This gives a good overview of the importance of a regular backup regimen. After a broad overview, it specifically addresses the benefits of employing RAID as a means of eliminating the human limitation of being disciplined enough to stay on a backup regimen. RAID forms an automated backup of sorts, however it does have its limitations.

Limitations of RAID

Perhaps the major limitation of RAID is that it will happily (and immediately) propagate any human error. As an example, have you ever mistakenly deleted a file? Overwrote a file you needed with a blank or incorrect file? Studies over the years have consistently shown that human errors such as these are behind 75% – 85% of all data loss. The RAID will happily overwrite the good data with bad data on all the redundant copies it maintains.

The author of the original article does address this issue at the end in his discussion of progressive backups. I just wanted to stress that this point should not be an afterthought.

Why RAID works

As the author mentions, RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. The key to the reason that RAID can guard against hardware damage leading to data loss is in the word Redundant. All data stored to a RAID is stored in more than one copy on multiple disks.  (I speak here of all but RAID 0, which is not truly RAID, as there is no data redundancy in RAID 0). If a disk breaks, the data from that disk can be algorithmically recreated from the redundant data on the other disks.

What happens when a disk breaks?

It is important, in the case of a disk failure, to replace the failed disk before a second drive fails. Upon adding the new disk, the missing data is then reconstituted and written to the new disk. This process is termed rebuilding a degraded array. If a second drive fails in a degraded array, before the rebuild can complete, data is lost.

It is important to note that a degraded array (one with a failed disk) operates much slower than a healthy array. Users can thereby expect file operations to take longer, and the rebuild time can sometimes be measured in days.

RAID 6 guards against dual failure

This extended rebuild window has given rise to yet another RAID architecture, typically termed RAID 6. This is similar to RAID 5. However, instead of keeping one extra copy in each ‘stripe group’, two algorithmically different copies are kept. A ‘stripe group’ is the set of disks that are managed as a single disk visible to the host computer. Most affordable RAID systems are limited to a single stripe group. The benefit of this RAID 6 over RAID 5 is that you are covered against data loss if a second disk goes down before a degraded array can be rebuilt.

Capacity lost to overhead

While the author claims that RAID 5 can consist of 3-5 disks in each array, it can actually contain any number of three or more. The capacity penalty for RAID 5 is dependent on the number of disks in the array. In RAID 5, the capacity overhead is negligibly larger than one disk’s worth of capacity. This is due to the single redundant data in each stripe group. In RAID 6, the overhead is two disk’s worth of capacity. A RAID 6 can have any number for four or larger in a stripe group.

Part of a good backup plan

To return to an earlier point, RAID cannot guard against human error. If you overwrite a file, RAID does nothing to solve this problem. Similarly, if your house is hit by an asteroid (or if someone steals your RAID unit), you will lose data. Accordingly, it is crucial not to mistake the use of RAID with a complete, well thought out backup regimen. It would serve the user well to regularly back up the RAID system (perhaps to an external hard drive), and store it offsite.

Planned obsolescence of some RAID subsystems?

Last, if in the marketplace for an external RAID subsystem, there is a point of which to be aware. We are currently at a natural inflection point on drive capacity of the larger drives available. Due to the fact that 32-bit processors have dominated system architectures for many years (we’re just making the transition to 64-bit), and almost all drives currently have a 512-byte sector size, a 2TiB drive is the maximum size some systems will ever be able to employ. 2^32 Bytes = 4GiBytes, and 4Gi * 512 Bytes = 2TiBytes. There are systems that employ a 64-bit path for Logical Block Addresses, but others do not. This is somewhat analogous to the Y2K scare of some years back. (or the Unix time epoch issue due to hit in 2038). The upshot of all this is, if you are in the market for a RAID subsystem, it would be wise to ensure it is already compatible with drives larger than 2TiB.

This post lists the leading choices in Shoutcast/Icecast source clients. This source client is the piece of software that runs on your computer, connecting the music you play with the streaming server.

What it does

The Shoutcast/Icecast streaming source client takes audio input from a program or hardware device, encodes it into a media stream, and sends the media stream on to a streaming server. Each step of this process requires configuration, and each program differs in the specifics of where you may find these settings. However, the settings themselves are fairly universal.

Music source

The input to the source client may come from a media player such as iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player, or it may also come from a hardware device connected to your computer — such as a mixer connected to a sound card or even an integrated laptop microphone. Your chosen source client will present a list of possible inputs from which you can choose to broadcast.

Encoding

Some source clients may be able to encode into multiple media formats. However, for compatibility with Second Life, you will need to use mp3. The Second Life viewer on your listeners’ end does not support WMA, AAC, Ogg, or other formats. Further, you will find that if you try to use the most pristine mp3 encoding settings, your listeners will experience skips in the stream. It is best not to use anything higher than 44.1 kHz, 64 kbps, stereo. You should be able to find these settings grouped together.

Specifying the stream server

Lastly, you will need to specify the Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server to which the source client will connect. This will be in the form of a URL or an IP Address, a Port number, and a Password. Some streaming clients allow you to build a ‘library’ of servers, each with their own URL, port, and password. This is handy if you regularly perform at a number of venues. Each venue will have its own server. This allows you to, once configured, merely select a given venue’s server from a list, and have all the values set at once. If your source client does not have this feature, you will need to manually enter this data every time for each venue.

Criteria

For each listed software streaming client, I list the price, where you can obtain it, what platform it runs upon, and other attributes. After reading this post, you should be ready to choose a streaming source client that meets your needs.

Before I list the choices, I will first define what the various attributes mean.

Operating System (OS) – This tells you what operating system the streaming source client is compatible with. There are choices for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and other UNIX-like OSs.

Plugin vs. Standalone – Some Shoutcast/Icecast source clients are ‘plugins’ , which operate inside of other programs. An example is the Shoutcast DSP Plugin, which installs ‘into’ Winamp as a host. Other source clients run in their own window, providing all needed functionality themselves.

Record functionality – Some source clients will also record (or ‘archive’) your stream. The stream is not only sent on to the streaming server, but it also is written to disk as an mp3 file. This allows you to play back your stream at a later date.

Presenting the candidates

butt (broadcast using this tool)

• Free
• Linux, MacOS and Windows.
• http://butt.sourceforge.net
• Standalone
• Streaming and recording simultaneously with different bitrates

This relative newcomer provides all the functionality that you would need or want. The fact that it is free, and runs on almost any computer, makes it a great choice.

Winamp with Shoutcast DSP Plugin

• Free
• Windows, Mac OS, Linux, other UNIX
• http://www.winamp.com/media-player/ for Winamp Standard
• http://shoutcast.com/download for the Shoutcast DSP Plugin
• Host media player and Plugin
• No built in recording functionality

This solution has been the mainstay in the Windows arena, mostly due to its price.

Nicecast

• $40 (free demo)
• Mac OS
• http://www.rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/
• Standalone
• Archive function

For years, this has been the standard in the Mac arena. Full featured.

Simplecast

• $139
• Windows
• http://www.spacialaudio.com/?page=simplecast
• Standalone
• No built in recording functionality

This selection comes from a company with a full line of professional internet radio tools.

Reaper with Shoutcast plugin

• $60 (free demo)
• Windows
• http://www.cockos.com/reaper/about.php for Reaper
• http://www.landoleet.org/unreleased_plugins/reaper_shoutcast.dll for the plugin (this is NOT the same as the Shoutcast DSP Plugin for Winamp)
• Host DAW and Plugin
• Full multitrack recording capability

Reaper is a full-functioned DAW, from a company founded by the guy who first invented Shoutcast technology. Extremely powerful, with complexity to match.

Edcast

• Free
• Windows
• http://www.oddsock.org/tools/edcast/
• Available either standalone, or as a plugin for Winamp or Foobar2000.
• Recorder not built in.

Both EdCast and its precursor Oddcast are from the same developer, along with a number of other useful music tools (including a stream recorder).

The envelope, please

If you are just getting started in streaming your music into Second Life, I recommend that you start with butt. Silly name, I know. However, it is free, does everything you want it to do, and runs the same way on any computer you’re likely to have. Plus, it is an open source program, meaning that its future is pretty much assured.

Any of the other choices would be fine as well. They all work pretty much hiccup-free. If your needs are unique, there may be some reason to prefer another over butt.

Myself, I use Reaper with the Shoutcast plugin. Reaper is a full-featured music production DAW like Pro Tools, Logic, Sonar, etc. In fact, it was my DAW before I started streaming into Second Life. The fact that Reaper is from the guy the guy that invented internet radio (as well as Winamp, Gnutella, and other modern necessities) holds strong sway with me.

Get going!

You really can’t go wrong with any of the above. Just grab one, grab the free Second Life viewer, create a free Second Life account, log on, and start performing for the eager Second Life audiences!

Questions? Comments? Let me know if there is any specific aspect of being a Second Life musician that you’d like me to cover!

This is but one article in a series on opportunities for musicians in Second Life. Further articles will cover resources, technical issues, groups and organizations, revenue streams, publicity outlets, and more. Next up, however, will be a step-by-step guide to installing and configuring butt, and testing your stream inworld. I hope you join us in this journey to a strange and wonderful new world. In the meantime, you may wish to do some early exploring on your own — it is free to get started! Just click the link below:

One frustrating aspect of facebook, however, is its mechanism for assigning a URL to any person’s profile or any public brand’s page. Let us look at Metaverse Musician’s facebook page, for instance. At the instant in time that I am composing this blog, this page is only accessible at the URL http://www.facebook.com/pages/Metaverse-Musician-isjeb/253144691788 . Wouldn’t it be preferable if the URL was simpler? I think http://www.facebook.com/Metaverse-Musician would be just about ideal, don’t you?

This two minute tutorial explains how you can accomplish exactly this URL simplification. This can be done for both personal profiles, and for fan pages.

Personal Profile:

1. Go to your personal profile
2. From your Profile, type http://www.facebook.com/username into your browser’s URL bar, and hit enter.
3. In order to do this, you must have verified your account through your mobile number. If you have not yet done so, facebook will guide you though this at this point.
4. Facebook will present you with a number of choices for your custom username URL. If you like one that it has preselected, choose it.
5. If you would rather have a different choice for your custom username URL, click ‘More’ and enter your choice.
6. Click ‘Check Availablility’. If the username is available, and meets facebook guidelines, facebook will ask you to confirm your choice. Double check your spelling — once confirmed, you’re stuck with this as a custom username URL forever!
7. Click ‘Confirm’. Facebook tells you that “You can now direct your friends to facebook.com/<whatever-your-choice-was>”.

Fan Pages:

You must first have at least 25 fans. This is an arbitrary limit set by facebook.

1. Go to your personal profile
2. From your Profile, type http://www.facebook.com/username into your browser’s URL bar, and hit enter. This should take you to the page for setting your default profile username.
3. Click ‘Set a username for your Pages’.
4. A dropdown box will appear – choose the page for which you wish to set a custom username URL.
5. Facebook will present you with a number of choices for your custom username URL. If you like one that it has preselected, choose it.
6. If you would rather have a different choice for your custom username URL, click ‘More’ and enter your choice.
7. Click ‘Check Availablility’. If the username is available, and meets facebook guidelines, facebook will ask you to confirm your choice. Double check your spelling — once confirmed, you’re stuck with this as a custom username URL forever!
8. Click ‘Confirm’. Facebook tells you that “You can now direct your fans to facebook.com/<whatever-your-choice-was>”.

Now you can publicize your custom username URL outside of the facebook sandbox — on the internet at large — confident your friends and fans will be able to link to your profile and pages from outside the facebook walled garden.

Note: this guide is written mostly from memory. If you encounter any issues or discrepancies while executing this process, please leave me a comment so I can fix the procedure.

Music in Second Life operates on a technology known as Shoutcast. Shoutcast, along with its open source compatible follow-on Icecast, is the same technology that underpins all of internet radio. When you stream your music into Second Life, you are essentially operating your own internet radio station!

Overview

There are several links in the chain between you creating your music and the listener hearing your music.

1. – you create your music on a computer
2. – a program known as a source client encodes your music for the server
3. – a Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server broadcasts the music to multiple Second Life viewers
4. – the listeners’ Second Life viewer plays your music for their enjoyment

Let’s look a little deeper at each stage of this process.

Music Creation

Again the first step in the chain is that your music must be input to a computer. If you are DJing from WinAmp, iTunes or other music player, this is already taken care of by the music player program. If you are performing in real-time — such as playing a guitar and singing — you will need to input your performance into the computer’s sound card through the use of a microphone and/or a mixer. Many computers have microphones built right into them that would be suitable, though you may notice an increase in sound quality with a more sophisticated microphone.

Source Client

The Source Client is the link between your computer and the internet. This is a program or utility that runs on your computer. It has essentially two responsibilities. It creates and maintains a connection to the Shoutcast/Icecast server, and it encodes your music into the datastream that the server needs. Source Clients are available both as standalone programs, and as plugins that operate with your Music Creation program.

Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server

The Shoutcast or Icecast streaming server is a ‘virtual machine’ that runs on a computer. While you can technically install the server on your own computer — even the one you are using as the Music Creation computer — it is generally inadvisable to do so. The reason for this is that the primary function of the Shoutcast/Icecast server is to take as an input the single stream from your Source Client, and redistribute it as any number of of streams — one for each listener. Each additional listener consumes more bandwidth. A typical home internet connection can accommodate only a few such listeners before all the available or upload/download capacity is exhausted.

As such, a Shoutcast/Icecast server is most typically rented — as one would rent space on a web host. There are numerous companies that rent streaming servers for a few dollars per month. Further, most Second Life venues have already rented such servers. If you are slated to perform at a given venue, they will most often have you employ their existing streaming server.

Second Life viewer

The last link in the chain is up to the Second Life viewer. Each parcel of land in Second Life is associated with a Music URL. When an avatar steps onto a given parcel, the Second Life sim sends the Second Life viewer this Music URL. This URL should be the location of your Shoutcast/Icecast streaming server. The Second Life viewer then sets up a connection to the streaming server. It accepts the stream of your music from the server, decodes it, and outputs it through the audio system of the computer upon which the Second Life viewer is running. In this manner, each listener is able to hear the music you are making. Your listeners may even be on the opposite side of the Earth!

What do I need to get started?

While all the pieces described above are needed to stream your music into Second Life, only a minimum set is required to get up and running. The absolute minimum is that you will need a Music Creation program and a Source Client. There are many options available in these categories, both free and commercial. They are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other platforms.

As mentioned above, there are many venues that supply Shoutcast/Icecast streaming servers for your use. I spent about a year as a Second Life musician before I decided to rent a stream of my own.

The last item is the Second Life viewer. While you do not technically need this to stream into Second Life, you will want it anyhow. Otherwise, you will find it difficult to connect with venues and fans. There really isn’t any downside, as it is free. Plus, Second Life is just a lot of fun!

Is it for you?

After reading the above, you may be eager to delve into Second Life as another marketplace for your musical endeavors. As you can see, the opportunities are nearly endless. Further, it costs nothing to try your hand at it — plus, it’s just a whole lot of fun. No matter what sort of musician you may be, there is another market waiting for you in Second Life.

Questions? Comments? Let me know if there is any specific aspect of being a Second Life musician that you’d like me to cover!

This is but one article in a series on opportunities for musicians in Second Life. Further articles will cover resources, technical issues, groups and organizations, revenue streams, publicity outlets, and more. Next up, however, will be a survey of the software choices for Music Creation and Source Clients required to pipe your music inworld. I hope you join us in this journey to a strange and wonderful new world. In the meantime, you may wish to do some early exploring on your own — it is free to get started! Just click the link below:

Personal Profile vs. Band Page

Individuals register a personal profile with facebook. Publicly-known brands, companies, figures, and most germanely musicians, can also register a Page. A Page is similar to a profile, but comes with some additional benefits. Among these benefits are the ability to advertise the page, and a relatively unrestricted number of fans (as opposed to the hard limit of the number of friends any given profile accommodates). Other benefits of the Page include:

• info tab tailored to your business type
• additional widgets such as a music player
• review section
• ability to share page administration tasks
• analytics on page interactions

Making others aware

Most bands and musicians are probably aware of the value of pages as opposed to profiles. Accordingly, most musicians maintain pages in addition to their personal profiles. But facebook does not automatically make others aware that a personal profile may also be related to a fan page. How does one create an awareness of a page’s existence? A person can become a fan of a given page. In doing so, facebook will by default display this linkage upon the Pages section of the Info tab of the profile. However, there is no way to force facebook to display an artist’s own page in preference to the other pages which are displayed therein. What is displayed there is a small random selection from all the pages of which one is a fan. As such, there is no guarantee that the artist’s own page will be selected for display at all.

The process I describe herein will allow the artist to permanently and prominently display a link to a given page from your profile. Further, this link will appear in the profile’s sidebar, so it can be seen whether the Wall tab or the Info tab is currently being displayed. Better yet, the link will also contain the page’s ‘profile’ picture, leading to recognition for your page’s graphical brand. You can see an example of this on the left sidebar of my personal facebook profile.

Two elements

There are two elements to pull together to obtain this benefit. The first is that we need the ability to place arbitrary content on our profile’s sidebar. The second is to create the desired linkage to place in the sidebar. The former we will accomplish with an application called Custom Profile Box. The latter we will accomplish with a native facebook tool called a Fan Badge. The following is a step-by-step tutorial on these objectives.

Custom Profile Box

Our first objective is to add the application ‘Custom Profile Box’. This application will create an element that we can fill with arbitrary content. We will later fill this element with our page link Fan Badge, and then move it to our profile sidebar.

1. From your personal profile, on the lower left select ‘Applications’, then select ‘Browse More Applications’.
2. In the ‘Search Applications’ field, enter “Custom Profile Box”.
3. Click on the desired ‘Custom Profile Box’ application in the search results.
4. From the application’s Fan page, click ‘Go To Application’.
5. Click the ‘Allow’ button.
6. Go back to your profile wall.
7. Below your status entry box, click ‘Options’, then click ‘Settings’.
8. Click the link ‘applications settings page’.
9. On the list of apps, a drop down ‘Show’ menu select ‘Authorized’ to show all the apps authorized to access your profile data.
10. Click on ‘Edit Settings’ link next to ‘Custom Profile Box’.
11. In the pop-up window, make sure the ‘Profile’ tab is highlighted. *
12. Next to the “Box” item is the word ‘Add’. Click on this to add a box to your profile for this app.
13. Decide and modify the Privacy — I suggest setting this to “Everyone”.

You are done setting up the app.

* There have been reported cases where there is no ‘Profile’ tab on the popup at this point. Further reports indicate that this may be alleviated by editing the Box, and adding some content, then returning to this step of the process. More as it develops.

This problem, and its solution, are now more fully understood. The issue is that the Custom Profile Box application will not have a ‘Profile’ tab on the Edit Application Settings popup until such time that some data (any dummy data is sufficient) has been added. The solution is to place some data in the Custom Profile Box as per steps 1-5 of ‘Place the Fan Badge in the Custom Profile Box’ below. After that, return to this process. Note that any data is sufficient — it does not yet need to be the code for the Fan Badge, and it does not need to be entered in ‘Source’ mode (though it will need to be later, as described below).

This also applies to the sister application ‘HTML Profile Box’.

Generate a Fan Badge

We have so far installed the ‘Custom Profile Box’ into our profile. Next we need to generate a Fan Badge for our page. Later we will place this Fan Badge in our Custom Profile Box and move the Custom Profile Box to our profile sidebar. Oddly, to make a Page Badge, you need to travel through your (personal) Profile’s Profile Badge link. The code for the Fan Badge will be copied and pasted into the Custom Profile Box’s editor. Accordingly, it may be easiest if you open another browser tab for this next bit.

1. Go to your personal page’s Info tab.
2. Near bottom left is a link entitled ‘Create  Profile Badge’. Click it to go to the Profile Badge page.
3. On the Profile Badge screen there is a column where you can choose what type of badge you want. Choose ‘Fan Badges’. This will take you to the Fan Badges Widget screen.
4. On the Fan Badges Widget screen, find the dropdown entitled ‘Select a Page’. From that dropdown, select the page for which you wish to create a badge. Note that you must first be a fan of that page.
5. From the 2nd field on the Fan Badges Widget screen, copy the HTML code for your Fan Badge.

Place the Fan Badge in the Custom Profile Box

At this point, we have installed the Custom Profile Box application, and created a Fan Badge for our destination page. The code for the Fan Badge is in out buffer. We next need to paste this into the Custom Profile Box. Later, we will move the Custome Profile Box to our profile’s sidebar. Go back to your earlier browser tab.

1. Click on the ‘Applications’ status bar menu and select the app from the pop up window.
2. An editor will load, and takes 30 secs or so on busy connection.
3. On the editors toolbar, click the button named ‘Source’. This allows you to enter raw FBML code.
4. In the editor window paste the (FBML) code for the Fan Badge, which should be in your buffer from the earlier objective.
5. To save your creation to the app box, click on the ‘Update’ button. If all is well your box should appear in the boxes section of your profile.
6. Click on your profile, and select the boxes tab. See your app box and your creation in it.
7. You can drag your box to any desired location on the page by left clicking the box and dragging around.

Move it to the profile sidebar

OK, we have added the Custom Profile Box application, generated a Fan Badge for our destination page, and placed the fan badge in the Custom Profile Box. The last step is to move our Custom Profile Box from our profile’s Boxes tab to the sidebar.

1. Go to your profile
2. Select the Boxes tab
3. Locate the Custom Profile Box on the Boxes tab
4. There is a pencil at the upper right corner of the Custom Profile Box. Click it.
5. Select ‘Move to Wall tab’.
6. Go to your wall. You should see the Custom Profile Box, with your Fan Badge linking to your artist page, in the sidebar. You can change the location of this sidebar element by left-clicking and dragging it where you want it. There is however, the restriction that it cannot appear higher in the sidebar than the standard facebook sidebar elements.

Collect more fans!

That’s it. Now all visitors to your personal profile will be met with a graphically branded link to your artist page. By making it easier for people to find your page, you should collect new legions of fans.

Got a facebook topic you would like to see covered? Let me know in the comments section!

Second Life

So what is Second Life? It is an online 3D virtual world, or Metaverse, where people meet and interact with each other through digital ‘avatars’ in a virtual landscape. Visually, this Metaverse bears a passing resemblance to Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft. However, this resemblance carries no further than the ‘look’ of such MMORPGs. Second Life is an alternative universe where avatars (people) are free to carry out whatever activities they wish. In my mind, the three qualities of such a metaverse that distinguish it from an MMORPG are:

1. There is no previously defined goal or objective by which one may ‘win’. Instead, avatars live the life of their choosing.
2. Everything inworld is created by the residents. With enough talent and time, you can recreate every thing you would encounter in the metaverse — be it a house, a landform, an article of clothing, a manner of moving, or any other ‘thing’, tangible or intangible, that can be discerned.
3. Second Life has a freely functioning real economy, with a unit of currency that is freely exchanged to and from US dollars.

Size of the economy

So how big is this potential marketplace? Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, reports that over $1 Billion in resident-to-resident transactions have been made since the inception of the metaverse. In 2010, the projected figure is in excess of $500 Million per year, and growing quickly. As quoted from San Fransisco Business Times:

Dancing to live music

Employment in Second Life music

There are several broad categories of musicians performing within Second Life. Linden Labs makes an official distinction between Live performance and other forms of music:

A live performance in Second Life is presented by a person who is represented in-world by an avatar, and is creating the performance in real-time, streaming the audio (or audio and video) portions into Second Life as they are being created.

Playing back a previously recorded performance, whether audio, video or Second Life machinima, is generally not considered to be a live performance if there are no live elements performed while the audience is watching the show.

We do not intend to imply here that either Live or non-live music is superior to another. This is just being pointed out in order to understand how to present your performance consistent with inworld norms. If you are presenting a playlist DJ type performance, it would be a breach of protocol to list this as a Live Music event — however, it would indeed be appropriate to list it under the Nightlife/Entertainment event category.

And the variety of opportunities is quite staggering. I have seen the following types of acts, all paid for their performances:

• Playlist DJs performing various styles of music for the dancing enjoyment of the venue’s patrons
• Scratch or BeatMatch DJs creating unique layered performances using prerecorded tracks and synthesizers for real-time creation
• Singer/songwriter types with a guitar or keyboard and vocals
• People singing over Karaoke backing tracks of hit songs
• Solo musicians performing with backing tracks of their own creation
• Duos, trios, and full groups completely live
• ‘Tribute’ acts, where the ‘musicians’ construct and animate elaborate imitations of chart-topping groups — to the original recordings by those groups
• ‘Role Play’ or ‘listening’ sessions where original artists mime performances to their own recordings

Much as in real life, some performances are the main focus of the venue, and others are an adjunct to some other commercial or social venture — such as a mall opening, or a mingler. There are also inworld opportunities to sell digital downloads of your music — either limited to playing inworld or as universal mp3s.

Is it for you?

After reading the above, you may be eager to delve into Second Life as another marketplace for your musical endeavors. As you can see, the opportunities are nearly endless. Further, it costs nothing to try your hand at it — plus, it’s just a whole lot of fun. No matter what sort of musician you may be, there is another market waiting for you in Second Life.

This is but one article in a series on opportunities for musicians in Second Life. Further articles will cover resources, technical issues, groups and organizations, revenue streams, publicity outlets, and more. Next up, however, will be a brief overview of the software required to pipe your music inworld. I hope you join us in this journey to a strange and wonderful new world. In the meantime, you may wish to do some early exploring on your own — it is free to get started! Just click the link below:

I am starting a series on Second Life. Second Life is an interactive 3D world where one interacts with others through a digital representation of their selves. This platform has numerous musicmaking opportunities. Plus, it’s just a whole lot of immersive fun!

In this series, I will cover what Second Life is, and how one gets started in it. I will speak to the market for music inworld, and the potential for making real dollars from such. I will cover the technologies involved in piping your music into the virtual world, and how to acquire and configure software for doing so. I will cover the nature of paying gigs available, and speak of various venues that cater to new musicians. I will also cover the various promotional avenues available to garner an attentive audience.

Join me as we discuss all these issues and more. Together, we’ll embark upon a grand adventure in bringing your music to a new and very sizable audience. Best of all, basic participation is completely free — including all you’ll need to be an SL musician.

If you can’t wait for the next installment in this series, you can dive in right now with a free account — just click below!

After collecting further data, it appears that perhaps the miscompares are explainable. As it so happens, one of the people doing the duplication did not understand the differences between .wav, .mp3, .wma, etc. file formats. While all the CDs were audio CDs, they were burned at different times, some having been ripped as mp3, or as wma, or as…

Perhaps the best news is that I was able to locate proper mastered versions of each track that had not been through this rough treatment. I procured copies of each track as they came from the mastering house.

Even better — the process seems very durable. After sequencing the tracks, I uploaded them to our store on BandCamp. This upload was in the form of .wav files. I then downloaded these files in .flac format. Then I used MediaMonkey to convert the .flac files to .wav files. Finally, I used ExactAudioCopy‘s built in .wav file comparison tool to compare the original files to the ones procured from BandCamp. Again, these were uplloaded as .wav, converted to .flac by BandCamp, downloaded as .flac, then converted back to .wav. In each case, the files’ audio portion matched exactly.

So I again believe in the integrity of digital audio. Woo-hoo!

The artist as record label

There is no question that the traditional ‘record company’ model of music sales is being obsoleted by a new digital download model. In this new model, bands can interact directly with their fanbase. Direct band-to-fan sales of digital album and song downloads net the artist several times the amount of money per sale as did the old ‘recording contract’ model. Indeed, under the new model, the artist performs the role of record label, receiving all the money that in the past would have been retained by this middleman.

Once the decision is made by the artist to market direct to fans via online sales, the artist must choose a means of handling the financial part of the transaction. For the overwhelming majority of artists, the logical choice in this area is to partner with PayPal for the merchant services.

PayPal is simple, trusted, and ubiquitous

PayPal is the leading provider of internet transaction processing services. In operation for over a decade, it is a widely-trusted, secure brand, easing customer fears about dealing with potentially sketchy transactions. It allows consumers to pay in the form that they prefer — be it through credit cards, debit transactions, or from their PayPal account balances. With over 150 Million accounts, and transacting in dozens of currencies, it is a globally-recognized brand.

Using PayPal as a payment processor, money is paid from the account of the consumers’ choice to your PayPal account for each digital music download. For each such transaction, PayPal  receives a small amount as their compensation for their service. This is deducted from the seller’s receipts.

Two payment rates

What is not widely-known, however, is that PayPal maintains two separate fee schedules (or Merchant Processing Rates) for sellers.  The fee schedule specifies exactly how much of each sale would be paid by the seller to PayPal for the service of processing the transaction. Depending upon the dollar size of your average transaction, it may be advantageous to be under one or the other schedule.

The Standard Fee costs the seller a flat rate of $0.30 (in US Dollars) plus 2.9% of the total transaction. Under this cost structure, if the artist sells a single song at $0.99, PayPal charges $0.33 to the seller for the transaction fee — a third of the entire selling cost.

There is, however, the Micropayments Fee structure. Under this structure, the Micropayments Fee costs the seller a flat rate of $0.05 plus 5%. Using our previous example of selling a single song at $0.99, PayPal would charge only $0.10 as the transaction fee — less than one-third the cost of the Standard Fee!

Maximizing profits

As seen above, using the Micropayments Fee structure can result in dramatic increase in profitability. Let us assume a single download of a $0.99 single is a typical transaction for your act. Under this model, you would net $0.89 per transaction employing Micropayments Fee schedule, as opposed to $0.66 under the Standard Fee schedule. Or stated another way, this increases your profits by 35%!

Is it right for me?

One can readily see that the Micropayments Fee is a much better deal for small transactions. With a lower flat rate, it makes small transactions competitive. However, with a higher percentage, it becomes less of a deal as the average transaction cost increases.

So where is the crossover point? About $12.00. If you expect your typical transaction to be lower than $12.00, it would be better to employ the Micropayment Fee. This would be exemplary of most singles and albums sold as digital downloads. If you expect your average transaction to be greater than $12.00, it would be better to employ the Standard Fee — but do you really expect your average customer to buy all your albums at once?

Signing up

The Micropayments Fee option is a little known feature of the PayPal system. PayPal goes to no great lengths to advertise its availability. Accordingly, not many know of its existence. There are considerations to changing your PayPal account to the Micropayments Fee schedule.

First, PayPal only allows a single fee schedule for a given account. You cannot use the same account with the Standard Fee schedule for some transactions and the Micropayments Fee schedule for others. However, this is easily dealt with by employing two accounts — one for each fee schedule.

Second, PayPal allows only Business accounts to employ the Micropayments Fee schedule. Neither Personal accounts nor Premier accounts qualify. However, it is a simple matter to open a Business account with PayPal.

Wrapup

Many musicians are selling digital downloads of songs direct to fans over the internet. This allows the musician to retain the lion’s share of sales that formerly would have been retained by the record company.  For the majority of these musicians, the PayPal Micropayments Fee schedule can drastically increase their profitability. If you are such a musician, it would be most advantageous to learn how to employ this facility, and start paying PayPal less than a third of what you are paying today!

Free Special Report available!

I have prepared a simple, step-by-step guide which walks you through the process of setting up a PayPal account under the Micropayment Fee schedule! For a limited time, I am making this report available at no cost to you. All you need to do to receive this valuable information is to sign up with your first name and email address, so I know where to send the .pdf. Once registered, you will also receive periodic bulletins with my exclusive hints on business and technical issues in the new music business! You may unsubscribe at any time, but the special report is yours to keep!

So here’s the video, aimed at your average consumer:

Basically, users searching on keywords involving artists, album titles, song titles, or lyrics are presented with a simple means of listening to those tunes for which they are searching. Also presented at the top of the search results is a wealth of similar content that can be played and/or viewed. It is the playing of the material where things get interesting for musicians.

They playing of the songs is actually handled by Google’s partners — currently iLike and Lala. Clicking on the play icon at the top of the search results opens a popup song player, with the song of interest playing, and other songs by the same artist loaded. There is a link at the upper right of the song player to the retail outlet, where one can easily purchase the song in question.

Note that, while others have reported that the partner used to play any tune is random, my limited testing showed a decided bias to Lala. Out of perhaps twenty searches for an artist name, all but one came up on Lala. The last — Mahogany Rush — came up on an iLike player, but had no link to a retail purchase.

It should be mentioned that below the default links in the top search result are links to the artist on other sites — including iLike, Rhapsody, iMeem, Pandora, and possibly others. Note that MySpace bought iLike earlier this year. From my limited testing, however, it seems clear that Lala is a favored retailer.

As an online music retailer, Lala has a rather unusual business model. Users can stream every song on the service once for free. After that, customers can buy the right to stream it for $0.10 or buy the MP3 for $0.89. Users can also upload their own music library to Lala and then stream those songs freely over the Internet.

It is also interesting to note that Lala has recently partnered with Facebook, with an officially connected Lala Facebook application.

Google has also partnered with the major music labels: EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. I assume this was required in order to smooth over the legal ramifications of being able to preview content in search results.

We all know what a giant Google has become. From it’s humble beginnings, it has risen in a few short years to dominate the Internet. Like iconic brands such as Xerox, the company name has become both a household noun and verb. Even given the central role of search in our daily lives, it has been reported that approximately 6% of all Google searches are music related. This points out how important Google is to all commercial musicians. Now with this major user-facing enhancement, the use of Google by consumers to identify and acquire new music seems certain to multiply.

So what does this mean to indie musicians? It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. From a personal perspective, I am in the middle of evaluating partner organizations to act as interfaces to online music retailers. As of today, I know that I need to re-evaluate my options, with a particular notice to which such organizations partner with Lala.

In a similar vein, I need to learn more about the relationship between Google and MySpace — as MySpace has just announced an ‘artist dashboard’. This is an analytics tool which over time may aspire to much the same functionality as ReverbNation.

In this wild musical world defined by the demise of the traditional recording labels, independent musicians live in a sea of change. One thing is certain — while this constant change requires continual attention, it also brings a steady stream of opportunities for independent musicians to bring their music to new legions of fans.