tecznotes

I was always more of a Skinny Puppy fan, but this is interesting news. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails iss giving away a full track in Garage Band format, based on the original Protools files. This means that all notes and arrangements are free for sampling and re-working, though the output of this remixing can't be used for commercial purposes. Two interesting things about this news, to me:

1. Easier mashups. The first mashup I ever heard was a brilliant mix of NiN's Closer and The Spice Girls' Wannabe ("I wanna (huh), I wanna (huh), I wanna (huh), I wanna (huh), I wanna fuck you like a..."). This year's E-Tech theme was "remix", and it's clear that an open-source approach to more than just software is starting to poke its head up into the mainstream.
2. Macs. The Apple Powerbook has become the best platform for this change. Reznor is releasing his song in an Apple format, and the balance of power at E-Tech was overwhelmingly in favor of silver Powerbooks. A platform that allows 30 years of Unix history to run side-by-side with new image and music manipulation tools is a huge win. It's not surprising that Apple is posting record profits this year.

From Slashdot:

Hello all-

For quite some time I've been interested in the idea of allowing you the ability to tinker around with my tracks - to create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what's there. I tried a few years ago to do this in shockwave with very limited results.

After spending some quality time sitting in hotel rooms on a press tour, it dawned on me that the technology now exists and is already in the hands of some of you. I got to work experimenting and came up with something I think you'll enjoy.

What I'm giving you in this file is the actual multi-track audio session for "the hand that feeds" in GarageBand format. This is the entire thing bounced over from the actual Pro Tools session we recorded it into. I imported and converted the tracks into AppleLoop format so the size would be reasonable and the tempo flexible.

So...

You need a Macintosh and you need GarageBand 2.0. If you have a newer Mac, you already have the software. The more RAM you have the better. I did this on a PowerBook 1.67 w/ 2G RAM but it has been running on far less powerful systems. Drag the file over to your hard disk and double click it. Hit the space bar. Listen. Change the tempo. Add new loops. Chop up the vocals. Turn me into a woman. Replay the guitar. Anything you'd like.

I gave this to my crew and band to test out and all work effectively stopped for a while - it's fun to mess around with. I've now heard a country version of the track as well as an abstract Latin interpretation (thanks, Leo).

There are some copyright issues involved, so read the notice that pops up. Giving this away is an experiment. I'm interested to see what comes of it, what issues are raised and what the results are.

Have fun-

Trent Reznor

April 15, 2005