Just wanted to come out from lurking to express my appreciation for that rickroll execution.  Well done, catskull, well done.

2

(23 replies, posted in General Discussion)

As an artist:

1) Do you see any inherent worth to releasing your music through a netlabel?
Yes and no.  There is a truth the concept of marketing your appearance by having a protege or alliance of sorts with other talented people.  While content is still king, I often find that a label will only help as much as they have to offer you.  If you're new, not very well known or not very efficient at getting the word about your album out, it may be beneficial if they have a big enough listener base or market outreach.  There's also that whole other half of a label that's supposed to work on licensing and whatnot that I've heard nothing about in regards to netlabels (which, one could argue, "lol u wot, licensing chiptune m8?")

Still wouldn't stop me from trying to get onto one of the more popular ones or one with a market outside of my region.

2) What are the three most important things you look for in a label?
Quality of current content, demographic/market outreach, what else are they associated with for potential future plans.

3) What are the top three labels on which you'd like to have your music and why?
I don't really have an order of priority, nor have I really given it much thought, but Cheapbeats, BleepStreet and Eindbaas come to mind.  I want to expand my music outside of the US.

4) What is the percentage of the money you think should go to the label?
This is entirely dependent on what effort and costs go directly towards operation of the label and their efforts to market their artists.  On the other hand, I also have literally no idea what the traditional-average percentage is supposed to be.

5) What services should the label offer? (art, mastering, physical CDs etc etc)
Distribution (online sales having a different cut versus physical sales, depending on if the label had the CD printed or if the artist paid for that out of pocket;) promotion, and advertisement at a minimum.  Anything else would be up to debate.

6) Your feelings on exclusivity and copyrights?
I know of no net label big enough to demand permanent exclusivity when it comes to artists.  ChipWIN (like them or hate them) doesn't even have permanent exclusivity and imo, I don't think they ever should.  Content is up to debate, as I would feel cheapened as a customer to buy an album which had overlapping music. 

Copyright is something I wish I could comment more on, but I certainly need more education on intellectual property concepts and laws before I say more of it.


As a customer

1) What, if any, influence does a label has on your purchasing habits?
If the label has enough establishment and quality releases I'll often check out the album and consider purchasing it.  Otherwise, eh.

2) Do you prefer to buy directly from an artist, or through a label?
Directly from an artist, but that is not to say I won't buy from established labels.

3) What are you top three favorite labels and why?
I really haven't put much thought into that.  Cheapbeats consistently has good releases.  Everyone else I don't doubt has great releases, but I've always put the artist as the first association unless it's a compilation album.

4) What would you consider a appropriate price range for chiptune albums?
I'm usually a $5-10 USD kind of person for album purchases.  Rarely would I turn down a free album, but at this point I can't justify not giving the artist something if possible.

5) Does the storefront (bandcamp, custom website, etc) influence your purchases?
I like bandcamp's concept and I use them out of convenience.  I still need to look into other storefronts.

6) Your opinion on physical copies? (cd, tape, vinyl, etc)
Love it.  Digital downloads are great, infinitely less costly and equally easy to distribute; they don't sell well at shows, especially to markets outside of our typical demographic.

7) Your opinion on merch? (tshirts, stickers, garter belts, etc)
I'm really, really picky on most clothing merchandise.  Stickers and buttons are neat little promo pieces.  Posters are also cool.  Powerglove used to sell custom foam swords, which for anyone familiar with their shows is a cute concept.

Note:  Edited #6 on the artist half for further clarification.

3

(22 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

Hoooooly shit.

I don't have much money, but I'd be glad to throw in what I can for a kickstarter.

4

(617 replies, posted in Releases)

Whoa, doublepost, accidentally double-clicked (it's freezing in here right now.)  Sorry; please delete this post and keep the above.  Thank you.  heart

5

(617 replies, posted in Releases)

For once I remembered to log in and stop lurking for a change.

'Lo CM.O, I'll be releasing my next album, <3BRK ("Heartbreak") on Wednesday, the 18th of February.  You'll be able to find it at Glenntai.Bandcamp.com when it's out, and I'll be having a listening party with 8BitX that same day at 8:30 PM EST (-5 GMT.)

In the meantime, here's a teaser for the whole album, and I'll be picking a song to upload (and likely uploading while you read this.)

Hope everything's been cool for all of you.  heart

6

(39 replies, posted in Past Events)

...  Well, it'll be streaming once Al's gets their internet on a leash.

http://www.twitch.tv/clip_stream

( Edit:  Twitch chat is working, but requires you to sign up to use it.  In the event their chat service goes down, we'll chat over at 8bitX, if you feel up to it:  http://www.8bitx.com/?page_id=3994 )

The show starts about 6:30 pm EST (-5 GMT.)

I apologize if this is technically misplaced;  if it should go under the topic of upcoming events, I will gladly post it there, instead.

Either way, since Curtis gave us the green light, I figured all of you fine friends wouldn't mind a stream for us who couldn't make it out!

SUPER thanks to Spry, Casshern and Hoodie for getting things set up for me when I ended up coming down with pneumonia! (Seriously, heart you guys five-ever, nevermind forever.)

8

(39 replies, posted in Past Events)

AWYEAHHHH, IT'S STREAMING LIVE!  http://www.twitch.tv/clip_stream

9

(39 replies, posted in Past Events)

Meanwhile, the Clipstream twitch page is now open (sans awesome details atm;)  all we need is for that triforce of Spry, Hoodie and Casshern to jump in and make sure we get sound straight from the mixer.  After that, it's not only go time for you guys, it's go time for the internet!

Seriously wishing I could see you guys, though.  Fuck pneumonia.

10

(0 replies, posted in Releases)


Glenntai.bandcamp.com

Glenntai: Chipmusician. Absurdity enthusiast. Collector of silly hats. Loves incomplete sentences and.

Naughty Bits, Glenntai's second album release, further explores various techniques and genres that one can perform through the Nintendo Entertainment System. The album will be released for free immediately after the show!

Glenntai has also been featured in the ChipWINter Compilation, is one of the organizers of the web series CLIPstream, has performed at various shows and hosted beginner-level workshops at conventions on the east coast and the greater St. Louis area.

Whenever he isn't making chipmusic or being a man of many (silly) hats at the Nerdfit Network, he enjoys long walks on the beach, swimming pools and trying to figure out why someone started a rumor that he had tentacles for arms...

Glenntai.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/Glenntai
twitter.com/Glenntai
facebook.com/clipstreamwebshow
twitter.com/clipstreamshow
facebook.com/thenerdfitnetwork

Wait whoa, this is happening?  I'm there!

Sweet!  I'll check it out!

13

(114 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Actually Boa, I have nothing but respect for you playing Devil's Advocate and speaking a difference in opinion.  I like a challenge and a debate, so thank you for doing so.

If you have any ideas that would escalate chipmusic, I'm pretty sure we're all ears (and if nobody else is, screw it, I'm always up for that convo.)

Okay, after catching up on the posts, I think I see where everyone's coming from.  Again, I'm not looking for web shows to replace venue shows-- venue shows are great for introducing new people to how shows work while web shows (in its current state and art) are much more community-friendly.  We all can agree there.

What I meant about promotion wasn't necessarily people new to chipmusic but people in the scene that haven't heard of each other yet.  A lot of these new-comers and up-and-comers want to do something more than push a few links on their website, and I feel this kind of show is a decent vehicle for getting their name out there provided that we get the attention of those in the scene to begin with.

Perhaps in their current state they should be considered more for the community to have fun instead of attracting new fans, but let's not count out the idea that it could do so.

As for making it look less amateur and silly to the uninformed, there's two parts of the stream that make this tough--  Let's just call it host side and performer side.  Host side can organize, get people going, scheduled, etc. ... but the performance is all up to the minds of the artists.  If we could figure out a guideline on how to make it look more legitimate instead of a bootlegged skype video conference, I'm totally up for it.

I do have some ideas for said guideline that I'll be writing down, and when I have something substantial I'd like to share them with you guys if you're interested.  After all, despite going to shows and being a part of a few of them, I don't have nearly as many notches on my belt as some of you.

14

(114 replies, posted in General Discussion)

herr_prof wrote:

Wheres your channel? It doesnt have to be youtube, just something achievable and embeddable I think. I dont really know about any of the specific video things mentioned in this thread, im just talking about doing crap on ustream or wherever that is gone the minute you turn the webcam off.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/clipstream , and videos of the previous shows should be the first thing that pops up whenever we're not live.

Zef wrote:

Since G+ has integrated live streams all broadcasts are automatically added to Youtube which is a great feature. They've also got the option for high quality audio in the settings for the stream which makes G+ pretty great for this sort of thing.

That feature and the capability to broadcast in stereo were two things that made us consider moving over to G+ in the past.  We're more concerned about the video quality, considering the few of us from Clipstream that were on WWCW kept looking terrible whenever we tried to preview what was being sent on stream. 

On a more personal nitpick, apparently Xsplit (my preferred software for making my show more than me "sitting around hitting buttons") doesn't seem to like working with G+.  It caused me to start later than I wanted to and almost crashed my computer as I was loading the WWCW hangout.  That or my computer is outdated as hell and had trouble running things (which, let's face it, is more likely.)

Both have their setbacks, it's just a question of which setback would be worse for us.  We're out to lunch on that.

Edited for grammar, because apparently I sure as hell can't proofread.

15

(114 replies, posted in General Discussion)

herr_prof wrote:

I think the value of "free" promotion is way over valued. Especially if the streams aren't archived. Put them on youtube or something already.

Technically they are archived over at our channel, but I agree, youtube would be much more effective.  We'll get on that.

16

(114 replies, posted in General Discussion)

boaconstructor wrote:

live concert dvds don't consist of some dude sitting at his desk. going hard during a webshow just looks silly.. I speak from experience... cuz I done that

And of course, if you didn't get the message before-hand, thank you for being a part of it.

It's funny, though, because I keep having people tell me about how they want to see you going crazy for your and EC's set again. I thought you looked like you were enjoying yourself a ton.  Hell, I thought it was awesome, myself.

However, I highly disagree at some points of your opinion.  Let's go down the topics:

1)  Lack of Potential Revenue.

If you're worried about not making money, you should consider promoting yourself through the stream.  If you didn't know we would be cool with you doing that, you totally should have asked.  I would've told you to absolutely do it.

Yes, nobody would buy a DVD of people sitting in chairs or doing something in their bedroom (that doesn't involve naughty bits in one shape or form, of course.)  We're not looking to sell the videos (as I've mentioned multiple times in the message I sent every artist right before the show date;) first it would involve taking money away from what could be going to artists;  second it would be a legal clusterfuck the moment it got to the legalities.  That'd be a scumbag way to go about it.

Hell, let's even say with at least an average of 40 consecutive viewers for every set, that's more people I've seen at half of the venue shows I've been to in the last two years.  If you sold even 10 digital copies of an album at $5 each, you'd be making more than what I've seen people make off their albums at live shows.  You wouldn't have had to worry about travel, paying for booze or the issue of crashing at someone's place or a motel.  I'd say your revenue would be primarily profitable.

2)  It cheapens/invalidates the image of the performer/performance.

I don't see web shows as making image as either an artist or performer cheapened.  I believe people go to concerts for the music first and the performance and social interaction second.  I see it as a way to show a more friendly and personable or welcoming face to the audience.

(Edit:) Also, I assume this means your opinion on busking is similar, considering it's the same level as street performing, which doesn't guarantee any revenue? (/edit)

3)  It's unprofessional.

I think you're putting too much into the idea of where they're playing from versus the fact that new and up-and-coming artists are both getting the chance to promote their work and play with people whom have clearly had their chances to play for live shows.  This is also a great way to hear the music and check out these performers' stage presences, because it's an environment that's naturally less stressful for them.  If you're worried that someone's going to take an established chip artist less seriously, I'm going to ask of you who in our community has the audacity to say people play online are any less professional than those whom do it on a stage?  It sounds hypocritical to me more than anything, since the main difference (in concept) is your location.

4)  It's dumb.

Your opinion is yours to have, but I like free promotion, the potential for networking, the potential to be found by those who go to and/or run live shows and the sales potential to any country that has an internet connection without having to pay for any costs.  All of that without having to leave your house is pretty awesome to me.

5)  Bitches won't be getting dirty to it.

I'd like to direct you to TREYFREY's set during the night you were on Clipstream (Nov. 3rd.) You would've seen how his living room turned from a room into a dance party consisting mostly of a 4-women-to-one-dude ratio.  I'm pretty sure you could get bitches to get dirty (in your words)  wherever if you have the right spin on it.  If they're already in your room, after that stream stops you could keep that party going...  Captain Planet said it best-- the power is yours.


Either way, I'm sorry you see it that way and it's a shame you probably won't consider doing another set sometime.  I still loved your set and support you and your music.  Let me know if you ever change your mind and want to try it again.

Edited for small clarifications, grammar, and one thing I forgot to mention....