Well, it’s a slow Monday in terms of music developments, but this weekend marked two particularly big events to be featured in today’s News feature….
EMI and the Deathly Hands:
On Friday, EMI’s newest chairman Guy Hands announced that he would be cutting a third of the company’s workforce as well as several signed artists in order to rework their profits and selling strategies. The reactions towards these cuts have been mixed, but one thing can be agreed upon by everyone observing this story: EMI is in trouble. And if one of the largest record label conglomerates has been bought up by a man specializing in “buying and reviving ailing businesses”, you can almost imagine how UMG and Sony must being doing at the moment. (Of course, UMG is probably smirking like crazy, given that the Rolling Stones have signed on with them for the band’s newest release, in response to the EMI cuts.)
Guy Hands’ comment on the cuts:
“We have spent a long time looking intensely at EMI and the problems faced by its Recorded Music division which, like the rest of the music industry, has been struggling to respond to the challenges posed by a digital environment
“We believe we have devised a new revolutionary structure for the group that will improve every area of the business. In short it will make EMI’s music more valuable for the company and its artists alike. The changes we are announcing today will ensure that this iconic company will be creating wonderful music in a way that is profitable and sustainable.”
Hmm. That’s great and all, really, but you should probably start to think twice when some of your biggest revenue artists — particularly, Radiohead and Paul McCartney — have already run off in reaction to your plan, with several others starting to follow their example.
–The moral of our story? Buying up independent record labels to stay on top of the internet downloading community only works for so long. It should prove interesting to see if Hands can really turn the company around to profit again, despite all the bad choices in artist and job cuts he’s made so far. Then again, today’s music industry is becoming less and less about consumerism and more the ‘grass-roots’ pursuit of personal expression and entertainment. Hands may be in for a rude awakening when he realizes that selling music is a far cry from selling encyclopedias and paintings. (That is, assuming that he manages to hang onto any musicians before every signed artist flees the company in disgust.)
NAMM Show comes to a close:
Yesterday marked the end of the 2008 National Association of Music Merchants convention, a 4-day event which showcases new music products, instruments and tools to help both music retailers and manufacturers. Here’s a (very brief) look at some of the tech showcased this year:
Hothand Cool Tech: Hand SFX “Pedal”
KORG: Kaosillator and Karma
Though the Karma is pretty cool, the KORG Kaosillator takes the cake for me. The synthesizer has been around for a few months already, making it’s first debut in the Eastern market sometime in November — only now is it being shown off in the U.S. A cool feature about the Kaossillator that the U.S. demo doesn’t show is the ability to record numerous tracks, allowing you to mix and adjust them in real time:
Heh, now that I think of it, this kind of reminds me of those Monome devices that started showing up a little while ago….
McDSP: Futzbox and Noisefilter
Talk about stiff…though, if you can get past the hokey presentation, it’s a nice short-cut for sound editors. (Call me old-school, but I still prefer the grassroots way of experimentation….)
And speaking of old-school… Minimoog Voyager Old School analog synthesizer
Moog MP-201 Multi Pedal
For a ton more on the NAMM convention, you can check out either the NAMM show webpage or CDM’s exclusive coverage, providing some great reviews of products and events of the weekend.
And now, for this week’s DIY…something for the Trek geek in all of us (and a lot of free time): The Stribe. Inspired by the Monome mentioned above, not only does it make a great console prop but an interesting medium for music mixing as well.
