Phase47

some news about bandcamp and streaming 
Everything is Terrific: The Bandcamp 2016 Year in Review
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/
   
most interesting parts:
Bandcamp’s business was up in 2016. Digital album sales grew 20%, tracks 23%, and merch 34%. Growth in physical sales was led by vinyl, which was up 48%, and further boosted by CDs (up 14%) and cassettes (up 58%)
 
....
 
The record business overall did not fare as well. According to Nielsen, it grew 3% in the U.S. in 2016, while sales of digital albums fell 20%, tracks were down 25%, and physical albums dropped 14%. These declines are not at all surprising given the industry-wide push toward subscription music rental offerings, and indeed as the year came to a close, those services reached a combined 100 million paying subscribers.
 
....
 
As more people subscribe to music rental services, the already paltry rates paid to artists are going down (and no, artists don’t necessarily make it up in volume). But it’s not only artists who are struggling.
 
 
more @ https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/

review by Mike G @ Ambient Music Guide' Best Albums of 2016:
 
The Synphaera sound is deeply Berlin school-influenced but with an ambient dance sensibility; a smooth, panoramic style of cosmic psychedelic bleep music that French label Ultimae Records originally championed. The Meridian album by Ascendant (label founders Chris Bryant and Don Tyler) is quintessential ambient trance: lush and mysterious music with spinning arpeggios above gliding pads and discreet rhythmic pulses. “Arcology†is a dark-edged stunner with its haunting chorales, odd delay effects and sound design that has an uncommonly deep depth of field.

Artist: Ascendant
Album:  Meridian Label: Synphaera Type: Album Style tags: Ambient, Psybient, Downtempo, Space,  Media type: DIGITAL Year: 2016     10,000 years from now. 10,000 light years from here. A New Land, come of age into a time of abundance, transcendence and enlightenment. The Age of Earth and Stone, where…  An enlightened man exists alongside post-singularity machine AI that manifest as floating coils of light. Frozen clouds are summoned and then flash-melted to provide the planet’s water, and liquid has memory. 
A planet where habitats the size, shape & semblance of mountains hover over large bodies of water. A planet where enormous belts of sub-orbital forests scrub the ozone and provide oxygen. 
A world where gravity bends, but time does not. A world of alchemical transmutation, elemental summoning, and abundance. 
The Age of Earth and Stone. 

Meridian. 

More Ascendant music at  ambientascendant.bandcamp.com 
All Synphaera digital releases are cut from the 24BIT Master Source. Never pay more for 24BIT. Never settle for less. 
SYN02 © & â“… 2016 Synphaera 
All Rights Reserved 

Manny! - Good to see you here. It's Don - from Ascendant Welcome.

Greetings. My name is Don Tyler. I'm a Grammy-Nominated mastering engineer by day, and produce music under the names Phase47 (ambient) and Ascendant (psybient/psy-chill) by night. 

Excellent work! Had this playing in the background and it grabbed my attention

Currently using NI's Replika and D16's Sigmund.
 
In the past I've also used the Uhbik Delay from U-He to great effect. These in addition to the built-ins with Logic & Live.

Auto-Mute

Having an auto-mute on your output bus is crucial to protect ears and monitors from the high volume signal.
Something like Ice9 works in case of disaster or loss of clock, etc. 
http://www.cerberusaudio.com/Software/Products/Ice9/
(thanks for Phase47 / Ascendant for this tip)
 
i guess same can be done with Brickwall Limiter
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/trbricklim/
(recommended by Makyo)

One thing, and this is more of a philosophical notion, and maybe too obvious, but that's to ruthlessly pare down your plugin collection to only those synths and effects that speak to you as an artist. Don't be taken in by the flavor of the month. Demo, demo, demo - and then keep only the ones that are essential to you in creating your work.
 
Trash the rest and don't look back

That is a massive tune with some massive sounds.  Awesome.

If you check the first track here (Remains) https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/releases- it's pretty much what you describe: sustained bass, warm pads, atmosphere and sequences. 
 
The main thing is to, in your arrangement, make sure you aren't doing too much in any given frequency range. Make sure you spread the material out over the full range. You especially don't want too much overlap in the low-mid (mud) or the high-mids (harsh). Also, make sure to concentrate on your source sounds before you apply FX or else you're just taking a not so great sound and making more of the same.
 
The other thing is, some sounds, you'll want to use your FX inline, other times on a send, to get different depths in your sound field. Delays work great in both places, but an analog delay (say Minifooger) or any "colored" delay (VST) on send can be a great way to glue sounds together - so you can have a wide variety of sources, but they'll all sound like they're in the same "space" if you do little tricks like that.
 
Best advice though, use your ears and follow where they lead.

If you check the first track here (Remains) https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/releases- it's pretty much what you describe: sustained bass, warm pads, atmosphere and sequences. 
 
The main thing is to, in your arrangement, make sure you aren't doing too much in any given frequency range. Make sure you spread the material out over the full range. You especially don't want too much overlap in the low-mid (mud) or the high-mids (harsh). Also, make sure to concentrate on your source sounds before you apply FX or else you're just taking a not so great sound and making more of the same.
 
The other thing is, some sounds, you'll want to use your FX inline, other times on a send, to get different depths in your sound field. Delays work great in both places, but an analog delay (say Minifooger) or any "colored" delay (VST) on send can be a great way to glue sounds together - so you can have a wide variety of sources, but they'll all sound like they're in the same "space" if you do little tricks like that.
 
Best advice though, use your ears and follow where they lead.

Usually I start with a concept or an idea of an arrangement, and then get some sounds together. If it's an Ascendant track, we almost always have a conceptual idea down first, and then try to realize that through passing a Live session back and forth and then I'll start to create an arrangement based on the parts we've got and then we fine-tune.
 
The main thing I find is that if I have an idea or concept, it's getting to the emotional core - that feeling you want to have when you're listening to the track - and then don't let go once you have it until it's done.

Artist: Ascendant Album: Ã†thereal Code Type: Album Style tags: Ambient, Psybient, Space Music Media type: WEB, CD-R Year: 2015 Label: Synphaera Records Length: 55:04 Official url: https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/album/thereal-code
 

These are the best small / medium monitor stands I've ever use. Amazing decoupling / isolation. Really do work as advertised.

http://www.isoacoustics.com/index.php

Really beautiful work, I love the warm & spacey atmosphere of the album! This one definitely reminds me of CBL in terms of melodies and even hints to Vangelis at some points, both excellent references for sure
 
Congratulations, I wish you all the best with the album & label!

...aaaannnnnddddd. It's released.

https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/album/thereal-code
 
 

I would stick with the IsoAcoustics:  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=isoacoustics&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps 
 
See that link for diff. versions + prices. They're really good.

These are the best small / medium monitor stands I've ever use. Amazing decoupling / isolation. Really do work as advertised.

http://www.isoacoustics.com/index.php

Artist: Ascendant Album: Ã†thereal Code Type: Album Style tags: Ambient, Psybient, Space Music Media type: WEB, CD-R Year: 2015 Label: Synphaera Records Length: 55:04 Official url: https://synphaera.bandcamp.com/album/thereal-code
 

I love it! Really waiting forward to hear the full album.

One thing, and this is more of a philosophical notion, and maybe too obvious, but that's to ruthlessly pare down your plugin collection to only those synths and effects that speak to you as an artist. Don't be taken in by the flavor of the month. Demo, demo, demo - and then keep only the ones that are essential to you in creating your work.
 
Trash the rest and don't look back

Grooveshark go offline after more than half a decade of legal battles and controversy.....
"We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation," Grooveshark wrote in a note announcing its closure.
full text => http://grooveshark.com/
 
but a day after a new super fast server appear, hosting million of files with 1 click download.... S.W.I.M. have just checked it personally and downloaded few shpongle track in no time
 
more read
=> http://bgr.com/2015/05/05/grooveshark-is-back-online/
=> http://gizmodo.com/who-are-the-mysterious-pirates-trying-to-resurrect-groo-1702394039
 
we live in interesting era, when we establish the copyrights for everything and when we might for freedome. Personally i don't have a fixed opinion on the copyright and pircacy subject. Both can be good and harm a lot. One thing i know, our dear artist needs our financial support and we shall support them with a purchasing music from them or donating.

C&P from our FB discussion - thought it might be nice to continue the conversation here.
 
It would be great if everybody took a look at adopting the production practices to make this format a success - especially downtempo/chill producers, because imagine the flexibility in playback, not just for DJs on NI hardware (or whatever), but for inventive presentation / performance of one's own music. Think about it - you don't necessarily have to break out the stems according to NI's guideline. You could do a quad-mix... whatever you want.
  We'll definitely be looking at this with Ascendant, and hopefully artists on Ultimae Records & Altar Records, etc., will too.   Re; compression. They (NI at least) will probably want to keep the stems as mp3 (or similar) for file-size and bandwidth...   The practical matter is that now, no matter what, the .stem.mp4 file size be 4x larger than the constituent stereo file. Imagine you have four decks now with four stems each on an S8. That's going to require a lot of bandwidth (and storage). So I'm guessing in TRAKTORWorld, they'll be looking for mp3 stems most likely, though the spec may not limit you to mp3s. (We'll see soon.)   Re: Mastering. There will def. be added cost, because in addition to mastering the stereo file, there is now the addition of mastering the stems, and you'd need to make sure that the tracks remain 100% in alignment and that the stem.mp4 file matches the stereo file (when it's playing back in stereo mode).    Alot remains to be seen on how the .stem creator works - that will be good information to get asap. i will definitely be accommodating this delivery method @ IO Mastering.   re: Workflow. Not 100% sure yet. There will probably be a dropper-type file creator provided by NI, whereby you'll drop the 4 mp3 stems and it will wrap them into a .stem.mp4 file.   You can see in the video, when he drops the file into Traktor, it looks (and sounds) like a stereo file. It's not until you get at it w/ a controller that you can start manipulating the stems. (Time will tell how all this works.)   As for production workflow, the easiest way would be to simply create four "master busses" and route the constituent parts to the relative busses, and then export per-bus - this in addition to the master stereo version.    These all get shipped off to mastering, or one could DIY with STEM creator.   The trick will be to figure out how the summing of the stems works w/ the creator for stereo playback. It's probably simple, but early days right now, so who knows...   Soon, hopefull you'l be buying these stemmed versions on Bandcamp. (Surely Beatport will sell them as well.) I'm guessing there will be a premium charge for stemmed versions.

The real reason why the Spotify model is broken By Sharky Laguana on March 15th, 2015
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/12136/spotify-royalty-payment-model/
 
(will read it soon)