metallica

Ever since Paul McGuinness, manager of the rock band U2, began lashing out at Internet Service providers for allegedly profiting from and encouraging illegal file sharing, U2 fans have wondered whether McGuinness spoke for the band.

Bono, U2's outspoken frontman, cleared that up this weekend. As part of a op-ed piece in The New York Times, the singer argued that online file sharing is hurting music and film creators and placed much of the blame on bandwidth providers.

"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators,&… Read more

Agile Partners, best known for creating an exceptionally useful $9.99 iPhone application called Guitar Toolkit that packs in a guitar tuner, a metronome, and fantastically detailed chord and scale charts, on Monday released its first follow-up app.

Tab Toolkit, also available via Apple's App Store for $9.99, enables users to read and listen to real-time synthesized versions of guitar tablature charts on their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Tab Toolkit won't have as large an audience as Guitar Toolkit, which is immediately useful to players of all levels, as it assumes that you have (or can get) … Read more

Sure, rocker Trent Reznor's example has encouraged plenty of music acts to reject the label system and search for a new industry paradigm using the Web.

But did anyone expect that among Reznor's disciples would be Lars Ulrich?

Ulrich, a member of the rock band Metallica and once one of the leading critics of peer-to-peer sites, said during an interview last week with The Los Angeles Times that Metallica no longer needs the backing of a big record company and suggested that the group may be ready to go independent.

"The primary--not the only, but the primary--function … Read more

Update, 3/24: An SXSW organizer contacted me to let me know that the show included 14 panelists from major labels, as well as 20 panelists from independent labels. The truth remains that I didn't see, hear, or meet any--but of course I couldn't attend every panel. I've corrected the post accordingly.

Almost a year ago, I posted about how two executives from major Web companies had taken new positions related to digital music: Douglas Merrill left Google to become EMI's president of digital operations, and Ian Rogers left Yahoo Music to become the CEO of … Read more

Guitar Hero: Metallica, which lets gamers play along with the band and its influences, comes out in the U.S. on March 29. Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke to me this afternoon at the South by Southwest music festival about the game and other issues related to music and technology.

Q: With the Guitar Hero game, do you think you'll be reaching longtime fans, or is this mainly a way to reach younger fans who might know a song or two but don't really know Metallica? Hammett: We'll be reaching fans across the board, longtime fans, … Read more

What should bands pay for? Can art and marketing coexist? Has the digital world made do-it-yourself recording, marketing, and distribution easier, or do musicians still need the old-fashioned triumvirate of booking agent, record label, and radio airplay to thrive?

If you're interested in such questions, and you're heading to the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, this year, check out a panel discussion in which I'll be participating called The Artist as Entrepreneur at 1:30 p.m Wednesday. Most of the people on the panel are in the business of helping musicians use the … Read more

Mastering engineers, like Alan Silverman of Arf! Mastering, make music sound better.

Of course, by the time the mastering engineer gets to hear the music, it's already been recorded, mixed, and fussed over by at least one recording engineer, record producer, and the band for weeks, months or even years.

The mastering engineer brings a fresh set of ears to the project and (hopefully) the necessary skill set to eke out the very best from the music. Silverman has mastered music by Norah Jones, Keith Richards, Dolly Parton, and Rufus Wainwright.

When I visited Silverman a few weeks ago, he was finishing work on Medeski, Martin, and Wood's upcoming CD, "Radiolarians 2." I'm a big fan of MM&W's free-form funk jazz, and these guys always make great-sounding recordings. It figures Silverman is involved with the upcoming CD.

I heard from friends that Silverman's newly updated playback system is not only super accurate, it sounds like an audiophile system. That sort of truth and beauty are a rare combination so I brought along some of my reference recordings and was thrilled by the sound. Silverman uses Revel Ultima Studio2 speakers and a McIntosh MC252 power amplifier.

Of course, in the real world just a handful of people are listening over a system like that. So for Silverman, "It's about how the music 'translates.'" A great mastering engineer knows how to make the music sound the best it can over all sorts of systems, played back in differing environments: headphones, car audio, plastic computer speakers, and high-end audio systems.

That's why Silverman hopes he will soon be doing multiple versions of a recording: a highly compressed mix for iPod or car, an uncompressed CD quality version for home listening, and a high-resolution one for audiophiles.

But now that so many bands are recording themselves mastering engineers play an even more crucial role in making the most of the music. When I asked if recordings ever come in that are so awful Silverman turns them away, he said "No, not at all, although in rare cases one of the best things you can do for client is advise them to do a remix. In general, though it's easier to make a poor recording sound better than improve a recording that's already really great. With those you worry if you're really making them better or just different. In those cases sometimes even the smallest tweaks add extra dimension and life to the music." Toby Wright, 3Doors Down's producer, uses Silverman and raved about his work: "So much better, it's silly."… Read more

If a robot has a firm handshake, does that mean its creator is a stand-up guy, or just that he programmed his robot to have a firm handshake? That and other serious technology topics are examined today, and we also give our official Buzz Out Loud reviews of the new Microsoft commercial with Jerry Seinfeld. Brian Cooley joins us for Friday goodness.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

LHC will not destroy the universe in 5 days http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/04/lhc-will-not-destroy.html

Microsoft begins big ad push http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10033375-56.html http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/seinfeld-s-first-microsoft-commercial-awkward-not-funny… Read more

Milton Friedman once told that Free Market Principles depend on, well, nothing being free. (Well, it was some old bloke who looked like Milton Friedman. College. Whatever.)

But the Facebooks of this world seem resolute in refusing to believe that people might decide that if it cost nothing then it can't have been worth anything.

So, and it pains me to utter these words, but what would happen if Facebook led the charging?

What if they created normal, ordinary membership, then, you know, a gradation of colors? Like credit card companies. Where platinum stands for 'person living far beyond … Read more