Archive for the 'Hawaii Music Industry' Category

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Aloha Don Ho

Posted in DoctorTrey.com News, Hawaii Music Industry on April 14th, 2007 by Dr. Trey

Perhaps Hawai’i’s best known and original icon, Don Ho, Passed away early this morning of heart failure. Of course he was best known for his hit song “Tiny Bubbles,” and more recently, for undergoing an experimental stem-cell procedure in Thailand. You might recall that recently Don Ho got married to his shows producer Haumea Hebenstreit. So, thanks for the music Mr. Ho and for putting music from Hawai’i on the map. Don Ho was 76 years old. For more information regarding his passing and highlights of his career, please select the links below.

Waikiki legend Don Ho dies (from the Honolulu Starbulletin)
King of Waikiki entertainment dies (from The Honolulu Advertiser)

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No DRM. A good thing?

Posted in Hawaii Music Industry, There I Said It on April 3rd, 2007 by Dr. Trey

I’ve been spending some time thinking about EMI and Apples announcement to offer the no DRM thing. On the surface it may seem like it’s a good thing, but is it? Let’s take a look at why it might not seem like the best possible thing for us.

Apple claims in their press release that the non-DRMed versions of the songs will be of CD quality. Well, they’ve claimed that before, but now the files are supposed to be offered at a higher quality. This is a good thing right? I mean I am a studio engineer and personally I almost feel as though all the work I’ve been doing is for nothing. It seems that sound quality is not as important as one might think. Recording music to go to mp3 seems rather ridiculous especially considering that we record our music through high quality studio mics, pre amps, and converters. Add to this the fact that we track at 96khz, 24bit. Who, however, is complaining about the sound quality of music downloaded either from iTunes or from other sites? Obviously considering the decline of CD sales and the increase in the amount of people receiving digital downloads, it would seem as though not very many people are complaining. It would seem, therefore, that no one truly cares about sound quality. In other words the current standard of data compression is “good enough.”

Along with the increase in sound quality, the “deluxe” non-DRMed versions of the songs would be presented at a higher price. In fact 30 cents higher. If you take into consideration Read more »

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DRM, becoming a thing of the past?

Posted in DoctorTrey.com News, Hawaii Music Industry, Music, Press Releases on April 2nd, 2007 by Dr. Trey

This is from the press release. I think we’re moving in the right direction.

CUPERTINO, California‚ÄîApril 2, 2007‚ÄîApple¬Æ today announced that EMI Music‚Äôs entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes¬Æ Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today‚Äî128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM‚Äîat the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher Read more »

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Karaoke vs. Professional Singers

Posted in Hawaii Music Industry, Music, There I Said It on March 29th, 2007 by Dr. Trey

With Hawai’i Stars in yet another season (with the beautiful Mailani Makainai as a judge,) I thought It would be a great chance to talk about the differences between Karaoke and Professional singers. Last season I really enjoyed listening to Tiffa Garza and her sister Connie Cruz (both of the famous Cruz ‘Ohana) yet, not only are they Professionals, but they went on stage and played their guitar to accompany themselves. Well, if Hawai’i Stars is a “Karaoke” contest, bringing the guitar on stage is just not right, and in fact in my eyes not fair. Well, they didn’t win so maybe it was more unfair to their doing well, but take the unfairness out of the picture and I liked them the best. There I said it, you were thinking it, so you’re welcome.

Well, I’ve been to a few Karaoke bars in my life and have noticed many Read more »

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