To create a profile we analyze the digital signal of a song, similar to Pandora, we then take a segment of the song, amplify it and run it through a series of artificial intelligence expert systems, constantly trained by the Syntonetic musicologists. We are able to create a song profile which measures the degree of each of the song’s characteristics, including moods, genres, sub-genres, styles, tempo/beat, vocals, instrumentation and production features. Even Beethoven may have some degree of “rock”. Once created these profiles are stored on our servers and accessed via the internet.

This brings us to moodagent on the iPhone. When moodagent is first installed it syncs the songs in your catalog with our 7 million profiles. It then takes the high definition profiles that correspond with your library and stores them in a small encrypted file on your iPhone. The app then interrogates this local file every time you move a slider or pick a song to seed your playlist. We have 5 sliders to help you select the characteristics of your playlist. These 5 sliders represent Sensuality, Tenderness, Happiness, Aggression and Tempo.

When using the sliders all positions are taken equally into account, setting one slider to a low value does not indicate a low priority, it is just as important as turning another slider up. Thus turning four sliders down will actually influence the result more than turning a single slider up. The result you get is always the closest match to the combination of all five slider values, in any given collection. After using the sliders you can always click the Moodagent icon next to the seed to get the actual values of the seed track.

My preference is not to use the sliders to start, but to pick a song from my collection that sets a particular mood then let moodagent build the playlist for me based on that song. If you select a song as the “seed” track it will look at all of the characteristics of the song to build the playlist, not just the mood profiles.

Several people have noticed that some of their tracks have no matching profile and are not synced. To find out how many, just click on the i at the bottom left hand corner of the page. To get the most out of moodagent you can use the optional desktop moodagent profiler. It will look at your iTunes collection on the desktop and create profiles for any songs where the profile doesn’t exist. This way, when you sync again you’ll get all of your non-protected tracks and have a better experience creating playlists.

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

Stein says the rot set in the music industry 60 years ago. “We blew it,” he says on the phone from his office in New York. “The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware.

“Had we remained in control of the hardware,” he adds. “We wouldn’t be hurting as much as we are now. And the iPod would be ours.”

Last week, Trans World announced their Q4 2007 financial results. Music sales dropped 28% in Q4, the top 50 music titles dropped 35% in Q4 and for the entire year the store’s music sales dropped 23%.

Two weeks ago, the NPD group released a report indicating that “consumer music acquisition increased by 6 percent in 2007, but average annual per-capita music spending fell by 10 percent”. The report also indicated that one million consumers dropped out of the CD buyer market in 2007, led by younger consumers. According to the press release, 48 percent of U.S. teens did not purchase a single CD in 2007, compared to 38 percent in 2006. Also NPD ranked Apple’s iTunes as the number two US music retailer, only behind Wal-mart.

Also last week, JupiterResearch announced that the digital transition was well underway, but digital sales are not enough to save the music industry. The announcement went on to say that “Yahoo! became the third big player to drop out of on-demand subscription services”.

Is Apple going to be the recording industry’s nemesis? Who will step up to the plate and provide consumers with a healthy alternative? Yahoo! couldn’t do it. Tower Records couldn’t do it. Trans World isn’t doing it.

Apple really understands the entire music experience. Apple also understands how to make it “just an Apple experience” and how to “lock us in” to their approach.

As far as the CD is concerned, its time has passed, just as vinyl and tape cassettes. This is the time for digital music, either as downloads or streams. As the market evolves, I hope that we have more than one choice of digital retailer to purchase and experience music. Competition not only maintains a healthy price point, but it also helps create interesting innovation.

“There’s a lot of discussion these days about the idea of a levy/tax/tariff on ISPs to compensate copyright holders for the unlicensed transport of music, film and television content across the Internet and mobile carriers. Whether or not these proposed revenues would offset the 15-20% drop in physical sales this past year, it is an interesting concept to consider.”

For me this brings to mind a situation we still live with today. In some countries, the recording industry benefits from a “tax” on the manufacture and distribution of blank magnetic tapes and CDs. I wasn’t supportive of this idea, and I’m not supportive of applying it more broadly to Internet access.

If the recording industry were to get a tax imposed on ISPs, then surely other industries, with alleged copyright violations, would want a similar ISP tax. This would include: television, movies, software, book publishers to name a few. Of course, these so called taxes would be passed onto the consumer. Consumers may ultimately end up paying more in Internet copyright tax than for monthly access. Surely there has got be a better way.

I’m all for an “all you can eat” approach – but on a voluntary basis. If the ISP or mobile operator I use, offer this service at an additional monthly fee, then I should have the choice whether I want to sign up for it or not. There are many people who have a hard time paying the $9.99 NetZero price to get to the Internet each month.

Let’s not impose additional reasons to create a divide between those that have access to the Internet and technology and those that don’t.

“Pointy The Pyramid Pumpkin” (mp3)
from “Dr. Elmo’s Halloween Heebie Jeebies”
(Laughing Stock)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Black Buddha provides a twisted soundtrack to one of our most beloved holidays – Halloween, evoking images of Frankenstonian pipe organs, medieval ceremonies and things too gruesome to mention.

“Sizsahvirium – le Canticle pour Halloween” (mp3)
from “Sizsahvirium – le Canticle pour Halloween”
(Ultraviolet Productions)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

According to Macworld: As well as launching a rival to the iTunes music store UMG hopes to nurture the adoption of other music players such as Microsoft’s Zune, and develop a new business model in which music for consumers becomes essentially free.

JupiterResearch’s Mark Mulligan believes “the idea of working with device manufacturers to get revenue directly for music is not actually that crazy an idea”, while podcasting news provides us with Five Reasons Total Music Will Be A Total Failure.

From everything I’ve read, I’m of the opinion that Total Music is counterproductive in terms of DRM, consumer rights and business model.

The recording industry needs to agree on a viable approach to DRM that encompasses multiple devices, including the market leading Apple iPod. If Total Music doesn’t interoperate with Apple’s iTunes/iPod it will face an up-hill battle. Removing DRM and using watermark or similar technology will go a long way to overcoming the DRM issue we face today.

Total Music and its association with the big recording giants is likely to confuse people. On the one hand the recording industry is intimidating people through RIAA lawsuits, while on the other hand they want to hide the subscription fee so people don’t know they are paying for the right to legally listen to music.

No business model is free to the consumer. There’s always a hidden price to pay somewhere. It could be built into the purchase price of a device, subsidized by advertising or incorporated into a monthly phone bill – ultimately the consumer will be paying for the service. It seems to me that the recording industry is applying a web 2.0 approach to the Total Music business model and ultimately creating a very interesting experiment.

Clearly, this is an attempt by the recording industry to ensure that Apple iTunes/iPod does not develop a stranglehold on the digital music sector, something the PC industry couldn’t do with Microsoft. I believe that Total Music will be a distraction from the real work, that of alligning the business model with consumer behaviors and market opportunities.

Topics included: the clash of the recording and technology industries, compulsory licensing and copyright, new music business models for both the artist and the recording industry, new music licensing models and issues with US versus world wide licensing. We discussed these topics from a legal, technology and musician’s perspective.

On a lighter note, Eoin explained how a young starving artist uses “lip balm” to promote his music.

We’ve gone full circle. The single is back and it looks like it’s here for good. Single digital track sales allow people to buy only the songs they want, and skip buying 10 track CDs, with song they may not want. While it looks like the music business is healthy, the revenue generated from album sales is declining faster than the increase in revenue from single digital tracks.

In an early post, The 3 track ablum and other heresies I suggested that one way for the recording industry to overcome this decline in 10 track albums might be to produce 3 track digital albums for the consumer. Hopefully, the labels are looking at this or other innovative ideas to overcome it’s woes.