Non-Sonic Experimentation.

Well, sort of. Feck, I didn't know what to name this post. Intuhweb Experiments? Organisational Experiments? Hmmm.....

Anyway, as part of the Audio Flasher project (a side project, if you will), I'll be testing out various sites and apps and stuff to try to make this project harder. Better. Faster. Stronger. I mean, more interactive and well-publicised. Yup. Stuff like figuring the best place to post the audio from the Experiments (that sounds so much slicker than "Diary Entries" no?) and how to keep everything organised. And more important stuff like how best to get other people involved in collaborating, giving feedback, and contributing their own experiments.

I signed up to boxnet for my first post, but that audio box for Experiment 1 was massive, and I've yet to figure out how to add a suitable image to it (there must be a way, no one would design a box that big and not let you add an image to it, surely). Then, I somehow happened across soundcloud, and a friend got me to sign up to ustream.tv to check a live feed he's doing*. I wasn't planning to use ustream myself, but we'll see about that (if there's an interesting way of using it, I'll give it a shot at least once, I just can't think of one right now). Then, the dude** Mike Outram told me about bandcamp, so I signed up there, too. I'll upload to each and investigate, so expect some evaluative postings as I learn more about each.

So far.....
Boxnet seems okay, but I haven't really investigated much. Less user friendly than the others but I've yet to find an upload limit. There probably is one. I'll probably find it soon enough.
Soundcloud seems really good - you can include IRSC codes and Release Cat. No's, plus tagging for each file. The really great thing is you get a visual waveform for each file you upload and other users can post comments below the track, or they can post onto your track at a specific point - very useful if the comment is feedback about the composition or production as you can pinpoint precisely where in the track you're referring too (nothing worse than a vague comment about "that synthy sound" when the track has ten synths in it and you don't know which one or where they meant).
But the free version of Soundcloud has a 120 minute upload limit and then there's a few categories of paid accounts with different limits. Getting an unlimited amount of file storage costs $500 per year, so it's not a great place to store tracks for long periods of time (like this blog needs). So it looks like a good place to store files temporarily for feedback or collaborative work, with a more permanent copy posted elsewhere.
And that "elsewhere" might just be Bandcamp for me - I've only just signed up, but it seems pretty comprehensive in having a tagging system, a comprehensive search system (including searching by location), high google search rankings for your band's page, the IRSC codes and wotnot, artwork uploads, and even the option to sell music and merchandising using a Paypal premium account through the site. They even let you set promotional codes for discounts and freebies for download sales, and you can collect emails for a newsletter. So it goes beyond the basic, then. As far as I can tell right now, uploads are unlimited, but I'll have to check this to be sure.

Anyway, I'm AudioFlasher, or Audio Flasher on all of these, so feel free to look me up on any that you use (that'll also help me gauge the comparative popularity of each of these sites). If you know of other good interactive or upload sites for music projects, please post nods to them in the comments section and I'll peruse. Thanks.

Right, time for an Update:
Basic stuff - I'm gonna get RSS set up asap. But this about the next Experiment. I'm currently organising a couple of collaborative efforts for future weeks (don't worry, each collabo will have slightly different rules and completely different people...well, except for Audio Flasher, who'll be involved in all of them for now). I'm also looking seriously at the logistics of doing something involving iPhone music apps for one experiment (I swear I'll limit it to one). And today is a roasting hot day so, instead of experimenting in the Lab, I'm outside enjoying the sun with some friends*** and typing this. Expect a new Experiment in a few days though. I'm working out the Methodology as you read this (unless you're reading this three years from now, in which case just trust that I was working out the Methodology when I thought you were reading this three years ago and, oh crap, I'm starting to feel like a character in a Douglas Adams novel already, you get the point).

I'm also slowly concocting a suitable way of describing the whole Audio Flasher enterprise so that it resembles something vaguely sensible (in sharp contrast to the sounds I post). More of a "What is Audio Flashing?" than a "Who is Audio Flasher?" I may or may not post some visual teasers in advance.

*Crap. I mean "did". It happened today, and I was caught up watching the news about the mass murder gunman in Cumbria and totally forgot about it. Uh oh.

**Official moniker, on account of continual musical hookups of great magnitude. Also a bloody great musician, jazz guitarist and tutor, and afficionado of the experimental and philosophical. His blog, personal recordings, and Spotify playlists are well worth checking out and, in case you missed it the first time - www.mikeoutram.com/

***Blogs take exponentially longer to write when you're chilling with friends. Now I fully understand how journalists calculate their weekly work hours for the content they submit. The things you learn...