Check out new sound clips of fresh material from Haltya here :
https://soundcloud.com/haltya-1/haltya-sibelius-snippet
Watch this space in the coming weeks for regular updates!

BEWARE OF THE TALVIVAARA-NORPPA!

F%%% the eclipse

Wow,

Maybe i should try and hide my head in the sand for a few weeks to not see anymore of those eclipse 2012 photos on facebook. Looks like everybody else is there having fun and seeing each other, except yours truly. Ofcourse the fact that i was initially booked for the thing, but then faded to play on rainbow serpent doesn't help. There just is no substitute for an eclipse festival.
This is one of the most important parties there has ever been in the scene and i'm not invited in the end. Frustration galore..

Shepherding shepherds

Shepherding shepherds.

It's always fun to hear what suomisaundi (suomi sound) is, what it was and where it should be going, from a person who was not involved in the process of creating it or working with it.
Another fun thing is to categorize everything about suomi-sound to make it all (especially the artists) come together in one herd under one banner. It's fun-worthy. The shepherds are developing a sense of humor. This kind of talk is ofcourse : promotor/manager/publisher/fan talk.

Cui bono?

After you take the money out of the equation all that is left is doings and deeds, experiences and feelings, giving and taking.

Ask yourself, who in the end is shepherding who?

So, you wanna be a rock n roll star in 2012?

How to become a rock n' roll star 2012


Today it is more easier than ever to become a full blown rock n roll celebrity. All it takes is to form a band with a provocative two term name, play some punk rock, then act out a politically provocative scene in a church somewhere in Russia and say something to upset ol' Putin.
By doing all this you get huge international publicity for your music project for free, total full blown media coverage world wide, win the hearts of millions with empathy to support your 'cause', make the world see you as a political victim of censorship, play the role of the political prisoner, have people supporting the 'pussy cause' all around the world for no particular reason other than that you have a 'cool' band name, not even having heard a single piece of music from you.

Now, what if the pussy rioteers knew exactly how to promote their music endeavours? Maybe they took Axel Roses advice a bit too far and used their illusion to the extreme.

All you have to do to get all this is to sit 2 years in jail for it - a minor trade off considering what you are getting for it. That might sound harsh, but after the pussy rioteers are released they will have an immortal status in the punk scene, being one of the most famous and recognizable punk bands around, forever being the band who pissed off Putin. An icon of their generation so to speak.
With the right manager and booker they will play all major festivals all around the world, many gigs all around soon after they are released. Everybody knows Pussy Riot now.

You could say that Pussy Riot have in a sense 'made it'. Although it wasn't because of the music.

Why create significant quality content?

The internet pyramid


The internet is the pyramid of today. If we think of the pyramids as the single greatest achievement by man and a prime example of man working together and making something that lasts for generations to come, then the internet must be the pyramid of today.

Let's assume that the internet will prevail time and global changes as it is an adoptable medium, and let's assume that the internet is the everlasting library or archade of all known knowledge (a new information ark) that we posses today, then it becomes very clear that all our internet user history and all the things we put online will be there forever.

The point i want to make is to get people to think about their content that they are contributing online. We need to ask ourselves : is this the sort of content/world you want to live in, are you contributing to a better world or making it worse with your internet content, what kind of digital foot print do you want to leave for future generations, are you and your content replaceable, is your content of the best storage quality etc.. these are just some questions that arise.

After we leave this world behind and take the next journey to the after life, then all that there will be left of our digital efforts should be found online if stored correctly. Ask yourself, after you are gone is your content that you created during your life time replaceable? is it of any importance or even significant? is it original? Is it stored properly and with a quality good enough to be worthy of beeing stored in the everlasting archives of the internet? Ask yourself : Is your content of 'eternal quality'?


Eternal quality


The term 'eternal quality' is a term that i invented to describe the best type of quality of a file to be stored properly in the eternal archives of the internet.
What is 'eternal quality'? Eternal quality is a file saved at the best or optimum resolution and storage quality, good enough to be used and altered in the unpredictable future. An example of a file with 'eternal quality' would be a piece of recorded music stored with 16-24 bits resolution (or more), and 48kHz (or more) lossless superior file quality, unlimited, unmaximized, unpacked. An example of a file not worthy of the 'eternal quality' status would be a sound recording saved as 44.1 kHz (or less), 16 bit (or less), not to meantion mp3 etc, over limited, over compressed and brickwall maximized + packed. This would result for the file to be a broken file, distorted, not whole, not clean and not clear, thus not worthy of 'eternal quality'. The file could not be re-mastered very well in the future, it has less dynamics, because it would not have any headroom.
On the other hand the 'eternal quality' file would have all the benefitial features, as it could be re-mastered (not beeing limited or maximized) in the future having enough dynamics or used in another way, the file is not broken not distorted and not brickwall maximized, unpacked. There is a huge difference between these two example types of music files. This is just one type of example.

Why i am bringing this to peoples attention is that in todays music business unfortunately most of the recordings being published or 'stored online' are of inferior sound quality, not meeting the criteria of 'eternal quality'. Most recordings today are brickwall mastered to the limit, or over compressed, limited etc.. as a result of loudness war.
Loudness war has brought down the quality of recordings considerably and is a phenomenon that we should all think about and maybe perhaps start to make petitions, rules and regulations on sound quality control, resolution and mastering, some kind of other industry standard to meet the 'eternal quality' status.

For anybody interested to read more about loudness war check out this link :

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm

One of many organisations who are trying to fight back the loudness war :

http://turnmeup.org/


Coming back to the subject of 'eternal quality', this term could be used with any other content aswell like photos, videos for example.
Another possible scenario is that if you have for example an online store, or an online business (a basic business idea nothing too special, a blog, perhaps even a clone idea) and are contributing to the internet with that sort of content, then ask yourself will any of this matter when you are long gone? Would your work and content be replaceable, is your work and content of any significant importance or is it just a clone, would any of your content or what you created matter to future generations, would it have any entertainment value or provide actual social benefit to future society, would your content be worthy of storage in the great library of eternal files, are you actually contributing something original of the utter most best 'eternal quality'? Are your ideals high enough?

This is something for all of us to think about.


Why it matters


Being a helplessly compulsive musician i have often thought about ways to make more money, perhaps even stop making music altogether in order to concentrate on making more money.
What if i just start some business and forget about music, sell things, get the money and live the life?

I might make more money running an insignificant service based online business that wouldn't create any significant new content or works of art to the eternal library of the internet. But, would it ultimately be of more value to me or future generations of the 'internet pyramid', than creating 'enternal quality' content is the question here.