Chokai

The Infinity Circuit The Daze of Mother Earth ABRS022 Out Monday Feb 8th 2010 The Infinity Circuits' debut release is a dark combination of abrasive breaks and sinister bass lines with a wickedly fresh and complex vibe. New to the scene, but very hard to categorise, the Infinity circuit originally began as a purely drum n bass project, but grew into something quite different from the commercial scene with its darker tinges and political undertones. If you are into something truly cutting edge, give this a listen. Available to download from the abr website and your favourite digital download store now.

The Infinity Circuit The Daze of Mother Earth ABRS022 Out Monday Feb 8th 2010 The Infinity Circuits' debut release is a dark combination of abrasive breaks and sinister bass lines with a wickedly fresh and complex vibe. New to the scene, but very hard to categorise, the Infinity circuit originally began as a purely drum n bass project, but grew into something quite different from the commercial scene with its darker tinges and political undertones. If you are into something truly cutting edge, give this a listen. Available to download from the abr website and your favourite digital download store now.

1. Do you sing, play an instrument or instruments? Yep What instruments? Keyboards, Bass Guitar, Drums Did you teach yourself? Yep 2. Are you in a band or bands? Yep What is the name of the band? Chokai and The Infinity Circuit What do you play? I program and sequence What other instruments are in the band? I am all the instruments I guess. Its electronic. Do you have a band website? Yep, chokai.co.uk. 3. Do you write songs? Not really, I have ideas, I make the tracks. Do you write lyrics, music or both? Not really, same as above. Do you have a writing partner? Sometimes. 4. Do you record your music? Yep. Do you use a home studio? If so what gear do you use? Yes, and I have too many gizmos to mention really. There is a PC and VST's at its core but various retro synths plugged in with a wiry mess. Do you use a recording studio? nah, no need. Do you have music available on the web? if so where? Most MP3 stores, inc iTunes, Beatport, juno, so on so fourth. 5. What other roles do you perform in the music business? I own a record label Management? Label owner? Publishing? Promotion? Other? Label Owner. 6. Are you a tech head? Not really, I think sometimes people concentrate on the technicality too much. 7. What country do you live in? England 8. What are your ambitions? To hire someone to take over my massive workload on the label. 9. Do you draw/paint/write stories/computer art/dance or other creative pursuit? Im a web designer. What are your pastimes? Modern warfare 2. I love my xbox. 10. What would you like to get out of Songstuff? Helpful advice, good links to other musicians/music bods.

I'm torn on the issue of illegal downloading. On the one side, my label is consistently being screwed over by filesharing. Every new release we have is, the day its released shared on rapidshare. I don't know who is doing it but the most irritating fact is when I google the release name/title the first link appearing is the rapidshare link. Its a huge blow to our revenue. On the other hand it is generating more fans - exposing our music to a wider audience and gaining us more interest. Were essentially sacrificing revenue and royalty for our artists and bands for promotion. I have been tempted to use new protection services that are starting to pop up around the net, and even at one point considered DRM, but would this ultimately alienate our listeners? This culture of "I don't need to pay for it, I can just download it for nothing" is a huge problem and also a blessing is disguise. I need to consider the thoughts and feelings of so many of our artists and bands but can't please them all, and its causing us major problems.

Streaming revenue is frankly rubbish, on a site i wont name we got 22,000 streams in one quarter which only returned £10. Generating any kind of good money in music is nigh-on impossible without a huge marketing budget to back it, or a bit of luck on the review front. It would really help if people did not file share your latest releases the day it comes out - great of spreading the music, but a lot of lost revenue. I would suggest, don't even focus on the money making aspect.

Native Instruments Guitar Rig.

I love musak man. Its a real shame.

Thats just great: "But look at the price point – 1,000 songs for $40 – or 4 cents a song. Compare that to Apple's 99 cents a song, and you realize that this could really shake up the market." I tell you what, sod paying any money to the people who actually make the music any more. lets just make sure we cover the cost of the hardware and marketing and give the shareholders a nice dividend. how much more does this industry want to shave off artists and bands income? This kind of cost per track will be the final nail in the coffin of good music. It'll turn it into a machine churning out random songs with random sexual references and nonsensical raps. True creativity and musical genius will be demoted to small circles of fans and deemed as "weird" by the consumerist masses. Oh wait.. thats whats happening already... I guess my point is.. they should stop reducing the cost of music. There. Another desperate move by the majors! yay!

Its great news for independents. Year on year the majors are losing their foothold on sales, dumping more money into live performance and hiking up the prices of their major signings gigs to offset poor sales, only this is having the opposite effect as ticket prices are getting so high everyone prefers the smaller venues a lesser known bands. What Lazz has mentioned above is the tip of the iceberg as majors look towards other means to move their businesses forwards, only as usual its a poor decision and a poor attempt at making the record labels more music orientated. Its a good era for music, and hopefully its going to get better.

Im using Cubase SX 3, have been for some time now (plus SX4 is out of my budget right now!). Its really just what im used to so i genrally dont knock anything else. Plugins (essential) for me are Absynth (fantastic, totally flexible) and Kontact. Also using Small64, tweakbench toad, albino 2. most sounds are generally made on the hardware. Waveworm editing and some mastering is done on soundforge. I just cant fault it. its simple, straight forward, supports DX plugins and is fast. Worth mentioning: Izotope Ozone. Lovely for mastering and adding the final shimmer.

changes from time to time but usually falls into one of 2 categories: 80s electro on steroids. or Warmly psychadelic ambience.

Try here first of course for a bit of constructive crit: http://forums.songstuff.com/index.php?showforum=20 You can also get yourself a whole load of blank CDs and start burning and sending them off to the music press-make sure you send one to songstuff too! Gaining reviews is probably one the the hardest things to get-the main point to remember though is to get your EP out to as many people as you possibly can, and include a good, well written press release along with it. Some helpful hints and advice on writing a good press release can be found here: http://business.songstuff.com/articles.php?selected=117

hear hear, well said. its everyone jumping on each others band wagons until all the band wagons are rolling down the same road production should not really follow a trend, rather express the music in its best light.

What is it nowdays with people using pissed vocals all the time? Listen to the Kooks or Kings of Leon, they always sound like they've downed 10 shots of vodka before singing. And MIA cant even sing full stop! Ahh! How does this get popular?? (rant) What ever happened to legible lyrics and smooth singing voices? Mind you, the "pissed" sound does actually work for some bands namely Radiohead.