The radio groups are set to participate in the May 1 protest against the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel’s proposed webcast royalties by including in their web simulcasts short periods of silence and PSAs on the issue. Other streamers will shut down their streams entirely from dawn local time until late evening or stream a specially produced daylong talk show. A number of highly rated webcasters earlier agreed to take part in the protest, among them broadcast streamers Classical KING-FM/Seattle, owned by the nonprofit Beethoven group; Mapleton Communications’ KPIG-Monterey; and NPR affiliate KCRW/Santa Monica, CA. The CARP proposed per-performance royalties of .14 cents for Internet-only streams and .07 cents for AM and FM simulcasts; the Copyright Office must accept, reject or amend those rates by May 21.

@see Impending Death of Internet Radio?

EMI Recorded Music today introduced the first subscription service backed by a major label to give consumers what they want – the ability to download music and take it with them.

EMI and technology partner Liquid Audio of Redwood City launched BurnItFirst, a Christian music service that allows consumers to keep the music they download, create custom CD compilations and transfer their favorite tunes to portable devices.
‘It’s true ownership. It’s a buy-once model, which is what consumers have been clamoring for,'’ said P.J. McNealy, a digital entertainment analyst for GartnerG2 in San Jose. ‘It’s the most liberal license we’ve seen to date.’

The other label-backed services, MusicNet and pressplay, offer a Blockbuster-inspired music rental model, in which downloaded tracks time out after 30 days. Although pressplay lets subscribers create one custom compilation a month, neither service permits portability.

BurnItFirst, by contrast, lets subscribers download up to 20 songs a month, use favorite tracks in up to three homemade CDs and transfer songs to portable players, such as the Rio Riot, five times. The cost is $9.95 a month.

‘Consumers have spoken loudly about how they want to get music,’ said EMI senior vice president Jay Samit. ‘We’re working closely with technology companies to provide the flexibility that consumers demand and, at the same time, provide a revenue stream so our artists can make a living from their art.’

EMI, the world’s third-largest record label, holds a 40 percent share of the Christian music market. Because it controls both the publishing and distribution rights to major acts – such as DC Talk, Toby Mac, Cece Winans and Rebecca St. James – EMI is able to offer an online service with the most popular works.

Consumers have complained that the pop-music subscription services pressplay and MusicNet offer poor music selection, with five or fewer of the hot 100 Billboard singles and albums.

Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Aram Sinnreich said the Burn-ItFirst service should be successful, in part because it caters to a niche market whose consumers can’t find their favorite artists at record stores.

He predicted that pressplay and MusicNet – or any pay version of the popular Napster service – will blossom into a $1 billion business over the next five years.

‘A model where a consumer pays $5 to $10 a month and, in exchange, gets infinite access to a vast library of music that all goes away as soon as they stop paying – I think there’s a very large market,'’ Sinnreich said.

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, the most flamboyant and outspoken member of the multi-platinum trio TLC, has died, according to a spokesperson for the group’s label, Arista Records. Lopes was 30.

The rapper/singer perished in a car accident late Thursday night while she was vacationing in Honduras.

“We had all grown up together and were as close as a family. Today we have truly lost our sister,” Lopes’ TLC partners Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas said in a statement.This afternoon on MTV’s “TRL,” the audibly distraught ladies phoned in, saying, “Lisa had one of the biggest hearts of anybody we’ve ever known. She did charity work with kids for the lupus disease. She adopted a little girl named Snow … Lisa could do anything she put her mind to.”

“No words can possibly express the sorrow and sadness I feel for this most devastating loss,” Arista’s CEO L.A. Reid said in a statement. “Lisa was not only a gifted and talented musical inspiration, but more importantly, she was like a daughter to me. My thoughts and prayers are with Lisa’s family and friends. Her legacy will be remembered forever.”

On Friday morning (April 26) Lopes’ personal publicist released details about the tragedy. Left Eye went down to Honduras — where she would often visit — on March 20, and was scheduled to return to the States on Sunday. While there, she was volunteering at a children’s development center and at the Usha Herbal Resource Institute, an herbal healing center.

Left Eye was driving a rented Mitsubishi Montero SUV and traveling from La Ceiba to San Pedro Sula. According to her spokesperson, a three-person group called Egypt, her brother, sister and two producers were in the vehicle with her. The spokesperson said the SUV tipped over and Left Eye died after sustaining a blow to the head.

According to authorities in Jutiapa, Lopes was not licensed to drive internationally and was apparently speeding and lost control. The car crashed in Roma, which is one of Jutiapa’s provinces.

Everyone was taken to the Vicente D’Antoni hospital in La Ceiba and, according to that medical facility, there were eight other passengers in the vehicle. Four were released and the remaining four remain hospitalized in stable condition.

The U.S. Embassy in Honduras said it is working with the San Jose Funeral Home in La Ceiba and the Lopes family to make arrangements for the body to be flown back to Atlanta. No funeral plans have been made as of yet.

As for the musical projects Left Eye was involved with, TLC were working on an album and at least four tracks have been completed. Left Eye had been in the studio working on a track with David Bowie, and had hoped to do a song with Eve and Pink based on the theme of Philly pride, Lopes’ spokesperson said.

Born in Philadelphia, Left Eye later moved to Atlanta, where she formed TLC with Watkins and Thomas. The trio’s 1992 debut LP, Ooooooohhh…On the TLC Tip, spawned the top 10 hits “Baby-Baby-Baby,” “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” and “What About Your Friends.”

The group’s hip-pop beats — provided by Jermaine Dupri and Dallas Austin — and their identifiable b-girl style captivated fans, helping the trio become instant stars. With condoms on their clothes, their hats shifted to the back and their sagging, baggy pants, TLC exuded girl-powered audacity. As the resident rapper among two singers, Left Eye immediately stood out.

Two years later, TLC proved their staying power with the blockbuster LP Crazysexycool. The group expanded its message while expanding its fanbase, offering such songs as “Creep” (exploring relationship infidelity) and “Waterfalls” (which addressed a number of society’s ills).

Away from the studio, the trio brought the drama that would keep the world fixated on them. In the five years between Crazysexycool and their third LP, Fan Mail, TLC publicly quarreled amongst themselves, fought with their former manager, Pebbles, as well as their record label. They also declared bankruptcy and disclosed life-threatening illnesses, among other things. Lopes upped the controversy even further when she set fire to the home of her on-again, off-again boyfriend, football star Andre Rison, in 1994.

Throughout it all, Left Eye held her head high and spoke her mind on everything. No matter how outrageous the situation, Left Eye would seem to trump it with an even more outrageous opinion. More than any other member of the group, Left Eye became a character, and what she did offstage became just as (if not more) interesting than what she did onstage.

Last year, Lopes was engaged in another beef with her label when it decided not to release her long-talked about solo debut, Supernova, domestically (see “Left Eye Plans To Stream Delayed Album"). Although TLC were said to be working on the their fourth LP for months (see “Reconciled TLC Recording New Album, Solo Projects"), Lopes dropped another shocker at the beginning of this year when she announced that she had aligned herself with Suge Knight’s Tha Row label. Lopes said that she would record a new solo album in Los Angeles under the name N.I.N.A. While “Nina” is slang for a 9 mm handgun, Left Eye said her Row moniker stood for “New Identity Non-Applicable” (see “Left Eye Signs With Suge Knight’s Tha Row” ).

There is no word yet on how much material Left Eye recorded for her new solo album or for the next TLC project, or what plans (if any) there are for the release of those albums.

The purchase of a reel-to-reel player at an estate sale leads two men to build and broadcast a part-time pirate radio station.

“This is your old pal Retlaw Kedzu. We really on top of the mountain. We up here in the Cedar Country and Peter’s Creek.”

Somewhere in Echo Park. Dec. 12, 2001. The 100th anniversary of Marconi’s debut transatlantic radio broadcast. A drummer’s duplex. High up on a hillside, with a view of downtown. A rickety porch. An 8-foot-tall antenna, raised higher, mounted where iron railings corner.

Follow the cable inside. See a contraption made of blonde wood. Compartments filled with electronics, wires, a meter.

This is a portable radio station. An unlicensed, illegal radio station.Ahoy, a pirate radio station.

Broadcasting an old-timer’s voice, like William Burroughs reciting “A Junky’s Christmas,” crackling, avuncular, charismatic, shaky. Goes by the enigmatic name, Retlaw Kedzu. Commemorating Marconi’s feat with a three-hour broadcast.

Kedzu speaks. Marconi explains radio history. Negativeland clips play. Listeners never hear a deejay’s voice.

“Say I never told you about, last night I had a dream. I had a dream I was right on top of the mountain. And when I opened my eyes, I was right here in Peter’s Creek. Right on top of the mountain, right here in good ole Peter Crik [sic]. Now really if you wanna be dreaming, or if you’re gonna dream, where else would you rather dream that you would be other than on top of the mountain?”

There are other found sounds and music blends. The old man again:

“Now it’s a 10-second station break. But you know old Kedzu and I’m gonna tell you just where we’re at. Because we 170 miles north of Vegas, we 120 miles south of Ely, Nev., we 84 miles west of Cedar City, we 11 miles south of Pioche, we 14 miles north of Caliente. About eight and a half miles southeast of Mrs. Wah’s Cantina.”

Locals within a range of up to 20 miles tune to 104.7 FM–the old call numbers of Silver Lake’s legendary pirate station KBLT. Three hours. Not enough for the FCC, even if aware and interested, to triangulate.

Tune in again, then, a minute after the broadcast ends. Hear static. Or maybe entrails of a hip-hop station in Riverside.

* * *

“We’ve got a lot friends here who are old standbys. We’ve got oh, Mrs. Wah, Hop Sing, Peter Dowsky, Jimmy Dean. I don’t know how long this station is going to keep on. But we don’t seem to have as much support as we gonna need.”

The two men behind the broadcasts–and nine others like it during the past 10 months–call themselves Ray Rug and Peter Crik, after names and geographic locations mentioned in the tapes.

Mountain Radio, the station name itself, comes from the constant references the old man makes to his own elevated geographical location.

Rug and Crik are in their early to mid-30s. They have art school educations. Hold day and freelance jobs. One lives in Pasadena. The other in Eagle Rock.

A decade or so ago, Rug was a deejay at a college radio station in the Southwest. Did an experimental sonic collage sort of set.

Crik had no experience in radio, save maybe for listening to KFI-AM’s (640) Phil Hendrie and Art Bell; and little with recording save for documenting birds as a 7-year-old with a tape deck and built-in mike.

Rug and Crik didn’t set out, then, to be pirates; it just happened.

In July 1999, Rug found an old Wallensak brand reel-to-reel deck at an estate sale. A reel was still inside. He plugged it in, dug what he heard, paid $15 to bring the player and its contents home. The sellers threw in some polka and religious reels.

The attraction, though, was Kedzu. His voice. His age. His habit of giving out mileage markers like signposts at a military base. How he sometimes sounded drunk, sometimes inspired. And most of all, how he pretended to be making a radio broadcast when likely he was recording himself in a ghost of a town in rural Nevada.

“The guy’s name is Retlaw Kedzu, which we figure is Walter Uzdek backwards,” Crik says, sitting on a sofa at Rug’s place. “And when you listen to these tapes, it makes sense that he would be doing this to his name because … it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s fiction when he’s talking about the people he knows, who live in his town.”

Rug says that Kedzu was probably in his 80s when he made the recordings. “And this was like 1972, so he’s long dead by now,” Rug adds. “The people he mentions are pretty much all buried in Panaca, Nev.”

In November 2000, Rug had some time on his hands; he’d recently been laid off from a dot-com job, so he decided to follow Kedzu’s map coordinates and investigate further.

Rug headed to Panaca; population 800; elevation 4,700 feet. Started asking questions. Anybody heard of Kedzu? No? How about some of these other names mentioned on the reel?

Rug visited the local post office, where he met the postmaster, a descendant of a town founder. The man pointed Rug to a nursing home and a cemetery, where Rug found some familiar names, but not the name he was looking for.

Rug corresponded with a local historian. She didn’t know Kedzu, wondered if perhaps he was a drifter.

Lately, Rug’s come to believe he knows more about the man. The broadcaster found a web page that lists World War I draft dates. Only one Walter from Lincoln County is mentioned. Another man from the tape is listed, too. It’s a long shot.

Somewhere along the way, Crik and Rug also came up with a way to honor the man, whatever his real name. The pair would build a pirate radio station and actually broadcast over the airwaves Kedzu’s original recordings.

* * *

“This is the station that gives you the best of everything, when we’re operating. But now we’re crippled up and we’re not working real good.”

The pair take a visitor out back to a garage free of cars. Metal hopper with tennis balls. Spare tires.

Rug and Crik carry the station–weight: 35 pounds–outdoors. Set it down under a stout tree and the telltale dirt of a gopher hole. They attach an extension cord to the station, plug it in. Show a visitor the components; try to explain the technology behind it. Speak proudly of the case, built conceptually by an art center graduate to resemble a cityscape.

The unit, made of a blonde, strong wood, is 3 1/2 feet long by 18 inches wide and rests eight inches off the ground. Inside sits a long tube of fluorescent light, which shines through a narrow yellow Plexiglas cut-out.

Rug and Crik kneel behind the station, both wearing dark, solid colors. They cover their faces with the reels in order to maintain anonymity, pose for photographs bathed in the yellow florescent glow.

“[We] just had some kind of blind confidence that we could pull it off,” Rug says. “We don’t have any experience in electronics at all.”

The radio station has cost Rug and Crik about $1,000 so far. Depending on a variety of factors, it is able to power up to 150 watts.

Rug and Crik searched online for schematics. Sought advice from recent pirate The Monkey Man, who at the time operated a 24-hour-a-day station from a fixed location in Hollywood.

Rug and Crik also checked in with a suspicious staffer at a local ham radio outlet.

“He realized right away that we weren’t the usual ham radio characters,” Rug says. “Because we weren’t 45 years old and driving a Lincoln Town Car with our ‘Ham Radio’ [license] plates, like the rest of these guys.”

Crik and Rug ordered an amplifier from England. The transmitter came from Slovenia, by way of a web auction site and a seller in Maine. Some components were purchased at local electronics stores, but the pair was nervous about leaving behind a paper trail.

The first confirmed broadcast emanated from Rug’s living room floor via a transmitter and TV antenna. Three watts was the most they could conjure. They bumped Joe Meek, the pioneering British producer of stereophonic songs. Crik possesses a collection of Meek’s home recordings.

“It really hit home,” Crik says. “We fired it up and walked out to the car in front of the house. And tuned to the frequency. And there it was. So we had officially broadcast like I don’t know, 50 to 100 feet.”

Since then, the two have done a Halloween show, playing digital music backwards. Using a quirk in QuickTime computer software, they were able to play scary Hollywood movie trailers in reverse sequence, so the words were recognizable, but the order of the words was reversed.

They’ve broadcast from the Mt. Washington hilltop home of a prominent artist–he wasn’t home. The first mobile broadcast took place north of Altadena, on a hiking trail, the station plugged into the cigarette lighter of Rug’s car. A hiker made an inquiry; the broadcasters lied, said they were Cal Tech students receiving signals.

They’ve explored several frequencies, eventually settling on 104.7-FM.

Then there was the Aug. 4, 2001, broadcast of a Disneyland-themed show. Rug and Crik circumnavigated the happiest place on earth the week prior, driving around with a scanner, picking up and recording two and a half hours worth of transmissions emanating from inside the theme park.

They captured such dialogue such as: “I have some guests inquiring to the status of Space Mountain, please.”

And: “That’s affirmative. They’re not released because the carpet has been cleaned. Can you check to see if it’s dry?”

Mountain Radio’s creators are starting to get bolder, think grander. They are pondering what Rug labels a “high-concept idea"–setting up near a drive-in movie theater and culture jamming their own soundtrack over that of the film’s. In the more benign version of this plan, a moment of an action film’s score would be replaced seamlessly by a different snippet of score.

Rug also relates a real reel vision. One that would return to the station’s estate sale roots.

“The ultimate would be to go back to Panaca to broadcast the Retlaw Kedzu [recordings] in their entirety, unadulterated,” Rug says.

He’s scouted out the rural Nevada dial and found only a single automated classic rock station the whole span of the FM spectrum. Almost too good to be true, the pirates figure.

“That would almost be like an exercise in not just going back to the source of the recording,” Rug says, “but having a place where we could broadcast wherever the hell we wanted to.”

Jeremy Rosenberg can be reached at jeremynr@aol.com

1) Jacques le Fue feat Princess Lady - ’shallow breath’ - Pacific traxx
2) Patrick Turner - Bluem 06 (promo)
3) Lance Desardi - ‘ sooner than later’ - Pacific Coast 05
4) Igloo music promo 003
5) Mayaku - ‘tropical winds’ - Wally’s groove world 035
6) Brett Johnson - ‘ Sweet & Sour Sessions’ - Hi-Phen
7) Aaron Ochoa - ‘ Kissing Pandora ‘ - Matic records
8) demarkus Lewis - ‘ St. Lewis ‘ - greenskeepers music 002
9) Freestyle man feat George Spruce - ‘ Gotta Need Remixes’ - mood music
10) Hesohi - ‘Havabal e.p.’ - Roam recordings

Mon Apr 8, 3:32 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new batch of compact discs designed to defeat Napster-style piracy is coming soon to record-industry insiders.

BMG, one of the world’s five major labels, said on Monday it would start issuing promotional CDs – the free discs distributed to critics, retailers and other insiders weeks before the official release – with technological countermeasures to prevent copying.

The major labels, which include Vivendi Universal, Sony Music, EMI Group, AOL Time Warner’s Warner Music and Bertelsmann AG’s BMG, hope that copy protection measures will prevent users from “ripping,” or copying the music into the easily traded MP3 format. “The first benefit of doing promos and advances is to get feedback on the technology,” said Kevin Clement, BMG’s senior director of new media. “And we would hope this technology will stop the records from leaking early to the public.”

Popular records like Outkast’s “Stankonia” and D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” were freely available to the public weeks before their release dates via Napster, the currently shuttered music-trading service that spawned a online music swapping revolution and is now partially owned by Bertelsmann.

The label said most of its protected discs would contain two versions of the album, one for use in consumer CD players and another encoded in Microsoft Corp’s encrypted WMA format, for playback on PCs and compatible portable music players.

None of the major labels have committed to a full-scale roll-out of protected CDs, in part because of backlash in Europe after altered discs did not play on some CD players.

BMG’s release of Natalie Imbruglia’s “White Lilies” in the United Kingdom last year, for example, prompted numerous returns of the disc to retailers. And Sony’s Celene Dion CD released in Europe last month, “A New Day Has Come,” reportedly caused some computers to crash.

BMG said in a statement it eventually hopes “to arrive at a copy management solution that offers consumers the experience the artists create and deserve reward for.”

The company declined to say which companies it was working with to provide the promotional CDs’ technological countermeasures, but Clement said the label hoped the promotional discs would work with virtually all compact disc players when they launch later this month.

“One hundred percent, that’s our goal and that’s what we’ve charged the technology companies to hit,” he said.

Asked if that goal was reachable, given the current state of the technology, he said, “We’ll soon find out.”

Matthew Herbert has been playing music for as long as he can remember; taking up the piano and violin at the tender age of four. His father was a sound engineer for the BBC, and as a result, the young Herbert was exposed to his extensive collection of musical gadgetry that lay around the home. At school, a music teacher heavily into jazz and pioneering composers such as Steve Reich gave Matthew musical insights that were beyond his years. At University, he studied drama in a conscious effort to avoid classical music training, it was here that he first began to use sampling techniques in an exploration of the relationship between music and performance. It was around this time when Matthew began considering releasing some of the music he had been producing over the years.

In late 1995, he released the house inflected ‘Herbert - Part One’ single (Phono). A few months later in January 1996, there followed another three releases; ‘Herbert - Part Two’ in addition to material under two different pseudonyms - the abstracted techno of ‘Wishmountain’, and jazzy electro of ‘Dr Rockit’. 1997 saw the first release as ‘Radioboy’, representing the common elements of each of his former monikers, taken to sonic extremes. These unique angles on electronic music were a refreshing breath of fresh air amongst row upon row of unimaginative tat lining record shop shelves. Taking cues from the ‘musique concrete’ movement, a large part of Matthew’s music incorporated every day sounds, extrapolated from their usual context by use of sampler and applied to the formula of dance music in it’s varying forms. With high acclaim from both punters and fellow producers alike, Matthew found himself in demand - notably for his work as ‘Herbert’, and his considerable remixing talents. In addition to his electronic / dance productions, Matthew set about composing music for several feature film soundtracks - something he has maintained an active interest in since leaving University. However, Matthew Herbert is perhaps best known for his stunning live performances, in which he incorporates live sampling of seemingly anything he can get his hands on, including bottles, bikes, stones, radios, and cameras, to name a few. As Herbert, he takes vocalist Dani Siciliano and pianist Phil Parnell on the road with him and presents his ‘Wobbly’ perspective on house music - sampling Dani’s vocal in real time and manipulating samples gathered on the spot. Whilst in his own words he was ‘never supposed to be a DJ’, Matthew has played out in at over 300 clubs and events over the last five or six years, and travelled across the globe in the process.

For some reason, just having Cubase VST Virtual Instruments turned ON uses your processor. BY ON I mean switched to power ‘ON’ and not even playing a single note. I noticed this when my CPU became at spiked at 100% when I had 7 heavy duty VST instuments running. Only one was actually playing the necessary notes. Since, I really only needed to use only one (1) instrument anyway, so after subsequently turning each unused instrument off I regained 5% of CPU for each VST disabled. This was performed on a Windows 2000 Server running Cubase 5.0 R6. Your mileage may vary depending on your system.

If the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is fully enforced, stations will be unable to afford to webcast their tunes.

In the heady days of the late 1990s, Internet radio broadcasts were a poster child for the free flow of information over the Web. But if a 1998 federal law is fully enforced, webcasting could be just a fond memory for college radio.

Under the terms of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), radio stations around the country are supposed to pay thousands of dollars in annual fees to broadcast streaming audio over the Web. Managers of college and community stations say while their commercial counterparts may be able to pay the fees, their stations don’t have the cash and will shut down their webcasts. The 1998 law came up on Capitol Hill Thursday, as members of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property held an oversight hearing on how temporary copies stored on computers should be counted when calculating copyright fees.

The hearing, said congressional staffers, was an early skirmish in a battle to defang the DMCA and transfer power from record companies back to broadcasters.

Webcasting was once touted as an example of the Internet’s leveling power – it allows small local stations to reach Internet users all over the world. And college stations, which run tight budgets and eclectic playlists, fit the webcast bill perfectly. But record companies don’t like webcasting, with its potential for copying and distributing unlimited digital copies of songs.

Under long-standing U.S. copyright law, broadcasters pay a coalition of songwriters’ groups to air music over the Internet and the airwaves. But until the DMCA, performers and record companies did not have the rights to royalties when stations played their music. As part of the 1998 law, Congress allowed performers and record companies to start collecting fees on songs sent over the web, said Joel Willer, a mass communications professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. There are still no performer fees for regular airwave broadcasts.

But until now, the law has yet to be fully enforced. If it is, college radio on the Web will be in trouble.

According to Bob Kohn, founder of eMusic.com, and author of a book on music licensing, classic Beltway dealmaking partially explains why radio stations are being asked to pay performers for webcasts,

As the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act came together, says Kohn, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association, or DiMA, struck a deal: The DiMA, made up of webcasting heavies such as MTV, wanted to shut small webcasters out of the market. The RIAA wanted money for its artists and record companies.

The RIAA got their fees – and the fees effectively strangled the interest in small-time webcasting, says Kohn. The fees may end up doing the same for college webcasting.

Both the RIAA and the DiMA strongly disagreed with Kohn’s characterizations.

“That’s just pathetic,” says Jonathan Potter, head of the DiMA. “The MTVs and AOLs of the world have spent millions to argue for lower rates for everybody.” Agreeing to webcast fees was painful, and was only done because members of the DiMA, faced with huge lawsuits over copyright infringement, had their back to the wall, says Potter.

Will Robedee, general manager of KTRU at Rice University in Houston, is trying to pull together a coalition of college radio stations to change the DMCA. Some fees are acceptable, but college stations shouldn’t have to pay anywhere near what the big commercial stations pay, says Robedee. The law makes some provision for special treatment of nonprofit stations, but Robedee wants guarantees of substantially lower fees

The law also includes requirements that stations report every song played – requirements, says Robedee, that would be impossible for low-budget, nonautomated stations to meet.

“There is a public interest in having these stations webcasting,” Robedee said, citing exposure given to unknown bands, and the eclectic playlists that characterize college radio.

Still, performers deserve payment for their songs, says Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the RIAA. “We think that the law makes sense because artists and record companies who invest time, energy and resources should be compensated.”

The fees, if implemented, would mean the end of webcasting at KALX, the University of California at Berkeley’s radio station, says KALX general manager Sandra Wasson.

KALX pays a total of $623 per year to songwriters (as opposed to performers) to play music over the Web. The fee is low, Wasson said, because KALX doesn’t run advertisements. If the recording industry’s fee proposal goes through, KALX would have to dish out $10,000 to $20,000 a year in webcasting fees, Wasson said. And the fees would be retroactive to 1998.

“On our small budget, there’s just no way we can afford those amounts,” says Wasson, who also notes that KALX’s $200,000 yearly budget is huge compared to most college stations.

The recording industry and broadcasters are battling in front of a federal arbitration panel over just how high those fees should be. The RIAA, representing performers, is asking for 0.4 cents per listener per song. Broadcasters want fees many times lower. Record companies and performers will split the fees equally, Cabrera said.

Robedee, at Rice, hopes a new bill intended to gut the Millennium Copyright Act will include protections for college stations.

The Music On-Line Competition Act is designed to break the hammerlock the recording industry has over music distribution, says Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. Cannon co-authored the bill along with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.

Cannon hails from a conservative district in eastern Utah. But he called music-swapping service Napster “one of the coolest inventions of modern times.”

The Boucher-Cannon bill streamlines the licensing and fee payment process for webcasting, but as of yet, it doesn’t lower the amount college stations will pay.

Cannon, however, says he is willing to sit with college and nonprofit stations and hear what they have to say.

Cabrera, at the RIAA, called Boucher-Cannon a “solution in search of a problem,” saying it introduces too much government regulation.

But according to one Cannon aide, copyright holders have listeners and broadcasters over a barrel.

“The pendulum has swung a little too far for the copyright holders,” the aide said. “As a result, college radio stations are going to get hit with $20,000 bills.”

“It boils down,” the aide said, “to, Do you want choice in your music?”

By Mark L. Shahinian

A new wave of dedicated DSP cards is helping computer musicians boost their plug-in power. The latest to appear is Universal Audio’s UAD1, which offers recreations of vintage compressors as well as a high-quality reverb. Martin Walker plugs it in.Even on today’s fast computers, some plug-in effects such as reverb and ‘analogue’ EQ still take a hefty chunk of CPU power. At the top end of the market, Digidesign’s Pro Tools systems have long offloaded their plug-in processing to dedicated DSP cards; and several manufacturers are now marketing cheaper DPS systems that are not tied to a particular host application or hardware platform. This is the approach taken by the TC Powercore (reviewed in SOS June 2001), Creamware’s Pulsar XTC, and the subject of this review, Universal Audio’s UAD1. All three offer transparent operation with any VST-compatible host application, so you can carry on running Cubase VST, Logic Audio, or Nuendo exactly as before, but with the benefits of high-quality plug-ins which don’t use up the host computer’s CPU power.

Overview
The UAD1 DSP card is just seven inches long – about half the size of its competitors, which may be helpful if you have limited space in your computer. Since it neither needs nor has any I/O ports, the backplate is blank, and although there is provision for multi-pin connectors on the circuit board, none were mounted on the review model. in fact, there is remarkably little circuitry on the UAD1, apart from 4Mb of onboard RAM and a single ’secret’ DSP chip fitted with a finned heatsink. Universal Audio are reticent about its origins, but do say that it’s not made by either Motorola or SHARC, as used by TC and Creamware respectively in the Powercore and Pulsar XTC.

Despite all the claims of huge processing power relative to both native platforms and other DSP cards, it’s tricky to provide direct comparisons when the same plug-ins aren’t yet available for each one. Even where similar models exist, they may scale their processing up or down along with the price, to suit each product. However, for what it’s worth, Universal Audio claim that the UAD1 card is around 2.5 times more powerful than a Digidesign Mix Farm card [see clarification text below], and about twice as powerful as both the TC Powercore and Pulsar XTC. One more direct comparison that UA give does seem useful: you can run three instances of their Realverb Pro plug-in on a Pro Tools TDM Mix 24 system, and eight of the Powered Plug-In version on the UAD1.

Theiceberg.com is Canada’s best online radio portal featuring over 200 channels across a variety of music genres, bringing you the widest and most dynamic music selection online, all the time.

Whether your passion is rock, pop, alternative, electronic, jazz or classical, theiceberg.com plays your kind of music, live, 24/7.
Unlike other online music portals, theiceberg.com isn’t a repetitive jukebox: It’s music that’s programmed by people who live and breathe new sounds, who don’t just work off the charts, and who tailor their programming to what the audience wants to hear.

And guess what? It’s working! Iceberg’s listeners are growing more and more each day, and our music offering only continues to get better.

go there: http://www.theiceberg.com

1. Induceve - Monolevel - Classic

2. Dance Freak - The Prayer - Afroart
3. Andrew Macari - Time + Space Ep - Nordic Trax
4. Tony Thomas - Get High - Soma
5. Various - Tak 008 - Tak
6. Afrix Kigali Warriors - Kigali By Night - Transfusion
7. Various - Wgw Compilation Sampler - Wallys Groove World

8. Shared Works - North Series Part 1 - Kabaret
9. Moody B - East Coast Hustlers - Church Street
10. Tribalation - Dont Make Me Wait - Big Chief
11. Fritz Valley Project - Mr Muller - Transfusion
12. Home & Garden - An Invitation - Central Park
13. Chris Brann - So In Love - Bombay
14. Hydrophonic - Hydrophonic Ep - Lo Rise
15. Delilah - B Strong 4 Me - Yoshitoshi

KONTAKT fuses an innovative design with an advanced sampling engine. The result is an inspiringly fast and intuitively flexible sampler with exceptional sound quality.

In addition to supporting all the standard sample playback and manipulation abilities of its hardware and software predecessors, KONTAKT adds several technologies to give sampling a new dimension. Realtime time-stretching and resynthesis, graphical breakpoint envelopes, an integrated loop editor, analog-modelled filters, visually displayed modulation, and breathtaking efficiency create a sampler with the power to realize the most ingenious ideas. An outstanding sample library containing more than three gigabytes of sounds in various styles and categories is also included. Architecture and Engine
KONTAKT’s advanced design and dynamic resource allocation ensure that its audio engine is always running at optimal efficiency, for up to 256 stereo voices per instance on a standard computer. The semi-modular architecture of KONTAKT’s audio engine corresponds exactly to its on-screen layout. Filters, effects, and modulations can easily be added with one click. If an audio-process is not active, it is neither displayed on the screen nor calculated by the CPU.

Unlike a conventional sampler, where pitch and length are always linked, KONTAKT’s integrated granular resynthesis engine frees you to compose with pitch and timestretch independently. KONTAKT can play back each sample in one of three modes: classic mode, Time Machine mode, and Tone Machine mode. The Time Machine allows real-time manipulation of length, pitch, and formant. The Tone Machines imprints a playable pitch onto the sample and maintains the same length across the keyboard.

The comprehensive filter section offers 14 varieties from analog lowpass and highpass to exotic sound-design filters. A broad range of insert and send effects, including EQs, waveshapers, delays, and reverbs, are available to position the instruments in the mix. All effects are inherent parts of the instrument, regardless of how many instruments are playing at once.

1.01 Improvements:

• step modulator now offers an one shot mode
• step modulator now offers a grid for pitch modulations
• LM4 import
• sample search
• Gigasampler import

img.muziqnet.com/article-kontakt-full-screen.jpg>FULL SCREENSHOT

Proto Tracks is a service that introduces you to the best new independent electronic and urban music tracks, month after month.

How does it work? It’s like a magazine. When you subscribe to Proto Tracks, every other month you’ll receive an audio CD and a booklet describing the great new music we’ve handpicked from hard-to-find labels.Experimental techno, breakbeat, 2-step, house… you’ll get a little of everything. Only the best, freshest independently-released tracks are selected. Some tracks are so new you’ll hear them before they are even available anywhere else.

If you’re a music fan, you know how hard it is to sift through MP3s on the net looking for good music. There’s so much out there, you could download forever. But which ones are top quality tracks? Why?

Proto Tracks only brings you the work of independent record labels & that’s it. These innovative labels put out the best beats, and without mainstream distribution channels.
You’ll rarely find their CDs in major record stores. You have to know where to look. We do.

learn more about this unique service:
http://www.prototracks.com/

Semper Lofi Recordings web radio station is now online with new tracks for March 2002.

WHAT IS SEMPER LOFI RECORDINGS?
Semper Lofi Recordings is a teeny-tiny music publishing company and CD label run by artist/musician MJB (Mike Bowman). The label existed originally to distribute the music Mr. Bowman was writing and recording at home. His first cassette-only ‘album’ CHARM was recorded… in his basement in 1989 and received enough good write-ups by the Xerox ‘zine crowd to set the artist off on an obscure yet prolific career of writing and recording eccentric pop-rock music. He’s got no musical training and a pile of outdated equipment, not that it ever stopped him from chasing down a good hook. Lately he’s been collaborating with other folks and putting lots of obscure homemade recordings by other hometapers on his radio page.

Semper Lofi Radio

Please visit us at: www.semperlofi.com

America’s fledgling Internet radio industry could be effectively killed on May 21st if the U.S. Copyright Office accepts the recommendations of its recent Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP") recommendation concerning Internet radio royalty rates and establishes its proposed record-keeping requirements for webcasters.Background: Congress passed a law in October, 1998, called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which established that webcasters must pay “performance rights” fees to record labels for the music they play. That law instructed the Copyright Office to set the appropriate rate.

However, the CARP’s recommended rates are currently more than 100% of most Webcasters’ gross revenues!

The Copyright Office is required by Congress to decide whether to accept, reject or modify the CARP’s recommended rates by May 21, 2002. If they accept the CARP panel’s recommendation, most observers believe that the decision will effectively kill Internet radio as an industry, as the decision could bankrupt all but the three or four largest webcasters.

@see http://www.saveinternetradio.org

NEW YORK — Rudy Ray Moore, known across the world as Dolemite, is a dirty old man and he loves it. “Way down in the jungle deep/The bad-ass lion stepped on the signifying monkey’s feet,” he said in his full glory, performing one of his most famous skits, “The Signifying Monkey,” Monday night at the Village Underground. Rudy Ray Moore performs in New York to promote new LP, seven-DVD box set. In town to promote his new CD, 21st Century Dolemite, and seven-DVD box set, which includes some of his movies and stand-up acts, Rudy Ray is taking time out to do what’s become second nature to him over the past 30-plus years — rapping and singing, and telling some of the dirtiest jokes you’ll ever hear.

“When it comes to rappin’, I was through with it before they knew what to do with it.” — Rudy Ray Moore, a.k.a. Dolemite

“The monkey said muthaf—er can’t you see?” he continued over the applause. “Why you standing on my damn feet?” Rhyming to convey his blue humor has made Moore an icon not only in comedic circles, but in the hip-hop community as well. He said he’s been sampled 79 times by various hip-hop artists (Dr. Dre’s “Deeez Nuuuts” being one of the most popular). The 2 Live Crew and the group’s founder, Luther Campbell, have called on him to appear on a few of their songs; he’s appeared in such videos as Eric B. and Rakim’s 1990 clip “In the Ghetto"; and most recently he’s been featured signifying on the intro to Busta Rhymes’ Genesis album.

“I don’t know why Busta Rhymes didn’t call the old-timer to appear with him live [on the Genesis tour],” he said with some surprise earlier in the day. “I would’ve loved to have done it for him live. He wrote that material and told me ‘I want you to perform it in your voice. The delivery you have, I want you to do this for me.’ “

Rudy Ray said all his rapping friends treat him like royalty whenever they get together. “Busta Rhymes, I have to give him credit for one thing,” Moore said. “He always lays the red carpet out for me when I’m in New York. He brings one of his high-powered rapping friends to be my guest, like O.D.B., and then he brought Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs to meet me the last time when we did the Genesis album. I met Sean before and I guess [Busta] thought it would be nice for me to meet him again because he’s a pretty fabulous man, Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs.”

Moore said he’s also good friends with Snoop Dogg, who summoned him to appear on No Limit Topp Dogg (the Doggfather refers to him as Uncle Rudy). But the long-legged MC better stay in his lane — Moore said he can take him on the mic. “He ain’t no better than me because I am the Godfather of Rap,” he boasted with a smile. “When it comes to rappin’, I was through with it before they knew what to do with it.”

There’s one important person, though, who has never heard his ultra-raw material — his 92-year-old mother. He does credit her with introducing him to the mic, however.

“Let me go back, waaayyy back!” he said about the origins of his rhyme-slinging. “I have to thank my mother for this. When I was a little boy she used to teach me poems. I would go in church and tell the poems in church for the Easter program, and again for Mother’s Day and any occasion she felt would fit. I was very energetic with delivery at that time as a boy, so it stuck with me.”

The inspirational words of the church have also been seared in his memory. Despite the success he’s had from cursing up a storm, he still has church for a little non-secular rap, such as on the song “We’re Only Here for a Little While.”

“I’m gonna hold who needs holding,” he recited. “Mend what needs mending/ Talk what needs talking/ And walk what needs walking/ Preach what needs preaching/ And say what needs saying, ‘cause we’re only here for a little while.”

Moore dropped his first comedy album, Eat Out More Often, in 1970. His star turn came five years later with the independent action comedy “Dolemite,” which he starred in and financed with the money he earned performing at clubs.

Shocking Hollywood, like many of the films during the infamous but groundbreaking Blaxploitation era, “Dolemite” went on to become a hit. A sequel, “The Human Tornado,” was spawned the following year, and his cult following was cemented in 1978 with the release of “Petey Wheatstraw.” In that film, Moore stars as the butt-kicking, karate-chopping Petey, who makes a deal with Satan to marry his daughter after the devil resurrects him.

— Shaheem Reid

With the brand new Cubase SX, Steinberg takes the next step and presents the most powerful and intuitive music sequencing software ever. Cubase SX dazzles with intelligent MIDI Input and processing tools, new virtual instruments and effects, easy-to-use editing, scoring, 5.1 Surround, mixing and mastering - with a fresh user interface and a brand new software engine, for Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X.Cubase SX has been fully reengineered and includes the latest technologies from Steinberg’s digital audio laboratories. Cubase SX offers new handling and breathtaking performance (based on the Nuendo engine), all designed specifically to support the creativity of today’s musicians.

Cubase SX should be available at the end of the second quarter 2002 for around 799 euro.

The update from Cubase VST/32 costs 149 Euro, from Cubase Score 199 Euro, and from Cubase VST 299 Euro. More information at www.steinberg.de.

Triangle II is a top VST instrument which uses many technologies from our Pentagon I Performance Oriented Synthesizer, acclaimed in most music publications and with a myriad of positive feedback comments from users all over the world. Yes, it is FREEWARE.

Triangle II also introduces new experimental technologies from rgcAudio, like its new ultra-smooth filters, tuned-noise generator, extended effects section and others. Most of those technologies are still unique to rgcAudio Instruments, and particularly to Triangle II.

As a result, we think T2 is the ultimate bass-lead tool for contemporary music production, no matter the price. Just hear it, tweak it, make music with it.
Technical Specs:

• 2 Oscillators, one SubOscillator and a Tuned Noise generator.
• 7 fully bandlimited waveforms per oscillator, detune, transpose and table shift controls.
• PWM in both oscillators, with manual width control or controllable by LFO.
• MULTI mode, which turns oscillator 1 in eight individual oscillators, with multi detune control.
• SYNC mode.
• Portamento with fixed and variable time, fingered or normal, and selectable effect on pitch bend.
• DC Burst generator to add punch to attack stage.
• Adjustable range Pitch Bend.
• Main Tune and Random Tune controls.
• 2-pole LPF/HPF/BPF, and ultrasmooth 4-pole LPF/HPF plus a high resonance 4-pole LPF filters.
• 3 dedicated Pitch, Filter and Amplifier Envelope Generators.
• 3 dedicated Pitch, Filter (PWM) and Amplifier LFO’s.
• 4 channels mixer
• Bass Eq control with adjustable center frequency
• Hard Drive effect
• Decimator effect
• Aggressive 6-Voice Chorus mono/stereo effect, controllable by Envelope Generator.
• Stereo/Ping delay effect, BPM sync’able to host tempo.
• Reverb effect with size control and two rendering modes.
• Stereo Spread effect.
• Four playing modes: Fingered, Low and High priority note Legato, Full Legato.
• All controls (67 knobs, 19 selectors), in front panel, no paged interface.
• Full MIDI Learn operation, with selectable min/max/reverse status.
• Multiple controls can be assigned to MIDI cc’s, same MIDI cc can be assigned to several controls.
• 128 program capacity, 128 factory presets instantly available via right-click.
• Up/Down program controls.
• Built-in program/bank naming, saving and loading capabilities (.fxb/.fxp)
• User definable bank for auto-loading on startup.
• Circular or Linear knob mode, with selectable inertia.
• Full note range preview ribbon, which sends MIDI messages to host.

spring is here and we are very happy that the sunshine has decided to keep us company again. This is my favourite season of the year and here are some of my favourite records:

1. Red No. 5 - Happiness Togetherness SUBLIMINAL SOUL - Future classic!! This one is bound to put a smile on your face.

2. Everyday People - Simmer Down PAPA RECORDS - Mmmmm…. lovely!!

3. Soldiers Of Twilight feat. Ladybird - Drive On SERIAL - Pure bliss!!

4. Mix The Vibe; Danny Krivit - Music Is My Sanctuary KING STREET - Includes for example the re-edit of Mondo Grosso’s “Star Suite"5. Jon Cutler feat. Kemdi - You Groove Me (Osunlade Mix) DISTANT
- I haven’t heard anything with neither Jon Cutler or Osunlade that I don’t
like - so when Osunlade does a RMX on a Jon Cutler production nothing can go
wrong!

6. Pascal & Mister Day - Shelter GLASGOW UNDERGROUND
- You’ll feel protected listening to this one!

7. Copyright pres. One Track Mind feat. Angie Brown - Good For You SOULFURIC
- You can’t stand still to this classy Copyright production on one of our
favourite labels!

8. Angie Stone - Brotha (Spen & Karizma mix) J RECORDS
- Angie with a message!!!

9. Kim English - Everyday (Maurice Joshua Original Mix) NERVOUS NYC
- Beautiful! NERVOUS NYC seem to be back in shape?! But I’d stay true to the
original mix!!

10. DJ Jose Burgos & DJ Duvon Tark feat. Ricky Nelson - Better Days BASSCLEF
- Having hard times to make up my mind on whether I should be playing the
dub or the vocal since they both sound great!

11. Jason Heinrichs feat. Lady Sarah - Dance All Night FARRIS WHEEL
- Includes a nice more laid-back Naked Music RMX by Rasoul, but it’s the
original that will make everyone dance all night!

12. J & J - Love Biz WHITE
- Don’t know who’s behind this… it could be french?! Catchy sing-along
vocals.

13. Free Love Shining/Nobodies Family/The Player VS Everybody Dance WHITE
- Someone really puts an effort in making all the three tunes on this
bootleg sound great. If you’re not familliar with the originals you might as
well think that this is how they’re supposed to sound…

14. Blaze - How Deep Is Your Love SHELTER
- Doing it in style as usual!

15. Brent Laurence - Wanna MAIN COURSE
- Yes we wanna!!

16. Nicole Graham - You Light Me Up SOULGROOVE
- Soulgroove keeps giving us music for the soul.

17. Jestofunk - Stellar Funk/Be A Warrior IRMA UNLIMITED
- “Stellar Funk” with it’s percussions is the perfect addition on any song
making it more alive… “Be A Warrior” features Ce Ce Rogers on vocals,
wicked tune.

18. Ultra Nat頭 I Don’t Understand It STRICTLY RHYTHM
- Catchy vocal!

19. Big Moses - You Bring Me Joy TRINITY
- Big Moses gives us a beautiful piece of soulful house - it would have
charted much higher on my list if it didn’t fade out with the vocals and
all!! Both vocal mixes feel more like radioversions.

20. Roger Sanchez - Nothing 2 Prove DEFECTED
- Big improvement compared to the songs released from the Roger S album
until now. I like this!!