Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Dissonant Echoes podcast. I'm your host, Adrian. I'm joined with co-host Alan. How's it going, Alan? Dude, it's going pretty fucking good. Oh, there goes our AdSense revenue. Not that we had any.
Speaker: Yeah, we we're creeping up in subscribers. Hopefully, if eventually, we'll start making money on this. Yeah, no ads, barely any viewers, but we're still trucking. We're doing it, man. Yeah, the long haul. We're going to just keep going. um I guess we're going to announce a couple of things. We have, well, I don't know. Hopefully...
Speaker: By the time this comes out, we won't have any witness tapes left, but if we do pick one up, we'll have the vinyl still for sure. ah Grab, pick up the vinyl. What about you, Alan? What you got? Yeah. Other than the new witness album, there is now a pull a pre-order up for the new pull the strings EP, um which is EP that I made to benefit Mosh for lives, which is a really cool local organization I've worked with that does suicide prevention and awareness stuff in the local community.
Speaker: So all proceeds from that will go to them. So pre-order that there'll be tapes, ah pick one up if you want. And, Yeah, I think that's pretty much it for announcements today.
Speaker: Well, what have you been up to lately, man? Not much.
Speaker: Same as always, just been lifting weights and working, that's all. Yeah, so just two kinds of work. You like to work, man.
Speaker: I do, yeah. You got this too. This is work as well. Yeah. Music is work. and Lots of work. My body hurts all the time. It sucks.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm trying to get back into ah day job type deal. We'll see if that happens or not. But yeah, I don't know, man. It's a just one of the necessary evils of life, I reckon. Right?
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, if you, I guess if you do a job that like kind of benefits people, that's not too bad. Right. You know, I work in a grocery warehouse and I put, I put food items onto pallets and then ship them to stores.
Speaker: I mean, like it's not directly fulfilling, but at least it's like providing for people. Yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, it's hard work for sure. I know that much. I've never done it, but I don't want to do it either from the way you describe it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's horrible. We have like a 95% turnover rate like for three months. It's insane. Yeah. But it's cool. yeah It's a decent paying job. And like we even hire from the the local, I guess, I don't know if it's like it like prison.
Speaker: Is it jail or prison? like I don't know. It's like they have a work release program. Yeah. yeah So usually they're nonviolent. Usually. usually they're like nonviolent so issue Yeah, we've had some sketchy people come through.
Speaker: um But you know, it's kind of cool, because like, some of these guys are trying to like, turn their lives around. And this job gives them an opportunity like I mean, it pays really good considering like the kind of work we're doing. So yeah, um and that way, I kind of respect the company, you know, giving these people opportunities that they really wouldn't be able to have, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, sure. So Yeah. i mean, my skillset is entirely in in the field of machining. So if anybody's listening and and is, or has been a machinist, well, what's up? Shout out to you guys and girls. Um, so I'll probably eventually get back into that.
Speaker: We shall see. Yeah. The only thing I know about that is, um, Christian Bale lost a lot of weight to play one in a movie. I've never seen it. You haven't seen The Machinist?
Speaker: No. Oh, man. No, I've been a machinist for a decade, but I've never seen the movie called The Machinist. I don't know what it's about or anything like that. have you seen the pictures of Christian Bale? Yeah, I've seen... crazy.
Speaker: I think I have seen the trailer. Yeah, he apparently, the book described the main character as like 130 pounds or something. But the guy was short, but Christian Bale wanted to hit that way anyway.
Speaker: So that's why he like looks sick. yeah Yeah, it's extreme. Yeah, sure. There was no reason for him to do that. The book didn't even really call for that. I obsessed about music, but not to the level where I would change my diet completely and lose all sustenance from my intake every day. That's just insane to me. But don't know.
Speaker: Everybody's different, man. whatever Whatever you get into. Yeah. As long as it doesn't hurt anybody. Really weird of him to do. Like, they didn't even ask him to do that. He's just like, I'm going to, the book says this way, you know, so I'm going to do that.
Speaker: Yeah. Just got to hit the target. It's really weird. Yeah. well um Well, we'll talk a little bit about what we've been jamming lately. i don't know if you have anything new to mention this week or not, but I sure do.
Speaker: um Not too much, but. Just one thing that I found on YouTube, it was suggested to me, and I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. I haven't told you about this, Adrian, but there's this EP called As the Saints Burn by Serpent that's put out by Katherian Black Circle, which we know Luna Mortuus is a part of. oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So they put that out on YouTube. It's not on Bandcamp as far as I know right now, but dude, that is an amazing release. It is so good. Like... It's really interesting. It's got a very unique production. I've never heard depressive black metal that was mixed like this, where it almost sounds like modern and low tuned and stuff, but yet still super just distant and depressive and just, I don't know. It's perfect. It suits the music perfectly.
Speaker: You can't hear the vocals. They're like a million miles away. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I really dig. I really liked the buried vocals. Yeah. yeah That sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.
Speaker: Yeah, Serpent. There's also a split that Serpent did a couple years ago or maybe last year with Luna Mortuice as well. Yeah, I think I jammed that one.
Speaker: But yeah, i just I haven't really been um following that the circle. right but Yeah, like I said, it just showed up on my YouTube and I was listening to it and started showing it to people. I was really blown away by it.
Speaker: um Then there's this album that came out in 2022 called Saturnine in December by Anticantamentum, which is an interesting name.
Speaker: Um, but I just found this one randomly and it's really good black metal. It's it's pretty different. It's like post black metal, but it's like, I don't know how to put it. It's got like a little bit of like the chord choices are a little bit more like hard rock in sections, like modern hard rock. Like if they almost remind me of like breaking Benjamin or something, no offense to Anticantamentum. That's just kind of what I heard.
Speaker: But overall, just really long, sprawling songs that convey a lot of different things that all land really well. So, you know, hard for me to do stuff like that. So I really respect it and just really recommend that album. Also, the release that came out before that is really good, too. I've got that one wish listed as well.
Speaker: And then the other thing is ah this release called Meditations by Sambira, which is a release from a really cool noise label that I just recently came into contact with called Drama Recorder. And I just was browsing through there.
Speaker: Stuff they've got out and that one really stuck with me. It's like a really abrasive, harsh noise drone release. um But it's called meditations, which is kind of like, how does that make sense? So I've been like digging into that, trying to figure out how it's meditative.
Speaker: And I was actually listening to it. while driving 80 miles an hour on the interstate. And it was a, it was pretty anxiety inducing. I have to say like the harsh noise is doing that. I don't know.
Speaker: I'll keep listening and see if it becomes meditative. We'll see. Nice. What about you, man? um Witness, witness. I don't know. I've been jamming that a lot.
Speaker: yeah Especially Cult of Demeter. love that track. That build up to like the kind of like the finale, just so it still gives me goosebumps.
Speaker: It's crazy because I've heard the track but hundred times. you know I still love it. As of recording, we released the music video ah yesterday. Samara Kand made it.
Speaker: She's worked with a bunch of ah black metal artists we like, you know, ah she worked with like Gore Moth and Ball. So reached out to her. She did a great job. I love the video.
Speaker: So shout out, check that out if you can. Yeah. Nice music video to go with that song, which we counted it as our seventh music video as a label so far. So yep yeah. Yeah. um The album is great, dude. like Like I said, when I listen to it in my car at night, it's like it hits perfectly for that.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I mean, I'm very happy with how it turned out. Yeah. It took take a lot of time to write that one, especially like the longer tracks were like, yeah, the ah spent a lot I spent a lot of time writing those.
Speaker: um And then Sean's vocals are just cherry on top, like it fantastic writing. The lyrics, just like, I don't know, he writes in a of kind of very different style than I do. So like, it was very cool to see what he was able to do with the lyrics.
Speaker: you know, the ah tracks I wrote. So, yeah. Which I should mention, that's one more thing that I've been listening to is our project that we started recently, which I think is going to be called try not to die here.
Speaker: Yeah. um I've been listening to those tracks a lot, especially the one that has your vocals on it, on it already. That one's really good. But yeah, we've got an album we're cooking up for for that. That'll be done relatively soon.
Speaker: Yeah. Super sick. Got some lyrics for the next track. ah That one's going to fun one. I really like doing the vocals for that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's got the ah almost like I see Satan vocals, but like through a amp, I think, right? Yeah, that's correct. That's like heavily. that really That really pushes it over the top with just the and the energy of it and everything. It's really cool.
Speaker: yeah I'm a fan. yeah I've been listening to those tracks a lot too, as well as just all the various things I've been doing with my noise track, ah noise project that I've started recently as well.
Speaker: um But yeah, that's pretty much everything. I've downloaded a lot of stuff, but those are the ones that I've actually been listening to um all the way through. So yeah, man, I wanted to get into it um and talk about kind of one of the main things that we're about here as a label, which is physical media. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: There's a lot to talk about with physical media. What do we mean? Well, we mean tapes, CDs, and vinyl, right? And then any other weird types of listening experiences that might exist. But those are the main ones.
Speaker: yeah I mean, I've seen people release flash drives with music on it, but you still have to like play that through your computer. So it's not playback medium. I've seen people release like DVDs and VHS and stuff.
Speaker: ah sorry vhs tapes and stuff But, you know, mostly it's cassettes, CDs, then seven and then 7 and 12 inch vinyl. I've seen 10 Plague tapes yeah just released mini discs.
Speaker: That's kind of an interesting. Oh, mini discs. Isn't that one of those like things that was around for like a very short amount of time? I i think they were like like ah like a mini spike in the 90s. Yeah, that's what I thought. du him and I just looked it up. It's like a it's it's like a floppy disk, basically.
Speaker: Interesting. I think Ball put out a floppy disk. A floppy disk? I think so. a flop Because you realize a floppy disk has like 128 kilobytes of storage. Yeah, have no idea.
Speaker: might have put his lyrics on a floppy disk. I have no I could have swore he did something really weird. If so, I want to know about it because that music would have to be crushed down to like eight bits to be able to fit on a floppy disk. Yeah, have no idea how that works, but I swear i swear he did something very unusual.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, that's really cool. And then I've seen mini cassettes. Mini cassettes? Oh, right. Those little like recorder things. Yeah. That's mostly for like voice recording, right? Yeah. It's like...
Speaker: I saw Miz Moore. He posted um ah clip of him recording on that, and it sounded so cool because like it it really kind of messed with the acoustic. He was playing acoustic guitar, and it really messed with the sound, and it sounded like haunting.
Speaker: Nice. so Yeah, I mean, yeah yeah that's kind cool. The mediums like can change the sound and give it a different life. There's a few different types of those weird small tapes. Like there were the ones for the camcorders too that were like in between what you're talking about and ah and a regular cassette.
Speaker: Yeah. And I know like cassettes even used to have like video games on them back in the, what what would it have been, the 80s? I can't remember. I wasn't alive then, but you used to be able to play video games like 8-bit and 16-bit video games, I think, off of cassettes if I'm not mistaken, which is pretty wild.
Speaker: i don't know. Yeah, know. I think that the but the Commodore 64 would do that, and then you'd have to sit there and let it load for like 30 minutes to be able to play the game. But yeah, man, I mean, basically, all I just want to talk all about it. Like, there's things we can get into. We'll start off with the appeal of it. You know, what is the appeal of physical media, in your opinion, as a record label owner?
Speaker: ah For me, like, owning the music outright is like a big part of it. You know, like... um It's kind of a perfect time because like as of recording, there was like a day that Toxicity was removed off of streaming.
Speaker: That's a big system of a down album, I guess. um And like people were like freaking out, you know? like the But the the reality is that can happen anytime. Yeah. You know?
Speaker: So, like... Yeah, I mean, you own it CDs or vinyl stuff. They can get damaged and stuff. But, like, you have it. You know? It's it's theirs. It's yours. You know?
Speaker: So, like... you don't have to worry about it getting pulled from streaming and stuff like that. Like losing music that, you know, you love. So there's something about owning it.
Speaker: Um, for me, that's kind of unique. Um, and then, uh, also for me, just like having a vinyl specifically, like kind of makes you sit down and listen to the the album as intended for the most part. Like,
Speaker: Cause I don't really like to skip around looking for the tracks on there. i just hit play and let it play. Yeah. So i don't know. Just, um, it really makes you sit down and listen, you know, it's like, you can't, it's, it's, ah it's different, especially the way I have it set up. I have, um, uh, I just have the system set up in my, the front room here. And, um,
Speaker: Yeah, do I have to sit down and like be patient and stuff. I can't skip around. I can't, you know. It's different. That's a big part of it. And what you just said before that about owning it, I will i will say that even on Bandcamp, the artist or the label can just take it off of Bandcamp at any time. um You know, so you don't you don't want You don't automatically have that forever when you buy it on Bandcamp. You have to download it and have the files backed up to actually have it.
Speaker: You need to download it. The Bandcamp thing is kind of worrying about the streetless streaming aspect of it. yeah If you can, i would recommend like downloading all the tracks because stuff disappears all the time.
Speaker: Yeah. and it It does start to get like, it becomes a lot of file size, right? Like the file size grows because I like to have my music downloaded in flack, which is lossless and it's smaller than a wave, but it's still a really big file on average. When I download an album in flack, it can be anywhere between like 200 megabytes and like two gigabytes. It depends on those sample rate and different things like that.
Speaker: Like the newest, um, the newest Ulcerate album was released in 96 kilohertz sample rate, which is really big files. And I think it was like 1.3 gigs or something like that for that album to download it in flat. But that's that's just the way I like to do it.
Speaker: Now, if you download an MP3, you're going to have a lot easier time storing all the files, which is there's nothing wrong with MP3, especially 320. Yeah. Yeah. mean, yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot you've got to consider, but like if you just kind of like listen to music more passively, MP3 fine. Your ah um brain and fills in all the missing information that an MP3 cuts out, so it doesn't really matter, in my opinion.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not really an audiophile, so for me... it it doesn't matter what kind of files I download. A lot of my older music files that I still have that I bought on Bandcamp on my old Bandcamp account years ago are MP3s and they're 320.
Speaker: And I don't have access to that account anymore. So those are just what I've got. And I have no problem. you know I listen back to those files and I enjoy the music and it's all good. Yeah. wentoa can you Can you tell the difference?
Speaker: Between a FLAC and an MP3? Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think so. Not 320, maybe a little bit in the very high end. Like if the symbols were recorded in a way where there's no EQ on them in the top and it's all there, you might be able to tell the difference on like that, but it's very slight.
Speaker: Now, when you go down and in the kilobytes per second, when you go down to 256, I can hear it in the symbols, but 320 is really good. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I can't, uh, I would have no idea, know,
Speaker: I mean, if you go down to 128, then you'll start to notice it for sure. I think someone like you that can't tell like with most of them, you'd be able to tell it when it's halved. You can really notice it then. but Because it just sounds like Spotify free, basically.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah, I guess I would i would just... I'll have to check out some stuff that's kind of lower. Yeah, just export one of your own songs at 128 and check it out. but Yeah, that's a good good idea.
Speaker: that In general, i'm just the point I'm trying to make is that if you want to save on file size, like if you only have one external hard drive or you're keeping your music on a phone, then MP3s are the way to go, I would say.
Speaker: Okay. Because they're just a lot lot smaller than Flax, or especially than Waves. Okay. yeah But like I said, I like to have my music in Flack so I can listen to it lossless, which all that means is that you know every single one and zero that was originally recorded into the digital file is still there. That's all that means.
Speaker: um Now with Flacks, if there's a duplicate zero here and here in the file, then it can combine those into one and save a little bit of storage size. That's how Flack works. Yeah. You basically get the same thing.
Speaker: So not to get too nerdy about it. And we're going to talk about the pros and cons of physical versus digital. That'll be the last thing we touch on. um Spoiler alert. I am 90% of the time a digital guy.
Speaker: But yeah, as far as physical media goes, the next thing other than the appeal, which you pretty much covered, I think you got that. um um I would say the same things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, there's a couple more things, you know, like with a tape, you know, you can look at the J card and it'll have like information about the recordings and the artists and stuff. You can look at the insert in a vinyl record, read along with the lyrics, you know, especially in vinyl because it's a big sheet of paper. So you've got a lot of room for the lyrics and whatnot.
Speaker: That's a really nice appeal of physical media as well. It's just getting the whole experience, not just listening the way the artist intended, but being able to read along with the the lyrics, see who recorded it at what studio and who mixed and mastered it those kinds of things. I really appreciate that stuff too.
Speaker: And, you know, CDs have the same thing. So, yeah, I like, I like vinyl for the artwork big time. Like, yep. It's really cool. I mean, like I have a bunch, you know, on the wall and stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. This is like display. It's really cool, you know. and Even a 7-inch. Because like, look how much bigger than a CD that is. Yeah. I think I only have one 7-inch.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure it's Resin Tomb. I have that one. At total distance put out. but Yeah. um Yeah, it's really cool to display vinyl. And also like.
Speaker: It's a really cool way to support the artists because if they press vinyl, they, they really mean it like that. Yep. That record is special for the, for the artists.
Speaker: So it's a really cool way to show your support. And like you get something that's pretty cool in return. um you know That's why even though we're were kind of you know we're putting a a pause on pressing, we're still doing the lathe cut. And even though we're not really making a profit on them, it's just something it's It's cool to give the fans like that vinyl experience,
Speaker: um and like it's cool for the artists, too, to see their their music put out like that. Yeah. Yeah. And even tapes, I think it's super cool to have your music. I remember the first time I had one of my releases put out on tape, it was like really surreal, you know, because there is a physical object that contains your art, you know, it's just different.
Speaker: Yeah. Different than digital for sure. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's the appeal of it, I would say, are all those things. And I think that last one you added about supporting the artist is one that we should have definitely thought of to begin with. That's that's a big one because a lot of people only buy physical media to support the artist. They don't even listen to it.
Speaker: Yeah. Which is totally what we're about to talk about, listening to it, the sound of it. there are Like you said, the sound of each piece of media can drastically affect the listening experience and then also your playback system and your speakers as well. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: You know, like a tape, for example, tapes are naturally really warm and rich harmonically. They have a lot of low end. It's very thick. um It's just got a unique sound um because of the magnetic tape's properties. And depending on what you're listening to it in, if you're listening to it in like a $20 cassette player that you found at the flea market, or you're listening to it in like a really nice deck made for reproduction...
Speaker: then you're going to have a vastly different experience, but it's still going to have that really nice warm tape sound because that's just the way it sounds. um Do you have any thoughts about the way tapes sound?
Speaker: They're surprisingly good. um I mean, I grew up listening to cassettes and, but it was obviously from, they're made by like big companies and popular bands back, you know, because like,
Speaker: I probably stopped listening to tapes when I was probably like seven. Yeah. I think CDs started coming around. and i um I obviously at that point wasn't listening to metal and stuff. But yeah, the cassette thing, a lot the tech that they used back then isn't really
Speaker: a lot of the tech that they used back then isn't really available for the consumers anymore. A lot of the um cassette players now are using kind of cheap parts.
Speaker: So it's kind of getting tricky, but even the cheap stuff sounds decent, at least to me. You know, we record them. Yeah. We record our tapes with the Tascam 202 and it they sound really good to me.
Speaker: Like it's so it's shocking to me because we're using type one. And we're just using, you know, the, the the main part, the head, I think it's like made in China. And like a lot of people that are kind of snobs when it comes to cassettes and stuff kind of look down on that, but you know, like we're not going to spend thousands of dollars on, ah to make like $3 tapes, you know? Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm not super familiar with this, which I really, i regret that I'm not because I love tapes and you know, I work with the label and everything, but yeah, As far as I know, there's like higher quality types of tapes that you can make that are studio-grade whatever, right? yeah Yeah.
Speaker: I have a Sansui that I believe it can record Type 2, maybe even Type 4, but obviously we don't do Type 4. Because those are rare tapes and they're very expensive.
Speaker: yeah But ah we considered doing on Type 2 for ah small release. But we have these like really cool reel-to-reel tapes that we I had planned on doing for one of the splits I had. But that didn't happen.
Speaker: But the Tascam 424, these are like $30 a piece.
Speaker: Geez Louise. Yeah. i got I found them on Amazon and for dirt cheap. so I don't know if someone made a mistake or something, and I snagged them all because I was like, okay, we're to do a special edition for these tapes.
Speaker: They look really cool. They have the the real whatever. um Yeah, but it's very...
Speaker: it's very expensive to do like high-end stuff like that like for like those tapes we'd probably have to sell them we'd have to sell for a lot and i don't know if that would sell you know and like people buying them might not even really have the right tape deck or um cassette player to even like oh so you can't appreciate anything You can, but I'd imagine like if you buy a Type 2, you're going to want to listen to it something that can play that.
Speaker: ah ah much i'm not I'm not too like familiar with like the technical aspect of it, but like you can like switch to like what tape type you can you're you're playing and on some decks and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: but um But the vast majority of tapes that are being produced are all type 1 anyway. Type 1's the most of them. And I've even heard, like, some people are trying to make type 2, but I heard they're not they're not that great like like the old type 2s were. Oh, okay.
Speaker: I don't know. Again, like... That's all extremely interesting. I guess the most interesting thing to me about that would be, well, how does type 2 sound? And you just said, well, they might not be as good as they used to be, so... Yeah.
Speaker: I'd imagine they're probably a step up from type one. I mean, yeah, like those i have, there they look cool, but I don't know how great they are. haven't, I haven't recorded yet. Uh, I do have the tape deck.
Speaker: I, I really want to do something with them there cause they're, they're really cool looking tapes. how How long can you put on each program? uh like each side yeah uh 30 minutes i think 30 minutes that's not bad so yeah i think it's i think it's an hour um yeah these are high bias type 2 cobalt yeah these are 60 minutes 30 each side gotcha um but yeah these are really cool looking yeah well it'd be it'd be it'd be very interesting to test it out and see what it sounds like but Yeah. I don't know, man. Um, like I said, even the high end, you know, like the production facilities are using type one just because it's, you know, it's what we have. It's what's economical and it's fine. You know, they sound good.
Speaker: Yeah. They sound great to me. And I was very surprised when I started doing this. Um, I thought like, they're not going to sound great. People aren't even listening to them. And, but I was wrong. People are listening to them.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah they stay if Yeah, especially if if you if you have the opportunity to pick up a ah ah Walkman. like I know they're expensive, but like they're really great, and they sound really great.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely want one for sure. They're $300 eBay right now. Yeah, I think I spent $250 on the one for the one I got for Retrospect. But um it's it's solid. i actually have it right here.
Speaker: But it's the Walkman WM 2011. Nice. Pretty good. o so from Where's it from?
Speaker: When? when I have no idea. yeah I'd be curious to know. But it's still working it still sounds good. Yeah, it's refurbished. Retrospect refurbishes Walkman's. okay I think they even have one for like $1,000. I think it's that one from the Guardian a Galaxy movies.
Speaker: Everybody wanted. Oh, okay. I see their website right here. They've got some for $200. It's not too bad. Yeah, and then my dad, ended up ah finding one of these,
Speaker: ah and um it was the belt was melted in there. So I ended up having to buy a used one that was like on eBay for like $20 because it was broken.
Speaker: And then I swapped out some parts, and I bought some belts because um this is a Toshiba... K2S3. This thing is really cool. It also came with like a radio tape that you can you could put in and then you could like to ah ah change the stations. It says a little window here.
Speaker: um And this can play. I believe this can play metal. I don't know. What do you mean by metal? Maybe not. I think it can play metal tapes. So the type four.
Speaker: oh gotcha. Yeah. There's like type one, type two, type three, type four. don't, I believe type three is very rare, but um type four, i you can still find those.
Speaker: Yeah. But they're very expensive. There were quote unquote metal tapes. That's interesting. Yeah. I think it's just like the, the, the type of tape that's used in it. Yeah. That makes sense.
Speaker: But tapes are awesome. I don't currently have a tape deck or a Walkman to listen to tapes, unfortunately. Well, I do have a kind of consumer radio from, i would say the early two thousands that has a tape player, but I don't trust it because it's eaten a couple of my tapes. Unfortunately, unfortunately,
Speaker: um So right now I just have, you know, I mean, first of all, I should say, like I said earlier, I am mostly a digital music consumer. I have maybe less than 20 physical pieces of music in my possession at this time.
Speaker: I used to have a ton. um I used to have so many CDs and vinyl, but, tapes, but I just, I had, I had to sell all of it it in 2021, unfortunately, to facilitate moving across the country. So I did that and lost it all, but I don't know. I guess that's the main reason why i haven't picked up anything to like listen to them again, even though I you know work with Hauntology and I want to listen to these releases. It's just that my collection is gone. But will say i am eventually going to pick some stuff back up because you know some of my own releases are on tapes that I can't listen to and you know hopefully eventually vinyl too. So it's just a bummer.
Speaker: I don't even have a CD player currently other than that radio I was talking about. yeah ah yeah I have that cheap combo thing with tape, vinyl, and Oh, yeah. I know what you're about.
Speaker: The wooden looking thing? Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend anything that's sold at Belk. yeah yeah I do have like you have this CD player that I'm supposed to open, and I haven't.
Speaker: I bought it from Amazon.
Speaker: But I don't know. This was like $20. The Discman by who? KLIM, Clem. Gotcha. I remember you showing me the the Amazon listing for that. It looks interesting. It's like a little portable CD Walkman type thing. Yeah, I figured... I i have a...
Speaker: More confidence in CDs than I do the tapes and stuff. well I try to go a little more... As long as it has one thing, then I think it's a good CD player, and that is gapless playback.
Speaker: If it has to sit there and skip songs for a second, then yeah, automatically not good, in my opinion. Yeah, don't know. I just... saw a CD player for cheap and i was like, all right, because my car, um, had a CD player in it and then now it doesn't work.
Speaker: Yeah. And the car doesn't work. i don't even drive that car. So, Oh yeah, dude, my car had, well, my old car, I had a CD player, but it was on the far right side of the glove compartment.
Speaker: So I couldn't even reach it. It was so stupid. It existed purely for like software updates. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I had a, It's a six disc changer.
Speaker: i was like, this is great. so I have like six CDs in there. like i was going to say, did you lose any? I don't know if ah I got to I guess I would have to try and get the car started and find out. um But when I bought the car, there was like a bunch of CDs and there's a bunch of like alt rock and new metal in there.
Speaker: So that's pretty funny. Nice. Free Hoobastank. Yeah. take that they That might have been one of the seasons. I'm not even kidding.
Speaker: I forgot what it was, like the other ones, but...
Speaker: Yeah. so I don't know, man. i I do really enjoy physical media. ah yeah it's It's different.
Speaker: it's just It's different from like just digital. I don't know why. you know So I have and opinion about digital, which is that basically as long as you're not streaming music,
Speaker: then you're you're pretty close to to to what the artist is intending. um And let me explain myself. If you're streaming, you're skipping songs, you're listening to 30 seconds of them, you're listening to playlists that are curated to make a vibe, not no you're not listening to the album.
Speaker: Some people are, don't get me wrong, some people still listen to full albums on Spotify or whatever. And, you know, I salute those people, but most of the time people are just shuffling and people are just playing playlists.
Speaker: And ah that's definitely not what the artist intended, at least not most underground metal musicians, I would say. um So that's like the one end of the spectrum.
Speaker: And then then the other end of the spectrum is what you're talking about, sitting down with a vinyl record and listening to it from start to finish, flipping it, listening to it from start to finish. that's Those are the extremes. Somewhere towards that right end of the extreme, i would say, is downloading the music and listening to it offline. Yeah.
Speaker: It's just different than streaming. Like you're committing to having these files stored somewhere. So you're like, you feel like you should listen to them. It's just, i don't know. There's an impetus to listen and at least a little bit where there's like no impetus to listen to the whole thing when you're just streaming.
Speaker: That's kind of how I feel about it. and And everything that I own on band camp is downloaded on a hard drive somewhere and I listened to it. So, you know, I mean, I'm also just kind of, I'm not OCD, but i'm kind of OCD about like organizing my music very deliberately and stuff.
Speaker: Like the second I buy something on Bandcamp, I download it, put it in a specific folder, and then refresh my Plex library so that it updates. um And that's another thing. I don't have to get too much into it, but the way that I actually organize my music and listen to it is with Plex, which is a so server that you run on your computer,
Speaker: And it basically lets you access your files from anywhere on your phone or on a TV. So you can listen to your music wherever, and which is really nice. And because I do that, I don't even have to have my music files on my phone, which I don't.
Speaker: So I basically do stream my music, but it's from my hard drive, which is interesting. That's just the way I do it personally. oh What I'll say about...
Speaker: Physical media is that, yeah, it's the best way to support an artist. It's the best way to get the actual experience of enjoying the music the way it was intended and get to read the lyrics and get to read the credits and get to see the art, even a CD or a tape.
Speaker: It's a great experience. And, you know, I'll never knock it no matter how out of fashion it becomes. I'll still appreciate it. And before we stop off, I do want to just give a good mention to CDs because I know that you and I share this opinion that CDs are one of the best physical formats actually.
Speaker: Yeah. For a few reasons. I mean, they're really easy to store. They last for freaking ever. Eventually CDs like have CD rot. but Yeah.
Speaker: you know, as long as they're not in humidity, they last for a long time. Yeah. You can take care of them for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, CDs are like pretty close to vinyl in terms of listening to the whole album, unless you skip, which is a deliberate action.
Speaker: You put it on, it starts at the beginning and you listen to the whole thing, you know, same thing with tapes. You gotta, you gotta rewind it, but otherwise it's the same thing. So, you know, usually I, I actually have found myself when I was listening to music on streaming,
Speaker: I'll often skip the first song. I'll just start at song two because I know that the first song is probably going to be an intro. It's probably going to be like a slow buildup. I just want to know what the album sounds like. So I'll i'll start on song two.
Speaker: That's, you know, I mean, that's, that's just what I did. dude You don't really do that with CDs or tapes or vinyl. I do that when I'm on band camp all the time. yeah Like I know, yeah, you know that first track's going to be an intro.
Speaker: Right. That's like a lot of times I would like i try to, even for my music, I try to like let people know this is the intro, you know, because people have such a short attention span that you kind of go like, let them know like this is not how the entire album is going to sound, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, true. it's kind of And I mean, when you're just trying to decide if you want to buy something, sure, skip to the second song. But when you've already bought it, like yeah it's time to sit through that intro, you know? yep so That's how I feel. like if it um if i I'll listen the intros all all day. I i love long buildups, but i don't what I don't like is like a long buildup to like disappointment.
Speaker: Yeah. Which, you know, it obviously, like, you know, the artist isn't necessarily trying to please me, but like. Yeah, it's all subjective. Yeah, it's just like, maybe it's not, you know, to my taste, which is fine, but.
Speaker: um Yeah, I mean, ah I don't know, the physical media, sitting down, like CDs are great, um especially for when I had the CD player in my car, though there was those are great. I loved it.
Speaker: you know I don't listen the radio or anything. um adam It's cool. They also sound great. They sound fantastic. Maybe even objectively sound better than tapes and vinyls, though.
Speaker: I would say so. Like, that is the exact kind of sound. You know, there's no there's no, like, real error from the ah the media itself. right were blind The only variation you're going to get with CDs is if you have CD players that have analog components, which is pretty rare in cheaper CD players. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I mean, um I like CDs a lot. I currently am without like a CD player though. so Well, you got your portable one. Just open that guy up. I got to open that thing up.
Speaker: But you know in a way it's cool because like, I've been buying more vinyl lately ah because say have I don't have the CD player anymore that I was using all the time in my car.
Speaker: And then the tapes also, I just like ah like those. But the i I mean, like a I was at the record shop I go to all the time.
Speaker: ah I go to a meteor gem whenever I have the chance, which has been rare lately, but, uh, I usually stock up and I have so many records from there because, uh, Mikhail, the owner, he, uh, always gives me such great recommendations, you know,
Speaker: yeah i've I found a bunch of cool records through him. Like I still jam that fossilization record he he told me about, man, it's so, so heavy.
Speaker: um But yeah, ah that's another cool thing. You know, you go to a record shop, you talk to the owner, especially if you could find a record shop where he kind of specializes in your thing.
Speaker: That's really cool. Cause like he knows he's like an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to like, uh, absurd black metal and death metal, you know, like this, he knows so much. They're like, Oh, we have a lot of overlap in the stuff we listened to, um, that I listened to. Like he, he, you know, he knows like all these obscure bands and stuff.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, he's just a really cool dude. And like, I love going to that record shop. I'm probably going to go this weekend. and I'm talking about it. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, super sick.
Speaker: Really cool. You know, I head down in the shop. He tells me like, well, this is this, this is that. He'll probably like this based on this. So. um that's a pretty cool thing that you get out of physical media that um you don't really get from like streaming and stuff, you know, like you'll get like fed stuff through the, um through the algorithm, but well, like getting to talk to people that, you know, like in real life, like and getting recommendations like that, like that's pretty, pretty special, you know, get to hold the album and stuff and like you could talk about it. It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Yeah, most definitely. It's been a while since I've bought records, but it was always a great experience at my local shop too. Well, we've pretty much covered the pros and cons of digital and and physical. Like I said, there's a spectrum that I imagine from anywhere from shuffling on Spotify to sitting down with a vinyl record.
Speaker: I guess even one step further than that would be watching the band play the album live. But hey, you know that's pretty rare to get to do that. Yeah. um yeah
Speaker: you know i mean i just I like to live a little bit towards the right end of the spectrum where I download all my files and I listen to them usually most of the way through. Um, I mean, you can check my last FM. I obviously don't listen to every album all the way through. Like I get bored of one thing, one vibe or whatever, just like everybody does and go to something else. It's digital. It's easy to do.
Speaker: Vinyl has the advantage for making you sit through the whole thing. I'll give you that all day, but I just currently don't have a record player or anything like that. So that's where I'm at with that. Mostly a digital guy, but you know, I mean,
Speaker: There is potentially one other positive to buying an album digitally on Bandcamp or especially on AmpWall, which is that possibly the the artist does get more profit from your purchase. But, you know, because there's overhead with physical media.
Speaker: Yeah. But, you know, I mean, that's just a small, that's a small thing. People will always appreciate you buying their physical media regardless. Yeah, they're there is a potential for greater return for um digital because like,
Speaker: Yeah. Cause there's no distribution really. The vinyl stuff, like we've talked about it on here. It's very expensive to get pressing and stuff. and
Speaker: it just, uh, it makes things a lot more challenging. And then there's like a lot more stuff you have to consider. ah so like digital is the, like, obviously the highest return uh,
Speaker: um Yeah, I mean, i don't like, even then, like, it's tricky, because, you know, how much did you pay to get the record made? You know, like, I've heard of bands say, like, kind of crazy amounts that it cost them to get in the studio and record and stuff, like,
Speaker: And then you, like, that's when, like, you start looking into, like, larger scale runs of vinyl pressing. Then the profits become, like, much greater, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, I think if you could press, like, a thousand records, you can get them down probably, like, five bucks a copy. Yeah. You sell them for $25, you're getting a pretty good return. But you have to kind of get there ah for it to make sense.
Speaker: Right. you know So this is kind of good. like I kind of wanted to mention this. If you see a band with like 100 vinyl or 250, they're making very minimal on that record.
Speaker: Please go buy that record. um You'll see like yeah runs of... 100, they're probably not making anything. Even if they're selling it for $25, they're selling it for $25. It probably costs them $18 to $20.
Speaker: And then Bandcamp's taking their cut ah and PayPal's taking their cut at the end of the sale. So like they have to sell those records for them to break even. So if you see ah you know like if you see one of those and you love that record, you if you can, you should pick that one up.
Speaker: that The band will really appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a very good point. You know, smaller runs, smaller profit. It's just how it goes. Yep. Well, man, I think we've pretty much covered physical media. It's been a good time talking about it with you.
Speaker: um Anything you got to mention to the audience before we wrap up here? um I don't know. We covered everything.
Speaker: Yeah, we did. like Like we said originally, check out the new Witness album. Check out the Pull the Strings EP that's up for pre-order and everything else that we've got over at hauntologyrecords.bandcamp.com. We appreciate it very much. Also, if you wouldn't mind, take a second to subscribe to the podcast and maybe share it with somebody.
Speaker: It'd be awesome. Yeah, like, comment, subscribe. And also for the Witness record, if you like the record, please leave a comment um on the Bandcamp page. It's very appreciated.
Speaker: And I guess that's it, really. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Yep. Thanks, everybody. and We'll see you next time. Thanks everybody for checking out another episode of Dissonant Echoes, the official Hauntology Records podcast.
Speaker: Today I'm going to play you out with some of the new Witness and some of the new Pull the Strings. going to play the song Atrahasis off of the new ah Witness album Hymns of Procession, and I'm going to play the song Disintegrated from the new Pull the Strings EP A Farewell.
Speaker: Enjoy.
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