Advice on bringing music to RMAF

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Jonathon Janusz

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Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« on: 3 Oct 2012, 02:58 am »
Another question for the veterans:

When getting one's personal music/demo samples together to go  to the show, how should these be packaged to have the best possible chances of being compatible with as many setups allowing such demos at the show?  Disregarding vinyl for a bit, and more esoteric things like master tapes and such. . .

Burned CD - I'm assuming falling further behind, but good to have?

Digital files - again, assuming, USB drives/thumb drives probably best?  Preferred formats?  Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV, FLAC, WMA, something else?

Thanks again for the advice!

ltr317

Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #1 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:15 am »
In the past four years I have made compilations on one or two CDRs.  I also brought a thumb drive last year because I noticed more and more vendors were using computers only.  Any lossless format is fine.

Tyson

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Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #2 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:18 am »
I've tried it for 3 years now.  I burned stuff to CD and also had a USB thumb drive with the same music.  I used the CD tons of times and the thumb drive exactly zero times.  I dunno, high end manufacturers get a bit skittish when strangers want to plug in unknown external drives to their very expensive computer servers.  Weird, I know, but there it is. 

ltr317

Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #3 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:21 am »
I've tried it for 3 years now.  I burned stuff to CD and also had a USB thumb drive with the same music.  I used the CD tons of times and the thumb drive exactly zero times.  I dunno, high end manufacturers get a bit skittish when strangers want to plug in unknown external drives to their very expensive computer servers.  Weird, I know, but there it is.

I didn't have the same experience.  In fact, I had to use my thumb drive in a few rooms because there was no CDP or transport in the system.

Tyson

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Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #4 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:23 am »
Oh, and please, please, please, don't use music that's 20 friggin minutes long!  Other people would like the sweet spot too :)  What we've done in the past (me and Pez) is burn 4 tracks to a CD, and cut each track down to about 60 seconds.  This gives us a good idea of how the system will handle different musical demands in less that 5 minutes.  For example, last year we had:

Mahler - Symphony 3 (60 seconds) for large scale orchestral music
Tool - The Grudge (60 seconds) for rock dynamics and ping pong imaging
Sibelius Violin Concerto (60 seconds) for emotional connection and also testing for harshness and "drive you out of the room" tonality
Ani DiFranco - Up Up Up Up Up (60 seconds) - Female vocals, obviously

SoCalWJS

Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #5 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:25 am »
I didn't have the same experience.  In fact, I had to use my thumb drive in a few rooms because there was no CDP or transport in the system.
I saw several rooms with no transports as well. Some intentional and some accidental. I think if you burn a CD with a few tracks and then put the same thing on a USB (any sort of hi rez based on what I saw) and you're good to go.

Tyson

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Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #6 on: 3 Oct 2012, 03:37 am »
Yes, exactly right - bring a CD and a USB drive.  There are rooms that have no CD transport.  But if you guys got vendors to let you plug in  your USB drives to their music servers and upload music, you must look more trustworthy than me!

ltr317

Re: Advice on bringing music to RMAF
« Reply #7 on: 3 Oct 2012, 04:23 am »
Yes, exactly right - bring a CD and a USB drive.  There are rooms that have no CD transport.  But if you guys got vendors to let you plug in  your USB drives to their music servers and upload music, you must look more trustworthy than me!

Not more trustworthy but maybe more official.  I went as press last year, whereas the previous three years I was a happy puppy wagging its tail.  Actually I responded to you and Pez two years ago (as well as some others) when you guys asked for help in covering the show.  So, I was amateur press then and had a lot of fun, but it was a ton of work so I don't know how you guys do it year after year covering the whole show.