How I ditched my distro

The Scream, by Edvard Munch (1883) was an inward expressionist painting, which was created from a real life experience he had while on a walk. The painting shows an unhinged and frustrated expression, and extreme emotion, expressed by Munch as a statement about humanity. A 1895 pastel of the 1883 work was sold at Sotheby's auction in NY for $120 million dollars in 2012.

Munch, who was an art-nuveau painter, created this horror painting, depicting insanity, despair, madness. Imagine for a moment if Sothbey's, instead of auctioning off this masterpiece in 2012, stated instead, "No, it's has too much use of yellows and oranges, and buyers don't like those colors. Change it to chartreuse and burnt umber."

Excuse me?

This is a really bad example of what I've gone through the last year with Ditto music. Yes, this is going to be a bit of a whine session about how horrible Ditto is, but truth is, it's not really all Ditto's fault. Ditto Music, if you don't know, is an online music publishing company. Like Distro Kid or others out there, artists pay them to publish their music and artwork and distribute said art and music to various venues such as Spotify, Amazon Music, and iTunes Music. Ditto outlines the requirements of your submissions in their EUA (End User Agreement) which you have to check the "I agree" box if you want to continue. These requirements are NOT over the top and unusual. In fact they're pretty common. The online stores like Amazon and iTunes Music provide requirements to companies like Ditto so the artists don't get too crazy, don't go too out of bounds with their art or music. So the iTunes and Amazon Music's of the world can provide consumers with a consistent product, regardless of genre. Consistent. Product. Homogenized. Bland. Cookie Cutter. No too creative. You get the idea.

Sure, Ditto takes 5-7 (business) days to even do a cursory look at your artwork and music before they send you an email saying "there was a problem with your submission". Yes they ignore multitude of support tickets that were submitted identifying the email you received, refuting their claims as to why the songs were not submitted and why me, (in this case) the artist must rectify the "problem" before the submission can continue. You see >5 seconds of silence is a "problem", and not part of the song or consciously put there to create impact or create space within the song.

For example, Ditto stated that my artwork was "pixilated" and therefore needed to be rectified. In fact, I modified the picture, a very nice clear, color photo close up picture of a snake, coiled shot in profile, and pixilated it. On purpose. Why? Because that's the way I, the artist, want the picture to be seen as a reflection of the music. It's just like the fictitious Sothbey's "imagine" scenario. "Sorry too much orange - change it."

No. I'm the artist. I state how I want the graphics to look. I create the music how I want it to be heard with Scott's input of course. If I want the artwork to be pixilated, it's pixilated.

Ditto also stated there was >5 seconds of silence at the end of a song. They assume, this was a mistake. They assume that something must have gone wrong because, who in their right mind would want >5 seconds of silence at the end of a song? In fact, in a previous submission, Ditto claimed this same thing at the beginning of a song, where there was a low sound effect which slowly faded in. I had to open a ticket and point this out and it was finally accepted after 14 business days of delay. In a different instance, the silence was a very long fade out which lasted 20 seconds. Ditto failed to identify these as something the artist wanted to do on purpose and assumed it was overlooked.

If I create a song (and I'll make this stupendously absurd as an example) that is 10 minutes of varying wet and dry fart sounds, with varying lengths of silence between the farts - then THAT is my song. It's art. It can be anything I want it to be. It's one of the freedoms artists of all types have. If a glass blower only creates glass shaped like phalluses, then that's their art. If a sculptor sculpts nothing but decapitated heads with spikes through them, that's their art. If a musician records nothing but bodily sounds for an entire album, that's their album. We are the artists. Conforming to things like "you can't have >5 seconds of silence" in a song would reject songs like:

The Beatles - A Day in the Life (that long E major piano chord held for nearly a minute)

Metallica's - Sad But True (various sections of silence)

Roxie Music - Every Dream Home a Heartache

Pink Floyd - Speak to Me (beginning)

Supertramp - School

Things Ditto Music could have done better was to first, not be so lazy and slow in reviewing. They also could actually respond to tickets and address artists issues - they did not. They make claims like "You have copywritten material" in your song. This happened to be old school recorded finger snaps that Scott and I did around a microphone. As far as I know, no artist has copywritten and/or trade marked finger snapping on a recording. Sure Queen, is best known for finger snaps on Killer Queen and Under Pressure, but what about Billy Joel "The Longest Time" or the Temptations "My Girl", or Cheap Trick "I Want You to Want Me"? Ditto - no one owns finger snaps. Get over it.

They did finally drop the finger snap "copyright" item but by that time, and now 10 business days after submission, I'm just fed up. My one year with Ditto Music is up on June 29th, and it's June 22. Time to ditch. Cancelled.

I went to Distro Kid - they have many of the same requirements, since the online stores and services push these requirements on distribution companies like Ditto and Distro Kid - but let's see if I can get a better turn around time and some common sense from Distro Kid.

And just so everyone knows, I'm really, REALLY tempted to do a 10 minute song with nothing but farts every 30 seconds.

So tempted.

At the core of things...

I wrote about guitar strings and different sizes in July's 2021 blog called "Size is everything, or is it?" But that was just scratching the surface about strings. With string size comes tension on the neck, sound, tambour, etc. There are exceptions to the standards, for example Santa Cruz Parabolic tension string, which throws out the sizes of strings and use string tone and pure tension and construction as their guiding principles. They only have two versions of Acoustic strings, Low tension and Medium tension - both of which sound amazing on any guitar, are quite long lasting and somehow are EQ'd such that you don't have a dead string area on the frets. But no, we're not going there - we're going to talk about string cores.

This is the part of the program where you roll your eyes and jet off to Youtube to watch the latest viral video of skateboarders doing dangerous jumps and getting whacked in the nads.

But no seriously, cores are important and many may not even realize it. Most mass marketed strings today use hexagonal cores, meaning the core wire is usually steel, hexagonal and the corners contact the wrapped wire only on the corners. 95% of all strings are hexagonal cored so that's what you probably use and have and you know what, we're pretty happy with those strings. They work, they sound good and they're fairly cheap. The other type of string is generally an older type of string design, where a round core is used, and the wire wrapped around it is in contact with the entire surface of the core of the string. While this may be a contested and hotly argued point in musical stream geekdom, the theory is, because the wrapped string has more contact with the core, the string tends to have a fuller sound and rings (think sustain) longer and truer.

(Stringjoy write up on round core and hexagon core strings).

My first encounter with a round core string was a set of Newtone strings, made in England. I like being adventurous with strings and when I find something I like I usually stick to it. So on one of these adventures, I picked up a Newtone Heritage set of 10's - and they just felt so very comfortable. When I read up on them I found they were round cores, and the core string construction had less tension than standard sets of 10's by something like 10-17 lbs across string. Now this is important for older guitars, like early Martin's and Gibson guitars which may not even have truss rods. These guitars sometimes have "Silk and Steel" type strings which have nylon cores and wire wrapped around them which have much less tension so the older guitar necks don't bow. I have a newer acoustic guitar (1997) which requires only extra light strings (10's) due to the thin neck and that the top is very thin but resonant. This makes sense since heavier strings want to pull up the bridge and if too much pressure is put on that bridge, the guitar can "belly" meaning a hump is created under the bridge messing up the action and causing structural problems with the guitar. This happens most times on 12 string guitars as more strings = more upward pressure.

But the round wound strings just felt better. I gave a few sets to Scott and he really liked the string as well - more so than his standard Martin sets. I didn't even tell him they were round core. It's a "feel" thing. Newtone strings are made in a little shop in Northern England , and will no longer be distributed in the U.S. I could still order them direct from Newtone, but my everyday string website like juststrings.com will not be carrying them. Other companies still do round core strings, but they tend to be more expensive. Curt Mangan Round Core, DR Sunbeam are a few for acoustic guitars, Stringjoy have amazing strings for electric using round cores and you can customize your string sizes to fit your play style.

I'm going to be trying the Curt Mangan's and DR Sunbeams at some point in the future.

Music is expensive...

Everything about music is expensive. Sure you can get that inexpensive but great looking guitar, but the case, the amp, the speaker cabs, the wires, the pedals or if you really have a hole in your pocket, your "rig", all cost a bunch. And keeping your stuff in top shape isn't cheap either. Equipment if it's played, eventually starts to break down and a professional needs to be contacted. Now I know what you're thinking - why not save some bucks and do it yourself? Well, you can if you know what you're doing. But the tools for working on guitars, amps, electronics also cost. Take a look at StewMac, one of the premier musical tool suppliers. For example, the scratchy pot + switch cleaning kit for those dusty/dirty pots on your guitar or amp is $50+ for a can of Dexoit, a knob puller and pot cleaning cap. Assuming you have experience fixing things and not totally botching the job only to have to do the walk of shame to a repair shop afterwards,

Here in NJ I have only used one repair shop for more than 10 years, Raritan Bay Guitar Repair in Freehold NJ. First CJ and now Kyle does a top notch job and the best part, they don't try and fix things that don't need any fixing (if you know what I mean!) The feeling you get when you get that guitar back and it plays like a million bucks is like getting a new instrument. For example, I have a '61 Rickenbacker that needed a make over - the instrument was found by a friend of mine when I was in highschool, on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Not scratched up or mangled, just left there like someone was repacking their Van and just forgot to put it back in when they went on their way. I traded my '92 Ovation Balladeer for that Rickenbacker and it was the first electric I ever owned. It started out life as a red instrument but after a few years it went au naturale, a few trips to Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island (RIP) and it was in playing shape but, after 20 or so more years, it needed some love. The love isn't cheap but the guitar came home like it was new and played great. You see, that friend of mine passed away from cancer, and on the 3rd year, I decided I wanted to get it fixed up proper like. It never was a collectors guitar - there are screws in the headstock, the fingerboard was planed down, it's not the correct color - but it has all the original hardware, pickups to pots. And now it's my physical memory of my friend that I won't sell. Yeah, sometimes we don't care much about equipment and we'll abuse or forget about it. But sometimes something will be special and keeping it is a reminder that not all things are material things, sometimes their memories. Sometimes, a cost can't be put on a guitar as it's worth more than the wood and wires it's made from.

Happy birthday Damon.