The Recording Rig and The new Radiohead Album

My good friend Jesse recently gave me his Mac G4 which had Pro Tools on it. For those of you who don't know, Pro Tools is recording software. When combined with an interface box you can plug a guitar directly into that box and record directly to Pro Tools on the computer.

I've been waiting to get proper recording equipment for awhile but was never able to come up with the money. Lucky for me I have a generous friend. Anyway, I've been recording a few guitar tracks everyday and it's extremely inspiring.

I started a Pro Tools session that's nothing but guitar riff ideas. I have about 11 guitar tracks that I could go back and grab should I start fleshing out an actual song. It's amazing how listening to playback of your own stuff feeds your creativity. I played this one riff, kind of sounds like a Slayer riff, for about 10 seconds. I then doubled that part by playing the same line only I played it an octave lower. When I listened to the tracks combined the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I had a smile on my face that went from ear to ear.

Recording has become an addiction. Having a means to record my guitar playing is making my creativity flow and I'm really excited about what I'm going to be coming up with as a result.

In Rainbows

I bought the new Radiohead album "In Rainbows" for one British pound. Get this, I went to their site and clicked on a button to download the album and it took me to a shopping cart. When I got to the shopping cart page there was no price, just two empty fields with the British pound mark in front of them. So I then clicked on a button that read "Advice". That brought me to a page that said something to the effect of "Pay what you want". I was thinking "Wait a minute...", on that page there was yet another "Advice" button so I clicked on it and that brought me to a page that said "No, really". So I ended up paying one pound or 2 USD for the new Radiohead album.

Radiohead is going it alone without a record company. Trent Reznor and his band Nine Inch Nails have recently been released from their Interscope contract and Oasis and Jamiroquai are looking into releasing their music on their own.

I hope more bands will follow Radiohead and NIN's lead. Hopefully this will lead to better music and weed out artists who shouldn't even be in the game in the first place.

At the same time though I'm somewhat torn about it because I have many friends who still work in the industry. Where're they gonna go should the industry collapse? It sucks that the RIAA and the record companies as a whole are so clueless about emerging technologies. They're trying to hold on to the old model and it's not working.

As of late, record companies have been beefing up their New Media departments but it may be too little too late. The floodgates are wide open and the industry hurts itself by marketing to people they're activley trying to prosecute.

Who knows what'll happen? I know that this move by Radiohead is a step in the right direction for artists. I expect this move to spark unprecedented creativity and bring real music back to the forefront.
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