It's encouraging to see that there really is interest on the consumer level
in experimenting with these new technologies, because a lot of people at
the mainstream industry level don't think much of it, either by preference
or paranoia. But it's clear this train is coming down the track and
gathering steam.
Particularly in light of all this discussion, I am excited to announce that
NOMA has joined the digital delivery revolution. We are now offering a
small selection of individual tracks in our own " Liquid Music Library" at
<http://songs.com/liquidaudio/>.
So far, we are pleased to offer selections by:
Richard Gilewitz
The Killens
Stan Moeller & T.S. Baker
Nancy Moran
Teresa James
The Electric Range
Katherine Dines
Freeway Philharmonic
Jackie Tice
Lisa Cannon
Joel Rafael Band
Don Conoscenti
and soon to come:
Buddy Mondlock (from the new CD, Poetic Justice)
Kate Wallace
Kate Wallace & Michael Camp (Two Lane America)
Tom Kimmel
Richard Berman
Angela Kaset
Gary Nicholson
Craig Carothers
Fritz Hayden
Calaveras
and who knows who else. I suspect this library will grow very rapidly.
At the NOMA Liquid Liberty, you can preview these selections in a variety
of formats. You can listen to the whole song with a 28.8 modem, you can
listen to a clip at 14.4 (nobody should listen to more than a minute of
music over the Net at 14.4) and, if you have the bandwidth, you can listen
to a clip in dual-ISDN stereo, which sounds every bit as good as FM Stereo
on your computer speakers.
Of course, you can download the CD-quality files to your computer and, if
you have the proper equipment, burn your own CDs. Or you can listen to the
track to your heart's content right off your hard-drive - the files only
take about 5MB apiece. And anybody who purchases a track (for $1.99) will
receive a $2.00 credit against the purchase of ANY CD in our catalog.
Because digital delivery is such a hot topic - and such uncharted
territory, we are also launching some ancillary services to facilitate a
discussion of the subject:
The Digital Delivery Discussion Center is an online bulletin board devoted
to new music technologies and the Internet. It's accessible from the main
NOMA Liquid Audio page <http://songs.com/liquidaudio/>. I hope that people
with a more than passing interest in recordable CDs, the software, and
sources of downloadable music will find useful information in this message
center.
We are also announcing the "NOMA Liquid Radio Network." This is a very
specialized service aimed primarily at folk and roots radio DJs and
programmers, and is intended to spare our artists the enormous costs of
sending CDs out to all the radio outlets that comprise our "acoustic music"
network. The idea is simple: subscribe to our "nomaradio" listserv, and
every week or so we'll send you an e-mail with a listing of new tunes that
have been added to our Liquid Music Library. If you stay online, you'll be
able to preview the tracks (in 28.8 quality) right from the e-mail, and
when you hear something you like, you'll be able to download it (at no
charge) from a password-protected website set up specially for this purpose.
Interested radio station folk - Program Directors, Music Directors, DJs and
program hosts are invited to sign up now for the NOMA Liquid Radio Network
by steering their browser to <http://songs.com/liquidaudio/la-radio.html>.
Liquid Audio is just the tip of an iceberg that the Titanic of the Music
Industry is steaming toward. There is also an exciting (and very
controversial) technology called MP3 which lets you get as many as 200
songs on a single CD -- but you can only play it on your computer (when is
Intel going to start putting its chips in stereo receivers?) And lately
I've been listening to music over the net in near-CD quality via a cable
modem - I wonder what's playing on channel 4,762 in Netherlands tonight?
There's no question that we are at the threshold of a new frontier. So
fire up those browsers and come on by <http://songs.com/liquidaudio/> and
join us for the revolution.
--PS
Paul Schatzkin perfessr@songs.com
AKA The Perfesser http://songs.com/pws
President, National Online Music Alliance
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"The only way to predict the future is to create it."
-- Gerd Leonhard