Extratone

music

by David Blue

SoundCloud Tile

Last Tuesday, SoundCloud announced the release of onsite, automated mastering in cooperation with Dolby. The service will cost $4.99 per track for non-Pro Unlimited subscribers, who'll receive three free mastered tracks per month and $3.99 per track masters after that. After uploading a new track (less than 10 minutes in length,) users will see a small button labeled “Master Track,” which then takes them to a trimming interface that prompts them to select a 30-second, “high contrast” clip representing the dynamic extremes of the track, which is then locked in as the singular preview for the service. After “listening”/analyzing said clip, the user is brought to the mastering interface and prompted to select between four presets:

Thunder “Make car speakers rumble and club systems shake. This option will push your bass frequencies to the limit.”

Sunroof “Open up your mid and high frequencies and bring some life to your transients. This option is perfect for hip-hop and any other beat-focused genre.”

Aurora “Aiming for something ethereal, light and wavy? This option will infuse even the most experimental tracks with a new burst of color.”

Clear Sky “Brighten your mix, manage your dynamics and reign in your low end with this pop-focused mastering option.”

For a professional analysis of each preset (and extreme hair,) see MixbusTV's video.

I asked a number of music-related Discord servers if they'd tried the feature yet and Business Casual's answered the most comprehensively.

SoundCloud Mastering - Business Casual Discord

The general consensus from musicians and producers seems to be that SoundCloud misinvested its resources into the making of the feature. On the MixbusTV video, YouTube user Nelson Leeroy comments “Lot of uneducated aspiring artists will fall for it.... Sound Cloud should not be allowed to use the word mastering, it's misguiding, it's a scam.” A Twitter search for “SoundCloud Mastering” yields overwhelmingly critical commentary, including “SoundCloud Mastering is jus IG Filters for songs,” which – from what I've seen – I agree with completely.

I reached out to Dolby's media contact email address asking how long the two companies spent working on this service and about any future cooperative projects. Gentry Bennett, who described herself as “the PR lead for this launch,” responded 25 minutes later (prompt AF,) answering “the teams were working together for a couple years on this tool.”

#software #music

by David Blue

C̸ ̵O̷ ̴N̵ ̶T̸ ̵A̵ ̴C̶ ̵T̴ is my best (and only, really) recent contribution of worth and I guarantee you will gain something from listening.

On Apple Music

On SoundCloud

On Spotify. http://bit.ly/dbtouched

On YouTube Music

On Tidal.

On Pandora.

#music

by David Blue

Originally released in 2014 on Visual Disturbances, now reissued for the first time since. Presented to you with 2 bonus tracks, one cut from the original album and one produced shortly after its release.

Preorder Gray Data Deluxxx now on Bandcamp.

#music

by David Blue

Counterfeit record Mannequin Challenge proves to be a lively, heartfelt reflection for cassettehype lovers.

In a surprising turn of events, an anonymous actor uploaded, metatagged, and published a fabulous futuredisco tape this evening on the official Bandcamp page owned by the KEATs-affiliated Groove Guru using stolen credentials. SAINT PEPSI (now Skyler Spence) himself revealed the breach on Twitter just before the end of workday on the coast, disclaiming “SOMEONE HACKED THE SAINT PEPSI BANDCAMP AND PUT UP A NEW ALBUM! NOT ME.”

At press time, it is unknown how long the account's security has remained compromised, nor how long the release will remain live. The investigative process so far has been hindered severely by effects voluminous playback of the work itself has had on staff in our newsroom.

Skyler Spence has been often (quite-cringely) credited by music journalists and bloggers as their introduction to vaporwave, which was hilarious in the moment, yes, but in fact represents one of the first puncture events into mainstream music media discourse for the precious Twitter and generally net-born community of truly boundary-pushing electronic musicians for whom this magazine was created.

Saint Pepsi is in many ways the apotheosis of blog disco, this wave of young musicians poring over the internet for samples of classic smooth electro-funk from 1980-84 to turn, via Ableton, into new works of nostalgic yet somehow future-perfect art. –”New band of the week: Saint Pepsi” | The Guardian

Like its attributed creator, Mannequin Challenge is very special and far more substantial than we've come to expect from the futurefunk sound: it's imbued through and through with real sentiment – and why shouldn't it be? In reflection, the role of cultural ambassadorship is as surreal (read: absurd) as it is spectacular.

If you'd told me that Pepsico had discovered SAINT PEPSI and threatened him with copyright law in the years post-high school when I was first introduced to the like purveyors of the sound, I would've heard it as a hypothetical (and died laughing.) However, the shit did occur in 2015: in a hilarious internet micro-controversy, SAINT PEPSI really was pressured – under the threat of legal action, one assumes – to change his name. (My own little experience confirmed that Pepsi had no patience for contemporary humor.) As an ancient relic of a American brand punished him, though, another no-less-surprising one – none other than GQ Fucking Magazine – would celebrate him as “Pop Music's New Disco Whiz Kid.”

I don't know the whole story, but I'm comfortable declaring in the now: Mannequin Challenge represents a sincerely touching gift for those of us who've been listening. Or that is... It certainly would were it not the product of digital hijacking and therefore completely inattributable, legally, to SAINT PEPSI.

Favorite track: “Mr. Wonderful, pt. 2” (Bonus track requiring download/purchase on Bandcamp)

#music

by David Blue

'Metamorphosis' - Blank Banshee

Perhaps nearest and dearest of all to the hearts of more casual, Twitter-bound vaporwave fans, Canadian-sourced Blank Banshee has apparently been distinctly Offline as of late. When Bandcamp's Simon Chandler interviewed them about their last full release – MEGA – in 2016, he asked “will we have to wait another three years until the next Blank Banshee release?” Banshee replied with a definitive “no,” and they were technically correct – it's 2 years, 9 months later and Metamorphosis has been on Bandcamp for two whole weeks.

Considering the lack of results my queries for reviews of the thing have returned so far, I thought it prudent to make you aware of its existence. I'm not even remotely qualified to assess vaporwave records, but if you have some thoughts you'd like to publish, I'd love it if you dropped me a line.

#music #news