Artist Tricil sung the praises of Topspin in April. Since then, I did my own LP release on Bandcamp, about which I hope to share experiences soon.

But how do the two compare? And how might they even be combined? Recording/mastering engineer and artist Jimmy Ether recently posted some thoughts to his Google+ account, shared here by permission:

Topspin vs Bandcamp mixed with other options
I was pretty sold on going with Topspin for the back end store and promo features for the Headphone Treats site I’m rebuilding. Until today. I’ve always been a big Bandcamp supporter, but they were just missing a few features I felt we needed for the more full-scale assault I’m hoping to make:

1) An integrated store across artists – actually, both services sucked at this (until today). It was possible in Topspin, but you had to get hacky with tags to have multiple bands in one account. Which I never really wanted anyway. Now Bandcamp lets you span any artist on their cart system, which is brilliant. Lets the bands manage their stores and I can just tie them into our site. Exactly what I wanted.

2) High-Resolution, 24-bit FLAC – Again, Topspin was going to be hacky, but doable. But wait! Bandcamp is now allowing 24bit files up to 192kHz??! How did I miss this? I’ll have to see how the download options work, but this is awesome if all pans out acceptable. With what I’m doing, it’s literally two different masterings per album (fully dynamic 24bit/88.2k… slightly more compressed 16 bit for regular lossless down to MP3), so I need to see how that’s going to work. Hopefully I can select formats to be made available for each album and just offer two versions.

3) Campaigns – this is a pretty cool aspect of Topspin which may or may not have been beneficial. Kinda nice to be able to offer a free download of an album for an email signup or Facebook like. But there are other services I could use for that… or I can just roll my own using Bandcamp download codes. And now we have G+ possibly stealing some thunder from Facebook, so it’s reminding me of all that time I spent on MySpace building followings for all the artists. Yeah, that panned out. Social media is wonderful, but you have to keep things centralized and in your control.

4) Mailing list – ummm… Mailchimp? Emma? I’d much rather integrate either of those into my site than use Topspin’s more limited interface. Mailchimp is especially interesting with their killer API, which I’ve used a little bit. I’m a reseller for Emma, so I can send mail way cheaper through them but their integration is a tad clunky and requires more coding on my end (done it before though). I’ll have to weigh that.

So, that’s my current thinking on all the music tech offerings. Speak up if you think I’m missing something though. Discussion is good. Or if your curious what I’m on about with any of the above. Happy to clarify.

That seems a good conversation starter to me, and a jumping-off point for a more in-depth discussion. The competition is certainly heating up: Bandcamp just unveiled a merchandise store, and Topspin is enhancing their features, as well. (Correction: I originally claimed that email capture at Bandcamp was a recent addition, but a reader points out it was unveiled in 2008. I could say time flies, but I will instead just admit I was mistaken. And in fairness, while competition drives enhancement, arguably user requests are the prime motivator.)

So, other users, we’d love to hear what you think, or if you have other questions about either service we can investigate or direct to the sites themselves.

And while we’re at it, Jimmy’s own site has a growing archive of information, including some recording tips – and, oh yeah, some music to hear:
http://jimmyether.com/about/

We hear plenty of hype about the Web’s power for artists, but what happens in the real world? That question is doubly interesting now that Topspin, already influential in its early test run, is available to everyone. Atlanta-based artist Tricil joins us for a special guest post to answer just that. It’s a chance to peer in the head of a Topspin power user. (If anyone wants to rebut this with the Bandcamp perspective, go for it.)

Tricil, aka Johnny Jacobus, answers all this for us. His answers are glowing; he even worried that this might seem a little too Topspin “fanboyish” to post. But no worries here: if people are loving a tool, I want to hear about it. Johnny, take it away. (And readers, have a listen to his music, too – another reason to involve him in this question!)

To compare Topspin to Bandcamp seems a little unfair to me, for the former has a multitude of tools that go beyond streaming and commerce. Both are used by musicians like you and I to “get our stuff out there.” Tim O’Reilly said that “Piracy is not the enemy [of the artist], obscurity is” and I think that’s true. Ed.: Actually, it seems that Seth Godin said that, and Tim O’Reilly didn’t. But Tricil just said it, and someone else might, too. -PK

Be it Topspin, Bandcamp, or even SoundCloud, there are a plethora of ways to get your music out to your fans ears in much more intelligent ways than having a myspace with some tracks or hosting downloads on your own site.

Bandcamp’s charm when they came out in the post myspace-era was an embeddable, music-centric streaming site that had built in social-sharing, almost like SoundCloud with a commerce function. With Bandcamp, you can set up “In Rainbows”-style pricing of pay what you want and even do a free in exchange for an email much like Topspin. The downsides to Bandcamp are a sandboxed site with little to no css customization, so it’s harder to create a more “branded” presence going the all Bandcamp route.

Topspin is different. They seem to be the pioneers of the “email for download” thing, which to me is your first price point. You could host them on SoundCloud, Last.fm or your own site and get 1000s of downloads, but wouldn’t it be nice to tell those 1000 people about your new album with an exclusive offer to download another new track? Anonymous hot-linking downloading is great, but having permission to go Direct to Fan is even better. This is the strength of Topspin’s email platform. Additionally, you can segment your fans so I can holler at my three fans in Peoria, IL about my next show there (TBA). Geo-tagging is done by clicking on a link in a confirmation email, COPPA-compliant. No spam here.

Bandcamp’s real appeal came from the universally embeddable streaming players that work via HTML5 and within Facebook as well. As you can see from a recent Topspin blog post that bizarrely features me, these are coming to the Topspin world as well.

Bandcamp has added email for download functionality as well, but I don’t think its email backend is as robust as Topspin’s. I believe it’s through FanBridge and that’s on a separate site, whereas in Topspin, it’s all self-contained in the same app, along with stats on plays, emails, geodata, and NextBigSound integration. (NBS is amazing, it’s like Google Analytics for musicians). Ed.: Finding the exact answer to this question on the Bandcamp side is difficult, and I think best left to a story that covers Bandcamp specifically. Bandcamp added this functionality in 2008, according to a site blog post, and continues to evolve, too.

Real case scenario: I put up One Day Soon for free download as part of an upcoming Atlanta show promotion on my site. [Ed.: See link above.] I emailed the Atlanta people on my list (about 15%) a link to download the sampler from all three bands and told them where to buy tickets and asked them to share the show info with their friends. I didn’t want to tell the other 85% about a show in Atlanta they can’t go to, so for them I gave them a link to my new song and made up a contest to make the cover art for One Day Soon (right now, the cover art is the flyer for the aforementioned show, and from May 15th on, that’s a little silly). The contest is cool, I think: you post your art on my Facebook wall, and whichever one has the most “Likes” and “TRICIL-ness” wins. One email campaign for one new song, split across the country in two presentable formats.

Speaking of Facebook, Topspin has an upcoming Facebook store that’s going to look a lot like their “spinshops” (which is something they offer for every artist, self-serve or not that works like a splash page for downloaded media, a sort of “while you’re here, maybe buy a T-Shirt?”). Commerce on Facebook, without leaving Facebook. Additionally, you have the option of sharing media for a Facebook Like or a Tweet. You can connect with your fans and grow your networks too, not just via email.

Speaking of T-Shirts, one thing that Topspin does in spades is physical media and merchandise. I know Bandcamp has that BCWax thing, which seems cool. [Ed.: It's a vinyl label, though with only two releases so far, it looks pretty tightly curated!]

Topspin lets you bundle, say, a T-Shirt with an artist’s entire discography in any format from MP3 to 24-bit wav and lifetime VIP access and iPhone ringtones, if you wanted to. This is exactly what I have setup, and it’s my highest selling item, outselling $2-$4 digital downloads. People still like tangibility and the music experience really is being re-bundled. VIP access is cool, you connect with a network like Google, OpenID, FB, Twitter, AOL, and you’re given access to download specific packages. A way to cater to superfans.

Finally, one last thing that Topspin has in the tangible realm is Ticketing. You print (or save the PDF on your iPhone) and bring out your ticket to a show, and you can use the Topspin iPhone scanner (no love for the Droid or BB folk, sorry) to check in your fans. Sell a bundle with a CD, an instant download, and some tickets and you just bypassed both Ticketmaster and a record label.

So, there you have it. Here’s a bit more reading on the latest from Topspin, and a nice live release to grab. I expect this will cause us to hear from Bandcamp (and others), and hopefully even better, real-world users of those services.

I’d like to hear what you think of the alternatives out there, what’s available and what’s missing, and even if you’ve found ways of working across sites. And I hope in the process, we get to discover some new music, too. Let us know. -PK

Topspin blog:
Major Updates to Streaming Player Coming Soon, Embeddable Store Offers

The Unbundling (and Re-Bundling) of Music – interesting business analysis, including some discussion of SONOIO, the artist who recently won recognition from Topspin and whose DIY synthesizer presents a very different vision of the technology of music distribution! (More on SONOIO soon!)

http://tricil.net/ – Tricil’s own Topspin-powered site

Black Friday, named originally for the day on which retailers typically broke even for the first time in the year (think black ink), has become a holiday for sales in the US. I’ve seen a handful of deals even in our world of music making tech; here are a few of the best.

Native Instruments has a sale through Monday that cuts prices in half on individual Komplete instruments and effects. Note that this is just for a la carte additions; the bundles are priced the same as always. But if there’s a particular tool you’ve had your eye on, this could be a great time to buy.

Twisted Tools have a 33% off sale on for their unusual sound-making creations.

Apple isn’t keen on sales, generally, so this is their one of the year: you get modest discounts on computers, an unusually-good iPad discount, and accessory sales. Some of these are decent if you’re in the market, though you’ll want to compare against academic pricing if you qualify for that:
Apple Black Friday

If you prefer Windows to Mac OS, Rain Computers have a deal through the weekend on all their machines through Best Buy, with discounts of up to $200 off:
2010 Holiday Savings Event

Our friends at Dijitalfix (who host our Handmade Music series in New York) have set up a discount for CDM readers for $50 off the Danish AiAiAi TMA-1 headphones. I’m writing this up soon. Through Sunday, just mention CDM at their stores in Brooklyn or Manhattan, or to make life easier, they’ve gone ahead and dropped the price to $149 online:
TMA-1 headphones @ Dijitalfix

Spotted some other good deals? Let us know in comments.

Can music as a physical object have value and meaning again? For many music enthusiasts, that affection has turned back to the vinyl record, not the CD. (How many artists have we seen lately offering vinyl as the “premium” package for listeners?) At an extreme, there’s Alessandro Cortini’s SuONOIO, an album that has its own accompanying custom synthesizer.

But while we ponder this question, the one that seems the perpetual topic for music conferences and industry pundits, I turn instead to this (tongue-in-cheek) description of CD shipping. Given the record sales for many independent artists, maybe this parody isn’t actually so far-fetched.

If you’ve never ordered a physical CD Baby CD, you may not have seen it before. I can tell you it amused and delighted the person who got it, though (it wasn’t me), so never underestimate the value of caring for your musical customer.

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, August 6, 2010.
We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh…
We miss you already. We’ll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

Yes, it’s parody. Yes, I’m doing a brief fluff blog post. (Refunds available.) Yes, I’m thinking about how some of this (sadly, not the private jet) might actually be possible as part of the music retail experience.

And really, don’t your fans and listeners deserve as much?

http://www.cdbaby.com/

Updated – do some people care as much as the imaginary employees in this description?

Absolutely. See a line of handmade CD cases on Etsy, a a how-to on CD cases, limited-edition handmade CDs used as a fundraiser, and a whole mess of handmade CDs and merch found at this project site — including a special giveaway at MUM concerts.

http://www.northernowl.blogspot.com/

Doing a special ritual when someone buys one — optional.

Online retailer audioMIDI has begun a new sale I really love called the “No Brainer” series. They offer some carefully-selected instruments and effects for prices like $5, $15, or $20. These aren’t clearance bin deals, either; they’re some of the best plug-ins on the market, in either full versions or slightly stripped-down (but fully-functional) editions. audioMIDI has exclusively released details of the deals they’ll offer Monday to CDM, and among them is the wonderful XILS 3 – a virtual instrument with the matrix editing of the classic EMS synthesizers.

Expiring

First, you have until midnight 11/30 to grab AAS’ fantastic modeled virtual analog, Ultra Analog, for $15 (instead of around $200). Ableton has their own version of this instrument called Analog, but if you’re using other hosts (or you don’t have Live Suite and want to save some cash), this is a great option.

AAS Ultra Analog VA-1 for $15

Ongoing

The Overloud Breverb is a multi-function reverb plug, normally going for $369. The audioMIDI edition comes with room and plate reverbs – nicely matching the free TC Electronic hall reverb we got last week – for five bucks.

Breverb audioMIDI Edition

Rhetorical question: could a great Breverb inspire a profound Bromance?

Monday

It’s actually the upcoming deals that go live Monday that have me especially enthusiastic.

Blue Analog Trackbox from NOMAD Factory is a tube-emulating multi-effects unit with loads of timbral options and modules for gate/expander, compressor, and EQ. After a quick play-round, it seems to sound great. It’s normally US$189, but from Monday, it’ll be $15 through AudioMIDI. Expires December 6. 

Trackbox offer link (will go live Monday, won’t work any earlier)

XILS 3 is a virtual modular with matrix editing. The creators don’t mention it by name, but the hardware in question is the legendary VCS 3 – a brilliant analog synth from EMS. The EMS synths are overshadowed somewhat here in the States by the likes of Moog; if you don’t know the VCS 3, go look it up.

Matrices were a great idea back in the day on hardware, and they remain a great idea now. Lovers of the EMS or synth sounds in general won’t want to miss this, especially with sequencer and synth modules and the ability to use the XILS 3 as an audio processor on live input. You’ll get a slightly stripped-down version, but at a steep discount – US$20. Expires end of December.

XILS 3 offer link (will go live Monday, won’t work any earlier)

I’m playing around with all of these, so if I have tips to share, I will. Let us know if you bite on any of these offers.

Winter is coming. If you had to hole up with just one instrument, getting deep into programming sounds while venturing out of your abode only for essential supplies, any one of these instruments would easily fit the bill. Yes, Native Instruments bundles (nearly) everything they make into the Komplete bundle. But truly, any one of these creations would be a sonic rabbit hole into which you could climb. In ascending order of rabbit-hole-ness:

Massive: Drag-and-drop modulation, rich wavetables, and an emphasis on bass and leads make this a sonic favorite.

FM8: There’s simply no deeper frequency modulation instrument on the market.

Absynth 5: This instrument’s presets alone can be heard in scores for games and film, but those willing to brave its atmospheric sound mangling features and become ninjas with its envelope could wind up making it their only instrument if they had to.

Reaktor 5: The patching environment allows custom synths, effects, sequencers, and other tools; its granular sound engine and DSP programming stand apart.

All are now US$ / EUR 99, but only through the weekend.

Reaktor in particular is an incredible deal – you get a huge library of instruments, effects, sequencers, noisemakers, and unusual sonic creations, plus access to the User Library and all the Reaktor community has done. That’s even before you delve into one of the deepest sound development tools on the planet.

Now, of course, this prompted one reader to ask if NI were clearing out Reaktor inventory prior to releasing a new upgrade.

Reaktor is certainly long overdue for an upgrade; as other NI software has gotten repeat, ground-up rebuilds, Reaktor 5 is now a number of years old. That’s not to say you’ll run out of capabilities in Reaktor – it could take a lifetime to do that. But loyal Reaktor fans understandably want improvements, especially as they’ve watched rival commercial patcher Max get an entirely new UI and now a version integrated with Ableton Live. (Reaktor, for its part, is still a candidate for Live users, as Reaktor owners can run their creations as plug-ins.)

Whatever the status of the next Reaktor, though, this is a download version, so there’s no inventory, period. And Absynth 5 is a brand new piece of software. The good news here is, any of these purchases should qualify you for the upgrade path.

Any one of these could make a good deal.

Synthsgiving Special

Incidentally, I have the same complaint about Reaktor that I do about Max for Live – creators need a run-time to distribute their work. It’d be fantastic if a future Reaktor could make instruments playable in NI’s free Kore Player. And it seems like that would be the perfect compromise between allowing distribution of Reaktor creations and protecting the value of the Reaktor crown jewels. But when it comes to making things for yourself, these are all great choices. Let us know if you spring for one.

Trent Reznor posted yesterday that the Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication reissue is “how you sell music today”. As a rebuttal to the usual “that only works for established artists” replies, he’s followed this up with an extended post on what artists who haven’t reached the Beasties or NIN level of profile can do to get established.

NIN’s $300 deluxe edition of Ghosts sold out in under two days, grossing $750,000. The first week combined sales grossed $1.6million, despite being released for free under a Creative Commons license. (Photo CC Nick Humphries)

Having been part of a reasonably high profile band with an album released through the label system, Trent’s post reads like a list of “how I wish it had been”. Every point he makes is absolutely spot on. The article is filled with active verbs. Make. Give. Sell. Share. Release. Start. Engage. Film. This is the crux of how creators succeed in the digital age: They do things. Rather than waiting for someone else to tell them how to make money from a product that can be easily garnered for free, the people who are doing well are making it up as they go along, trying new things. You know… being creative.

As a web developer, director and general creative tech geek, Trent’s closers are especially poignant:

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

Check out the rest of the article.

For digital artists, a lot of the web and technological networking comes easier than to rock bands. When a laptop is part of your rig, hopefully you understand computers better than someone who exclusively hits their instrument with sticks (SPD20s aside), because you use the computer for music regularly. Ed.: This is a simple fact – if you’re a digital artist, regardless of your instrument, you spend more time behind the screen than people who are conventional instruments – so you should have no excuse for making the most of that technology once the production and performance phase are done. -PK We’re also in the middle of a huge mobile web expansion phase. Now that everyone has web enabled computers in their pockets, what you can do while you’re out there playing shows is getting better and better; I just spent the evening configuring an online store which can be administered via its own iPhone app. If this had been available two years ago, a whole lot more CD orders would have been delivered on time.

Giving some solid metrics to bolster Trent’s advice, Michael Masnick’s (founder of Techdirt) recent presentation at the NARM 2009 conference is truly fantastic.

NARM 2009 State Of The Industry: Michael Masnick from NARM on Vimeo.

The presentation is quite long at 31 minutes, but he breaks it up with 515 slides, so it feels punchy. It expands on many of the points Trent makes, and touches on some themes we’ve been interested in here at CDM. Interestingly, he gives some revenue and sales statistics on the Nine Inch Nails “Ghosts” release: $1.6 million gross in the first week, from an album which was released for free under a Creative Commons license.

Having been quite deeply involved in the “old” way of doing things, and having experimented in the last year with faster, cheaper live performance videography and similarly streamlined “studio” production, I feel that I’m replete with the kool aid, and comfortable with a future in which I’m not looking for “a contract”. In fact, this evening I called my bandmate over and convinced him that the album we’re about to record and shoot will be released entirely under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Finished tracks and stems, music videos and source files, animation sprites, live footage, album artwork, and whatever else we create.

I’ve long believed that “free” and “open” is a big part of the future of creative industries. The label system has kept creators and fans at arms length. Last year I was a rightsholder on an album which spent a week in the top 5 sellers on iTunes in Australia. I know nothing about any of the listeners who put it there. Next album release, I want to know all of those fans by name.

Normally, pricing announcements and sales press releases bore me to tears, but this is actually news – Native Instruments is selling Komplete for July only at just US$/EUR 399, instead of $1139/EUR999.

That means if you were looking for Reaktor alone – about as good a desert island music software choice as you can find – this would be a good deal. You also get Absynth, the absurdly deep (if sometimes baffling) synth with surround sound envelopes and a workflow that could change how you think about sound, the very nice effects and loop recording in Guitar Rig, and the scriptable sampler Kontakt, as well as the Battery drum sampler and lovely Massive synth.

As recession specials go, this is a tough one to beat.

http://www.native-instruments.com/komplete5.info

In other news, we’re opening up more discussion of tools like Reaktor (among many others) to the community here on noisepages; check out Peter Dines’ recent modulations blog for thoughts on Reaktor (and the free and open source SuperCollider), or his just-formed Reaktor group, on which he asks, “what problems are you solving with Reaktor?”

CNET has a terrific interview with Rio Caraeff of Universal Music Group’s eLabs. Caraeff is a new breed of record exec – the kind of people we’d actually want running the industry. He’s a software guy and a mobile guy.

UMG digital chief on iTunes, DRM, and Android [CNET Digital Media]

The record industry has clearly seen the light on DRM, so that’s not really news, except that now you can see them saying it in public (and I imagine there has been long-running internal lobbying from those in the industry who got it long ago).

The news for me really what he has to say about the mobile space – his expertise. On iPod, he says what we don’t need is more proprietary alternatives: “I don’t think having more devices and more proprietary software or hardware in the market is the right answer.”

But most encouraging to me is how bullish he is on Google’s Android platform – and the fact that the proof is already available in the numbers available now. It seems the Web world is attracted to whatever is shiny, new, and not-ready-for-primetime, so bloggers last week forgot about Android and moved on to Palm’s (not-shipping) WebOS and Palm pre. That’s all fine and good, and WebOS certainly follows some of the same trends Android does, but let’s not lose focus just yet, right?

Universal worked with Amazon on their integrated Android store, and the results sound very impressive.

…now Amazon will tell you that Android is their single largest source of downloads from any third-party partnership that they’ve ever done. It’s a tremendous amount of consumption that we’re seeing once you integrate it seamlessly into a user experience that’s elegant and easy to use. It’s not 10 clicks. It’s very elegant and easy. We’re starting to see consumption increase significantly.

It’s early days on Android. There’s not that many out there on T-Mobile, but even with the small amount out there, they’re downloading and purchasing a ton of music over the air on T-Mobile.

This to me points to some encouraging signs:

Android has an edge for developers. Note that from a development, user experience, and deployment perspective, the Android platform was a big part of this success. You couldn’t do an Amazon store on the iPhone.

Android has legs. None of that would be meaningful if it weren’t translating to sales. But this says to me that the open Android platform can be a successful outlet, without necessarily needing a middleman like Apple. And it suggests some positive things for, say, developers selling software (or musicians doing weird, 99-cent generative music games) on the platform.

Mobile sales in general could be big for music. The whole problem for the record industry isn’t all that complicated: it’s that one medium (CDs) has been shrinking in dollar figures faster than its successor (online music) has been growing. So the industry just needs new growth. It’s encouraging to see that that could mean just selling music at reasonable prices, free of DRM. That’s a huge change from the previous plan, which appeared to be slicing 30 seconds out of a track, calling it a “ringtone,” and charging more than you would for a single.

There’s plenty worth checking out in the whole story. But this does make me feel even more excited about Android and what’s possible. The Amazon store is amazing: you buy and download tracks over the air, and then bring them back to your machine. Sure, you can do that with iTunes, and finally iTunes doesn’t have DRM on its tracks. But Amazon was able to come onto the device as a third party (working with HTC, Google, and TMobile). With Apple, the only way to get tracks back on your computer is to go through their iTunes conduit. With Amazon, you can do whatever you like. And the underlying stacks that enable the app are all open source, from the APIs to the developer tools. That’s a pretty marked difference.

Having a different mechanism for selling music could also mean that the UMG of tomorrow is very different from the UMG of yesterday. It’s certainly encouraging to think there are people at the company who see technology in the way a lot of the rest of us do. But this could also mean new opportunities for independent artists and smaller labels – and greater opportunities for everyone making music.

We’ll be looking more at the Android platform in 2009, and other trends in mobile. Now I just need to get myself a G1.

Black Friday? Cyber Monday? Who need them? The entire month of December seems to be on sale when it comes to music tech.

Christmas (and Hanukkah, for that matter) are nearly here. Whether it’s economic pressure or just some aggressive holiday pricing, there are some big deals out there that could make excellent gifts – or might just give you a nice list for shopping for yourself before or after the holidays. (Yes, it’s true: most of what readers suggested in our “gift guide” for the CDM Winter 08 special wasn’t really all that practical. But it does make a nice list of things you love.)

Here’s some of what’s on our radar screen:

Big Ticket Items Get a Break

$999 Tenori-On. In the US, at least, the Yamaha Tenori-On – the Lite Brite-style instrument tablet from innovator Toshio Iwai – gets a $200 discount. Based on reader feedback, that hardly moves it into impulse buy territory, but if you’ve been on the fence, your timing is right. Yamaha has also rolled out some very practical accessories (like a case and “survival kit” with stand), so if you know someone who owns one of these, accessories could make a nice last-minute gift.

And for the rest of us, there’s the US$20 t-shirt. You could mod that with LEDs and sensors and just let people play your chest. See the US store (curious to hear reports from The Rest of the World):

Tenori-On Store US

Moog bundles, Little Phatty break: The Moog Little Phatty is now available in Stage II Edition. (mmm, black!) It seems to have a slight street price break, down below US$1300 from a $1395 list. And to further sweeten the deal, the Moogs are presently bundled with a CP-251 control processor for feeding some analog control into your new synth. (See the video above. Really, an excuse to post this video is worth it.) In very much not a Recession Special, Moog also re-introduced the Taurus Bass Pedals.

Or, more fitting my budget at the moment, you can just get DVDs, books, and tasty apparel. Or perhaps a tattoo gift certificate; I hear the Moog fans love those.

Komplete, More Komplete – Komplete + Kore: For a limited time, AudioMIDI have bundled Kore 2 – Native Instruments’ software and controller – with the Komplete pack (basically everything NI makes on the producer/instrument side). US$895 for the total, which is what you’d normally pay for Komplete alone. You don’t need much justification here as Kore 2 doesn’t add any cost, but to me, having the physical controller and the ability to easily navigate all the NI sounds makes Komplete more manageable. (And we’re big fans of using Reaktor inside Kore, because you can easily assign controls to all your custom Reaktor creations.)

I just stumbled across AudioMIDI’s deal; we’ve heard other folks find bundles like this in stores. So it could be worth shopping around in your neck of the woods.

Cakewalk Holiday Bundles: Cakewalk is bundling extras with their software, including video tutorials and a download of pyro Audio Creator, an audio recording, editing, CD burning utility (which can itself make a nice software stocking stuffer for your Windows-using friends at $40). You can get a pretty full-blown version of their SONAR DAW for about US$299 (even though that looks more like the upgrade pricing of Pro Tools), and I see they also offer the E-MU Proteus Pack for lovers of the old E-MU racks.

Bundle pricing is different in different parts of the world, so if you’re interested in this offer, best to check your local store:

http://store.cakewalk.com/

Applied Acoustics Modeling Collection: AAS is having a sale on their lovely psychically-modeled products, so Tassman (modular environment) + Lounge Lizard (the electric piano) + Ultra Analog + String Studio (the terrific modeled string instrument) + Strum Acoustic = US$349. Check out the Modeling Collection in their store. Ableton users got treated to a couple of these instruments in Ableton-styled remakes, but if you haven’t bought those yet or don’t exclusively use Ableton or want the whole suite, this is worth a look.

Native Instruments sale: Native is offering upgrades 50% off, software bundles (including a free synth with their Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface), and other holiday deals through 12/31.

Bargain Buys

Steinway? Never heard of ‘em. The Steinway piano, photo (CC) madabandon.

Gary Garritan has a bunch of his sampled instruments on sale for US$99.99: Personal Orchestra, Jazz Big Band, and Marching Band. The sale ends 12/21, so you’ll want to get on this quick. The nice thing about these instrument packs is that they’re fairly well-focused and lightweight, so you don’t need a massive hard drive and sample-playing machine to get them running. They’re ideal, for instance, if you’re working on a score and want a quick rendition. Garritan also has the lighter “Basic Edition” of the Steinway-authorized Virtual Concert Grand. It’s 1.3GB uncompressed, so you can download it, making a perfect last-minute gift for someone (or yourself). I’ve just grabbed it myself and hope to have a review for you next week. You don’t get all the multisamples, it’s 16-bit only, and you only get the classic audience view, but I imagine this is how a lot of people use their sampled piano a lot of the time anyway. It only officially comes out Wednesday, but that gives you time for a Christmas Eve install.

Garritan Order Page [includes Christmas special]

Steinway Comparison Chart

As always, the Garritan community has done a free Christmas album:

http://garritan.com/Xmas.html

And perhaps there’s a deal on a real Steinway somewhere, too, though that doesn’t quite fit into our budget category.

Costco Meg-bundle with Snowball Mic: Costco (the US-based discount club) is generally not a place to go buy music tech gear. But they have a pretty terrific deal running right now, if you can find it. Blue Microphones’ Snowball USB mic, a convention basic dual-capsule condenser with 16-bit digital converter, is bundled with some other extras. You get Koss UR40 headphones, and Mackie’s underrated music editing workstation Tracktion 3. Given that the mic and Tracktion usually sell for $100 or more on their own, US$99 for the three is quite nice.

Snowball Mic Bundle

It’s hard to beat this as a $100 gift for newcomers you know. The Snowball isn’t the best condenser mic around by any stretch, and lacks fully-adjustable gain, but it’s a nice little mic to toss in a backpack and plug in via USB.

[Update] Fantastic Image-Line sale: Whoops, meant to mention this and didn’t in the first draft of the story! Image-Line’s software always makes a fantastic discount buy (which is why it topped our software list in the CDM Holiday Guide). But it’s an even better deal now, thanks to discounts and a free time-manipulation effect. Adrian Anders writes in comments:

Maximus & Morphine – $99 each

Every order of $99 or more comes with their new upgrade to WaveTraveler, one of those plugs in FLStudio that made Mac-heads question their loyalty. It hasn’t been announced but there’s a good chance an OS X version is in the works

More deals to follow.

Image-Line Sale

Peak Pro 6 Sale

The Mac-only audio editor has gotten some major upgrades to its playlist, RAM-based editing, new DSP goodies, dither modeling, another UI upgrade, and additional delivery and dynamics processing. Correction: only the upgrade pricing gets you as low as US$99. But there is a DDP export extension and free mastering plug-in with Peak Pro 6, an upgrade sale, plus other discounts:

Peak Pro 6 sale

Of course, that still leaves the “everyday low price” of Wave Editor from Audiofile Engineering at US$79, which has earned big fans like CDM contributor and game sound designer W. Brent Latta. Wave Editor has added some delivery options of its own, meaning you could easily choose either one. That makes two terrific choices on the Mac, which had traditionally been a bit behind on straight-up audio editors when compared to Windows’ Sound Forge and Audition.

Cash Back on Live

Ableton has a Holiday Special with up to $150 cash back on Live 7, Live LE, and Ableton Suite. There are some other promotions on, so well worth checking.

No promotional fees were collected in the making of this article. I do accept candy canes from readers if you happen to run into me. 

Deals by You

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here. Seen any great deals / discounts yourself? Picked up anything you want to share?

If you haven’t yet, do check out all we stuck in our Holiday Guide:

On Demand: CDM Winter 2008, with Gift Guide, Bending and Slicing Tutorials, More