Boreal Network

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:57 pm

SampleScience wrote:yep, Boreal Network's music is awesome, I'm a new fan & he should defenitely have a cassette or vinyl release so it can be archive properly!

Digital PCM's are not proper archiving?

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 5:38 am

You mean mp3s? (otherwise what do you mean by "PCM"?)

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:41 am

SampleScience wrote:You mean mp3s? (otherwise what do you mean by "PCM"?)

Not just MP3's, I have the .flac files of Maousss - Planet Cheese that Cole uploaded a little while ago. I sure he has lossless copies of his tracks and they all aren't in mp3 (save for maybe Bikehigh USA which is supposed to sound low-bit), that would be pretty unprofessional for such a great musician.

Someone who uses .flac or .wav, especially 24/96 .wav has great quality for archiving, with the latter being even clearer than CD.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:28 pm

Rodheh wrote: Not just MP3's, I have the .flac files of Maousss - Planet Cheese that Cole uploaded a little while ago. I sure he has lossless copies of his tracks and they all aren't in mp3 (save for maybe Bikehigh USA which is supposed to sound low-bit), that would be pretty unprofessional for such a great musician.

Actually most of my stuff only exists in mp3. I always just figured I could re-save it out from FL Studio if I ever needed it lossless, also I'm lazy and disorganized. I dunno. I'm unprofessional

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:50 pm

turquoise70 wrote:
Rodheh wrote: Not just MP3's, I have the .flac files of Maousss - Planet Cheese that Cole uploaded a little while ago. I sure he has lossless copies of his tracks and they all aren't in mp3 (save for maybe Bikehigh USA which is supposed to sound low-bit), that would be pretty unprofessional for such a great musician.
Actually most of my stuff only exists in mp3. I always just figured I could re-save it out from FL Studio if I ever needed it lossless, also I'm lazy and disorganized. I dunno. I'm unprofessional

Well then if you've got the original studio arrangements, then that means you've basically got a lossless copy when you need one.

By the, cassette tapes are proper for archival, Sample?

It seems to me that, besides the diminished clarity, they have a lot of potential for distorting sound. I would honestly say that MP3 files at a good bitrate are better archiving than magnetic tapes.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 6:50 am

Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think... Files on a computer hard drive is risquy because if you don't backup on a regular basis you can loose your things forever, & I say this by experience (hd crash + malfunctioning CDrs..)..

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 6:19 pm

SampleScience wrote:Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think... Files on a computer hard drive is risquy because if you don't backup on a regular basis you can loose your things forever, & I say this by experience (hd crash + malfunctioning CDrs..)..

What do you consider to be good archiving?

And you mean SACD's? Why are regular 16/44 CD's not sufficient?

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:34 am

Rodheh wrote:
SampleScience wrote:Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think... Files on a computer hard drive is risquy because if you don't backup on a regular basis you can loose your things forever, & I say this by experience (hd crash + malfunctioning CDrs..)..
What do you consider to be good archiving?

And you mean SACD's? Why are regular 16/44 CD's not sufficient?

Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think...

Cryabetes · Post by **Cryabetes** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:02 am

Rodheh wrote:
SampleScience wrote:Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think... Files on a computer hard drive is risquy because if you don't backup on a regular basis you can loose your things forever, & I say this by experience (hd crash + malfunctioning CDrs..)..
What do you consider to be good archiving?

And you mean SACD's? Why are regular 16/44 CD's not sufficient?

bronzing is a definite concern. IMO the best way to archive old copies is make a gmail account and mail yourself the .wav files.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:39 am

SampleScience wrote:
Rodheh wrote:
SampleScience wrote:Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think... Files on a computer hard drive is risquy because if you don't backup on a regular basis you can loose your things forever, & I say this by experience (hd crash + malfunctioning CDrs..)..
What do you consider to be good archiving?

And you mean SACD's? Why are regular 16/44 CD's not sufficient?

Well, vynil is the best for archiving or the special CDs they make for archiving purpose, gold plated I think...

Why is vinyl so amazing for archiving? If you're worried about things falling apart/malfunctioning over time, there's a very good chance that eventually your vinyl records will deteriorate to the point where there's a lot of noise in playback.

Also, that gmail thing was a great idea.

Currently, my favorite thing to do for backing my stuff up is to put all the lossless files on four or so different flash drives, as in duplicates, and store them away for good. This means that there's a pretty damn good chance my files won't disappear in the future, provided I take good care of the drives and they are maintained in their enclosure, not with the port exposed.

Will · Post by **Will** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:24 pm

Thanks guys for the solid recommendaiton, I literallly haven't been able to stop listening to ' king of currumpaw', it's such an inspiring tune, I love it!

rolypablo · Post by **rolypablo** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 4:04 pm

Yeah that is a great tune.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:25 pm

So... Is Planet Cheese literally supposed to be about mice? I'm trying to picture them scurrying across a floor in a house, living their daily routine, but for some reason I can only really picture giant mice on some ancient world somewhere far away with lush jungles that separate into a desert wasteland, running towards the sunrise as the wind blows at 100 miles an hour.

Maybe this isn't the exact intention.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:49 am

Rodheh wrote:So... Is Planet Cheese literally supposed to be about mice? I'm trying to picture them scurrying across a floor in a house, living their daily routine, but for some reason I can only really picture giant mice on some ancient world somewhere far away with lush jungles that separate into a desert wasteland, running towards the sunrise as the wind blows at 100 miles an hour.

Maybe this isn't the exact intention.

Planet Cheese is about an ordinary house mouse who becomes an explorer and travels to the fabled and mythical Planet Cheese, where he discovers an enclave of immortal rats who hold the key to the secrets of understanding the universe. Literally.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 4:26 am

turquoise70 wrote:
Rodheh wrote:So... Is Planet Cheese literally supposed to be about mice? I'm trying to picture them scurrying across a floor in a house, living their daily routine, but for some reason I can only really picture giant mice on some ancient world somewhere far away with lush jungles that separate into a desert wasteland, running towards the sunrise as the wind blows at 100 miles an hour.

Maybe this isn't the exact intention.
Planet Cheese is about an ordinary house mouse who becomes an explorer and travels to the fabled and mythical Planet Cheese, where he discovers an enclave of immortal rats who hold the key to the secrets of understanding the universe. Literally.

That's more like it then.

Suddenly the track titles become all very clear.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 3:49 pm

I feel like this deserves to be mentioned!

So... I'm -pretty- certain at this point that I'm retiring the stand-alone website at borealnetwork.net.

While it's still acceptable for independent musicians to operate their own websites, I basically have let this site languish as my interest in web design (and my SKILLS in web design) have atrophied to the point where I can barely update it. It's clunky, it's a big digital artpiece and I feel it's unnecessary to serve the purpose of my music.

Instead, I want to re-release my old stuff on Bandcamp.

The thing, though, is that I want to release them for money.

This is different. They were free before.

I'm a little worried about how people might react to that - although I, personally, think it's a totally legit move and there's nothing wrong with it.

Naturally I'm not going to be asking for $20 or something, but maybe $5-or-whatever-else-you-feel-it's-worth.

What do people think of this? I feel like this would be way better than trying to maintain, pay for, and update a website I rarely use. The domain name borealnetwork.net would redirect to my Bandcamp.

Guido · Post by **Guido** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:31 pm

I want to do the exact same thing. I'm not going to renew my own domain name and hosting (for Kashmir Boots) because I never use it AND I think that the truth is that people (listeners, audience) much more prefer to navigate through a site that they're used to (bandcamp, soundcloud) rather than "learning" where everything is positioned on someone's hand-crafted homepage. I know that's true for me personally. In general there is so incredibly much information on the internet that after years of usage the internet conditions you to just want to see decent, orderly collections of information (like bandcamp, wikipedia, google) to process rather than figure out the user interface that someone has on his site (no matter how good it is!). In other words, if I see a musician who presents his work to me on a forum I'm MUCH more tempted to click on it if it points to soundcloud.com or bandcamp.com (not myspace!

).

I've never used Bandcamp for selling music but as a user/listener it's a very nice experience to visit someone's artist page on there for me. It's orderly, it isn't slow and it just works. While I'm on the subject, this is Myspace's hugest drawback in my opinion; they gave the users way too much freedom. If I visit a Myspace page and it starts loading a zillion Youtube video's and other crap that makes my system very slow I will be sure not to visit it anymore for a long while. This is exactly what makes Bandcamp and Soundcloud so pleasant, the page owners can only make minimal enhancements to the page which ensures usability.

And as for asking money, why not? I personally don't have ANY problem at all paying for things on the internet that I enjoy. I've donated to Wikipedia, Twoism, paid for other websites and bought various albums on Bandcamp. I think $5 dollars is a lovely amount. For an "amateur artist" the total revenue may even be bigger if people ask 5 instead of 10 dollars for an album. I think that $5 feels like it's almost nothing, while $10 may feel like "a lot". (I've thought about this before).

Saakki · Post by **Saakki** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:47 pm

Yeah dude go for it. Hopefully you will make few bucks on the side too! You deserve it. I think I have most of your work but if I have missed it, will BUY it to support you.

edit: message was directed to Cole but now it is for Guido too!

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 5:07 pm

turquoise70 wrote:I feel like this deserves to be mentioned!

So... I'm -pretty- certain at this point that I'm retiring the stand-alone website at borealnetwork.net.

While it's still acceptable for independent musicians to operate their own websites, I basically have let this site languish as my interest in web design (and my SKILLS in web design) have atrophied to the point where I can barely update it. It's clunky, it's a big digital artpiece and I feel it's unnecessary to serve the purpose of my music.

Instead, I want to re-release my old stuff on Bandcamp.

The thing, though, is that I want to release them for money.

This is different. They were free before.

I'm a little worried about how people might react to that - although I, personally, think it's a totally legit move and there's nothing wrong with it.

Naturally I'm not going to be asking for $20 or something, but maybe $5-or-whatever-else-you-feel-it's-worth.

What do people think of this? I feel like this would be way better than trying to maintain, pay for, and update a website I rarely use. The domain name borealnetwork.net would redirect to my Bandcamp.

Go for it, dude. I don't typically buy music but I bought your Maousss thing and I'll probably continue to buy whatever else you release. You're a good independent artist, I think most of us here are probably going to support you whatever your choice for distribution is.

Although, it may be worth a try in addition to having your stuff for 5 dollars, to have your most notable/well received stuff up at name your price. A lot of people will probably just pay nothing, but every so often you'll get someone who donates 50 dollars or so at their own will. Works pretty well, from what I hear.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:02 pm

Guido wrote:(Everything Guido said)

Completely agree. While in some ways I mourn the loss of the "personalized internet", after months and months of being a music fan who uses the internet, I have come to the exact same conclusions - The fact is Bandcamp and Soundcloud provide easy, intuitive, convenient ways for people to discover and acquire music, and it's nice for the artist too. I've had such a great experience with releasing my MAOUSSS album on Bandcamp that I'm encouraged to put the entire Boreal Network catalog there.

ALSO!

This means I can release one-off songs as Boreal Network and stuff like that! I don't normally get to do that - in other words, this may actually lead to more Boreal Network being available than ever was before. Bandcamp makes it easy for an artist to just release a single or whatever, which is honestly the direction Boreal Network has been headed lately - I have had such a bitch of a time trying to cobble together a "full album" or even an EP - But I could totally manage a single.

Rodheh wrote: Although, it may be worth a try in addition to having your stuff for 5 dollars, to have your most notable/well received stuff up at name your price. A lot of people will probably just pay nothing, but every so often you'll get someone who donates 50 dollars or so at their own will. Works pretty well, from what I hear.

For sure, man. I think that's a good idea too. I know there are people out there who just geek the fuck out over Itasca Road Trip (I don't mean that to sound disparaging; I appreciate it anytime someone likes my stuff, even if I don't always understand why they like it more than my other stuff) and would probably dump $40 on me just for the sake of appreciation. I'm not gonna turn down a gift like that! Someone's gotta help me feed my sushi addiction. Also, I've been home decorating lately and that gets expensive too. Anyway...