Independant Music, Vinyl Records and Sound recording
Independent Music
In popular music, independent music, often generally abbreviated as "indie", is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing.
Independent labels have been known to strive for minimal influence on the artist they represent, avoiding the artist-cultivating behavior of many major labels. Artists represented by Independent labels have been known to be focused more on producing music than becoming wealthy and/or well known.
Internet technology allows artists to introduce their music to a potentially enormous audience at low cost without necessarily affiliating with a major recording label. The design of digital music software encourages the discovery of new music. Sites with larger libraries of songs are the most successful. This, in turn, creates many opportunities for independent bands. Royalties from digital services could prove to be an important source of income. If an artist has already paid to record, manufacture, and promote their album, there is little to no additional cost for independent artists to distribute their music online. Digital services offer the opportunity of exposure to new fans and the possibility of increased sales through online retailers. Artists can also release music more frequently and quickly if it is made available online. Additionally, artists have the option of releasing limited edition, out-of-print, or live material that would be too costly to produce through traditional means. No limit is the largest independent record company in the US with sales over 75 million records.
Some independent artists have used the Internet (and an established fan base) to successfully fund new recording projects, relying on services like ArtistShare or using their own sites. For instance, singer-songwriter Jill Sobule released "California Years" in 2009, an album for which she'd raised nearly $90,000 online. Sobule explained her telethon-like fundraising approach thusly: "The contribution levels went from $10, which got you a digital download of the record, to $10,000, which gave you the chance to sing on the record." (One generous donor did contribute at the $10,000 level.)
With the arrival of newer and relatively inexpensive recording devices and instruments, more individuals are able to participate in the creation of music than ever before. Studio time is extremely expensive and difficult to obtain. The result of new technology is that anyone can produce studio-quality music from their own home. Additionally, the development of new technology allows for greater experimentation with sound. An artist is able to experiment without necessarily spending the money to do it in an expensive studio.
Most artists maintain their own websites as well as having a presence on sites such as Myspace.com. Technological advances such as message boards, music blogs, and social networks are also being used by independent music companies to make big advances in the business. Some sites rely on audience participation to rate a band, allowing listeners to have a significant impact on the success of a band. This eliminates new talent search and development, one of the most costly areas of the music business. Other sites allow artists to upload their music and sell it at a price of their choosing. Visitors to the site can browse by genre, listen to free samples, view artist information, and purchase the tracks they want to buy. Acts such as Wilco have chosen to make their new albums available for streaming before they are released.
Many bands have chosen to forgo a record label and instead market and distribute their music only on the Internet. Digital marketing firms such as CDBaby, Magnatune and iTunes offer opportunities such as podcast creation and promotion and video hosting. In the case of digital distribution, musicians lend a company the right to distribute their music. The contract is often non-exclusive, and the rights to the music generally remain with the artist. The non-exclusivity of the contract allows many artists to have an online presence while continuing to sell directly through their local independent music stores.
A more recent trend is seen in artists who give their music away for free, such as the "record lable" Quote Unquote Records, featuring bands such as Bomb the Music Industry!, Radiohead, with their 2007 album In Rainbows, The Go! Team with their single "Milk Crisis" and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails with the 2008 albums Ghosts I-IV and The Slip.
Vinyl Records
A gramophone record (also known as phonograph record, vinyl record, or simply record) is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove usually starting near the periphery and ending near the centre of the disc. When made of polyvinyl chloride, such a disc is also known as a vinyl record.
Gramophone records were the primary medium used for commercial music reproduction for most of the 20th century. They replaced the phonograph cylinder as the most popular recording medium in the 1900s. For the most part, they were supplanted in popularity in the late 1980s by digital media, leaving mainstream in 1991. However, they continue to be manufactured and sold in the 21st century. The vinyl reached new popularity in 2008, with nearly 2.9 million units shipped that year, the most in any year since 1998. They are used predominantly by young adults, as well as DJs and audiophiles for certain types of music, especially electronic dance music, hip hop, punk rock, and jazz. As of 2009, vinyl records continue to be overwhelmingly successful format for distribution of independent and alternative music artists specifically, compared more mainstream or pop releases, which tend be mostly sold in digital or compact disc format.
Sound Recording
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a small microphone diaphragm that can detect changes in atmospheric pressure (acoustic sound waves) and record them as a graphic representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph (in which a stylus senses grooves on a record). In magnetic tape recording, the sound waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric current, which is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet, which makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on a plastic tape with a magnetic coating on it. Analog sound reproduction is the reverse process, with a bigger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Electronically generated sound waves may also be recorded directly from devices such as an electric guitar pickup or a synthesizer, without the use of acoustics in the recording process other than the need for musicians to hear how well they are playing during recording sessions.
Digital recording and reproduction converts the analog sound signal picked up by the microphone to a digital form by a process of digitization, allowing it to be stored and transmitted by a wider variety of media. Digital recording stores audio as a series of binary numbers representing samples of the amplitude of the audio signal at equal time intervals, at a sample rate so fast that the human ear perceives the result as continuous sound. Digital recordings are considered higher quality than analog recordings not necessarily because they have higher fidelity (wider frequency response or dynamic range), but because the digital format can prevent much loss of quality found in analog recording due to noise and electromagnetic interference in playback, and mechanical deterioration or damage to the storage medium. A digital audio signal must be reconverted to analog form during playback before it is applied to a loudspeaker or earphones.