The First Official Newsletter From MaterialFuture
The First Official Newsletter From MaterialFuture
Projects, news, and more. Also, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
More Music On All Platforms!
At the time of this newsletter going out all of my previous releases that (that I have full rights to) are on ALL streaming platforms. So why am I doing this since I have very few listeners of my music now compared to 2013-2014 when I had peak listeners and downloads on Bandcamp? The answer is that I wanted to make my music available everywhere for everyone on whatever device, and despite paying to have these released I don't really expect any return on investment any time soon.
The next era of my music has already started and will continue strong into 2023. My album Mountains was the first new album I've worked on in a few years and will set the stage for the next few releases in the coming years, at least in regards to the MaterialFuture "brand". I've started planning out some of the songs for my next release, but before then I have two last releases that have been sitting on my Bandcamp backlog ready to be released.
"Andras" (Working Title), an instrumental album, is one of those albums that's been waiting its turn to see the light of day. This album is much darker than and heaver than anything I produced in the past and was created during a very dark period in my life. It's also probably more experimental as well so it may not appeal to many people who enjoy my other material. That said, I feel like there is something here worth exploring further down the road. In fact, I'm thinking about releasing another version of this album featuring some artists vocals on top, but that will be later down the road.
I've been creating music for well over a decade, and releasing full albums for at least a decade with my first full album Pizza Music was released in 2012. In that time I've had my music played on online radio stations, featured in articles and blogs, and been given CDs out to a couple DJs and friends across the US and in Europe. Future plans will be just to continue with what I'm doing and releasing new tracks and exploring new ways to create and share what I've created. Please take some time to listen to some of the older works and see how my music and work has progressed over the decade or so I've been releasing music.
My Move Back To Twitter
I had spent many years off of social media platforms and nearly avoiding them like the plague, but since joining the NFT space I've noticed how important Twitter is for engagement and how that importance has grown significantly since Elon purchased the company. The removal of bot accounts, spammers, and doxxers has not only been a breath of fresh air but has really been a game changer, and even more so with Twitter Blue and the changing of Twitter's verification system for profiles.
My old account had somewhere around 1.5k followers on it, and while I did have lots of engagement and more eyes on my projects than ever before, and there was a lot of good happening there but near there end it started getting pretty bad. There were several reasons why I stopped using twitter back in 2014 including:
- Asking questions from followers resulted in bot accounts replying
- Weird comments in my DMs
- Doxxing attempts on my account from people that didn't follow me
Despite my lack of enjoyment participating in social media I do see it's importance for the future of the "attention-based economy" I've seen proposed by many companies. What this means is that as we progress more towards Web3 and beyond there will be a bigger need for products and services to integrate and I see Twitter as a leader is this as the integration with NFTs and the amount of ways one can communicate with people in increasing ways (newsletters, spaces, lists, etc).
My goal now is to surpass what my old account accomplished and grow my personal brand by creating great content and sharing it with others. You're welcome to follow me over there [@MaterialFuture]. If anyone wants to connect via email please reach out to me directly.
If you’re wondering if that banner image is correct don’t because it’s real. I’m a dirty blue checkmark user now. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing.
New Projects
I'm currently planning out the next things to come in 2023, and most of them are Audio or Video related as of now. If you're curious, here's the full list of what's planned so far:
Next major version of the Gameboy Asset Pack
New Character Sprite TemplatesNew Indoor areas
Menu/UI Spritesheets
Newsletter
New subscriber exclusive newsletter
Subscriber rewards
Continued bi-weekly newsletter
New Music
Andras (WIP)
Material Tapes Vol2
New Untitled release
Video
New music videos for Mountains album
New audiovisual experimentations
New video series
NFTs
New PFP NFT project
Continue 1/1 art on Solana + Etherium
Collaboration works with other artists
Other
Twitter Spaces
Community Space
New Company Name/Branding
So far that's just what's planned and/or ready for release, and most likely this is all Q1-Q2. Now with that said, I plan to setup a more consistent release schedule for things I'm creating, for example - Monday: Videos, Tuesday: NFT updates, etc.. This way people will know what to expect throughout the week, but either way I'll work on getting back to consistent uploads to YouTube and other platforms once I have everything lined up content-wise.
Notable Stories
Some notable stories I’ve seen from my feeds this week that are making some waves.
Dialect Messaging App utilizes NFT sticker packs
A new Solana NFT-focused messaging app just came out for iPhones (soon for Android) and this looks like a game changer for DAOs and NFT communities. So far everyone uses Discord for everything in the NFT ecosystem which is fine for creating communities, but overall really misses proper Solana integration (more on that later). The use cases for this would be that you could get real-time updates about art you're bidding on and be able to out bid them. The main part of this that I'm seeing as a big advantage is security and since Discord has had quite a few scares about account takeovers and malicious links being shared I think this would help be a secure way for communications moving forward.
Discord Integrates Solana Wallets
This is really a big surprise coming from discord, but honestly it’s the move that I’ve been seeing a lot of big tech companies making now. Everyone want’s to have integrations with wallets and ecosystems and Discord makes the most sense from tools that are already around. My worry here is the security aspect as recently quite a few large Solana and Ethereum NFT groups were affected by some XSS attack that was stealing people’s credentials.
Artists Take on AI Generated images
One important topic lately has been the debate of whether or not AI art is theft and I honestly have to agree with this take. The main argument here was that the AI was trained on art from platforms from places such as ArtStation and Dribble where the license for that artwork isn’t public domain or usable for reselling, and since the art is technically derivative of said art those artist would be in need of compensation, right. While (right now) it’s not illegal to create and sell art using models trained from copyrighted works it is still immoral, but that’s never really stopped people before.
New Podcast Site from Adobe Could Change Amateur Podcasting
Adobe Podcasts is a new product from Adobe that utilizes AI to analyze audio and create professional sounding recordings with very little effort. Right now the program is in beta, but I think when it releases along-side it’s other tools like the filler word remover it’ll be the go-to for all amateur podcasters. If you’re looking to do something similar but don’t want to mess with Adobe products then look into Nvidia Broadcast + RTX Voice as they utilize local RTX hardware and AI to create professional video/audio recordings.
Final Notes
Right now the big news you’ll see now (and moving forward) from a lot of tech outlets is AI, and honestly if you’re not already aware of or participating AI ventures you should do so as soon as possible since it’s what all the tech giants are focusing on, that an web3 technologies such as NFTs. Be aware of what’s going on in the world of tech because it effects everything, just look at the rabbit-hole that is the recent FTX debacle.
Big Thanks
I'd like to say thank you all for supporting me over the years and for continuing to support what I do even if I haven't been active for some time. If it wasn't for the continued support all these years from my listeners and supporters I wouldn't be creating this newsletter. My promise to you all is that in 2023 I will be more active and create more great content for you all to enjoy.
In the next few issues I'll cover topics such as AI, Music Royalties, Tech Minimalism, and of course keep readers up to date with what I'm working on. Thanks for reading this far and I hope stay subscribed for the next issue.
"νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη, τὰ τρία ταῦτα· μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη."