Royalty Collection Societies outlines an improbable solution to the problem of collection societies failing to redistribute royalties to small-time artists. Seems to me the only way to fix this issue is to do away with collection societies altogether.

Worrying About Monetising Your Music is Holding You Back is a soft reality check for any artist who feels entitled to earning a living from their art. The author asks: what motivates you to create music? It probably isn’t financial gain, otherwise you would be doing something else.

Creative Commons: What Every Self-Publisher Ought To Know is a basic introduction to CC licensing and what it means for artists. It is an oddly difficult topic to explain to some artists; hopefully this will be of some help.

Mr. Tunes skewers a common industry practice in Rethinking The Remix Contest. He’s right: remix contests aren’t innovative. In fact, they are often quite annoying. Can the remix contest be fixed? Creating a barrier-to-entry might raise the quality of these contests, as noted in the article.

A Guide To The Cultural Battle That Is Reshaping The Media Business is an interesting little article by the CEO of Cheezburger Network (who brought you LOLcats) contrasting popular culture with Internet culture. It doesn’t take much to figure out which side I’m on.

Graham St John, the editor of Dancecult, is out with a new edited collection: Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance. If you would like to take a tour of the academic study of psytrance culture this is a great place to start.

I’ve also been brushing up on the details of the freemium business model in preparation for the Ektoplazm redesign. In case this is of interest to anyone you can read more about freemium at The Business Model Database and The Economics of Giving It Away.

DJ TechTools has been busy pumping out an assortment of useful guides in the last few months. Topics covered include mastering, compression, and how to have a glitch-free laptop performance.

Finally, for all the DJs out there, check out this preview of Rapid Evolution 3, an awesome cross-platform DJing database. I use it instead of Mixed In Key for all my harmonic mixing needs.

Like what you’ve read? Follow me on Twitter to hear about this sort of content as I find it.

“It’s about radio.”
– Son Kite, On Air

I’ve had a few visitors write in asking about Internet radio stations so here you are–a list of the most popular destinations (that I know of) for streaming psytrance, progressive, and downtempo music.

Philosomatika: the granddaddy of psytrance Internet radio. Choose from full-on, progressive, or a general psytrance stream.

Triplag: “nonstop music for shamanic moments” with a focus on darkpsy.

Digitally Imported: premium Internet radio station with a wide variety of channels including Goa/Psy, tech house, psychill, chill out, and ambient.

Annuna: Creative Commons psytrance radio featuring lots of music from Ektoplazm.

Soma FM: 19 channels of alternative/underground electronic music focusing on the chilled end of the spectrum.

Psychedelik: French psytrance radio station with psychedelic, progressive, dark, and ambient streams.

Radio Schizoid: Indian radio station with regular shows focusing on psytrance and chill out.

PsyMusic: psytrance stream at a popular UK forum.

HBR1: German radio station with a variety of streams covering trance, IDM, and ambient.

Chromanova: another German radio service with psytrance and chill out streams.

Goa.hu: Hungarian radio station with a variety of channels covering progressive, psytrance, and chill.

Bluemars: downtempo, chill out, ambient, and space music radio station.

Babaganousha: more psytrance radio.

Psyradio.fm: the cubic Flash interface is somewhat confusing but you can hear psytrance, progressive, chill out, and alternative streams here.

You may also browse these indexes for more psytrance and chill out radio stations: Psysurfeur, Psy Name, and the Shoutcast Psytrance directory.

Happy streaming!

Photo credit: “Sleepy Eye Airline Radio” by The Rocketeer.

I process a lot of interesting content on the web these days. Much of this comes from the blogs I subscribe to and read almost daily. I also tend to follow links shared on Facebook and Twitter whenever my curiosity is piqued. I have been posting my findings on Twitter for a while but I have found that only a small percentage of site visitors are tuned in. Twitter is also a fleeting medium–good content is quickly buried. For that reason I have gathered a number of the more enduring, intriguing, or controversial links I have shared in the last few months (and a few that I never got around to passing on). These news items and opinion pieces are intended to inspire, inform, educate, and prompt discussion about the new music industry, copyright reform, netaudio, and the state of the psytrance scene. Let’s begin…

David Kusek’s 10 strategies for success in music is all about developing a positive and pragmatic attitude to the music business. It directly assaults some of the more unrealistic expectations that seem to inflict musicians with alarming regularity. A great primer for new artists.

How much do music artists earn online? This infographic seeks to convey a sense of scale, quantifying how much music an artist must sell to earn a monthly wage comparable to the average burger jockey or gas station attendant. It is particularly interesting given the hype surrounding new streaming services such as Spotify and last.fm (from which Ektoplazm has made less than 5 EUR since the program began).

Speaking of last.fm, they recently shut down on-demand streaming, though you wouldn’t know it by the mealy-worded blog posting the announcement was buried in. Ten days later reveals a new “play direct” program that falls outside of the artist royalty program. It sounds bad but you have to look at the numbers–in the case of Ektoplazm less than 2% of our royalties were earned through on-demand streaming.

Are downloads really killing the music industry? Or is it something else? This is an old article that I dredged up since the message really resonates. The argument is simple: people are spending more on entertainment but proportionately less on music compared to more interactive and immersive mediums such as video games.

Why all musicians should pay attention to Facebook fan pages is a case study in fan acquisition. The lessons: make great music, invest a little time into Facebook, make it easy to get some of your good music for free, and realize that anyone can be the link to your next “SuperFan.”

What I learned from making The Sandinista Project free for a day provides more evidence for the huge attention gap between free and almost free. The conclusion is rather pessimistic but I haven’t got a better answer yet either.

How to sell to a pirate is a dry examination of the stupid ways in which the cultural industries handicap themselves–for instance, by using DRM or failing to offer a product in some territories. The free (but illegal) alternatives often win out simply because they provide a better product with fewer hassles for the consumer than what the legal channels offer.

Labels: Lower Music Prices And Increase Your Profits, Study Says is another article from the “obvious” file. Digital media still has a higher per-unit cost than physical media despite all the savings involved (no need to stock inventory, for instance). Seems stupid, right? It feels like such a wasted opportunity–just when consumers were shifting into the digital realm the industry makes it as unpalatable as possible to choose the legal option.

It could be worse. The Orwellian plan to track your music illuminates what the RIAA would like to be able to do. Forget net neutrality and online privacy–if the industry has its way we’d live in a police state.

Netlabel 101 with blocSonic is a straight-forward interview with one of the leading voices in netaudio. Topics include free music distribution, how to start up a netlabel, the Creative Commons, and the importance of those who dig–the gatekeepers and tastemakers.

Artists Should Be Compensated For Their Work is an inflammatory diatribe that will likely anger many musicians. The author makes a careful distinction between an artist’s art and their work, arguing that artists are not inherently entitled to monetary compensation for their art. Food for thought, no doubt.

Clay Shirky has been a huge inspiration for everything I do here at Ektoplazm. The connection might not be obvious, particularly when you read his most recent article, The Collapse Of Complex Business Models, but it is there. I won’t even attempt to summarize his nuanced points–just read it if the headline interests you.

Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? This controversial analysis of label and artist revenue seems to suggest that major artists are in a better position now than they were years ago–all thanks to the power of live gigs. I remain sceptical–but it is worth looking into at least.

Bad news for Psyport and other niche market social networks using the Ning platform: Ning is transitioning to a pay-only service. Bummer. At least they are providing an option to export data (unlike Big Brother Facebook).

Goa trance in 1982? Thoughts on ‘10 Ragas To a Disco Beat’ explores the buzz surrounding Charanjit Singh’s seemingly improbable synthesizer exploits from the early eighties. More samples here.

The Barriers of Music Consumption, Past and Present touches upon the death of the album format, the democratization of music collection, and the end of the economy of scarcity that defined the previous generations’ relationship with recordings. This is followed by The Broken System: Deconstructing Music Consumption, which examines traditional distribution systems, the process of music discovery, and how our taste in music is shaped in the digital era.

This Is Our Hous(ing) Music: Some thoughts on the ‘fetish’ packaging of sound recordings is a musing and intellectually-stimulating exploration of the strange world of limited edition packaging and physical media fetishism.

Cosmic Trance, the Hero’s Journey and the Overview Effect is a heavy exploration of astronomic themes in psytrance (and related genres) by Graham St John, the editor of the Dancecult journal. In it he touches upon Cybernetika’s Nanospheric (a free download here at Ektoplazm) and Kenji Williams’ intriguing Bella Gaia project among many others.

Kaiserdisco, please be minimal is a Beatportal feature that highlights the failings of Beatport’s system of musical categorization. What is the difference between minimal, techno, and tech house? Seems like some artists are just opting for the designation that leads to the most sales–and minimal is on its way out.

Hunab-ku Magik Mix Contest: The Winning Mix wraps up several months of activity over at Marsh’s Goat Ranch blog. The net result is about a dozen serious DJ mixes by a bunch of die-hard old school Goa trance collectors. Be sure to check out Marsh’s next project, the ambitious Global Goa Party. I plan to make a mix for that one!

Finally, Listology is home to a number of resources of interest to OCD Goa trance fans. Check out Somazoid’s New School Goa Trance Discography and the Best Goa Trance to find out what you might have been missing.

Is this digest format useful? Let me know–I might assemble another one some day. In the meantime, follow Ektoplazm on Twitter for instant updates.

Photo credit: JohnRHawk.

Recently I was interviewed by @muxxex for BeginnerDJ, a great resource for aspiring DJs and newcomers to electronic music. Most of the focus is on DJing but I also share a few words about Ektoplazm. Find the full interview at BeginnerDJ or continue reading:

What made you become a DJ?

It all started by accident. Back in my teenage years most of my friends were swept up in the burgeoning rave moment in Toronto. Buying turntables and learning how to DJ was a participatory aspect of this subculture. I had no real interest in it at first but my friends coaxed me into messing around with the decks at various house parties. Soon I was accompanying them on record buying missions downtown and, once I landed my first real job, I began to amass my own record collection.

I didn’t want to become a DJ and play parties or anything–it was only when the music turned minimal around Y2K that I decided to get halfway serious about it. Even then, it was only to play some of the more colourful and melodic music [old school Goa trance] that I found poorly represented at parties in those days. Before I knew it I was DJing fairly regularly and, with every passing year, I went deeper into it.

Where has DJing taken you?

It has been a wild ride at times but only in the last 3 years have I really begun to travel. I’ve made a lot of really great connections in different parts of North America, particularly in British Columbia. This year I expect I will be playing out even more with many festival bookings this coming summer. Last season most of my bookings were for smaller grassroots festivals, perhaps because I am generally aligned with free music and the Creative Commons. And this is fine by me; I really enjoy visiting new communities and seeing within them echoes of other pockets of this scene. Tribal dance culture is more connected than it knows!

What is your favourite memory from all this?

It’s really hard to say as there are so many different experiences that I have had. Certainly I am quite proud of the success of my web site but this is less a memory and more a diffuse sense of general satisfaction and contentedness. I suppose that playing Eclipse last year would qualify as a highlight. Even though it was very early on in the festival there is nothing like playing on such a big sound system and pulling off a really good set. And, further back, I have a very fond memory of playing a night set at an outdoor bush party [Lost Focus Retrieval Project] under a meteor shower on the Niagara Escarpment.

What kind of equipment do you use?

I’ve been playing on CD decks for five years now but hope to transition to laptop DJing soon [and have done so since this interview was done]. CDs are very reliable (when you know how to burn them right, anyway) but creatively limiting compared to what you can now do with software and a controller.

What is your favourite genre to spin?

These days I am really into cutting edge techno on the borderlands of psytrance, minimal, tech house, and progressive. I’ve been playing psytrance for so many years that techno feels extremely revitalizing to me. So much psytrance is overproduced to the point where invasive mixing really detracts from the musical experience. At that point the role of the DJ is to choose tracks and otherwise let the music speak. It is more fun for me to spin techno. This is music you can rip apart and reassemble–moreso with the new creative tools DJs can use, but even with a regular CD or vinyl setup there is a lot of room to mess around. I might get back into psytrance eventually, but for now… [progressive] techno is what I am really into spinning. This is reflected in my new project, Drumlore, the techno netlabel I founded alongside DJ Lexicon.

Where do you think DJing is going?

The future is looking wide open: expensive equipment is no longer a barrier to entry, music is abundant and easily obtained, and all the formerly obscure technical details are readily available on the Internet. Anyone can become a DJ but it still takes a lot of work to be any good at it. For the pros, new software and technologies promise to blur the boundaries between DJing and live performance. Still, even with all this new technology it is important to remember that the point of DJing is to orchestrate meaningful musical experiences.

What advice would you give to a DJ just starting out?

Skip the physical media and jump straight into digital. Don’t forget to learn the basics–I hear too many new DJs playing tracks out of phase or straight-up trainwrecking without even noticing it. You can’t always rely on software to match tracks perfectly–you need to train your ears to tell the difference between a solid mix and one that is slightly (or even completely) off. Beyond that, be original. Don’t stick to the Beatport charts; that’s boring. Dig deep into music and hear what there is to discover. Blaze your own trail.

How do you find new music?

It has never been easier to find great new music but it does require a significant time investment. Think of it as doing your homework! For techno I regularly scan Beatport and Juno to see what my favourite artists and labels are up to. This accounts for the majority of my purchases but I also like to incorporate fresh material into my sets–and that means making new connections to unfamiliar labels and artists. The best way to accomplish this is to check out tunes listed in top tens or featured on mixes from names you already follow.

What is Ektoplazm and why did you start it?

Ektoplazm is a free music portal and netlabel family incorporating psytrance, techno, and downtempo channels. I started it up to provide artists with a professional alternative to the commercial music industry. It isn’t meant to replace the existing distribution system–I just wanted to give artists a choice. Over the years I have known far too many exceptional artists who have struggled to release their music simply because it did not have a particular bass line or BPM. The psytrance marketplace operates with such tight profit margins that most commercial labels have to be fairly risk-averse to survive–they develop a specific formula and stick to it over the years. End result: many artists making non-standard or unconventional music are shut out, and that isn’t right. I developed Ektoplazm to give these artists a voice. Of course, the site has grown to encompass a wide variety of artists–some of whom have genuine commercial potential–who feel that giving their music away for free is the way of the future.

What sort of response have you received from Ektoplazm?

It has been nothing short of fantastic, growing more each and every year. People really respond to the concept and it shows: Ektoplazm has become one of the top 10 psytrance sites in the world. My mission is to continue improving the quality of the offerings on the site–to raise the standard of free music and really demonstrate what is possible with this different mode of thinking.

What is the future of Ektoplazm?

The release schedule is already looking very busy for 2010 with several albums, EPs, and even a new compilation on the go [here I was referring to Dreamshadow which is now released]. I also have some ambitious new features planned but this will have to wait. After all, I am a full-time university student and Ektoplazm is just what I do in my spare time!

That about wraps it up! I edited a few things for clarity and interjected a few comments where appropriate. Things move fast around here–already I have moved on from CDs to a laptop setup for DJing!

If you found this interesting check out this interview I did with @digitalgeist for Auxiliary Magazine last year.

Find out more about my DJing on my profile or check out my Facebook page.