Psynews Contest

[Insejn]

i am not sure, but i heard that Vax (they changed their name now and i don't remember it) released an album.

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SynSUN - Symphonic Adventures

[moni]

ah, yes

true

[Goazzz...]

i am curious what Amygdala has been doing lately!

251264[/snapback]

Wonder why he chose that name.....!! It means almonds in Greek....!!

[psytones]

SynSUN - Symphonic Adventures

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And I bought that album... So a contest should be a fun thing in the future.. We just have to wait untill I'm ready with a track or two ... It will proberly take one year

 

btw. SynSUN stopped making music because he didn't sell enough.. ? hehe

 

 

This is what I heard ... If it's true? I dont know, but I wrote him an e-mail. Never got an answer.

 

--------------------------------------------

Quote from a post at the Infected Mushroom forum:

 

 

but SynSUN is closed because of piracy.

over than 30 000 people d/l "symhonic adventures" from p2p.

and only 225 CD's was sold in 3 month ;(

 

RIP, SynSUN.

 

-------

 

i am not kidding.

i am leader of SynSUN and this project is closed now.

Sorry and enjoy our old good stuff.

 

vax/SynSUN

 

--------------------------------

 

Guess I was one of those 225 buyers ...

[Towelie]

lol what a sad guy if he did

[Spindrift]

I agree with prosect that an mp3 release is a easier option.

 

The idea to start with is that you have to dl the tracks to listen to them and I doubt many labels want to invest a couple of thousand € to print a CD with beginner material already widespread on the net.

No offense to any budding producers, I'm sure there will be some great music, but it will nevertheless be labeled as a amateur CD somehow.

 

And anyone with a modern printer that can do on body print could offer to do print CDR copies if people do like to order the compilation on CD.

Modern CDR discs look just like the real thing and is very durable and is the preferred option in most cases when the volume is less than 1000 copies.

That way there is no investment needed really, only a small income for the artists and the person that print and mail the CD's.

[ProSect]

Wonder why he chose that name.....!! It means almonds in Greek....!!

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heh, i will ask Andreas about that

 

well he got one tune on crotus compilation (soundscapes part 1) and nowdays he studies psychology and exploring some sounds (also programming some audio effects ). i wonder when he will finish remix on my track

 

yes also Vax from Synsun made it, have to ask him if he really quit the craft. Electrypnose (don't remember if that was his name in the contest), Agalactia - phillip making wonderfull ambient music on aleph zero, moai and ethereal @ tranceform, masada - 1/2 of it now known under the name Threshold Productions and making great deep progressive tunes and and me - in every direction that comes to my mind

 

ah that was the days

 

 

ND.

[ProSect]

Amygdala:

 

The amygdala is a brain structure that is essential for decoding emotions, and in particular stimuli that are threatening to the organism. As a result of evolution, many of our body’s alarm circuits are grouped together in the amygdala.

Consequently, many sensory inputs converge in the amygdala to inform it of potential dangers in its environment. This sensory information comes to the amygdala either directly from the sensory thalamus or from the various sensory cortexes.

 

 

[Goazzz...]

Amygdala:

The amygdala is a brain structure that is essential for decoding emotions, and in particular stimuli that are threatening to the organism. As a result of evolution, many of our body’s alarm circuits are grouped together in the amygdala.

Consequently, many sensory inputs converge in the amygdala to inform it of potential dangers in its environment. This sensory information comes to the amygdala either directly from the sensory thalamus or from the various sensory cortexes.

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Waw.......Almonds are doing all these....?? First time i hear that after 24 years of speaking Greek...!! Maybe Andreas is an almond lover so he chose that name, and he let you think all this fancy scenario is the true reason.......

 

 

 

Anyway.......Thanx for the info ProSect man....!!

[Amygdala]

Hi everybody - my first visit to Psynews in a year or two (shame on me!)

 

It's incredibly great to hear that someone out there remembers music I made three years ago - it soothes! For those interested, I still make music when I have the time, and would really like the psynews contests to roll again... It was (is!) a great idea, that helped me fulfill a personal dream... Not bad at all. I have this very ugly website at www.amygdala.dk (never judge a book by its cover...) - the mp3s there are old and not really representative of my latest work, but I will update it a little soon.

 

Any confusion about the name "Amygdala" can be easily resolved - Prosect is right - the neural system Amygdala is called so, because it's shape resembles an almond.

 

I realized the greek meaning sometime ago, and felt slightly stupid. I couldn't help laughing a little about it - I love coincidences like that - besides, it's safe to say that there are weirder names out there...? And yes, I do love a good almond...

 

Anyway - it's good to be back - thanks for you interest

 

-A

[moni]

well

i have Proprioception Malfunction (for those who don't know - track from the 2nd contest) on a burned audio CD at home.

plus i made all my friends listen to it and they thought it was good. and they're psy music makers also.

i'll go check that site of your now

[moni]

uh ... looks like everybody wants a new contest. ok, maybe we will not have a CD released ..

so maybe we will not have as many participants as we had at the last contest.

but maybe we will have enough to make it a great one.

 

this is a pretty damn famous website. many people from all over the world click the shit out of their mouses on this site every day. if i was a goa maker, i'd so be in the contest. i mean.. think of all the people who will listen to you. you have the chance to become NOTICED. hell, this is valid even for those who are already famous. there are many famous/known artists whose music i haven't listened to yet.

 

about being NOTICED ... the best example is Amygdala here. i had no idea who he was before. now it's been 3 years since the 2nd contest and i still remember him as "the guy with the cool song", and i still spin his track in my cd player. if i am ever around a party/club where he's performing, i am definetly going to see/listen to him.

 

a contest would be great publicity.

 

if you guys really want some finality, some prize .. with some effort i am sure we can find a millionaire who will one way or the other be convinced to throw in a couple of Mercedes's and BMW's and maybe an island.

or Skazi's limo.. can that be a prize? or a consolation prize for the worst song of the contest... ?

[Towelie]

how about if the price is a night out with skazi + limo for night with driver

[Lemmiwinks]

Well I've given this some thought and thanks to Spindrift's input here's the deal: aparently an investment of around 300 euros is enough to have a low-profile CD-R release (like Schlabbaduerst Rekkords and Reason at Hearth do). I could easily finance that out of my own pocket... So if the contest goes ahead, I (or we if mars and co. want to be part of the project) could make a label entitled... "Psynews Records" or "Psynews.org Records" and release the winner tracks. Don't expect massive sales but people who would want the tracks on CDs (and like moni said, the psynews name does have it's fans ) can have them.

 

Now my main question is this: how to split up the revenus? Spindrift told me that once all the costs covered it leaves around 6,50€ for the artists per sold CD... and keep in mind that if this sells 2- 300 copies (in all, not per month) we should be happy... This means that at best (and I mean really best) this would bring around 2000 euros for artists. (but DO keep in mind that 300 copies is a very optimistic assumption, this could just as well sell 50 copies...). Now if this was a single artist release it would be good but since it will be a comp, money will be divided to different artists... If there are say 9 tracks, that would bring 0,72 Euros per sold CD to each artist thus 215 Euros per artist in best case scenario... This is peanuts and most of you probably get more than that per month out of wellfare... This also explains why a double-CD release would be even worse (then the profits would be divided by 18 instead of 9)... Personally I'm willing to work for peanuts because I love this site and find it deserves some investment in time and money to bring it to a higher level... but will participating artists agree with the terms as well?

 

Anyway, tell me what you think about it.

[psytones]

Lemmi ... I could easely sell 50 albums in Oslo If everyone involved puts their heart in to this.. It could work. And I will have a track ready for september

[moni]

"Psynews Records" or "Psynews.org Records"

 

maybe the one without ".org"

some people tend to call stuff like these "internet geeks" or something.

 

the idea is good. for those who would not claim their money ... it can be reinvested.

[Negrosex]

I wouldn't care if i didn't get much money for my track if i won the contest.

[psytones]

I wouldn't care if i didn't get much money for my track if i won the contest.

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as long as it doesnt go in minus, I dont care. I'm in for Zero money..

 

 

But I could be an investor

[Amygdala]

As Moni put it, I have had huge benefit from both the first and second contest... I will definetly NOT promise anything yet, but my recent idea could be channeled to giving something back for the help I got.

 

As so many other people making this kind of music, I have been toying with the idea of opening a small-time label. Nothing fancy, no money-machine - just plain old fun. Something like the Psynews contest would be an ideal launching project for such a label, right? The only problem is, that I don't know anything about promotion, distribution or anything in that direction, but have written to some of the distribution companies to check up on it. I think I have the capital to finance the pressing of the (real non-CD-r) CDs (with booklet and everything) at first, but I'm on a tight budget as it is... I have mailed pressing companies all morning, so I hope to have a better idea of the possibilities later.

 

About splitting "revenues", it should be rather easy. Profit from sales should be devided evenly between all the artists, the cover-designer, and whoever will do the mastering (although this is sensitive - it should be a good masterer...) - but considering the risk involved, maybe it shouldn't be profit per CD, but total profit of the entire project that was split?

 

If everyone chips in pushing the CDs (contacting shops, playing on webradios, word-of-mouth - the works!), and the tracks haven't been "released" as mp3's beforehand, then maybe - juuuust maybe - it could work out, and some of the profits could be kept for later contests.

 

Lemmiwinks idea is good, but I must admit, I would prefer to have a "real" CD with booklet, as opposed to the less durable CDr's...

 

How does all this sound?

 

-A

 

Oh, by the way - I updated www.amygdala.dk with some slightly newer sound

[Spindrift]

I presumed that the tracks have to be downloadable to make a contest.

People can't really vote on the tracks based on snippets.

 

But with the help of the community here it's maybe not impossible to be able to sell 1000 copies, which is really the minimum if you want to break even if you would sell it thru a distributor.

If you are planning to be self-distributed it would be an enormus success to sell more than a couple of hundered copies, and pressing say 500 copies will cost you about the same as pressing 1000.

 

I just have to defend the CDR a bit, because I do think it's a great option for the artists and the scene to loosen up the rigid distibution system in place.

 

The label owners I know don't make any money from their investments or their work.

Still the pressure is there to please the people that disrtibute you otherwise you end up in depth.

There is in effect 3-4 distributors in this scene you can get to sell you the required quantities to finance a pressing.

You are likely to have to adjust you licensing terms to their liking and you might have restrictions about for example selling downloads directly yourself or have to get their agreement if you find partners to widen your distrubution in more countries.

The total turnaround in the scene is not so bad but the amount you can pay the artists is very small.

Say you sell 1000 copies, and people pay on average some $17 per CD in the shop or with postage.

$17000 is then what the fans anyway do support with.

From this if you have a good deal with the distributor you get maybe $7000, many time with very long delays.

After costs for printing, mastering, artwork, shipping, mechanical royalty maybe and ads/promotion that will normally end up in that the artists should get their $1000 and you should have $1000 profit left.

If you get $1000 profit in the end it normally seems to get quite unnoticable as a result in the end after working for months with the release and the $100 each for a track on a comp will not mean that much to the artist.

If you only sold 700 you are looking at a loss and will have problem to pay the artists and never mind yourself.

 

You can get very high quality discs by burning them yourself.

To manufacture your own and get quality results you of course need to be careful with selecting top quality CDR to go with your burner and methodical with scanning the quality results of your burned discs.

I travelled a lot with CDs, both burnt and pressed, to India and especially Goa.

I think that must be one of the worst imaginable places for having a tendency to destroy CDs quickly. Goa is really sunny, moist and has lots of really sticky dust everywhere and most CDs I brought there has been ruined after a few months there.

On some cheap CDR I could see the recording layer dissolve after a few weeks.

I'm not hte most care taking maybe, but I try and always keep them in quality cases Still most of my pressed CDs get too scratched to be playable after a season in GOA.

Some very good CDR have lasted more more than 5-6 years of my abuse so far.

 

The on body print and booklets you can achive with a home printer is excellent quality and if you spend money on good quality printable CDR and photo quality paper for booklet and inlay you can make a result even better looking than what you get from the pressing plant.

CMYK colour is quite dull compared to the RGB prints from an inkjet.

 

I think it great spirit in both Lemmi and Amygdala for offering to take on the release and wish whoever does it best of luck and is sorry for the long monolouge.

This an issue close at heart for me so I like to speak about and I hope I'm not being discouraging to anyone.

The artists doesn't seem to be bothered with the money from it and on the contrary offer to invest, the person releasing it should be willing to invest a lot of time and money with no return and the tracks should not be possible to download before they are released to make it possible to sell.

So with the scenario at hand it seems to me that there is more advantages than disadvantages with the CDR option.

 

But if you feel like going ahed with your plan Amygdala, I would say have a word with some distibutors about what they would say about the idea.

Of course you can't get a definate yes or no before the compilation has ended and you put the CD together, but it could give you an idea of if it will be much of a chance to sell enough to pay for a pressing.

[Amygdala]

Good call, Spindrift. Something would have to be done about downloading the mp3s - maybe if some streaming could work, and if people "promised" not to rip the stream There is probably an obvious sollution to that problem.

 

If the artists think as I did when I entered the competition, they probably won't be in it for the money, and will accept both delays and uncertainty as to the actual amount. I still remember the feeling when Inpsyde sent me my royalty copies of "psychedelic sparks"... That was indeed something special! I would like though, if someone else was involved in some way - not to take the fall, but to supply different perspectives, make sure nothing went wrong and such. The reason I want to start a label, is that I don't care much for half-witted and downright deceitful ways - and as soon as money is involved in some ways, there's a risk that it ends up there. I wouldn't want people to see me as an oppertunist either...

 

As I said, I know nothing about distribution, and am trying to talk to "the man", but so far no replies. I already obtained some offers from pressing companies though, and the prices there are encouraging. I will keep digging though, and see if some opportunity turns up. It would be nice

 

-A

[Amygdala]

Oh my... A very good point was drowned in our all too serious plans...

- Even though no release is actually possible, a contest could be good fun anyway!

[Lemmiwinks]

Well I guess that a good starting point would be to know what happened to the first psynews comp. How many copies did it sell? How much every artist got in return? How did they think up the profit distribution? Was there any profit at all?

[Amygdala]

I got a check for about 100 euro - not too long after the release. I think Inpsyde (the releasing label) got a bit burnt though, since they didn't go for the second competitions CD... :|

 

-A

[Lemmiwinks]

well there, I pinned this topic here in the music making part since after all it's you people who are mostly concerned

 

So let me know people what are your thoughts, I wouldn't want this idea just to die off like that...