J. Robbins
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J. Robbins is a musican, songwriter, producer and engineer having worked on some of my favorite albums including Jets to Brazil's "Orange Rhyming Dictionary" and Jawbox's "For Your Own Special Sweetheart" (the latter of which he was the founding member). He has also worked with and/or played in Government Issue, Jawbreaker, Shiner, Against Me!, The Promise Ring, The Dismemberment Plan, Burning Airlines, and Texas Is The Reason, just to name a few. Presently, J. is fronting the new band Channels and playing bass in Report Suspicious Activity with former Articles of Faith front man Vic Bondi. If you want to hear the recorded sound of a real band, playing real instruments in a real space, check out one of the albums he's worked on. Considering how busy he his, I am grateful to him for taking the time to do this interview.
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Recent Playlist
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1. Mason Jennings s/t
2. Frank Zappa "Freak Out!"
3. The White Stripes "Icky Thump"
4. The Coup "Steal This Double Album"
5. Elliott Smith "New Moon"
6. Frank Black "Best Of - 93-03"
7. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club "Baby 81"
8. David Axelrod "The Edge"
9. Brainiac "Hissing Prigs in Static Couture"
10. The Bad Plus "These Are The Vistas"
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 Hi.
We're experiencing growing pains as the e-zine and mastering business continue to expand. Please bear with us as this publishing date becomes rather porus. We're also contemplating a move into webcasting in the next few months (which explains my fevered reaction to the online rate changes).
I'm always looking for new and interesting engineers, producers and artists to interview via email... If you happen to be one, or know somebody who is, please drop me a line and we'll talk details.
I'd like to announce the addition of producer/engineer/mixer and all around talented guy Justin Bates to the SBD team... He's helping out quite a bit around here and I anticipate great things from him in the future.
Music News: So D-Day has come and gone for small webcasters (July 15th)... looks like there's another stay of execution while SoundExchange (the group responsible for collecting music broadcasting royalties) and small webcasters negotiate the details of a proposed settlement. In the mean time, the Internet Equality Act (a bill in Congress allowing small webcasters to pay the same royalty rates as satellite radio) is the last, best hope. To belabor the point, if you care at all about the ability of small webcasters to continue exposing new artists, please keep up the pressure on your legislators.
More Bad Press: Clear Channel asks indie artists to waive royalties in exchange for air play. Ha ha. I only wish this was a joke. You can read more here. If it wasn't for their radio and live venue monopoly, Clear Channel's bad press would kill them. We can only dream.
Very interesting: Always pushing the boundaries, Prince gave away his new 10-track CD "Planet Earth" for free in a Sunday edition of the UK tabloid "Mail" weeks before the album's official launch. The newspaper's circulation is thought to be around 2.3 million copies, give or take a a few hundred thousand. This pissed off just about every music retailer in the country, citing concerns over recorded music's perceived plummeting value (or their bottom line). Why would Prince do such a thing? 1) He was paid, and 2) Soundscan, baby. 2.3 million copies puts him in the UK charts and also happens to precede 21 concerts he's scheduled to play in London this autumn.
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Signed, unsigned, and other lame distinctions
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 The other day I caught myself using the word "unsigned" to describe a band and instantly realized I sounded like a tool. It's also something I've noticed floating around in a few trade zines and music rags... sections on "Recent Signings" or whatever, a residual of the glorious past. I think it's a silly distinction and a dead notion.
When there's only 3 major labels and they each "sign" 3-5 new artists a year... is it even necessary to say that the other 99.9% of artists out there making records are "unsigned?" And what does that really mean anyway? I have more respect for a band who has self-released their songs and shares the responsibility for their success or failure with no one but themselves. Perhaps magazines should retitle those "Signed" sections "Recent Reamings" and start focusing on the unsigned success stories instead. Afterall, they've got to outnumber the 15 new artists getting their asses handed to them each year. No?
Imagine if the 2nd or 3rd runner up to one of those horrible "Who wants to be a Supercheesy, Ultra-Schmaltzy, American Rock Goober?" shows actually went on to finance and distribute their own album and sold a guaranteed 80,000 albums at $12 a pop to all of their Myspace fans. Sanjaya! (interchangeable with the word Eureka!) That's a much better deal than any signing bonus I've ever heard of, excluding if your name's 50 Cent or Beyonce. Trust me. And the majors are laughing all the way to the bank.
The term "indie" is probably equally ridiculous for the same reasons, but at least to me the root word "independent" still signifies a spirit of self-reliance and pride. Perhaps I'm just kidding myself and that's what I need to believe to get out of bed every day... ha ha. Ok, Elvis has left the soap box. -h
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What's the difference between various audio file types?
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 I will try to keep this short without getting into the virtues of various compression codecs, bit rates and the preferred means to encode them. There are two types of PCM (Pulse-code modulation) audio file formats: compressed and uncompressed. Uncompressed is represented by .WAV, .AIFF, & .SD2 file extensions and are typically 16 bit, 44.1 khz or higher. Compressed file formats consist of .WMA, .MP3, AAC, etc and are reduced in size by permanently removing frequencies, other wise know as Lossy. There are also Lossless compressed file formats which are beyond the scope of this article.
.CDA is a shortcut file created by Windows for indexing and storing each track on an audio CD. It's often confused as an audio track because it will play when selected as long as the host computer contains the actual audio file. The file itself does not contain audio and must first be exported or copied as a WAV or AIFF in order to be played or transfered on anything other than the original computer/disc.
.WMA is Microsoft's proprietary compressed audio file format. It was intended as a competitor to the MP3 and is now the 2nd most widely supported format for compressed audio (Players incl: Windows Media, MPlayer, Winamp, RealPlayer).
.MP3 is the most popular compressed audio file format and employs a ratio between 10:1 and 12:1 (files reduced in size by a factor of 10 or 12 respectively). MP3 really needs no introduction unless you've been living under a rock for the last 12 years (It debuted in 1995).
.M4A or .AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is Apple's proprietary compressed audio file format, considered to be the successor to MP3. Depending on the encoder used, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at the same bitrate, particularly below 192 kbps. It is not widely compatible.
.WAV (Waveform audio format) is Microsoft's uncompressed, audio file format. It is considered to be the most universally compatible uncompressed file format.
.AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is an uncompressed file format co-developed by Apple. It is also universally compatible between Mac/PC platforms and software.
.AIFC is a variant of AIFF with the added option of file compression (ratio as high as 6:1).
.SD2 (Sound Designer 2) is an uncompressed file format originally developed by Digidesign for their Macintosh based recording/editing software called Sound Designer (now known as Pro-Tools). Support for SD2 is gradually being phased out by both Apple and Digidesign so it's not a bad idea to go back and resave all of your SD2 files and sessions as WAV or AIFF.
Suffice to say, tracking, mixing and mastering should only be executed using uncompressed audio file formats. Please keep in mind that converting a lossy, compressed file format into a WAV or AIFF will not restore the lost frequencies or improve fidelity.
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