Update 9/26/08: Aaand... fast-forward roughly a year. Life to a Beat has been off the air for a good long while at this point, primarily due to the insane specter of webcasting royalties. However, I've been thinking about the show quite a bit lately, and I'd like to bring it back. Admittedly, it probably can't be quite the same, but I'd like to take the show back to its roots - featuring various interesting and independent artists who are distributing their music online. Due to royalty issues, though, much of the more mainstream stuff I used to play can no longer be featured. Luckily, though, there are plenty of interesting netlabels and music sources available, and I'll probably be able to do some remixes and other independent stuff as well. Overall, expect probably a more eclectic mix with less emphasis on the mainstream side of trance, but hopefully something interesting and entertaining all the same.

I also want to announce that my younger brother, following in my footsteps, has taken on a radio show on KLC radio, the radio station at Lewis and Clark college, where he attends. You can check out his show, Today, Tonight and Tomorrow, Fridays from 11:00PM-1:00AM Pacific time at http://klcradio.net/. Described as "A show of eclectic varieties of music as well as news and common talk," I'm sure it will be interesting. And trust me, when he says eclectic, he means it :)

Update 6/26/07: Well, even though I can't air the webcast anymore, I can at least fill you in on some of my favorite music, that I've played on the show and elsewhere. Here's a pdf of the highest-rated and most-played songs, if you're interested in tracking down some of the songs I've been listening to over the past few years (legally, of course!).

Update 6/24/07: Essentially, the situation is unchanged - due to insane royalty rates (including incredible rate increases) and the fact that rates would be levied even against completely nonprofit webcasts, the Life to a Beat webcast will remain offline indefinitely. I apologize for this, and I certainly do miss doing the webcast, but unless this country's legislators are willing to pass some reasonable copyright legislation, there's not much I can do. I've written my legislators (some of whom are firmly in the pocket of the media lobby), and I would encourage you to do the same, and tell them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act of 2007.

Update 6/27/06: Wow, that sure was a long time between updates... In any case, you're probably wondering two things: one, when is the next edition of LTAB coming out, and two, what happened to all of the show archives?

The answer to this, simply put, can be summed up in one acronym: RIAA. When I was doing the radio broadcast show at KZSC, the license fees for any music that was played was covered by the station - both broadcast and webcast. However, doing the webcast on my own, I wasn't quite sure about the legality - no money was made, but I was still unclear on precisely how licensing was going to work. Recently, I actually did some research on this subject, and came to the disturbing conclusion - even if I am only promoting independent online artists who aren't signed to a label, I would need a broadcast waiver for each and every one of them to run this webcast in a completely legitimate manner. This, of course, is impossible.

Therefore, I have decided to place LTAB on hold until further notice, while I attempt to figure out a way to do a webcast that doesn't run afoul of a ridiculously restrictive set of rules (possibly exclusively remixes, possibly creative commons music, possibly ?). I'm not even sure if my archives of actual terrestrial broadcast shows can be posted here, so unfortunately I don't have any shows for you in the interim.

I don't think that I have words enough to express the depths of my hatred for the people who have taken music hostage for the sake of their own greed. It really is a very simple metric - if you don't allow music any exposure other than media outlets planted firmly in the mainstream, then all you will get is a mainstream audience, while alienating any true fans of the music.

Update 12/23/05: I apologize for the severe lack of updates over the past couple of months. Many things have been going on, including work, other projects, and sheer, unadulterated laziness. In any case, I hope to be getting back onto at least a somewhat more regular schedule soon - at the very least, alternating off weeks with new live sets and archived broadcasts from back in the LTAB broadcast days, which I've been meaning to digitize for a while. To start that off, we have one of my favorite sets, that I recently tracked down, from back in October 2003. There are some incredible tunes on this set, so make sure you don't miss it. In upcoming weeks, look for some all-new stuff, perhaps even a belated holiday mix... but more on that once I finish reading up on how to properly DJ in live. The cool thing about Live is that I can do full-on beat-matched and tempo-synced mixing - and I can also use it to do radio-style mixing (which may end up working better for mixed shows, as mixing remixes and trance into the same mix makes for some crazy tempo shifting). In any case, I'm definitely missing doing the show, and I hope to have it back on track as soon as I can.

Update 11/6/05: With this week's show, I think I've wrapped up all the postulations that I made a month ago - not only is there a new show, with new music, it's also mixed in Live! I apologize for the minor glitches beforehand - this is my first-ever mix in Live, so there are a few rough edges. The main issue, though, is also the reason why the show is in two parts this week - apparently, my broadcast program didn't handle one of the plugins I threw at it well, and crashed midway through the show. If you were listening to it live, I apologize for the error - however, for listening form the site, you shouldn't notice much of a difference. In any case, doing an actual continuous, beat-and-tempo-matched mix is definitely an interesting process, and actually having a controller in my hands makes it feel a bit more like the broadcast show. I hope that you enjoy the first live-mixed show on the webcast, and stay tuned for more!

Update 10/22/05: One of the theoretical items mentioned in the previous post is now quite actual - as you've probably already seen, there's a new player up on the site, from which you can stream (and download) all of the currently available shows. The player program now also handles the podcast as well, meaning that I don't have to continually edit the podcast file by hand (and which should mean that all new shows should go live on the site as soon as they're done uploading, as opposed to as soon as I've finished editing and uploading all of the HTML files). Yes, it is Flash... but it's the best way I've seen so far to make the archives available for streaming. As for the Live mixing, well... we'll just have to wait and see :)

Update 10/16/05: Holy spork on a stick, we're back! Check out the all-new show below - five brand new remix tracks (and plenty of trance as well), as promised. Also, the podcast should now (theoretically) work for all of the archived shows on the site. In any case, it's good to be back.

Coming up soon (again, theoretically): some actual mixing in Live (and yes, I intend to attempt mixing remixes and trance together - should be interesting), and possibly on-demand live streaming of the shows, assuming my host can handle it. Oh, and of course, new music... and new shows! Stay tuned - I hope to have some more updates available soon, assuming my schedule allows me to fully pursue them...

Update 10/11/05: Yikes! Quite a long time between updates. Long story short - the lone show done in Spetember was not really up to acceptable quality (and it being on Sept. 11th didn't help matters much either), so it will not be uploaded. As for a new show time... I'm still trying to find sufficient time to track down some new music, as well as try my hand at doing a real mixset-style show in Live. My goal, like it was at KZSC, is going to be at least 5 new releases per show, which should hopefully be manageable. Once I get all this together, the show will return, most likely on the weekends. Once again, I apologize for the long lag between shows, and believe me, I miss doing the show at least as much as you miss listening to it! So, long story short, the show will be back, hopefully sometime soon.

Update 8/29/05: I'm still working on a good time to do the show - hopefully, I'll have some more info for you this week. In the meantime, enjoy a "special edition" show I created in honor of my brother, who just started his first year of college.

Update 8/15/05: Yes, Life to a Beat is still here! Check out the new show for some great new music... and, surprisingly, no talking (as, apparently, something went wrong with my microphone settings). In any case, sorry about the delay - things have been hectic, as usual, and I'm still trying to come up with a new "regular" time slot for the show. In any case - enjoy the new show, and I'll hopefully have more info for you soon...

Update 7/28/05: This week's show is now live on the website. Also trying a slight redesign with embedding the news, which should alleviate the need for insane amounts of scrolling to see the basic show info. Note that you can now scroll down in the webcast window to see the (not very accurate at the moment) live information - as most people use the podcast or download the archives, I decided that it made more sense to have them listed more prominently.

Update 7/26/05: Y'know... I really need to find a new time for the show. Why no show so far this week? Well, I've simply been out of the house - doing various things related to job-hunting. These are things that need to be done, and need to be done during the day - which conflicts with the show's current time. Basically, this time worked great while I was in college - but it's not working as well now that I'm seeking employment (and most likely won't work once I get some, either). So, I will most likely be moving the show to an evening schedule - more info on that soon.

In other news, I just got my copy of Live 5 today, so once I figure out all of the remix/DJ features of it, you may be seeing some more professionally-mixed shows in the future - again, more on that once I've had a chace to play around with the program and see what it can do.

Update 7/18/05: LTAB aired today, on time, and back on schedule! Sorry for the no-show last week. Anyway, the podcast now covers the past 4 shows, and 4 full shows will now be archived on the site (that's a month's worth of shows). Also, this is the last week that the original VGMix sets will be up on the site - so if you want to grab them, do so within the next few days.

Update 6/27/05: The show actually managed to air today! So, for now, the show should once again be airing at its regular time. I'll decide each week whether to do a 1 or 2-hour show - the 1-hour shows will be upped at 64kbps, the 2-hour shows at 32kbps. The live webcast will remain at 32kbps, to accomodate the modem users who are still interested in listening to the show - I'm still working on a way to stream at a higher bitrate simultaneously for broadband users.

Update 6/25/05: I apologize for not having a show up this week - there were a number of things happening (including a family member underoging surgery), and as a result, I wasn't able to get around to creating a new show for you. To make up for it, here's the second part of the original video game remix show (you can get the first part here). Also, the info from last week's show should also be up.

Update 6/20/05: Working on various other things, and feeling a bit uninspired - so I could do a mediocre show now, or hopefully a better one tomorrow. So, the show will most likely air tomorrow instead of today.

Update 6/14/05: Once again, sorry for the delayed update. Anyway, the archive for this week's show is here - once again, it's about an hour, at 64kbps. I'll get around to updating hte rest of the pages when I have the time and motivation available to do so. What can I say... it's been an itneresting week...

Update 6/6/05: I'm thinking about what can be done in terms of the show. Here's how I see it now: We can keep the standard 2-hour shows going, and have 32kbps archives and streaming. Or, as I'm testing, we can move to 1-hour shows, at 64kbps streaming and archives, with the same number of archives (3, possibly 4). Or, we can stick with the 2-hour shows, bump up the bitrate to 64kbps, and host only 2 weeks' worth of archives (or really go for it, and post 128kbps... but that's only going to allow for a single week's show to be archives on the site at a time). If you have an opinion on this either way, feel free to email me and weigh in, so that I can determine which of these solutions people would like to see implemented for future shows...

Update 5/23/05: Lots of new stuff going on! I've been looking at some new equipment and software for doing the show. Tried out a few auto-DJ progs, but not much luck - Traktor DJ Studio is looking like the best bet, if I can rationalize the expense. I'm also half-looking into some Edirol cardiod mics, which might be a little higher in quality than my current MicFlex, which is adequate, but barely (the clipping noises are dricing me nuts, are are probably doing the same to you). So, we'll see if LTAB can become a bit more technologically advanced in the future :)

Also, a word of note on the 32kbps archives - I've noticed that if you turn the treble down on your speakers, they're a bit more passable - at least, they are on mine. Ironically, here's where cheap speaker people have an advantage - if you're listening on a pair of entry-level comp speakers, teh stream is going to definitely sound passable - the thing about higher-end speakers, though, is that they make good-quality audio sound great, and crap-quality audio sound like crap. Don't worry, though - I've got almost the entire back catalog of the LTAB webcast backed up on DVD in lossless AIFF, so I can rip it to higher bitrates if my site ever gets an additional upgrade in bandwidth.

I'm also working on a more comprehensive top tracks list, to take over for the most-played lists in the past - there's simply too much data now for me to accurately compile a most-played list (the previous ones were all done primarily by hand). However, I'll soon have a comprehensive Top 50 (or more) list covering Trance/Dance, Video Game Remixes, and everything else. The Trance list is about half-populated, and the Remix one half so... I'll most likely post it before it's entirely finished, so there will be some room to grow for the additional tracks that will show up in the future.

Oh, and one final note: At some point in time, I will most likely be employed at an actual business or organization, which will mean that I will most likely have to work during the time when LTAB usually airs. As a result, if this situation does come about, LTAB could be moved to a weekend day at the same time, or possibly remain on Mondays but air in the evening instead - I'm still trying to decide which one, so if you listen live, make sure to give me some feedback on which time you'd rather hear it. The archives should eb alrgely unaffected, though, and as this is how most people listen to LTAB, hopefully the scheduling change won't be too big of a deal.

Update 5/5/05: Once again, sorry for the archives not being updated in a timely manner (although the show did air live as scheduled). Anyway, everything should be updated now. I'm going to aim for having the updates up for Tuesday nights for upcoming shows, so if you're using the podcast, you should probably set it up to check on Wednesdays.

Update 4/26/05: My bandwidth has been holding up lately, so I'm making the previous 3 shows available as mp3 archives (as opposed to 2). However, please remember not to be too hard on my bandwidth, or else all of the archives will have to come down!

Update 4/1/05: Gack! Not again! Once again, I apologize for not doing the show today. I had to do some stuff related to my job search, and I had meant to post something about this before, but it slipped my mind. At any rate, I will do my very best to remember, and do the show tomorrow at the usual time.

Update 3/28/05: Sorry about not having a show last week. Many things came up, including a period of time when the internet was basically down, which kinda precluded streaming... definitely not a problem you have with an actual broadcast radio station :) Anyway, things are relatively back to normal, so the show will air at its regular time later today.

Update 3/21/05: As you may have noticed, there wasn't a show today. A recording session I was doing for a new track I'm working on went for longer than I had anticipated, and the window for the show was just about over by the time I got back to thinking about it. As a result (probably the usual result when this happens), the show will air tomorrow.

Update 3/1/05: LTAB aired a day late. Yeah, I know, I know... How about this: you actually tune in, and I'll make sure not to forget to air the show, mmkay? Seriously, though, sorry about that. I'll try to be more on the ball on that in the future. Might even work on recording and posting some actual playlists as well... At any rate, check out the new site navigation!

Update 2/25/04: Okay, yeah, so the update didn't go out on time. Actually, the audio file was uploaded, but I forgot to add on the link, but you should be able to download it now. There is also now an (experimental) podcast feed for those who want to try to pull down the files automatically - careful, though, as I only have so much bandwidth, and the archives will be removed if I get too close to the limit. Also, next Monday's show (and possibly most future shows) will start at around 3 PM PST.

Update 2/21/05: LTAB is back on the air - the most recent show was today, from 3-5 PM. We should hopefully be back on a regular schedule now (which, for all of you frequent listeners out there, means checking in sometime Monday night for th archived show to be posted).

Update 2/17/05: The microphone is here! I've tested it, and so far it looks like it works quite well... so LTAB will be back online shortly. I'm hoping to do a test run sometime tomorrow, and hopefully have LTAB back on the air by next Monday.