Dear Twisted,

I am utterly in love with Shpongle, Younger Brother and Ott’s music and lots of other Twisted releases.  Your music has touched my life in ways I cannot even describe.

Today Ott’s wonderful new album was released and I was able to buy it in FLAC format immediately via Bandcamp.  Ott is clearly a switched on dude.  Why is this not possible with the other twisted releases, such as Shpongle and Younger Brother?  I’ve looked over your twisted downloads website and I cannot find any reference to file formats at all so the only logical conclusion is that it’s all MP3.  With quality hifi you’d have to be partially deaf not to be able to tell the difference between an MP3 and a lossless recording, so I cannot for the life of me figure out why you’ve not made it quick and easy to download lossless copies of your recordings.

I do not buy CDs as a rule because I like to avoid unnecessary production of plastic and all a CD really is these days is an inconvenience.  If I were to purchase a CD it would be immediately ripped to digital audio and never played again, in fact it would be so worthless to me at that point I might as well sell it on which would then probably cost you another lost sale and defeat the point of me buying it from you in the first place.

I have all of the Shpongle and Younger Brother albums on vinyl and will keep buying them on vinyl as soon as they are available, I’ve used this fact to justify downloading your music in advance of the vinyl releases because why should I pay twice for the same piece of music?  That seems fair to me, although I’d be interested to hear opinions on the subject.

Anyway, I digress.  What I would really like and think you should consider is to be able to download audiophile resolution versions of your tracks.  If you added them to the downloads store on your website with an added premium you’d make a lot more revenue out of me and I dare say a lot of other shpongle fans too.  I suspect that logistics and bandwidth may present some issues, but you could run a private torrent tracker for distribution to keep the costs down.  I can’t help but think this would be easy money for you, and given that very few artists do this it could even help promote the label.  The fact that your download site, as far as I can tell, only offers MP3s is really disappointing.

The younger brother pledge scheme is a good idea, and I pored over the items but quite honestly there wasn’t anything there that I wanted that I could afford.  I would however gladly give up money for hi-resolution versions of your albums and would be happy to pay more than the price of the CDs.  As you claim to be struggling financially to run the label, will you please consider doing this?  I know some people have criticised your past comments regarding financials, I’m not going to judge either way as I don’t look at your balance sheet so I have no idea how successful twisted is.  What I will say though is that I’d be very very surprised and shocked if Simon, Benji and Raja aren’t quite wealthy as individuals.

So, I’ll leave this with you.  I’m sure there are other twisted fans who would gladly pay for these hi-resolution copies of your music, you really have nothing to lose.

Thanks and love =)

Mark

mimayin - 15 March 2011 10:29 PM

If I were to purchase a CD it would be immediately ripped to digital audio and never played again, in fact it would be so worthless to me at that point I might as well sell it on which would then probably cost you another lost sale and defeat the point of me buying it from you in the first place.

I never thought about it that way, but that’s exactly what happens to every CD I own (and they do pile up). I wonder what the consensus will be on the ‘ripping the tunes ‘cause I will purchase them on vinyl when they come out’. Except what if you don’t really like the album? Would you purchase it anyway or might it be a case of not buying the cow because the milk is free, and didn’t taste very good either?

It’s a moral conundrum we all have to face- technically I broke the rules when I loaded my Spike CD onto my computer…

In my opinion you have the absolute right to download music to see if you like it and then not buy it if you don’t.  Just my opinion

I found Otts first two albums via filesharing and then donated money to him via the link on his website when I fell in love with it.  I much prefer the download-then-donate distribution model to simply buying something that you might not like.

The only thing that does make me question my own method of downloading ahead of the vinyl releases is the fact that they are so limited when they are released that it leads me to suspect twisted might make very little if any profit on them at all.  If that was the case then I would feel bad, but I’d also hold them partially responsible for not making lossless audio available online.  I refuse to buy plastic junk just because labels haven’t embraced the digital marketplace yet.

I too would like to request the ability to purchase losssless copies of the albums. I agree that most people should be able to clearly hear the difference between an mp3 and a lossless format. I think part of the struggle to hear a difference for some people simply comes down to having a poor system to listen to music on. As a music producer/engineer I find myself listening to music primarily on my main reference monitors in the studio and the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio is perfectly clear to my ears. It seems as though twisted does pride themselves on their production/sound quality, and I say this because to my ears it’s clearly among the best in all of electronica, so it kind of surprises me that the option for a lossless format hasn’t already become available. To me it would certainly add to the enjoyment of the listening experience, and I would imagine quite a large chunk of the twisted fanbase as well.

I’ve just outlined on another thread why I always prefer cd primarily but yes lossless download of albums for people would be a good idea for the majority.

We haven’t updated the twisteddownloads page with flac as yet because we’re working on a whole new site for mp3 and flac files, and had to move everything to a newer server that can handle this. we now have the site working in beta and ironing out the last few issues before we launch in the coming weeks. but yes, as Mark pointed out above the main issues are space and bandwidth but our hosting company MediaTemple have been brilliant in helping us with that. We’re also very close to launching the Twisted App (another reason we migrated to a new server) with this you can stream the entire twisted catalogue to your phone for free.

Jahful - 16 March 2011 12:07 AM

mimayin - 15 March 2011 10:29 PM

If I were to purchase a CD it would be immediately ripped to digital audio and never played again, in fact it would be so worthless to me at that point I might as well sell it on which would then probably cost you another lost sale and defeat the point of me buying it from you in the first place.

I never thought about it that way, but that’s exactly what happens to every CD I own (and they do pile up). I wonder what the consensus will be on the ‘ripping the tunes ‘cause I will purchase them on vinyl when they come out’. Except what if you don’t really like the album? Would you purchase it anyway or might it be a case of not buying the cow because the milk is free, and didn’t taste very good either?

It’s a moral conundrum we all have to face- technically I broke the rules when I loaded my Spike CD onto my computer…

I really like this debate over whether it still makes sense to buys CDs or not. I still buy a lot of cds myself although I tend to buy more digitally these days, and it’s true first thing I do when I buy a cd is to rip it off on the computer, and most of the time there where I’m gonna listen to it.
But from time to time, I think it’s nice to come back to the old fashion and more ritualised way, just sit in the couch on front of a good hifi system, put on the cd and listen…Without skipping tracks or going forward the songs. It’s even stronger with vinyls which i love as well, because it’s such a pain in the ass to select a song or even flip it over, that you’ll usually take the time to listen to the whole face or the whole album at once. I think with the digital media revolution lots of people just don’t take the time anymore to really listen closely, they just simply mess around on the internet with a random playlist of mp3 going, sometime through laptop speakers… And if you want any music, it’s just a matter of a couple of clicks before the stuffs land on your harddrive. Moreover, whn you got a digital album it doesn’t make any sense to listen to it in any particular order, whereas it is usually meant to be by the artist, because it’s created as a continuous journey.
Plus with digital music, the artwork doesn’t make as much sense as it did for cd, I don’t really care to have it appearing on iTunes, because usually when i’m listenning to music on the computer i don’t jsut stand in front of that stupid software! You also miss the pleeasure of opening the cd, taking out the booklet taking the time to read the credits, thanx, liner notes etc. And isn’t it nice to hold that object in your hand and take a close look at the beautiful artwork? But well that’s just me :-p

Generix..I totally agree with you there, with todays choice and ease of downloading I probably bet that most people download more than what they can physically listen to.  The majority would go with download these days but I like it when an artist does say a 500 ltd pressing like what Ishq does, I think more labels will have to go this way due to leaks and lack of demand. It’s the whole experience of selecting and listening to the whole album.

For me if YB/Shpongle go to the trouble of 2/3 years work and getting Storm Thorgeson to do the artwork then I’ll buy the cd every time.  I may have to give in and buy the download of Ott’s album then buy the cd in a few weeks though due to the feedback it’s getting.

I would say the days of Twisted going ‘digital only’ are not too far away now, especially with our new app and site coming. but i guess we will always do a limited run of pre ordered CD’s per release while there’s still some demand there.

Hi Mr Admin,

Good to hear the FLAC download site is on the way.

Is there any hope for my ultra-high-resolution audiophile downloads idea?  It wouldn’t be that hard to set up a private torrent tracker for distribution to keep the costs down.

Mark

Also: I hope Vaccine will be released on vinyl.

Is there any hope for my ultra-high-resolution audiophile downloads idea?

yes maybe later this year.

AWESOME! :D

FLAC option sounds great, especially if there’s some artwork to accompany it too…I hope we get to see more exclusive content as well, old unreleased stuff or what have you…

As long as there will be a limted release of cds im happy. I like the idea of digital releases but I personally like having the physical copies. Mainly just to collect, especially the twisted stuff. Here lately I have been buying artists digital release and physical release. I dont mind at all giving a little extra money to these artists who bust their ass for us. I love the whole pledge idea and hope Twisted continues to use this. I do believe Ott is trying to set up a pledge for his latest release “Mir”. Supposed to be a limited vinyl put out on the pledge, according to his FB.

Gnome Doser - 21 March 2011 09:43 PM

I do believe Ott is trying to set up a pledge for his latest release “Mir”. Supposed to be a limited vinyl put out on the pledge, according to his FB.

that would be swell! im not on fb, so i have to take your word for it.

i’m a bit surprised though, cause ott bashed vinyls in another thread. ?