IDMf State of the Union

#1

IDMf State of the Union

If you are still in the dark about what happened, basically the server HDDs died and along with the back-ups. But we are back in action with modern forum software!

One item that has been brought up a lot recently is netlabel activity/how much we are releasing. RFJ did some math with the release dates (posted publicly somewhere on the forum) and it turns out that the current team (Auto, Roo, RFJ and myself) have released more music per month/year than the netlabel has in quite a while. I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially RFJ’s math was: if you compare the release dates of the newest 6 releases verses the 6 before those, our release rate has been quite high comparatively speaking.

We’ve really concentrated on making the netlabel more accessible by accepting shorter EP length releases and I think we’ve had a lot of success with those types of releases. We will continue to provide occasional VA Compilation release opportunities. If the team is being honest though, those are way harder to put together and make a successful release out of.

Additionally, we need you all to send us material. End of story. We really don’t get that many submissions and, ideally, they should come from the community. Personally, I don’t have much interest in releasing music from internet randos. In as few words as possible: sack up and send us an EP. This is supposedly a community of musicians.

I’d really love to see some collaboration EPs and LPs from community members. I understand that even coming up with a short EP’s worth of material seems daunting (it does to me, anyway). The new admin team is really open to doing stuff we haven’t done before, so don’t be afraid to ask.

The four of us agree that there needs to be quality control. That being said, our ratio of received material to released material is pretty high at the moment. And for us that only means that it turns out you all are sending us great stuff when you are sending it.

As far as the community and the forum goes, tweaking the software is just going to be slow. Sorry ya’ll. None of the four of us are web people and we have very limited free time.

As far as the forum and community goes, we have a new opportunity to make it anything we want it to be. We are in a weird transition period right now. All the old content that made us an internet resource is gone and Off-Topic is probably the most active part of the forum.

The "Feedback and Help From the Community Thread" has been great as a place to collect all the little things that, over time, we would like to change about the forum software. There were some larger ideas brought up there as well. Ideas about podcasts, newsletters, wikis, some kind of Listening Booth monthly top 10 (something like Roo’s “Roo Recommends”).

I’m going to be 100% honest for a moment and say there was a day when I was catching up on the “Feedback…” thread and was simultaneously giddy at all the big ideas and also saying “screw you guys, jesus christ, do you know how much effort any one of those ideas would take on the part of the admin team?”

Let us say without any doubts, the admin team fully supports the community in its efforts to take on a big project like bringing back the interview series, doing some kind of podcast, a Listening Booth top ten chart, whatever. But you all are going to have to take up the reigns and make it happen and if there is something mechanical you need we can help with that.

Community Projects is my favorite part of the forum and the admin team would like to see it be more active, more front and center. Look at what the beat battle crew has done. They are nearing Beat Battle 100 and they’ve needed very little from the admin team to maintain their success. Likewise, the Album Writing Month project has kept on kicking.

My personal ideal for the forum would be that IDMf be a place where electronic musicians who actually make music come to participate in making music.

We can also just be a weird forum that is supposedly about music but is mostly off-topic shit posting.

But the fact of the matter is the community has far more cognitive surplus than the four-person admin team. As far as resources go we only have the community’s free time and creativity and what we can accomplish with those resources we have is all up to you, we are only in control of our own free time and creativity.

Sincerely,

Auto, Roo, RFJ and Relic

Users from the ol' idmf that you miss
Jayson's (TheStumps) is finally back
#2
#3

Without doubt it’s been absolutely great to see the community grow with stayers, voyeurs, artists and admins, and well, everyone on the forums. The recent releases are really shining a potential which I like. I would love to start seeing, or rather hearing, a cohesive mastering style on the releases though I am not aiming that remark at any individual or artist in anyway. It’s great to see output increasing, I just feel the production level should be calibrated so a constant is present in the releases, this is purely personal objective feedback. Currently it’s more of a house with a variety of styles at different levels. I look forward to hearing a constant style for the label (not to be confused with genre) as you would hear from an established label, that being said bite sized chunks and baby steps as it all starts to pull together.
We’ve seen great enthusiasm from one side and it’s great that the recent changes and the admin team are engaging with action backing up the enthusiastic words.
I am also wondering if there is any business model the forum is moving forward as a label or is this more of a community meeting place, so to speak. Who gets any money raised, how is this invested in the label, artists and so forth (but I really am digressing here).
Great to see and well, hopefully time permitting this year I may complete what I wanted to do last year, however we’ll see … :slight_smile:
Overall thanks for the newsletter Relic, I think its a good way forward with communications whether monthly or quarterly. :sunny:

Peace and good fortune to all @IDMf in 2019 from the Mysta Fx :wink:

#4

I came for the knowledge this forum has provided, and stayed for the other reasons, it will take a while to become a resource again, the knowledge is what brings people here, the side room stuff is like desert in a sense that too much desert can give a person health problems but I digress don’t really have much else too add just wanted to chime in with my desert analogy, so make some great music it would be cool if for future album releases from individual artists included some production notes by the artist themselves it might help/inspire others

#5

@MFXxx
Cohesive mastering style: great idea, right now we are relying solely on volunteers to master or some artists are choosing to have other people outside the forum do the work. I think this would be ideal and I know what you mean by a consistent style outside of genre.

Business model: right now the very, very small amount of money being generated by Bandcamp is going to buying more “tokens” so we have free downloads from BC. Which seemed pretty important to the community considering we got “mother fucked” and told off a couple times when free downloads got turned off on Bandcamp unbeknownst to us.

In the future we would like to get albums on Spotify and have one album pay for the next to be on the service.

To answer your question of are we more a forum/community meeting place or a label. It is my under standing that the label and the forum are financially separate entities. Philosophically (for lack of a better term), I like to think of the forum as being the place where we “grow” the artists who get on the label. As I said above, no interest personally in releasing music from internet randos.

For myself, I think this forum and the netlabel are an opportunity for people who aren’t into EDM or just EDM to come together, learn, make music and share music. The best of that music, when submitted, will hopefully get a little spotlight from being put out on the netlabel. This is me trying to have a realistic, but positive few of what the netlabel and IDMf can be.

I will try to keep up with a quarterly news letter. I do think it is a good idea.

@bfk good analogy : ) It is going to be a slow road rebuilding the forum as a resource as many of us have been at this so long we probably won’t want to post any super basic stuff. It would be really cool if any forum members wanted to hop on creating a post about a small, basic topic and start that discussion with some of their own talk and a few resources.

EDIT: I may do that myself…start up a basic production topic. Maybe during some down time at work tomorrow <3

#6

Give me one more week.

#7

While I do think the resources the old forum lost is a bummer, I’m not sure in a day and age like now most people are creeping forums for knowledge, with how prevalent youtube and online video tutorials are (although it’s time to start sharing more of those as well). For that reason, as a community member, that’s why I really have been trying to push for a podcast, and also started doing live streaming (at least it’s music related content, even If i’m the last person someone should go to for production advice).

But you nailed it @relic, that’s why when I hear people say “IDMf is dead”… it’s like, well you aren’t really doing your part to keep it alive? Yeah we have a lot of shit posting here but there’s also a lot of motivation to keep growing this place online and making it something more than it is. As a netlabel we have some of the most unique array of releases, and a ton of dedicated artists. BB has already finished its first cycle on the new architecture, XVF’s release is out on here, and I’m sure there is more down the pipeline. I, personally, am working on material to send behind the scenes as well, just needs time.

I’ve also repeatedly returned to the idea of hosting a remix competition, unofficial, or some other community event - as I have more bandwidth now.

IDMf is only dead if you allow it to be, lots of active musicians here… the side room just gets us through the day to day, but the real meat is still being developed and talked about in the studio. It took over a decade for the old forum to accumulate that kind of content.

#8

Well we do have JAWM on the go. I know people that have participated in the past that aren’t this year. And I’d like to do a remix of that maybe in the future. I personally never took part in the beat battles cuz I can’t really do the style constraints but those are going strong it seems.
So yeah, I agree it is what we put in.

Edit: I’d actually like to see the QAWM stuff actually be quarterly. Maybe that would be a good way to generate enough material for regular open genre style releases too.

#9

Maybe a few idmf users can help by making YouTube tutorials for idmf and have idmfs youtube channels repost the video that some other user uploaded…maybe…

#10

They used to be quarterly but there was enough interest. Hell this could gain or lose momentum as well. Just have to see where the road leads. Too many irons in the fire can also add to dis-interest in something.

I’m not nay-saying and really don’t have any say at all but I’m more curious to see where the Beat battles go in a release format before another community driven release or project.

But that doesn’t mean the netlabel even has to put all of these projects out. But they can all be offered or demo’d to them. Relic, RFJ, and numerical did some cool stuff with their own project for a good while. Driven through the community but not actual IDMFNetlabel releases.

#11

We’ve already said we’re open to a “Best of BB” or similar arranged by the usual BB people…

#12

I know. I was posting in reference to the comment about JAWM/QAWM and remixes of said projects.

#13

@Auto-meh-geddon …oooh interested :wink:

@relic Thanks for the info.

I really want to get my act together this yer, my time is so limited daily now with 2 kids and wife full time working now, since last summer which is the core reason Ive been lurking rather than active on the forums old/new.

That being said. Im hoping to pull together an album or failing that EP by EOY 2019 circa.

Peaece

#14

Hear Hear!!! Gotta keep the pipeline full!

Full pipeline is easy when you don’t finish much. I try to always have one thing I’m focused on until it’s done! Little diversions hear and there are allowed, which adds to the pipeline… but finish something!

Am I rambling? Sorry…:speak_no_evil:

#15

Done.