Umphrey’s McGee update
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
Their management just emailed me back (quick response!) saying that I can use a track from the album “Mantis” (which was just released last week) as well as their album artwork and live photography! These guys are one of my favorite bands and I’m excited to have them on board. Take a minute to listen to some of their songs (which you’ll be able to remix in April!) here: Umphrey’s McGee Official Website.
New music + legal issues
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve contacted the band Umphrey’s McGee about using a song from their new album “Mantis” in the project, which hopefully they’ll be excited to be apart of, especially since they could drive a LOT of traffic to my project once the site launches. I’m working on contacting many other bands (from garage bands to nation-wide touring bands) and hopefully will have a variety of music to accommodate everyone’s music interests.
In other news, a few features that I had always thought of in the back of my mind when first conciving the project as well as features that people had suggested/requested are being looked into. As of now, a lot of people want to be able to save and share their remixes, which is fine, although legally for a lot of the songs I plan on using, the bands may not grant permission for people to actually save their creations to their hard drives. What if someone takes their remixes, burns them to a CD, and sells them for a profit? It’s something I’m looking into, and I think the only way to have it fully work that way is if it was all music that I created on my own and waived all my rights to allow people to do this. The problem with that is not everyone may be into the style of music I write 
Another legal issue arises from a suggestion where people can add their own track from their hard drive to use in their remix (such as themselves playing drums or guitar). First of all, I’m not sure how many people would really take the time to do that and how useful it would really be. Secondly, if someone uploads a Britney Spears vocal track to mix with one of these songs, no one has the rights to use that track and there isn’t an efficient way to monitor the use of copyrighted material. What I am considering however, is the use of an external microphone for people who want to sing over their remix. They could either mute the original vocal track or keep it on and sing along with it. It seems pretty easy to program and I think it would be a good solution to offer people adding their own original music to the mixes.
Start of Spring semester
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
Just wanted to post an update highlighting the current updates to my project from winter break. I recieved a lot of valuable feedback from the final presentation at the end of last semester and have had some time to process it all and think about what changes and improvements can be made to the project.
I’ve started thinking about having this as a downloadable program, rather than specifically an online only application. The reasoning behind this is that with all of the tracks that are going to be available to remix, we’re looking at very long load times. I would still keep the interactmix.com website, but structure it as an instruction page, gallery of people’s creations, and as a place to download the application. I’ve also looked into creating a bit torrent file for the final release as a way to save on bandwith as well as open it up to an audience that might be browsing bit torrent search engines looking for music remixing software.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about the gallery space that I’d like to have the project setup as, and am hoping to visit many more galleries in the coming months to refine the look and feel. As of now, I’m planning on having around 4 laptops setup either on tables or small podiums, and most likely no chairs so that they can casually come up to the space and start remixing right away. These computers would all have headphones so that they can immerse themselves in their music without making too much noise to disrupt the other gallery spaces. I am also planning on having either a projector or large screen monitor with external speakers, so that a group of people can use it and all hear the music, or else if people would like to see a demonstration first before jumping behind the controls for themselves.