Sunday, February 4, 2007

A Brief Preface Leading To Piles Of Dust

this is our new dust icon. she's a beauty, isn't she? a type of pollen bacteria. I hate this stuff when it sticks in my graying nostril hairs but seeing it like this, it has such symmetry. beautiful. whenever you see this little dust icon it will mean there is a new download available from our rarities collection. having spent most of the past week sifting through these dust particles here is what I've discovered:
there are 85 tracks I want to make available. these are the tracks which were meant to comprise the dust boxed set. instead we've turned them into 72 downloads (some downloads include more than one track) of live cuts, re-mixes, demos, and more than 30 tracks never released before. they span nearly forty years of recordings.

now here comes the fun part.
each week we will offer a new download for the low low price of only $1.49!
you heard me right: $1.49!
and you can collect them just like baseball cards.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE:
we have organized them into 4 handy volumes.
week after week you can place your new download
in one of 4 different playlists you make yourself!
(volumes 1 through 4)
eventually you will have the entire collection in its correct chronological order.
big deal, right?
but it makes for an clever means of reference.
and it's so easy!
or maybe you'd just rather purchase one every now and then.
that's fine too.
either way you'll amaze your friends with your vast knowledge of useless,
that is, priceless information.
so why wait?
start your collection TODAY.

on a more serious note I would like to thank bruce marshall for all the work he put into cleaning these tracks from so many different sources to make them sound as best they could and of course ken latchney who painstakingly re-mixed and in some cases reconstructed nearly nine hours of lost material. as each track is released I will do my best to credit the cast of characters and places involved.

12 comments:

  1. Adrian, after I bought Peas for 99 cents, I noticed that the price went up to $1.49, and that you changed this blog entry to reflect the new price. I'm a huge fan, and I'm thrilled that you're able to make this material available, and I think you deserve every penny you can make from your music. But at this price, it will cost over $107 for the entire Dust collection, which is steep, even for the dedicated fan. I can't imagine a box set being priced this high, and that would include CD-quality sound, rather than lower-fidelity mp3s. Could you consider an option to buy the entire set for a reduced price? Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the great music!

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  2. I'd like to echo scooob's thoughts, and I do mean all of them. I am incredibly excited about Dust, and in for the long, 72-week haul. I am very appreciative of all the work put into it, and of your limitless enthusiasm for your music and fans.

    But I also wonder about spending so much for mp3-quality files. DGM's choice of both mp3s or FLACs, at varying prices, works well. Perhaps that might be an option, with per-track prices for both formats but also reduced prices for the whole enchilada?

    For a collection as impressive as Dust, cover art with exhaustive liner notes may also be worth considering. Perhaps they can be culled from the weekly blog entries?

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  3. thanks to both of you for your comments. it takes so much of my time, not to mention the amount of studio time spent on this stuff, I was hoping to make at least a buck per download. after charging $.99 we realized paypal takes $.33 whcih made it hardly worth doing. with iTunes or even DGM you're talking about thousands of downloads. but I'm a boutique artist. so far after 3 weeks, my first download has sold less than 100! poor me. ha!
    but I love the idea that anyone would collect the whole thing and I will look into a "complete enchilada" price and FLACs as well. thanks again.

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  4. One-third to PayPal is just brutal. Hopefully as more people become aware of Dust, the number of downloads will rise. Go forth and evangelize!

    And, does DGM proudly and prominently link to sitebelew? What would be the difference in cost to offer Dust d/l's on DGM's site, given the higher exposure there? Just some thinking aloud FWIW.

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  5. wow, posting a comment on Adrian Belews blog, what in the world will they think of next?!

    some info - FLAC = free lossless audio codec and it is a far superior format to mp3, even when compared to mp3s sampled at 320k. as the name implies, flac files will faithfully render your sound in a digital format with excellent depth and clarity...and at 4-8 times the file size! so its more bandwidth utilization, which will likely translate into higher prices for the downloads.

    re: Kentucky, I must tell you that I will be driving out from new jersey (!) to see you and the power trio at the southgate. Probably the most compulsive thing I have done in awhile, but you guys are just so incredible together (this will be the third time I have seen the trio...indianapolis and WCL in Philly were the first two), and the venue looks SO cool that it really feels like one of those 'once in a lifetime' kinda deals.

    enough out of me, thanks for reading and safe travels!

    pete franke

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  6. Hi all (and Adrian!),

    I am a huge fan of Adrian and supporter of paying for downloaded music.

    I have already downloaded ten albums from DGM live.

    I have not downloaded anything from Adrian's site, and I am dissappointed that I might not in the future.

    So why the lack of support for this site?

    It is certainly not lack of interest in the music.

    If there was a complete concert from each of the trios (The Mikes, the Oz trio, and the Slicks) I would with great joy pay $12.99 for each concert in FLAC audio.

    I would also love to buy the download version of the box set of Dust.

    The first thing wrong with this site is that it is only MP3. I am very happy with the FLAC quality of DGM, and it sounds great on my good hi-fi. I will only download an MP3 if it is a free sample.

    Secondly, even for a big collector, price can still matter.

    One of the problems with DGM is that most downloads are 12.99. I would love to buy the box set of solo Fripp - if this was a CD collection, the 20 or so CDs would be very cheap each. Instead of playing each CD many times, I could enjoy hearing something different each time. But because they are 12.99 each I only buy about two solo Fripp recordings each year, and play each many times.

    Dust is even worse because each CD is overpriced because each track is bought seperately.

    At the moment this site is loose-loose. I miss out on some good music, and Adrian misses out on income from my purchase.

    Put some concerts up on DGM in FLAC for 12.99 each, and I will buy immediately.

    Put a CD worth of Dust (ie 70 minutes) on DGM live in FLAC and I will buy that CD.

    So if you are wondering why the sales are lower than expected, now at least you know why one fan, with money in hand, is not buying.

    Cheers,
    Michael

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  7. wow, this seems to be a bit of a harsh thred. Pay Pal does suck the life out of merchants.
    The fee structure is insane exp for outside of eBay small 9.99 and under transactions.

    1.49 is less than one gallon of gas or a single 2 liter of pop more. a 6 min song like peas is a fantastic value @ a 1.49. If all 72 downloads were just 5 min long then the 6 hours of music is still a very good value.

    As far as the sound quality of an MP 3 Verses the "lossless" quality.... Give me a break I wanted to listen to twang bar king desire caught,the lone rino Disipline 3 of a perfect pair and beat all of which I have on Vinal... THESE sounds so superior to the CD I had to put my turntable away for years in order to listen to CDs and be happy with the sound quality. The difference even between the HDCD and the Mp3 is not as striking as the difference between the analog record and the CD but we are not trying to bring back the turntable. MP3 is slightly more single dimensional (glassy) but is a more space friendly format. I almost laugh when I here complaints over mp3 verses CD when the real sonic travesty was commited when our more-better-faster-now culture dropped the Vinal 33.333 record from the main stream. I know in the 1990's Vinal was still huge in Japan because of this sound quality difference. MP3 CD whatever I want Dust and even if it was the price of a gallon of gas 2.12 here today I would still buy this collection. I like that is a week to week New releace but to each his own as long as they are offered I will download.

    Shame about the Belew Box again this is something I would have paid big money for... well maybe some effect company will see the future and develop the BOX

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  8. michael and all,
    let's get this party started!
    I am looking into FLAC. my webmaster rob murphree completely revamped our site (not easy or cheap to do) but not for FLAC. if the site seems loose-loose please give us a moment, this is after all our first two weeks and we have only rob and myself doing everything.DGM has a full staff for instance. concerning sound quality: I listen to our MP3s before I ever offer them and I listen in my studio where many of the original records themselves (including Krimson) were made and the sound quality has never bothered me.
    why not use DGM? well for one thing DGM is Robert Fripp's site, not mine. don't I get a future to build on? the music offered on DGM is partly my work and the work of others but were I to offer DUST on DGM I would receive $.25 per dollar of download, DGM would receive the remaining $.75. if for example there is a download on DGM which features one of the quartets of Krimson I'm in, I receive one fourth of the $.25 artist share (divided by the four band members) or a whopping $.06. DGM receives the remaining $.75. you do the math. not much future for me and my family there. I will eventually offer the DUST collection as a whole on CD's for the going rate of CD's with high-quality well-recorded material and original artwork from yours truly. but that is not what these weekly downloads are about. they are for people who have a jar of small change to spend on music for fun, and hopefully inoffensive to my audiophile fans.
    as far as a live record: I'm making one next week with the best trio I know of and putting it out myself.
    that way I can make some money.
    thanks for your support of my work. adrian

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  9. Adrian,

    Thanks for responding to my post.

    I never would have guessed that that the artist only gets 25% from DGM Live.

    I had expected that internet distribution would have enabled the artist to get well over 50%.

    Now that I am better informed, I agree that you are better off doing things at your own website!

    Having heard so much about the current Trio, I am very much looking forward to the live recording and will buy it as soon as I can.

    I hope there was a tape rolling for some concerts of the two earlier Trio's so that one day we can have a complete Trio of concerts from the Trios.

    It would be fun and exciting to hear how they were all different.

    One thing to consider for the short term is once you have enough material released to fill a CD you could sell this as a bundle - ie a CD worth for $9.99. That would tempt me much more.

    I hope the live recording goes well - I am really looking forward to it.

    Cheers,
    Michael

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  10. My legs shake as I find enough quarters downtown to be able to purchase another song. I hope to whatever god there is that any positive comment towards the act of paying to download a song is sarcasm. Recordings are intended to share music with a vast community (the world), so any distribution of them is wonderful. To give someone a CD it costs money, and so the sale of a CD is expected. To download a song costs just about nothing; one should expect to pay nothing for a download. If it does then someone is taking advantage of what the internet is. I respect your music so much, and have definitely bought CDs and DVDs, and will continue to do so. However, expecting a financial return for the downloading of a song is shameful. Thanks for the music, keep making it, if you ever play live around where I live I will definitely check it out. Stop selling downloads.

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  11. To InDaCort:

    "Downloads cost nothing"...what a bunch of hooey! The cost has nothing to do with physical production costs, it's all about the incredible amount of time, energy, caring and creativity that the artist has put into his craft. Should an artist be entitled to make money by selling his works (in whatever form) so that listeners can derive pleasure from the artist's work...you bet! I'm going to buy the Dust download immediately and tell everyone I know who loves Adrian's incredible music to do the same. And it will not be in the least shameful.

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  12. This is quite an old thread, but I just wanted to let you know that someone was still thinking about this. I am a huge fan and would be more than willing to pay a big chunk of money for a box set (actually, I think I've been waiting like a decade since you first alluded to the Dust box..?) but I'm just not interested in the mp3 a la carte for this sort of project. Can't wait for the mass release!

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