About
My name is Keith Novak, and I am a percussionist/songwriter/audio engineer/web designer/avid video game player. I am currently studying Music Recording Technology at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA, and if everything goes according to plan, I will graduate in the spring of 2012.
I don’t have one way of describing my music (besides “it sucks”, which other people seem not to agree with) – I basically just play what I like to listen to, which is very broad. My biggest influences are definitely multi-instrumentalists – Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, and more recently artists like Buckethead and Jonathan Coulton. I am the proud owner of two drumsets and an Alesis Ion synthesizer (among other things – now including a Korg MS2000B!).
I currently reside in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania (the northeast portion) when I’m not at school, with the dream of either one day “making it big”, or owning my own recording studio, or both.
6 Responses to About
Artist Puts Album on Waffles.fm to Get “More Exposure”
August 10th, 2009 at 11:00 AM
[...] Keith Novak, a self-described “percussionist/songwriter/audio engineer/web designer/avid video game player” currently studying Music Recording Technology at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA, has decided to make his latest album “Discongruence” available for free download on Waffles.fm, the popular music-oriented private BitTorrent tracker site. [...]
Artist Puts Album on Waffles.fm to Get “More Exposure” « SmashFuse
August 10th, 2009 at 11:51 AM
[...] Keith Novak, a self-described “percussionist/songwriter/audio engineer/web designer/avid video game player” currently studying Music Recording Technology at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA, has decided to make his latest album “Discongruence” available for free download on Waffles.fm, the popular music-oriented private BitTorrent tracker site. [...]
Artist Puts Album on Waffles.fm to Get “More Exposure” « SmashFuse
August 10th, 2009 at 11:51 AM
[...] Keith Novak, a self-described “percussionist/songwriter/audio engineer/web designer/avid video game player” currently studying Music Recording Technology at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA, has decided to make his latest album “Discongruence” available for free download on Waffles.fm, the popular music-oriented private BitTorrent tracker site. [...]
SaM I Am
August 10th, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Keith, like you I am originally from Pennsylvania, I went to school there, I moved to Manhattan long ago when I was 22 and starting from nothing but through sheer work and determination, I’ve “made it big” so to speak. I have my own design firm writing and staging music and lighting and industrial shows, I work all over the world now, I’ve earned more money than I ever dreamed possible. And I give talented young people a helping start everyday.
Value yourself and value your work and realize that the value you will receive from others will directly reflect how much you value yourself in the first place.
Giving your work away for free on a network as huge as the internet is not a path to “making it big” Keith and your studio will not come “for free.”
Create good work, sell it for a fair price but the highest one the market will bear and you’ll gain respect and an income you can live on and grow.
But give it away and you, yourself, make the public statement that your best is still not worth actually purchasing. And once your “fans” have it once for free, they will never, as a coherent group, ever believe you are worth paying for again.
Never.
Do your work. Set your price. Take your chances in the market as we all do. But require from everyone that you get your price for creating something they want. Every fan, every time. True fans put their money where their mouth is. Always will. All the rest are leechers.
Mark my words.
Sam I Am
NYC
Zeroblitzt
August 10th, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Thank you for that, Sam I Am. I understand that this should be a two way street (I make music, people should pay for it), as nothing in life is truly free. But I am comfortable releasing my own material for free, at least at this stage in my life. Maybe it is just the mindset that I grew into growing up in the digital age, where you can go on the internet and find the entire history of mankind on Wikipedia. I like that kind of power. And the entire free internet music thing is nothing new (take for example, Jonathon Coulton).
Again, I do understand your message, and I understand the value of working hard to obtain the goals I’ve set for myself. I hope my fans will mature with me so that when I start releasing music that I only want to charge for (as in, no free releases), they will support me by buying it.
Sam I Am
August 10th, 2009 at 2:29 PM
” I hope my fans will mature with me so that when I start releasing music that I only want to charge for (as in, no free releases), they will support me by buying it.”
We can hope. But in the ten years since Napster the lesson seems clear, you either have the industry and their investments behind you (RadioHead, Reznor) or you go into apparel.
Selling t-shirts.
Respect doesn’t exist between fan and artist as it once did, but you can stand up for your rights and I suggest you do.
Sincere good luck.