Into The Mist by Fiona Joy - Stereo SACD Edition

[fredblue]

Well I'd hope any label looking to crowdfund wouldn't have such a flimsy business plan and would do their homework before they try to crowdfund, Ralph.. surely AF et al would have worked out which artists and albums were available or not in advance? Anyway, aplogies to Cookie Marenco & Brian Moura, not intended to derail this thread, etc., just it raises an interesting wider topic imho that could be beneficial to all lovers of Surround & Hi-Res music.. back to the Blue Coast Fiona Joy title in hand! :upthumb

 

[cookiemarenco]

Welcome to the forum, Cookie. Nice to have you stop by.

Thank you, Jon! I would like to "thank" and "like" a few posts on the forum. Can you direct me where I can learn to do that?

Cookie
Blue Coast Records

 

[JonUrban]

Thank you, Jon! I would like to "thank" and "like" a few posts on the forum. Can you direct me where I can learn to do that?

Cookie
Blue Coast Records

You should see a rectangular box under each post that says something like "Post Thanks / Like - 0 Thanks, 0 Likes"

In that box you can click on THANKS FOR THIS POST or LIKE THIS POST

If you don't see that they something is amiss. (I am assuming that everyone else sees this box, right?)

PS - You won't see the box under your own posts.

 

[cookiemarenco]

You should see a rectangular box under each post that says something like "Post Thanks / Like - 0 Thanks, 0 Likes"

In that box you can click on THANKS FOR THIS POST or LIKE THIS POST

If you don't see that they something is amiss. (I am assuming that everyone else sees this box, right?)

PS - You won't see the box under your own posts.

Wonderful! Thank you! For some reason the boxes didn't show, but I logged back in and they are there now! Much appreciated.
There have been a lot of great comments on this thread concerning production, costs, and the reality of the business. I hope to address them at a later time.

Great job, Jon, thank you for your work.
Cookie
Blue Coast Records

 

[cookiemarenco]

Well I'd hope any label looking to crowdfund wouldn't have such a flimsy business plan and would do their homework before they try to crowdfund, Ralph.. surely AF et al would have worked out which artists and albums were available or not in advance? Anyway, aplogies to Cookie Marenco & Brian Moura, not intended to derail this thread, etc., just it raises an interesting wider topic imho that could be beneficial to all lovers of Surround & Hi-Res music.. back to the Blue Coast Fiona Joy title in hand! :upthumb

Fredblue... thank you for raising good questions. The business model for the music industry is changing and no one is quite sure what will happen to recorded music in the next 5 years.

I'm not sure why 'crowdfunding' has recieved a negative ring..

Many may have watched PBS and a Ken Burns documentary. PBS is the gold standard for raising money for creative projects in both film and music that might not otherwise get attention. Those Ken Burns documentaries are not short of money and make use of sophisticated fund raising techniques. Their are a few record companies that are "not for profit" and grant obscure composers the ability to release new music. Most on this forum have never heard of these artists. I'll spare their names before they suffer ridicule for being unknown and different.

Then there are the large organizations (like the San Francisco Symphony) who are supported by charity (donations) and able to pay their maestro more than $1.6 million a year in salary. Music sales don't generate 10% of his salary. Their money is made from concerts, corporate sponsorships, wealthy donors and grants. With each recording costing $350,000, I highly doubt any release recoups costs.

So, where does that leave a record label that doesn't rely on concerts and subscriptions to pay the administration, recording costs, manufacturing and marketing? A dismal picture unless you cut costs with home recording and suppliment with a Taylor Swift project every now and then... "How do you make a million dollars in the music business -- start with two million" is sad and true.

Advertising, sponsorship, donors, gifts are part of the future for recorded music. Whether on Kickstarter, an email newsletter or other means, selling space on an album to a corportate sponsor or a patron of the arts is here to stay.

The conversation of patronage is a good one to have. Thank you, Fredblue and others on this forums for opening up the discussion.

Enjoy your music!
Cookie Marenco
Blue Coast Records

 

[cookiemarenco]

Hi Cookie,

any my chance there will be more Fiona Joy SACDs in multichannel?

For those QQers wanting 5.1 this one is still available in MCH:
http://littlehartleymusic.com.au/shop/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&products_id=299

Thank you, HomerJAU. Good question. Fiona has been following this thread (she was the one that first mentioned it to me) so maybe she can answer for herself.

Little Hartley is Fiona's own label where she has nearly a dozen albums available in various formats. Will Ackerman generally produces them with an impressive list of side musicians. Some might remember Will because he was the founder of Windham Hill Records. Fiona is adventurous and has experimented with releasing vinyl and 5.1 on some of the albums.

She funds those albums and markets them very effectively in her community/circle of fans. Her own fanbase is more mainstream preferring CD and mp3 downloads/streams. I was introduced to Fiona by Gus Skinas (pioneer and champion of DSD/SACD) for distributing her music to the audiophile community through our Downloads NOW! (which also distributes Blue Coast Records).

Fiona lives in Australia and when she came to visit me in the studio one day, she sat at my 1885 7' Steinway and began to play. I immediately asked her to stop until I could get my microphones set up to record. She was fantastic and I wondered why she had never created a solo piano album. The response for these few songs was fantastic and we made arrangements for Blue Coast Records to release a solo piano recording... which eventually became Signature-Solo.

Signature-Solo went on to top the New Age charts as #1 in radio in 2015... the first time since 2004 when George Winston's solo piano album came out. It was #2 for the year in radio play for the year and Fiona went on to capture the award for Best Solo Piano Album for which we are quite proud. It also became the number one selling album at Downloads NOW! and Blue Coast Records.

Fiona continues to work with Will Ackerman on her more instrumental albums. Will and I have a very different approach to producing which brings out different elements of her performing. But truthfully, creating 5.1 surround is very expensive to execute well. The cost is exponential. A $25,000 album (which is about what I spend on a well made stereo recording for Blue Coast Records) will cost about $150,000 to create 5.1. A larger album (as Fiona creates for Little Hartley) could easily cost $60,000 and upwards of a $300,000 album for surround. It also requires 6 times longer to complete the project meaning that launching the album to fans takes longer. The reality is we may never recoup our costs. For an independent label, it could mean disaster.

You might be wondering why it costs so much to record and mix in surround. The answer is it doesn't have to. There are plenty of gadgets and software applications create that will instantly create a fake surround using tricks with phase and frequency -- I know because I beta tested a number of them. To do it right and in the highest quality possible is very expense and requires going to a studio that is very expensive and setup for surround.... and not the kind of control room in someone's closet who is mixing crowdsounds for the NFL. If I can't mix surround right, I don't want to mix it at all. I believe Fiona feels the same way.

Blue Coast Records was founded to be a surround label. I create Extended Sound Environment (E.S.E.) for the purpose of recording in 5.1. The reality is the demand for surround doesn't warrant the expense and so we abandoned 5.1 to better establish the label.

This is not to say mixing in surround may never happen. I haven't lost our masters (like most of the majors) or my interest. I have considered setting up a control room specifically for mixing in surround. Maybe I'll do crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to build out the surround control room. I estimate it will cost about $200,000. I can have a donate button setup.. let's see.. 40 people @ $5000 ought to do it. I'll let each donor into a session and include their name in the first album release under the 'thank you' section.

Hmmm.. yes, I just thought of this, but maybe it's not a bad idea. One of you out there may have the means to support the whole project (and not ever require getting their money back). Write to me directly... [email protected] if that person is you! You could be an executive producer for life!

Thanks, all!
Cookie Marenco
Blue Coast Records

 

[fredblue]

Fredblue... thank you for raising good questions. The business model for the music industry is changing and no one is quite sure what will happen to recorded music in the next 5 years.

I'm not sure why 'crowdfunding' has recieved a negative ring..

Many may have watched PBS and a Ken Burns documentary. PBS is the gold standard for raising money for creative projects in both film and music that might not otherwise get attention. Those Ken Burns documentaries are not short of money and make use of sophisticated fund raising techniques. Their are a few record companies that are "not for profit" and grant obscure composers the ability to release new music. Most on this forum have never heard of these artists. I'll spare their names before they suffer ridicule for being unknown and different.

Then there are the large organizations (like the San Francisco Symphony) who are supported by charity (donations) and able to pay their maestro more than $1.6 million a year in salary. Music sales don't generate 10% of his salary. Their money is made from concerts, corporate sponsorships, wealthy donors and grants. With each recording costing $350,000, I highly doubt any release recoups costs.

So, where does that leave a record label that doesn't rely on concerts and subscriptions to pay the administration, recording costs, manufacturing and marketing? A dismal picture unless you cut costs with home recording and suppliment with a Taylor Swift project every now and then... "How do you make a million dollars in the music business -- start with two million" is sad and true.

Advertising, sponsorship, donors, gifts are part of the future for recorded music. Whether on Kickstarter, an email newsletter or other means, selling space on an album to a corportate sponsor or a patron of the arts is here to stay.

The conversation of patronage is a good one to have. Thank you, Fredblue and others on this forums for opening up the discussion.

Enjoy your music!
Cookie Marenco
Blue Coast Records

Hi Cookie!

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to go into such detail on this subject, I greatly appreciate all your knowledge and insight, to me it's invaluable.

It is so crucial, I feel, that more labels take a leaf out of your book, in order to make as much Surround/Quad and Hi-Res music available as possible, that the labels get creative and consider all the options at their disposal, including Crowdfunding.

Whatever it takes (short of any criminal acts of course! well, I could get a bunch of stockings in and we could all rob a bank! ) but seriously if it gets more Surround & Hi-Res music into more people's hands (and ears!) that has got to be a good thing hasn't it..!?

It's so interesting to see you touching on things like charities and donations because over the last couple of years I've ruminated on a collective of QQ members maybe trying several things;
1.) Establishing a label of its own (with a remit of licensing Quads from other labels, reissuing notable out of print 5.1's and previously unreleased titles.. and releasing and representing artists who have the desire but are unable to get their music released in Hi-Res Surround),
2.) Setting up a body with charitable status (tax breaks among other benefits) for the preservation of Quad and furtherment of Surround & Hi-Res for future generations, so that 5.1/Quad & Hi-Res do not become some relic that dies off with all of us (this could be tied into the Surround/Quad reissue label idea?),
3.) Forging closer ties with labels, especially the speciality and boutique labels (such as your own Blue Coast Records) who plough everything they've got into just the kinds of releases we at QQ crave and buy in respectable numbers (but it appears just buying these titles to 'support the cause' is not enough, more needs to be done, social networking, promotion, etc., as you suggest, there's much to be done.. and there must be more we could do here, with industry professionals and label Chiefs such as yourself, together.. the upshot would be you sell more of your product, Cookie and we get to hear more of the surround music we love! Everyone's a winner in such a scenario!

..it would take a Herculean effort... and a sizeable number of members to get any of those ideas off the ground, not least a fair chunk of working capital.. and of course, above all, any of my above little pie in the sky ideas would need full consent and blessing of QQ's owner and creator Jon Urban, if there were to be any hope at all of doing anything along those lines. It is of course possible that nobody else feels any of its a good idea, most of all Jon.. still, it would be a shame not to utilise the goodwill, reputation, enthusiasm, commitment and passion of this splendid community to the mutual benefit of Surround Hi-Res record buying customer and Surround Hi-Res record label alike, even if a QQ label and a QQ Quad/Hi-Res Surround music preservation charity are non-starters

Good to meet you Cookie, hope you have a blast here at QQ, you've only been here a day and already you've made quite an impact! :upthumb

All the best,
Adam

 

[cookiemarenco]

Hi Cookie!

..it would take a Herculean effort... and a sizeable number of members to get any of those ideas off the ground, not least a fair chunk of working capital.. and of course, above all, any of my above little pie in the sky ideas would need full consent and blessing of QQ's owner and creator Jon Urban, if there were to be any hope at all of doing anything along those lines. It is of course possible that nobody else feels any of its a good idea, most of all Jon.. still, it would be a shame not to utilise the goodwill, reputation, enthusiasm, commitment and passion of this splendid community to the mutual benefit of Surround Hi-Res record buying customer and Surround Hi-Res record label alike, even if a QQ label and a QQ Quad/Hi-Res Surround music preservation charity are non-starters

Good to meet you Cookie, hope you have a blast here at QQ, you've only been here a day and already you've made quite an impact! :upthumb

All the best,
Adam

Thank you, Adam! I've been busy in the studio and will be until next week. I'd like to address your comments further. I want to put some thought into it.

I love surround recording/mixing etc. You've given me an idea about fund raising that I'd like to explore once I talk to a few other artists who work in surround (mostly games) to see if there is a viable business model for music beyond games. I'll explore in a different thread.

In the meantime, Fiona has written to me directly to help her post thoughts about this thread. (Jon, she's tried to join the forum as I had and didn't receive an email to confirm joining... maybe a software glitch?) She's asked me to post on her behalf to all of you....


From Fiona Joy, 9/6/2016
Maybe you can post this below on my behalf.

In 2008 together with my producer Will Ackerman (Founder of Windham Hill Records) we mastered Blue Dream with Bob Ludwig in Portland Maine. Bob said 'This album is worth a Grammy and I would like to see you do a surround sound version of this album to enter' - I was beside myself with excitement!!!

I went back into the studio with Corin Nelsen and re-mixed all the layers to create a soundscape. We planned to re-create something very different to how you place sounds on a stage eg we had didgeridoo jumping from front to back, vocals swirling around your head and violins entering front right and sweeping out to back left. It was trippy, it was bold - we had a blast making it !

Blue Dream was authored by Gus Skinnas who also supported the project and I was thrilled with the comments all round. I then reproduced the muti-channel surround sound 5.1 SACD of 600 Years in a Moment and Christmas Joy (102 key Aussie made Stuart and Sons Piano).

All three SACDs (and one vinyl title) are available on my website - all were self funded.

Now for the cold hard reality - none are paid back. I'm still in debt for all three. The cost of creating music is an enormous expense if you're doing something you believe in and at the highest quality possible. I self-distribute, as Will Ackerman did in the early days of Windham Hill. Sadly, there is no more Windham Hill as we once knew. Most artists doing something besides pop music are independent.

I'm thrilled that this discussion is raising awareness of the costs of music.

The recorded music industry is not the same as it was 15 years ago. We're all adapting to the change and hope it doesn't come at the expense of creativity and quality of audio. Time will tell.

Thank you for understanding what we (artists) are driven to do in our lives.

Fiona Joy
PS.... It's okay if you don't enjoy my music. I don't expect everyone will. The next time you put on an album, consider the musician making the music and what they might be doing today. Think about the future generations of musicians and what they will do bringing new music to the world. Again, thank you for listening.

 

[fredblue]

Hi Cookie! Good to see you again, have you considered getting your albums and productions included over at Discogs?
I just dropped by there to pick up some of your SACDs and could not find any listed at all (unless I was having "a boy look".. )

Discogs

 

[JonUrban]

Thank you, Adam! I've been busy in the studio and will be until next week. I'd like to address your comments further. I want to put some thought into it........... (Jon, she's tried to join the forum as I had and didn't receive an email to confirm joining... maybe a software glitch?) She's asked me to post on her behalf to all of you....

COOKIE: I checked the moderation queue and she should be clear, good to go. Things were a little messed up here due to a web host glich over the past few days. Shoot me a PM if she is still having issues.

 

[JonUrban]

Hi Cookie!

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to go into such detail on this subject, I greatly appreciate all your knowledge and insight, to me it's invaluable.

It is so crucial, I feel, that more labels take a leaf out of your book, in order to make as much Surround/Quad and Hi-Res music available as possible, that the labels get creative and consider all the options at their disposal, including Crowdfunding.

Whatever it takes (short of any criminal acts of course! well, I could get a bunch of stockings in and we could all rob a bank! ) but seriously if it gets more Surround & Hi-Res music into more people's hands (and ears!) that has got to be a good thing hasn't it..!?

It's so interesting to see you touching on things like charities and donations because over the last couple of years I've ruminated on a collective of QQ members maybe trying several things;
1.) Establishing a label of its own (with a remit of licensing Quads from other labels, reissuing notable out of print 5.1's and previously unreleased titles.. and releasing and representing artists who have the desire but are unable to get their music released in Hi-Res Surround),
2.) Setting up a body with charitable status (tax breaks among other benefits) for the preservation of Quad and furtherment of Surround & Hi-Res for future generations, so that 5.1/Quad & Hi-Res do not become some relic that dies off with all of us (this could be tied into the Surround/Quad reissue label idea?),
3.) Forging closer ties with labels, especially the speciality and boutique labels (such as your own Blue Coast Records) who plough everything they've got into just the kinds of releases we at QQ crave and buy in respectable numbers (but it appears just buying these titles to 'support the cause' is not enough, more needs to be done, social networking, promotion, etc., as you suggest, there's much to be done.. and there must be more we could do here, with industry professionals and label Chiefs such as yourself, together.. the upshot would be you sell more of your product, Cookie and we get to hear more of the surround music we love! Everyone's a winner in such a scenario!

..it would take a Herculean effort... and a sizeable number of members to get any of those ideas off the ground, not least a fair chunk of working capital.. and of course, above all, any of my above little pie in the sky ideas would need full consent and blessing of QQ's owner and creator Jon Urban, if there were to be any hope at all of doing anything along those lines. It is of course possible that nobody else feels any of its a good idea, most of all Jon.. still, it would be a shame not to utilise the goodwill, reputation, enthusiasm, commitment and passion of this splendid community to the mutual benefit of Surround Hi-Res record buying customer and Surround Hi-Res record label alike, even if a QQ label and a QQ Quad/Hi-Res Surround music preservation charity are non-starters

Good to meet you Cookie, hope you have a blast here at QQ, you've only been here a day and already you've made quite an impact! :upthumb

All the best,
Adam

Fred (Adam),

There is already someone in the world doing this with new and licensed quad production but few are paying attention, which is a shame. Not every release is everyone's cup of tea, but there are certainly some titles they've put our there that are more than worthy.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?86

 

[bmoura]

Fred (Adam),

There is already someone in the world doing this with new and licensed quad production but few are paying attention, which is a shame. Not every release is everyone's cup of tea, but there are certainly some titles they've put our there that are more than worthy.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?86

The same is true in the world of DSD Downloads that are not available on SACD.
There are now almost 190 Stereo DSD Downloads and almost 60 Multichannel DSD Downloads of new and reissued albums on Native DSD Music.
Use their search engine to see the list.
https://www.nativedsd.com/new_browse

Turning to Cookie Marenco's record company, most of her Blue Coast Music releases are also available as Stereo DSD Downloads, not on SACD.
Definitely worth considering.
http://bluecoastrecords.com/store

 

[fredblue]

Fred (Adam),

There is already someone in the world doing this with new and licensed quad production but few are paying attention, which is a shame. Not every release is everyone's cup of tea, but there are certainly some titles they've put our there that are more than worthy.

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?86

Oh yes thanks, I do have some of the Quadro-Surround productions titles already and have several more on my shopping list still to acquire. All I've played so far have been excellent surround sound

..I don't know how you could attract more attention for Quadro-Surround here? Probably not much else, you have already given them their own dedicated area at QQ. Do the latest/current Quadro-Surround releases get a mention over at QQ's page on Facebook when they are released?
(Sorry, not upto speed with whats happening there as I tend not to use Facebook so much these days )

 

[fredblue]

The same is true in the world of DSD Downloads that are not available on SACD.
There are now almost 190 Stereo DSD Downloads and almost 60 Multichannel DSD Downloads of new and reissued albums on Native DSD Music.
Use their search engine to see the list.
https://www.nativedsd.com/new_browse

Turning to Cookie Marenco's record company, most of her Blue Coast Music releases are also available as Stereo DSD Downloads, not on SACD.
Definitely worth considering.
http://bluecoastrecords.com/store

No disrespect at all (and I'm not dismissing anything out of hand, I will check their offerings out more closely tomorrow) but at first glance, Native DSD's offerings appear to maybe be a bit thin on the ground in the genres that suit my musical tastes.. when I tick the checkboxes for Folk, Gospel, Hard Psychedelic Rock, Pop, Rock, Rock and Roll & Stoner Rock in Multichannel I get 10 albums - in total.. its 10 more than zero of course which is a step in the right direction, we have a long way to go yet, I feel. Thank you for the information, much appreciated as ever.

 

[HomerJAU]

No disrespect at all (and I'm not dismissing anything out of hand, I will check their offerings out more closely tomorrow) but at first glance, Native DSD's offerings appear to maybe be a bit thin on the ground in the genres that suit my musical tastes.. when I tick the checkboxes for Folk, Gospel, Hard Psychedelic Rock, Pop, Rock, Rock and Roll & Stoner Rock in Multichannel I get 10 albums - in total.. its 10 more than zero of course which is a step in the right direction, we have a long way to go yet, I feel. Thank you for the information, much appreciated as ever.

I clicked 'Like' to your post. But I need to clarify: I don't Like the the issue you mention (I do Like that you mentioned the issue).

I'm the same Adam. There is nothing in the MCH list that's going to entice me anytime soon. I hope that changes!

 

[fredblue]

I clicked 'Like' to your post. But I need to clarify: I don't Like the the issue you mention (I do Like that you mentioned the issue).

I'm the same Adam. There is nothing in the MCH list that's going to entice me anytime soon. I hope that changes!

Thanks Garry, I can see where you are coming from.. :upthumb
Prefer the physical product but if MCh downloads are the only way we get a sizeable number of lovely old Quads and 5.1's in pristine master quality out of the vaults etc., then so be it!

..anyway, conscious this is Cookie Marenco and Fiona Joy's thread, shall we take this to the other newly created thread now?

QQ Discussion thread: "We Need A Quad First/Surround First Reissue Label"

 

[Fionajoy]

Hey, keep going, no-one owns this thread, I'm learning a lot here...

 

[cookiemarenco]

Hello all! I can't seem to find the thread, but a few of you may have had trouble ordering SACDs off Fiona's website. CDBaby or Amazon is another place to try finding her music and other SACDs.

My sessions are done until next week... so if anyone has any questions, I'll try to come back over the weekend and check in.

Enjoy your music!
Cookie
Blue Coast Records

 

[bmoura]

Hello all! I can't seem to find the thread, but a few of you may have had trouble ordering SACDs off Fiona's website. CDBaby or Amazon is another place to try finding her music and other SACDs.

My sessions are done until next week... so if anyone has any questions, I'll try to come back over the weekend and check in.

Enjoy your music!
Cookie
Blue Coast Records

The new thread is under our Multichannel SACDs section
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ums-on-Hybrid-Multichannel-SACDs-from-CD-Baby

The direct links to the 3 Fiona Joy Multichannel SACDs are:

Christmas Joy
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/fionajoyhawkins11

600 Years In A Moment
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/fionajoyhawkins13

Blue Dream
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/fionajoyhawkins1

 

[fredblue]

having received the Fiona Joy Hawkins 600 Years In A Moment Surround SACD, thought I'd update the Discogs entry to include the SACD, to help boost awareness etc..

Discogs: Fiona Joy Hawkins - 600 Years In A Moment (Hybrid MultiChannel SACD)