>From: zepub
>Sent: Thursday, July 17, 1997 11:22 PM
>To: petersengr@cardinal.com
>Subject: awards

A source has indicated to me that your magazine nominated the Liquifier for a Mix Magazine Tec Award for software product of the year. WARP is presently engaging two competitors in, for the moment, an off-the-record head-to-head debate over the issues involving this technology and would appreciate confirmation of this as soon as possible.

>WARP is a music news weekly at http://www.oocities.org/Nashville/1440

Thank you.

Paul Barrow, Ed/Pub

Subject: RE: LIQUID!!!
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 20:54:28 -0400
From: PETERSENGR@EMERYVILLE.CARDINAL.com
To: thefolks@BELLSOUTH.NET

Yes, Liquid Audio's Liquifier Pro package was one of six products nominated for a Mix TEC Award in the category of "Outstanding Technical Achievement, Computer Software and Peripherals". The nominations are made not by Mix Magazine, but a panel of top engineers, producers, studio owners and other industry professionals. Attached is a short piececoncerning my observations on Liquid Audio, written after it made its world debut at last November's convention of the Audio Engineering Society (AES)...

Liquid Audio Story

Five years from now, the 101st AES Convention may be best known for the debut of Liquid Audio¨. There are numerous companies offering means of delivering audio-on-demand on the Internet, but Liquid Audio is doing it right.

The principals of this Redwood City, Calif., company are established audio pros, evident by the process's superior audio quality. In A/B/C listening comparisons with competing Internet delivery systems, Liquid Audio was the clear winner. The company has also licensed a software version of Dolby Digitalª AC-3 compression and incorporated it into the process.

A range of products are available. Liquifierª, the pro mastering package for preparing files, handles Dolby Digital encoding, waveform editing, audio-with-multimedia creation and uploads to Web sites and databases. A Pro Tools plug-in is also in the works. The Liquid Music Serverª not only delivers high-quality, scalable audio and media over IP networks, but enables transaction-based music commerce and automatic royalty tracking/reporting via e-mail. The Liquid Audio Playerª is a free, downloadable player for consumer use; capabilities include streaming audio at any modem speed, downloads of CD-quality, Dolby Digital music files, and display of art, lyrics and production/copyright credits while listening.

How it works: Let's say an artist wants to do a fan-club CD of Christmas songs. His major label won't handle it, because it's a low-volume item. In fact, no one knows how it would sell. Handled through traditional channels-press CDs/ship to stores-10,000 CDs may not be enough. If it sells well, there won't be enough time to press more for holiday sales. And as it's seasonal, nobody wants to press too many and eat the returns. Using Liquid Audio, fans can download the album and CD graphics for a modest fee and later cut a CD-R from the files. No overstocks, no returns and no shortages.

While CD-R drives aren't exactly a household commodity, this is sure to change as prices drop in the future; as this happens, the need for systems such as Liquid Audio will only increase.

More important, Liquid Audio could create new distribution avenues for low-volume or specialty releases. Local bands could release product and offer it to a global market through the Internet; majors could upload recordings from each venue along a concert tour for consumer purchase; and new markets could open up for spoken word or limited-audience works.

On a related note, EDnet has already teamed up with Liquid Audio as a means of point-to-point transfer of audio files between studios over EDnet's digital network. More info? Check out www.liquidaudio.com -George Petersen

c. 1997, Mix Magazine