TMCnet News

Internet Surround Music Project to Promote the Creation and Distribution of Multichannel Music Online
[May 25, 2005]

Internet Surround Music Project to Promote the Creation and Distribution of Multichannel Music Online


LOS ANGELES --(Business Wire)-- May 25, 2005 -- Coding Technologies:

-- America Online, Cakewalk, Coding Technologies, Richard Devine, Jazz Mutant, Nasseri Music Business Solutions, Minnetonka, Native Instruments, Steinberg, Amon Tobin, and Tuner2.com Join in an Effort to Publish More Surround Music Online Using MPEG aacPlus Format



Coding Technologies, the leader in audio compression for Internet, mobile, and broadcast, today announced the formation of the Internet Surround Music Project with these additional charter members:

-- America Online's Winamp(R) media player


-- Cakewalk

-- Recording artist Richard Devine

-- Jazz Mutant

-- Minnetonka Software

-- Nasseri Music Business Solutions

-- Native Instruments

-- Steinberg

-- Recording artist Amon Tobin

-- Tuner2.com

The Internet Surround Music Project has already started an Internet forum at www.tuner2.com for artists to publish 5.1 surround music and will run contests to encourage aspiring artists.

Recognizing the dynamic that radio has traditionally driven demand for new music formats by providing broad exposure, the Internet Surround Music project has a twofold purpose. The first is to provide a way for artists to get their multichannel music heard by publishing it on the Internet. The second is to encourage more artists to produce content in surround sound by running contests where artist submissions are judged and awarded prizes based on quality, originality, and popularity.

With the specific goal of making artists aware of the opportunity in surround music, the group will outreach to musicians and encourage them to submit their multichannel music to contests hosted at Tuner2.com. Artists who register will receive free MPEG aacPlus encoder software from Coding Technologies to encode their content for electronic submission to Tuner2.com. The Internet Surround Music Project will host that content and run the contests on Tuner2.com, delivering the content both on-demand and in aggregated "radio" streams.

"Our goal in creating the Internet Surround Music Project is to increase awareness of the benefits of surround music for both artists and consumers," said David Frerichs, Vice President and US General Manager for Coding Technologies. "By increasing the amount of surround content being created by artists and distributing that content on the Internet using MPEG aacPlus, the demand for surround music will increase, even beyond the PC."

"Our Winamp audience is on the leading edge of adoption, for both technology and music," said Scott Brown, Director of Media Systems Development for America Online. "With aacPlus and the Internet Surround Music Project, we can now bring that same audience the latest in 5.1 surround music while increasing the reach of artists."

"I hope that this project will open new doors for musicians and artists who are interested in creating music for surround environments. I think the surround sound format is an exciting new way to hear music now. You have so many options, and now have the ability and technology to add multi-dimensional qualities to sound, that make the musical listening experience even more interesting," said recording artist Richard Devine. "This will particularly be interesting for music in the electronic/glitch/techno genre where all the layers and sounds can be manipulated at pinpoint accuracy. The possibilities seem endless, so I feel it is important to get involved with as many projects that push for support of surround sound music."

"With the release of SONAR 4 Producer Edition, musicians, engineers, and producers have been empowered with a new level of creative surround editing and mixing tools," commented Carl Jacobson, Marketing Director for Cakewalk. "With MPEG aacPlus encoders from Coding Technologies and the launch of the Internet Surround Music Project, these artists are now being given tools they need and the venue they have been looking for to air their surround projects online."

Artists are encouraged to visit www.tuner2.com for more information on the Internet Surround Music Project and to register for the latest contest and to have their music published.

About MPEG aacPlus

Already standardized by MPEG, DVD Forum, and 3GPP, aacPlus is AAC coupled with Coding Technologies' SBR (Spectral Band Replication) and Parametric Stereo technologies. SBR is a unique bandwidth extension technique, which enables audio codecs to deliver the same quality at half the bit rate. Parametric Stereo enhances the codec efficiency a second time for low-bit-rate stereo signals. Both SBR and Parametric Stereo are backward and forward compatible methods to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec. As a result, aacPlus delivers streaming and downloadable 5.1 multichannel audio at 128 Kbps, near transparent stereo at 32 Kbps, excellent quality stereo at 24 Kbps, and great quality for mixed content down to 16 Kbps and below. This level of efficiency fundamentally enables new applications in the markets of mobile and digital broadcast.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]