Dear phase02 readers, we’re proud to announce our 6th design version (if I’m correct). I hope this can be a start to a new active music blog, I’d even dare to say community. The next few days I’ll be fixing some bugs. If you notice anything please feel free to contact me. In the near future there will be more exciting functions added to this new design. So I hope I made you guys happy.

To start of this community feeling, I’d like to know what you guys like to see in the phase02 background instead of the two goats. Please share it in the comment section and be part of the design. You can post links to images if you like. The idea is to pick 3-5 ideas and rotate them randomly in the background.

I’d like to get an idea of how many of our readers would support a few changes to our chart system. I’ve spoken with Tim about this and we’re gonna run a poll to get a better idea. As it stands, there is a kind of legal “grey area” when it comes to sharing mixes online. As a promotional tool, it’s become the preferred platform to share music on the Internet without disrespecting the artists, their labels, or infringing copyright laws.

The function of this blog is also to promote the music we love; however, there are many people – including some artists, label owners, lawyers, and industry professionals that disagree with file sharing. Personally, I don’t believe 10 downloads = 10 lost sales. There is sufficient evidence on both sides to support either claim. The argument becomes more of a debate centered around the ethics of file sharing as opposed to which approach is a more effective promotional tool. Without delving further into this tiring endless debate, I’d like to disregard the ethics and look at something more tangible. Let’s see if we can’t find an even playing field for the end user, the consumer, and the producer.

Re-encoding tracks to low bitrate mp3s, and honoring our promise to the labels, to have any offending content removed on request, has been our approach. Although this does nothing to stop piracy on a larger scale, it’s our own way of expressing our concerns for the artists, and their property. This has proved to be fairly effective for us, and we haven’t received many complaints; However, the main issue for me in regards to the monthly charts is that many of those tunes are usually brand new, and much of the revenue generated from sales are within the initial period of their release.

This has been very stressful for me because there are loads of tunes I purchase that are omitted because I believe artists deserve a fair chance at maximizing revenue generated in that crucial initial period of it’s release. The most important factor in deciding which tunes are going into the charts is how available they are elsewhere on the net. My efforts have been to keep the focus on sharing new quality tunes that aren’t already propagated throughout the blogosphere.

A couple of idea’s dawned on me while I was listening to my favourite radio shows and podcasts on how I could maintain my principles, without changing the way I’ve done the charts in the past. I realized that in the mixes I was listening to that I was hearing large unmixed portions of new tunes. This is obviously how many rips of unreleased material pop up on the net. No one fusses about bloggers sharing radio rips, and no one (hopefully) is stupid enough to use a radio rip in their mixes. It was finally clear to me how I could overcome the negative connotations and inevitable guilt associated with file sharing, and still share and promote the music I love. This isn’t an absolute truth or final solution, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

I’d like to present two different idea’s to the way we can approach this. The first option would be the tried and tested mix format. This seems to be the most popular and accepted way to go about it. My second idea is approach it more like a radio rip. The changes would be made to the lengths of the tracks, shortening them to 2-3 minute preview clips. This would be easier for us than making mixes, but who knows, maybe we should just try both and see which works best. We’ll start with the clips just cause it’s easiest.

#chart#

Exodub – It’s Alright (Original Mix) / Breath Out / Rest In Beats
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 It's Alright.mp3]

Martyn – Seventy Four (Redshape Remix) / Hear Me bw Seventy Four / 3024 Records
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 Seventy Four (Redshape Mix).mp3]

Binary Sequence – Arc (Original Mix) (streaming only) / 66/31 / Dark Arx
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 Arc.mp3]

Smokin Jo – Simsime (Original Mix) / Umona / Area Remote
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/01 Simsime (Original).mp3]

Frozen Border – 4.01 (Original Mix) / Frozen Border 04 / Frozen Border Records
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/01 4.01.mp3]

Loops Haunt – Joplin (Original Mix) / Impact Omnihammer bw Joplin / Black Acre
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 Joplin.mp3]

Planetary Assault Systems – X Speaks To X (Al Tourettes & Appleblim Remix) / Planetary Assault System Remixes / Ostgut Ton
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/01 X Speaks To X (Al Tourettes & App.mp3]

James Fox – Put It Back (Ramadanman Refix) / Put It Back / Take Records
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 Put It Back (Ramadanman Refix).mp3]

i3i3 – Rock & Groove It (Original Mix) / Explosion Mind bw Rock & Groove It / Eight:FX
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/02 Rock & Groove It.mp3]

Tickles – Fallout (Mentalic’s Edit) / Freirausch / Ipoly Music
[audio:2010/0110/Clips/03 Fallout (Mentalic's Edit).mp3]

P.S. Please do comment and share your thoughts. These charts usually take me a fair bit of time to compile – It takes you about 5 seconds to simply say “thank you” and show appreciation.

By Dmitry Maximov

Merry Christmas to all our readers! I hope you had a great Christmas eve with your family, got some lovely presents and had a delicious Christmas dinner.

Here are some gifts from some amazing artists I’ve received in the last couple of days. I’m off to the next family dinner. Enjoy!

[audio:/1209/roland_appel-cold_blooded.mp3]
Roland Appel – Cold Blooded

[audio:/1209/X (Felix Cartal House Edit).mp3]
Xzibit – X (Felix Cartal House Edit)

[audio:/1209/FrankMusik_and_Don_Diablo_ft._Ish_-_Confusion_girl_(the_name_is...).mp3]
FrankMusik & Don Diablo ft. Ish – Confusion Girl

[audio:/1209/3 Is A Crowd - Help Me ft Mr. D (Radio Edit).mp3]
3 Is A Crowd – Help Me Ft. Mr D (Radio Edit)

image by MIAD

Woohoow! Thanks to you guys we’ve received 1000 comments so far. And thanks to the spam we’ve blocked 6973! For me – and I bet for Tony too, this is a great occasion to write a new post and celebrate with some “wicked tunes”. I apologize for my crappy English descriptions of “a nice tracks”. I tell you what. The one who posts the best description of “a freaking nice track” in a comment, wins a prize! That’s right! An “incredible nice” prize! Again a wonderful description for a prize that still needs to be discovered. So neither you or me knows what the winner will get. Exciting, isn’t it. I can tell you this. I will ‘try’ to use every single description of “an awesome track” posted in a comment in the upcoming posts.

Now lets make some room for the “delicious tunes”. This are truly unique tracks. Please, go give them these artists some love!

For those who still couldn’t figure it out: richt click – save target as to download the mp3 files.

[audio:/1109/spilled time.mp3]
Voltronixx – Spilled Time (myspace)

[audio:/1109/PUNK ROLLA - GETTING BETTER.mp3]
Punk Rolla – Getting Better (myspace)

[audio:/1109/The Young Punx feat Count Bass D - Like Dat.mp3]
The Young Punx – Like Dat feat. Count Bass D (myspace)

[audio:/1109/vocaloid_tdmix.mp3]
Charlie Tippie – Vocaloid (Terror Dactel Mix) (myspace)

[audio:/1109/sicknote_-_Brand Man.mp3]
Sicknote – Brand Man (myspace)

[audio:/1109/Paparazzi _Redlight Remix_.mp3]
Lady Gaga – Papparazi (Redlight Remix) (myspace)

[audio:/1109/Akufen - Deck the House.mp3]
Akufen – Deck The House (myspace)

[audio:/1109/Wolfgang Gartner - Latin Fever (Original Mix).mp3]
Wolfgang Gartner – Latin Fever (myspace)

Now get those “nice track” descriptions in!

Dear phase02 readers,

We’re proud to announce our new phase02 skin. We really hope you like it. The new skin comes with a new logo and our first iPhone / iPod Touch wallpaper. But not is this only a style update, we’re going to put extra effort on bringing you more music from genres like Techno, Tech-House and minimal. The past couple of weeks we’ve noticed an increasing interest from you  towards those genres. Also we intend to publish more interviews in the coming months. I want to thank all our readers for the support they’ve given us. Thanks to you we stay focused and motivated to make phase02 a better place and search for new interesting content everyday.

Also you may have noticed we don’t longer use our facebook group. Instead we launched our phase02 facebook page which comes with a lot more handy tools to keep you update.

Head over to our facebook page and become a fan:
phase02 facebook page

Kind regards,
timic and tony

As some of you might have noticed. A new button popped up in the navigation bar. That’s right! We’ve installed a forum recently. Everyone can enjoy this new feature by registering themselfs on PHASE02. If  you’re already registered, you have to log in to participate in the discussions.

I know the forum is still quite empty, but together with your activity we can make it into a fun place for music and art lovers, graphic designer and musicians. Designers can show off their work and receive feedback from all the PHASE02 readers while music producers can talk about their latest productions.

This way we want to try to get closer to our readers. Hope to see you guys there!

greetings,

Timic & Tony

We’ve recently received an interesting message in our mailbox. Crystal Method have just announced ‘Come Back Clean’ as their second single from the album ‘Divided By Night‘. To support the new single they ‘re running a remix competition. I’d truly love to see some PHASE02 readers entering this competition. You can download all the resources and submit your remix till September 8.

After the submission period ends, voting will take place between September 8 and September 22. The top ten popular submissions, as determined by public voting on the site, will receive an autographed copy of Divided By Night. The Crystal Method will also choose a winner to receive a mini Korg synthesizer. Two runners-up each will receive Skull Candy skate decks and Skull candy headphone sets.

Check out this link for more information. http://www.indabamusic.com/featured_programs/show/tcm

Please let us know if you’re entering.
Good luck!