Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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Just read a good article on blogging, especially useful for Mac users. [Article written by Scot Hacker.] This is hysterical. I caught them on MTV late at night. Looks like death metal is still around. Anyway, I found myself captivated by this band. I was enjoying them, for some sinister reason. So I guess, uh, look for their new CD, if you're into that kind of stuff. They say their the real deal. Did anyone make it to the Squarepusher gig in Los Angeles? I see that Arianna made the gig in San Francisco, and she said it was too much noise and not enough rhythm. Well, that's Squarepusher for you. Me, I love the stuff, most of the time.
I didn't make the show, so if you went, let me know how it go'ed. I caught a part of Squarepusher's act at Coachella a few years back, and since then I've been hooked, in a way. I'll admit, it's not something I always want to listen to. Now what kind of thing is that to say? I mean, I don't think there's anything you want to listen to all the time. Still, Squarepusher can make you want to move your booty, if you're in the right spirit. The man's got talent, I'll give him that. You know about syndication, right? Syndication is a way to spread the word about your blog posts so that the whole world can read your blog. In the blogging world, syndication is done with something called RSS. RSS is a form of XML. Confused yet?
So today I fixed my RSS feed. [.xml; intended to be viewed with a newsreader] If you're not sure what RSS is and why you need it, read up on the topic and then come back here to add Transmitting To Earth to your list of news feeds. Look for the small orange  image on this webpage for a link to my RSS feed.Yes, you're not mistaken--you've reached the right place. This is still the VoyagerRadio blog; it's simply got a new name and look. Rather than Making Contact, we're going to start calling this blog Transmitting To Earth. It fits more with the theme of VoyagerRadio and with the purpose of this blog. Making Contact was too obscure. I knew what it meant; some VoyagerRadio listeners probably got the joke; but for new visitors to this blog, the title was probably just plain boring. Yeah, sure, it probably made sense in the context of space exploration--as in, making contact out in space, then making contact with you, and so on--but I was standing in the shower thinking recently and I thought, why not just keep things simple and call the blog Transmitting To Earth? I mean, that's the catchphrase for VoyagerRadio, and it also makes perfect sense for a blog about Internet radio.
So, we'll try this for awhile, and in the meantime, we'll experiment with a new look. Let me know if you like the colors, and whether this blog is less painful on your eyes than the last incarnation. I agree with Chip Rosenthal's take on downloading music; I would prefer a reliable and legal downloading solution to the inconsistent performance of peer-to-peer networks. I would also add that downloading music via P2P networks takes much too long; by the time you find a decent copy of the music you're looking for you wish you had spent the time buying CDs at Half.com. Not that I don't see a use for P2P networks--they're great for finding some really rare and difficult, if not practically-impossible-to-find, music. Yet I know of people who download terabytes of MP3s to save for the future--I guess you never know when you're going to absolutely need that copy of Barry White's Greatest Hits--but I can only imagine feeling sorry for these obsessive downloaders. Many, if not most, of the files found through these systems have been poorly encoded, so they'll need to be tossed out and reobtained. But that's not the worst of it. We're already seeing the introduction of better audio files, and most audiophiles know that you can't recompress an audio file without losing some of the sound quality. So who's going to want to be stuck with millions of MP3's when future audio files will better, faster, and stronger? [.wav; provided by My Boot]
Let's hope these music downloading services get their stuff together and give the people what they want: simple, great sounding music at a fair cost. It's as simple as that; how many times do we have to tell you?!? BuyMusic.com is now open; in fact, I just saw a television commercial for the new music downloading service, which was created by the founder of online retailer Buy.com. I won't be using the service any time soon, though--the downloaded music is "not compatible with any Mac OS", so that settles that. I'll still be waiting for a viable solution for Mac OS 9; if any OS 9 users out there have a workaround, please let me know about it. A new music downloading service will be released today. Brought to us by the founder of Buy.com, BuyMusic.com will begin by offering .70 cent Windows Media downloads, the lowest price on music downloads with existing services such as MusicNow or Apple's iTunes Music Store.
The price sounds good, but come on--who wants to be stuck with Windows Media files? Give us some MP3s, or better yet, some mp3PRO files, man! At the time of this post the site has not officially been launched; it currently displays an image of a rocketship launching. Check it out later and let me know if it seems worth signing up for. I need a quick and easy way to obtain some great downtempo electronica. In my case, it'd be worthwhile to download the music from a legit source; I simply don't have the time to scour the 'net for MP3s. [Story brought to my attention by MacNN.] Thanks go out to the Madison Blog for alerting us Internet radio lovers that a certain congressman accepted funds from the RIAA to lobby in Asia for the recording industry. So what, you say? Well, congresspeople are not supposed to accept private donations to lobby abroad, so when a representative of Wisconsin collects eighteen thousand dollars to spend on a 5 day trip "fact-finding", you know something smells rotten in the cheese state--and it's not the curd. Sounds like one of my personal favorites, Nortec Collective, will be following up their 2001 CD Tijuana Sessions, Vol.1 with the aptly-named Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 2, due for release in the fall. Can't wait to hear that! So I just found out that Robert Smith (of the Cure) has recorded a few side projects, one being a song called "Yesterday's Gone", recorded with an artist named Reeves Gabrels, and apparently only available as an MP3. Another project Mr. Smith was involved in was Cogasm, a collaboration with Jason Cooper and Mr. Gabrels. You may not realize that VoyagerRadio isn't simply one playlist that I completely change every six months or so. Rather, the playlist is an ongoing permutation; songs that have been in the playlist the longest are usually exchanged for newer additions. This is due, in part, to limited server space, but also in the interest of keeping the playlist fresh. So the VoyagerRadio playlist is continually changing--is a dynamic, rather than a static, webcast--and although I may be limited by my lack of resources and the constraints of time, I do my best to keep VoyagerRadio full of the best chillout and downtempo electronica.
Most of the playlist is composed of current releases, while some of it is less current, but all are intended to represent the very best of the genre. Once in awhile I experiment by introducing tracks which may seem seem anathema to the genre but seem right for the webcast. Sometimes these experiments work out, sometimes they don't, but I'm trying to keep the webcast fun and interesting and pleasurable for your ears. I will always listen to your feedback, so if you don't like what you're hearing please let me know and I'll toss the stinker out. Here's a list of some of the music currently playing on VoyagerRadio: Amon Tobin, Royksopp, Thievery Corporation, The Orb, Squarepusher, Tosca, Yonderboi, Fussible, Boards of Canada, Waldeck, Fila Brazilia, Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band, Moby, Nortec Collective, Chicane, Chemical Brothers, Air, Aphex Twin, T Spigot, Craig Armstrong, Afro Celt Sound System, Morris Capri, Marius Melleybe, Kruder & Dorfmeister, King Kooba, Clorofila, Bostich, Arling & Cameron, Visit Venus, The Verve, Slowdive, ORG Lounge, Phobos, Nightmares On Wax, Ursula 1000, Strange Cargo, Moodswings, Paul Van Dyk, Sasha, Orbital, Radiohead, Nicola Conte, Landslide, Kush, Ministry of Sound, Kinobe, Galactic Anthems, King Kitch, Garry Judd, France & Dom, Extended Spirit, EPD, Desmond, Astrud Gilberto, Colossus, Avatars of Dub, Massive Attack, New Order, 808 State, Dave Gahan (of Depeche Mode), Underworld, & more! This is only a partial list of the artists played on VoyagerRadio and will change as the webcast continues to evolve. Please send me your suggestions for more music you'd like to hear on VoyagerRadio, or send me the music itself! You'd help me out immensely by saving me some of the time it takes to acquire music. You can email me your MP3's in the following format, in the best quality possible: 32kbps/mono/22.050khz/. Try not to use Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding--for some reason it screws up the quality of the music. I've always wondered whether Trent Reznor sampled from the Disney movie Tron on Nine Inch Nails' debut album, Pretty Hate Machine. A recent conversation in Death In Vegas' bulletin boards has led me to do the following.
I've created some MP3 files of the parts I think are sampled from Tron. Can you tell me if these sounds are from Tron? - The synth tone in "That's What I Get"[.mp3]. (The song begins with the tone--it sounds like Trent took the tone, which is normally one long, steady tone, and broke it up into short bursts.) - The tone is brought up again (in a different key) near the end of "Ringfinger"[.mp3], but in a different key. - A similar tone is heard in "Kinda I Want To"[.mp3] whenever you hear the lyrics, "know it's not right thing/And I know it's not the good thing". So there it is. Maybe you could help me out; I've been trying to find out for years. Not that it's an obsession or anything. The latest additions to VoyagerRadio are tracks from The Numb Project's Soundbridge Sessions and Waldeck's The Night Garden. Soundbridge Sessions is Chris Calarco's double CD of downtempo and ambient sounds, samples, and music. The Night Garden was an album I spotted at a Goodwill store this past weekend; I had just placed a Waldeck track in my playlist a few days ago, so I recognized the artist's name as I was rifling through one of the thrift store's CD bins. Now, three dollars later, you get to hear it. Another word about the new Death In Vegas song, "Hands Around My Throat". This song almost sounds like a new wave song from the 80's; I can picture Romeo Void performing this song. Anyway, I'm still loving it, and hoping I won't get tired of it soon.
Here, listen to the song yourself. [Requires Windows Media Player] More songs are also available at the band's website. [Website located through blujoe] I just found a use for Backup, the .mac tool for saving your files online. I want to place my resume there so that I can work on it from another computer. I have alot of difficulty finding the inspiration to update my resume; I just can't find much pleasure in performing the task. Sure, I try to get pumped up by feeding myself affirmations--This is your career you're working on! and Every minute you put into your resume is an investment in the direction of personal satisfaction!--still, I can't seem to get myself motivated.
Perhaps if I work on it from another computer I'll be able to make the task less painful; at home there is a world of distractions. There's also no air conditioning at home, so the summer heat quickly adds to the misery of performing the update to what I will now call my 3P: Personal Promotional Paper. I figure that if I'm in a library somewhere (or, if I had a laptop, at a coffee shop somewhere), in a finely air conditioned room with distractions reduced to a minimum, I'll be more apt to get the job done. By storing my resume online I'd be able to access my resume whenever the inspiration struck. Justin Blanton describes how Backup simplifies the process of storing your files online, and even makes it easier to burn those files to a CD-ROM. Perhaps I'd store one copy in Word format, another in text, and another in HTML, to increase the chances of being able to open the document and work on it. Besides, I get more of a kick out of working with HTML; today, I saved my resume as an HTML file and spent the day cleaning up the code to make it pass the W3C's validator. I was having so much fun I even began changing some of the content of the resume itself. Hey, whatever it takes to get the job done. So I'll store my resume in Backup and I'll finally have a constantly updated, gorgeously crafted and finely worded piece of self-promotioning, right? Trouble is, the Backup utility requires Mac OS X--Jaguar, in fact--and I'm still using OS 9. So it looks like I'm going to have to find another place to store the document that is supposed to change my life. Why can't they make resumes easier, and a more accurate representation of your talents? For example, why can't this blog be my resume? Or how about the totality of all my blogs and my website? Now that would be a more accurate representation of why I can do, especially if the job is Internet-oriented. In the meantime, I suppose I can place a copy of my resume online for all the world to read. Please keep it mind that it's a work in progress. Now if only I can figure out how to use Blogger to update it. Hmmm... A new feedback system has been added to this blog; you'll notice a new Comments link below my posts, preceded by the number of current comments. By posting your comments you'll be able to communicate with me and other readers of this blog as often as you'd like. No more email, no more opening up your Instant Messaging program to see if I'm there--simply click the Comments link and a form will pop up which will allow you to post a message regarding my posts.
I've been wanting to add a comments system for some time now and I finally decided to go for it after rereading "We Blog: Publishing Online With Weblogs". I visited the book's companion site ( Blogroots.com) and found a link to backBlog, listed as "a new feedback system for blogs". So I'll try it out, and we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to reading your comments! Yesterday I received music from The Numb Project; I've been listening to the artist's Soundbridge Sessions double CD since last night and I'll be inserting some of the music in my webcast soon. I'll let you know when I do; in the meantime, you can taste some samples of the The Numb Project via the artist's MP3.com file collection. I've been really falling behind on updating the rank and listener statistics page of my VoyagerRadio website. My life has become incredibly difficult this past month-and-a-half, and time constraints have caused some aspects of VoyagerRadio to suffer. That's why I've been blogging more and more often here; it's much easier and more timesaving to blog. So stick around and stay tuned, the show will go on, and as always, the music will be first at VoyagerRadio--just as the commentary is here! I've been trying to tune in to the Stream Guys' wireless audio stream but I'm really not sure what to do. The Radiostorm website directs cell phone users to "just go to 1mr.com/rs.wml with your phone", but doing so merely displays the name of the website on the cell phone I'm borrowing, a Sony Ericsson T306. So what am I supposed to do next (in order to listen to the stream)? Do I need one of those cell phone/PDA hybrids? Do I need a phone that has Windows Media Player, RealAudio or Quicktime functionality?
As far as I know, the Streamguys are the first to deliver wireless audio streaming to cell phones. This whole wireless streaming business is getting exciting, with announcements from the likes of Sprint, in collaboration with Sony and Warner, regarding their upcoming wireless streaming-music subscription service, and from lesser-known companies like Intersil and ViXS regarding working together to deliver wireless streaming video. Apparently a company called helloNetwork is behind much of this technology, having showcased wireless streaming media at the 2003 JavaOneSM exhibition and conference in June. I was just checking the integrity of some of the links on this site and discovered that a recent link to SoundJam in a previous post now redirects all visitors to a farewell message from Casady & Greene, makers of several popular Macintosh software programs. I agree with Dave Kopper--an era is ending. C&G brought us wonderful apps over the years, including the wonderful utility Conflict Catcher and the aforementioned Macintosh MP3 audio player/webcaster SoundJam MP. SoundJam has become an indispensable tool in my own arsenal of audio apps, and even 2 or 3 years after Apple Computer acquired SoundJam's development team and re-introduced the product as iTunes, I find myself still using the program to encode and record all of my MP3s and wondering why Apple didn't include SoundJam's ability to webcast.
C&G always seemed like a fine little company with a few outstanding products and some unique sales tactics, one of which was their email newsletter, which always included an interesting and sometimes provocative and lengthy (for an email newsletter) essay from their CEO, Dr. Charles R. Fulweiler (a sample of which can be found archived at Vendor's Voice). Many Casady & Greene customers enjoyed Dr. Fulweiler's observations, which, whether agreed with or not, certainly made the company stand out from other software vendors out there, engaging us--or, at the very least, entertaining us--while we looked for new toys to play with on our Macs. A quick search on the Internet finds that many folks are feeling the sting of C&G's demise. Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
Send Us Your Music
Artists! Want to be heard on this station? Email your MP3 audio, one file at a time, to our Program Director or mail your CD promo(s) to the following address:
Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Make certain to let use know whether we may use the audio in our podcast, too!
Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
