Volume 2, Issue 5
Google Lyria Ships C2PA
This is honestly the biggest news in a long time, and I haven’t seen it reported anywhere. If you create music with Google Lyria and download the music file, it now has a C2PA manifest. This is a significant development, as they are the first major player to ship C2PA for music files.
I say “first major player” because Catamount Music was using C2PA with watermarks almost a year ago. As far as I know, we were the first studio to adopt the standard and pitch music with it. So…welcome to the table, Google!
Catamount Veritas Guitar Edition
Fender F**ks Up?
First of all, Fender stories continue to completely bork my YouTube feed. Every guitarist out there has opined on the controversy, including Tim Pierce, Danny Sapko, KDH, Rhett Schull, Samurai Guitarist, Music is Win, and so on and so on. My apologies if I missed your favorite.
In case you hadn’t heard, Fender sent a bunch of cease and desist letters to guitar manufacturers in pursuit of protecting the shape of the Stratocaster guitar, which is so widely copied it is known now generically as the “S” shape. Interestingly, Fender also created the T-shaped guitar. That would be the Fender Telecaster, which predates the Stratocaster as the first electric guitar, but I digress.
After a week of this…
…Fender released a statement (as reported here in Guitar World) saying that they were only targeting models that were exact copies of the Stratocaster. And so now, heading into June, we are in the second wave of reaction videos, from Blues Lawyer or this more dramatic piece from the Guitar History Network. And I have to say, in most of these videos, anti-Fender bias shows up enough for me to dismiss them, even when they are A-list guitarists. In case you noticed that the second video isn’t actually about Fender, all I can tell you is that the first riff is better.
I am a Fender superfan, just to make my historical loyalties clear, and I am not going to rage at them, because this decision is clearly an executive and legal strategy. Fender is a big company with lots of dedicated people that care deeply, and almost all of those people are not behind this tactic. Here’s the point that really matters to me. Fender can’t have it both ways. If they want to be a company by and for musicians and their craft, they should listen and react appropriately to the punishment their brand is taking amongst that demographic. And if it does turn out to be all about the Silver Sky, well, I can understand why Fender is still pissed. They can absolutely turn an evolving PR nightmare into a positive path forward with the right approach and sensitivity and a real commitment to execute on it. Otherwise, we’re going to be hearing about Fender litigation for years, and really nobody wins in that scenario. Feel free to give me a call, Fender.
Sounds of the wayback machine…
Unfortunately, Fender is starting to resemble Gibson in the early 2000s. Remember that? Gibson guitars have always been expensive relative to the other major brands, and similar to Fender now, there were reports of quality problems. They also pursued a legal strategy of suppressing copies of the Les Paul, including rounds of fighting with PRS. Sound familiar? (cough, cough) “Silver Sky” (cough, cough.) That went over terribly, so they tried pivoting into lifestyle products, made some questionable acquisitions, and ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2018. Obviously, they have since emerged from that and are healthy again, but it is still a cautionary tale for Fender, who doesn’t have to be doomed to repeat it.
As a side note, the Gibson debacle may have spawned one of the greatest Instagram channels in existence. If you have never seen it, please go check out Chibson USA and their take on the Fender situation. And that’s where I’m ending that. With a chuckle instead of anger.
Does the quest for perfection destroy authenticity?
The quest for the “perfect” YouTube video or Instagram short of inhumanly good playing is causing people to go to ridiculous, inauthentic, and impermissible efforts.
Voltaire famously said the best is the enemy of the good. I think it needs updating.
The perfect is the enemy of the best
Put another way, your best and perfect are not the same thing. Perfect is unattainable. There comes a point where one has to manipulate things to achieve perfection because we are incapable of achieving it on our own. Case in point: Billie Eilish. I cannot get the clip out of my head where she shows David Letterman how she (and her brother, of course) comped together a vocal performance from 87 takes. And the thing that has honestly haunted me since then is the thought that one or even maybe a few of those 87 takes that I will never hear are gloriously amazing and truly represent her best, even with whatever imperfections she comped out of the final take. What she shows in the video is the pursuit of perfection for her. And maybe she would argue that the comped version is her best and her idea of perfection is still beyond that. But that’s not what I want to hear.
An unlikely exemplar, Ichika Nito
Enter Ichika Nito. A few months ago Jacobra accused Ichika of being the ultimate “FAKE” guitarist. Ichika, in producing his videos, basically made the lip-sync mistake. In very complex passages, he’s out of sync with the backing in one way or another, so it’s clearly not a live performance. But it is presented as one. Also, as we will see, this guy can really play. Jacobra breaks down where the mistakes are shown in the video but wouldn’t be noticeable without close inspection. For guitarists, these are things we all know too well: fingers hitting the wrong fret, leaving an open string ringing, and not leaving an open string ringing.
We have a crisis of authenticity masked as the pursuit of perfection.
Along Comes Levi McLain
I have always said that if you want to be a musician, you should be able to pick up your instrument and bang out a song, at least in most contexts. That is as real as it gets.
Levi McLain has thought about this a lot. He likes the idea of a spectrum of permissibility, with minor transformations like EQ, compression, and other mix processing on the permissible side and things like faking your performance on YouTube even though you can play it on the impermissible side. McLain is most upset that by producing unrealistic videos of impossible playing techniques, these artists are setting a bar that is unreasonable for any of their fans to meet. Indeed, one of the most upvoted comments was
These guitarists are role models, whether they like it or not, and they are teaching everyone that the world values perfection over authenticity. At least, that’s the way I view it through Levi’s perspective. In such a world, we must go back to something Scott Belsky said last summer, during a content authenticity conference in New York:
As content becomes commoditized, there will be a trend towards authentic, human-created work. –Scott Belsky
Which is why, in order to cast off the claims made by Jacobra, Ichika appeared on My First Take, which is a channel dedicated to capturing real, live, authentic performances using minimalist recording techniques. For most performers, there is just a microphone and whatever is needed for the instrument. Ichika shows that he can play these songs, even if they aren’t as precise as his highly edited videos. Watch those low strings vibrate. Watch him bang the guitar in a fit of emotion. Jacobra even did a reaction video and concluded that it was real.
Real and authentic guitar. That is a crucial area of focus for me this year on social media as time allows. Speaking of which…
Gear stories
Come give our nascent YouTube channel a whirl! I am using AI as a copilot to design some guitar electronics. I started with a somewhat obscenely bad circuit called the Couineur. It’s so bad that the only comment I got in my YouTube short was someone saying I don’t know what I’m doing. Fun! So if you would like to be similarly disappointed, you can actually watch the whole story here and skip the short.
Why am I building pedals when the market is saturated with boutique pedals? Because I have ideas for pedals that are not on the market. Also, I do actually have a degree in electrical engineering, so it’s not completely new territory, but tools and components are so much better now.
Also, I will soon be covering the amazing JHS / Bilt Relevator on the channel as I have purchased one to help with pedal and device testing. Stay tuned…
Off to Indieweek
It’s not the hugest market for us here at Catamount Music, but there are just too many amazing people that will be in New York next week for Indieweek, so I am making the trek. Reach out if you want to connect at dave@catamountmusic.com!
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