Commodore Remix

At the moment, the scene is shaped in such a way that although the C64-loving public is quite well served, I'm being financially damaged: and the artists who bother to release CDs (or appear on them, and who put a lot of work into them) are being partially neglected and overlooked: which discourages the release of "albums" generally. Also, the composers benefit a lot less than they used to from sales of music.

So in general, and to sum up, the faceless masses get a lot better deal from C64 remixing than any of the webmasters who actually make it happen, who generally have a thankless task ensuring distribution, maintaining websites, dealing with brain-dead queries, accounting, customer service, visits to the Post Office... I could go on. Now you can perhaps see why I'm so depressed about it all. I've painted myself into a nasty little altruistic corner that I can't get out of without appearing to be a bad guy. The C64Audio engine was built to allow everyone to contribute tracks into it, and get something out of it. You only have to look at the lack of voting on CD tracks to see how badly wrong that's gone.

Chris

My thoughts on the RKO thing: Making it a paysite would kill it totally.

First of all there is a quality issue here. To be honest, not very much on RKO keep a quality you would actually pay for. Actually I see RKO more as a resource for remixers than for the audience. Of course, some tunes stand out and are actually so good that you will put them in your playlist, but more importantly I see RKO as a way for remixers to get feedback on how to improve their skills.

Secondly I think remixers would loose interest in RKO. Ok, remixers making remixes of gametunes where there is a copyright issue would probably keep releasing tunes on RKO. Those who remix demotunes would probably release them elsewhere. Personally I don't have the big interest in gametunes. I much more prefer the demotunes, so if RKO was gametunes only I would probably stop visiting it.

Personally I don't have any of the albums from C64Audio. I haven't visited the site in a long while to be honest, but I do remember visiting the site after the first couple of CDs were released. They consisted of gametunes only and I wouldn't even consider buying them due to that. Maybe that has changed in later releases, I'll check it out when the site is online again.

Just my 5 cents.

k_rostoen wrote:My thoughts on the RKO thing: Making it a paysite would kill it totally.

Yes it would... What I'm suggesting is, if people want to download free songs from RKO the least they could do is join remix64.com and get involved... which is why I would implement a system where if you want to download RKO you need to join Remix64.com first and get involved by making a few posts.

That would certainly clean out the riff raf who are only interested in leeching and not much else, those who are not total leechers would probably join and possibly realise what great community this is and increase their activity.

k_rostoen wrote:My thoughts on the RKO thing: Making it a paysite would kill it totally.

First of all there is a quality issue here. To be honest, not very much on RKO keep a quality you would actually pay for. Actually I see RKO more as a resource for remixers than for the audience. Of course, some tunes stand out and are actually so good that you will put them in your playlist, but more importantly I see RKO as a way for remixers to get feedback on how to improve their skills.

Secondly I think remixers would loose interest in RKO. Ok, remixers making remixes of gametunes where there is a copyright issue would probably keep releasing tunes on RKO. Those who remix demotunes would probably release them elsewhere. Personally I don't have the big interest in gametunes. I much more prefer the demotunes, so if RKO was gametunes only I would probably stop visiting it.

Personally I don't have any of the albums from C64Audio. I haven't visited the site in a long while to be honest, but I do remember visiting the site after the first couple of CDs were released. They consisted of gametunes only and I wouldn't even consider buying them due to that. Maybe that has changed in later releases, I'll check it out when the site is online again.

Just my 5 cents.

That makes very little sense, because whether a tune was in a demo or released in a game is irrelevant to the quality of the musical piece, or the quality of the remix. If you don't like a tune, or a composer, fine. If you like other composers or tunes, fine. But you're ignoring thousands of quality files because of the medium they originally came from, regardless of how advanced the remix is, how much it's strayed from its source material, or whatever. I mean, Makke's Lazy Jones is technically a gametune, but it's progressed far beyond its original confines: isn't it worth a listen?

That's the other thing that seems really difficult: getting people to give tunes a chance they might not know but which are kick ass. I've put jukeboxes on my site, I've signed the tunes up for Slay Radio, they're on iTunes, they're on 30 second clips... how much do I fucking have to do to get people to listen? It's not a technical issue any more. I've busted my butt to get a shop in place that treats the customer right, but it's no good if people are staying away from the site because they filled up somewhere else, or because the site was something else seven years ago.

FYI, the reason there aren't more CDs with demotunes on them is that virtually everyone else hates the unknown and they know the game tunes best. If there were more people actually supporting the commercial releases, if we could actually sell the minimum pressing of a CD without me having to store 300 copies in my rapidly filling loft for three years, then perhaps, you'd get more of what you wanted.

I'm getting bad tempered now, I think I should stop posting and have a nice lie down.

Chris

Chris Abbott wrote:Apart from the occasional gathering or live show, the scene seems to be lots of individual people in their individual bubbles who hide their love of C64 music from the outside world. As a result we've got a secret society. Wonderful. It's like being the official record label of the Illuminati.

Just to butt in here... this is mirrored exactly by a couple of other things I'm involved with, interested in and talk to fans of said stuff about. Half of it probably is a case of knowing other people would go "You're interested in WHAT?!" in complete incredulity and derission... the other half is just having the sheer fact there's some unbeliavably brilliantly stuff being made, but getting it out to the masses is a struggle because of the perceived nature of it in the first place.

It's the analogy of listening to a track and enjoying it, and then finding out the source/artist and then suddenly thinking differently about it merely because of the perception of what it is. I've seen that with SID remixes on people I know who are not in the scene... though I think a couple of them are slowly warming and understand that despite the origins of the tracks, some of the remixes are quite in their tastes...

Chris Abbott wrote: I'm getting bad tempered now, I think I should stop posting and have a nice lie down.

Go out for a walk, maybe get something to eat, come back have a lie down and take it easy.

You are taking this personally and you shouldn't because you are doing the best you can and its not you're fault.

I'd go out to a nice Chip Shop, but we dont have any here, so I'll just drink my water.

There's another thing here which no one seems to have realised.

Everyone here is very keen for SID remixes to break out of their little bubble, yes?

For that to happen, C64 music must become an attractive market segment, so that you can get distribution and presence. The only metric to measure C64 music by is the actual money generated by Commodore 64 music. What they then see, if they look at the scene, is a scene apparently (from their point of view) so lacking in self-respect that they give everything away as if it has no value, and their only record label struggles to sell 100 copies of some CDs.

Result? They laugh at us. And the scene laughs at me, for I'm somehow supposed to produce a shitload of traffic from nowhere.

If C64Audio.com was as successful as it should be, you'd now have C64 compilations in every record shop in the land, because there would have been proof that x number of C64 fans existed. But we don't. To the outside world, a failed C64Audio.com is a sign of the failure of commercial vaibility (and by implication quality) of the scene and its music. It's peverse that we take a pride in our poverty.

I could get C64 music to number 1 tomorrow if everyone who likes C64 music downloaded a chart-registered track from iTunes. There's nothing I'd like better than to generate wealth for the scene and then spread it about: I think I've proved over the last 10 years I'm anything but greedy.

Chris

{rant on. Sorry, but I'm in a foul mood}
Oh, and to anyone who read that post and was thinking "ah, here we go, money again, if only he'd go away, C64 music would be a nirvana, everyone would be ever so happy, free music for everyone, la-di-da...".

Get out of your comfortable ivory tower into the real world. The C64 music most people remember was never free. It was written for money, and the motivations of the composers were the same as most musicians: survive, succeed, prosper, make a living doing music. The demo scene was created by people who had the luxury of being able to create music when they didn't need to: as are most remixes: but that's no excuse for judging people who actually want to be able to earn a living from music from doing so. In fact, the attempt to make working musicians (or indeed record labels) feel guilty because they should be "doing it for love" has been a judgmental poison rather than a positive in this scene. The best music IS done because the person is doing it because they want to: but I've been hearing the voices behind my back ever since I started, despite the fact that many of the scene highlights over the last few years have been because money got involved.

So maybe I should start feeling unashamed of the commercial aspect to what I do. I've made people's lives better. Intellectual free-for-alls sniping from comfortable sidelines can just go and jump off the unrealistically high Ivory Tower they've built, and stop imposing their judgements on people who are doing their best to do their duty. Why should I feel as ashamed as some people think I should feel?

Chris

k_rostoen wrote:My thoughts on the RKO thing: Making it a paysite would kill it totally.

First of all there is a quality issue here. To be honest, not very much on RKO keep a quality you would actually pay for. Actually I see RKO more as a resource for remixers than for the audience. Of course, some tunes stand out and are actually so good that you will put them in your playlist, but more importantly I see RKO as a way for remixers to get feedback on how to improve their skills.

Secondly I think remixers would loose interest in RKO. Ok, remixers making remixes of gametunes where there is a copyright issue would probably keep releasing tunes on RKO. Those who remix demotunes would probably release them elsewhere. Personally I don't have the big interest in gametunes. I much more prefer the demotunes, so if RKO was gametunes only I would probably stop visiting it.

Personally I don't have any of the albums from C64Audio. I haven't visited the site in a long while to be honest, but I do remember visiting the site after the first couple of CDs were released. They consisted of gametunes only and I wouldn't even consider buying them due to that. Maybe that has changed in later releases, I'll check it out when the site is online again.

Just my 5 cents.

Who says that everyone would would focus on just the quality aspect of it!? ... Many here have written in posts that they are really happy about how friendly this scene is to eachother compared to other communities... I'm not here because of money (I've given up on earning on my music years back... don't want to fight anymore), I'm here because I like the scene, the feedback, the friends... and I'd hate to see this scene wither and die, and I'd gladly pay a subscription to live this through.... maybe I'm the only one? ... I really don't care if the place is free or paid for, as long as the scene is here! ... the only thing preventing this site to stay free is as I understand it, that the original C64 SID tune authors want their gold (that Chris and others say is worth nothing in commercial business anyway) to multiply.... fix: calculate a darn fee for using RKO that'll pay the darn composers, and lets move on! (sorry for the rant, but this is getting a bit silly now)

Analog-X wrote:

k_rostoen wrote:My thoughts on the RKO thing: Making it a paysite would kill it totally.

Yes it would... What I'm suggesting is, if people want to download free songs from RKO the least they could do is join remix64.com and get involved... which is why I would implement a system where if you want to download RKO you need to join Remix64.com first and get involved by making a few posts.

That would certainly clean out the riff raf who are only interested in leeching and not much else, those who are not total leechers would probably join and possibly realise what great community this is and increase their activity.

I agree with you on this one Analog X, but it'll not "pay the bills" needed for Chris to fulfil his contract with the SID authors.

Mayhem wrote:

Chris Abbott wrote:Apart from the occasional gathering or live show, the scene seems to be lots of individual people in their individual bubbles who hide their love of C64 music from the outside world. As a result we've got a secret society. Wonderful. It's like being the official record label of the Illuminati.

Just to butt in here... this is mirrored exactly by a couple of other things I'm involved with, interested in and talk to fans of said stuff about. Half of it probably is a case of knowing other people would go "You're interested in WHAT?!" in complete incredulity and derission... the other half is just having the sheer fact there's some unbeliavably brilliantly stuff being made, but getting it out to the masses is a struggle because of the perceived nature of it in the first place.

It's the analogy of listening to a track and enjoying it, and then finding out the source/artist and then suddenly thinking differently about it merely because of the perception of what it is. I've seen that with SID remixes on people I know who are not in the scene... though I think a couple of them are slowly warming and understand that despite the origins of the tracks, some of the remixes are quite in their tastes...

Why even bother to tell them that it's C64 related!? ... wait until they've tapped their feet, or listened in awe.... then break the news when they cannot run back

But yes... I admit that many people seem to get a weird expression in their face when they learn the origins... my step father surely looked funny, when he was informed, after having secretly stepped his feet to the beat of my Action Biker remix

but if we're too proud to hide the fact, and the listeners are too scared to listen... then we have only one option; to save our beloved community somehow.... but how? if paying a small fee to deal with royalties is out of the question, what else can we do, but to sit and wait for death?

Chris Abbott wrote:There's another thing here which no one seems to have realised.

Everyone here is very keen for SID remixes to break out of their little bubble, yes?

For that to happen, C64 music must become an attractive market segment, so that you can get distribution and presence. The only metric to measure C64 music by is the actual money generated by Commodore 64 music. What they then see, if they look at the scene, is a scene apparently (from their point of view) so lacking in self-respect that they give everything away as if it has no value, and their only record label struggles to sell 100 copies of some CDs.

Result? They laugh at us. And the scene laughs at me, for I'm somehow supposed to produce a shitload of traffic from nowhere.

If C64Audio.com was as successful as it should be, you'd now have C64 compilations in every record shop in the land, because there would have been proof that x number of C64 fans existed. But we don't. To the outside world, a failed C64Audio.com is a sign of the failure of commercial vaibility (and by implication quality) of the scene and its music. It's peverse that we take a pride in our poverty.

I could get C64 music to number 1 tomorrow if everyone who likes C64 music downloaded a chart-registered track from iTunes. There's nothing I'd like better than to generate wealth for the scene and then spread it about: I think I've proved over the last 10 years I'm anything but greedy.

Chris

Chris; no.... I really don't care about SID breaking out of this bubble.... I just want the bubble to stay intact really... of course it'll be nice if it could be done. But the idear of everyone downloading one tune tomorrow is a good idear if it'll work ... and it's even a one-time-pay...

and if other record labels are so keen to diss our existence because of your faild shop, then why use them at all? ... is it totally impossible to get our word and size out by our selves? I've learned that it's when you rely on other people to carry you around that you seem to get dropped into the dirt... nothing omes to yourself theese days, you have to be your own smith of luck.

I'm just wondering how many in here actually know of this problem Chris? ... all this is quite new to me... I did not see it until you wrote about it here... that it is so serious.

This thread is both a frightening and a sad read.

I had no idea things were as bad with c64audio.com...

I have bought CDs before and I prefer buying physical CDs over just digital copies.
The reason I haven't done so in a while is that I'm all out of work and entertainment is a luxury when in economical draught.
The shop got even better when the option to download mp3s or .flacs for albums you've bought appeared, which saves me a lot of time
as I don't have to encode the albums myself anymore.

I don't like freeloading and RKO can never replace commercial CDs, not in my case at least.
I don't agree with the views of Razmo on some of points:

#1: If I hear a good commercial track I DO want to buy the cd it's on. I'm one of those non-music makers and I doubt every musician thinks like Razmo does on this matter.

#2: I'm doubtful that a fee would do any good as it probably would scare a lot of people away and paying for access to a message board sounds pretty far fetched to me.
One can apply the RKO vs c64audio.com thing here in a sense that people would probably not want to pay for access to the board when there's IRC which is free.
I think you're contradicting yourself here Razmo.

Maybe it's just me but I haven't heard the "... which you can buy at http://www.c64audio.com" being said in a lot of live shows nowadays.

Ph0B1uS wrote:This thread is both a frightening and a sad read.

I had no idea things were as bad with c64audio.com...

I have bought CDs before and I prefer buying physical CDs over just digital copies.
The reason I haven't done so in a while is that I'm all out of work and entertainment is a luxury when in economical draught.
The shop got even better when the option to download mp3s or .flacs for albums you've bought appeared, which saves me a lot of time
as I don't have to encode the albums myself anymore.

I don't like freeloading and RKO can never replace commercial CDs, not in my case at least.
I don't agree with the views of Razmo on some of points:

#1: If I hear a good commercial track I DO want to buy the cd it's on. I'm one of those non-music makers and I doubt every musician thinks like Razmo does on this matter.

#2: I'm doubtful that a fee would do any good as it probably would scare a lot of people away and paying for access to a message board sounds pretty far fetched to me.
One can apply the RKO vs c64audio.com thing here in a sense that people would probably not want to pay for access to the board when there's IRC which is free.
I think you're contradicting yourself here Razmo.

Maybe it's just me but I haven't heard the "... which you can buy at http://www.c64audio.com" being said in a lot of live shows nowadays.

I'm not talking about paying for the Remix64 message board... I'm talking about paying a subscription for being able to download at RKO... RKO is the competition and the main reason in my belief that noone will buy from C64audio, and the only reason RKO is allowed is because Chris let it be legal... the interrests he has signed to nurse the authors interrests is making it harder for him, when RKO is free... I guess...

now don't get me wrong!... I'd surely prefer if RKO was free... but if the scene will die out if this combination continue to exist, then what can we do to save the scene but to pay for downloading at RKO!? ... well... we could all order some CD's from you but as I stated before, I'm not even aware of the problem until now... and at least ONE more in this thread has admitted to the same.... now how many others know about this Chris? ... maybe it's time to hit those charity buttons by making it 100% clear to all in the scene, that if we want other record companies to believe in us, we have to participate! buy CD's! Tell them the whole scary future if it does not happen!

What about some suggestions at this instead of just dissing the ones being presented?

And what about expanding the scene to incorporate not just C64 tunes, but also AMIGA, FM Chip tunes and original work of the artists that remix also? ... afterall we are a part of a much greater community, namely the whole darn demo-scene, that relate to anything in the 8-bit scene and even 16-bit really. Or should I call it the "Nerd Era"?... guess this is what makes the "normal" listener scared of the music.