Bjorn Lynne's news archive

A little rant about CD shipping prices

2010-01-05T16:10:00.006+01:00

As someone who has been selling my music on CD's by mail-order since 1991, I think it's finally time for me to write a few words on my frustrations with the ever increasing Postage prices. :-(

I don't know if Norway have the highest postage prices prices in the world, but it would certainly seem that way to me. Every year for as long as I can remember (and sometimes twice a year) the Norwegian postal service have increased their prices, to the point where it now costs the absolutely ridiculous amount of -- wait for it -- about US$ 12.75 !!! in stamps, to send ONE CD to USA and other non-European countries. Yes, you read it right. For a small packet with a weight between 100 grammes and 350 grammes, I now have to put 70 NOK (US$ 12.75) in stamps on the package. And that's only the actual stamps. I haven't included the bubble-wrap envelope which is another $1 approx when purchased in bulk. Plus maybe $0.25 in labels, ink, stickers that are needed on the envelope.

So really, when a customer orders a CD on my website for $15, I actually have to pay about $14.00 to ship the CD out to the customer! Stupid, or what??

And this is for completely normal, NON-registered, NON-tracked, bog standard air-mail postal delivery. Want "Registered" service? That's another 180 NOK (US$ 32,75) on top of the normal postage cost!

Unfortunately, one normal CD in a regular jewel case, with a small bubble-wrap envelope, comes to just over 100 grammes in weight. Now, if you put 3 CDs in the package, it's just under 350 grammes, so a shipment of 3 CD's costs the same amount as 1 CD, as they are both in the "100-350 grammes" weight class.

But if you come up to 4 CD's, then you are up to the weight class "350 - 1,000 grammes" which costs an incredible 160 NOK = US$ 29.10! Again, that's completely normal, standard, non-registered postal service. And again, that does not include any bubble-wrap envelope or anything else. It's only for the actual stamps I have to put on the package.

Now. Of course, before I can even send the CD to you, I have to get the CD's sent to me first, from the CD-factory. I can probably get this done, with shipping costs and import duties, for around US$ 2.50 per disc.

All in all, this means that by the time I've had ONE compact disc sent to me from the factory, and sent to one customer in USA who wants to buy my CD, we have spent a total of approximately US$ 16.50 in shipping and shipping-related costs.

And of course, that does not include the actual cost of manufacturing the disc in the first place!

My friends, this is some of the reason why I'm trying to get away from the physical disc, the CD, and trying to sell my music as downloads instead. From my download-shop I can sell you a FLAC download of almost all of my albums for $12 per album. FLAC files are completely lossless; they have exactly the same sound quality as the physical CD. Or if you prefer MP3 downloads, I sell my albums at $10 per album, and that's for high quality, 256-kbps MP3 files. All album downloads (both FLAC and MP3) contain high resolution graphic files of the cover images, so those who want to "build" themselves a real CD at home can do so by printing out the cover artwork and mounting it in a jewel case.

It's with a heavy heart that I've had to once again increase the postage costs that are added to the shopping cart total when you shop for CD's in the CD-shop on my website. You may not like it when it says: One CD: $15. Shipping: $11.90. This may seem high to you, but the fact is, after Paypal have taken about 5% of the amount before paying it to me, that's not even close to paying for the actual costs involved with shipping out that CD.

I will continue to offer my albums as CD's, for as long as I have stock. But really, the writing is on the wall for the whole "physical products in the post" as far as music sales are going.

I had a little chat with someone about my frustrations over the postage costs, and she said "It just goes to show that vital services like this shouldn't be privatized. Because where there are private shareholders, there are people who want to make as much profit as possible, and that means prices will go up". She may have a point, but I don't entirely agree. I don't think the problem with the Norwegian postal service is the fact that they are privately owned. I think the problem is that they have NO competition. Private ownership and private business ventures must always be followed by competition. If there is no competition, they can do whatever they like and the customers just have to take it. Either way, I believe a State owned postal service wouldn't be any better. Perhaps it would be a little bit cheaper, but I believe the only way to a better and more affordable postal service would be competition.

One thing is for sure: The way it is now, people do anything to avoid having to send something by post.

Ok, this rant turned out a little longer than I had planned, but it felt good to get it off my chest. The real reason I wanted to write this was to explain to you that when you see $15 for one CD and $11.90 for shipping charges in my CD-shop, that's not out of greed on my part. In fact, I make a loss on those $11.90. It costs me considerably more than that to ship out the CD; at least to non-European countries.

Thanks for listening! :-)

- Bjorn

Couple of new music tracks and various news

2009-11-18T09:43:00.004+01:00

Dear friends,

Just a little update from Bjorn Lynne....

Nanoteknika and Crystal Horizon:

My two new CD albums have been very well received -- thank you so much to those who have ordered it. I’m getting a lot of great feedback through Facebook and email. If you have an opinion on these albums, please feel free to write your own little review (anything from 3 words to 30 pages welcome!) and submit to me by email and I’ll post your review on my website.

New tracks:

Fantasy Exploration #1: Made for the purpose of using in background for fantasy games, TV/Travel, etc. and licensing out as stock music. You can hear this track on the mp3 page of my personal website: www.lynnemusic.com/mp3.html

Hi Speed Berliner: This is very unusual for me; I wanted to make a sort of hardcore techno track which I haven’t really done since about 1996 when I made the music for the "X2" PlayStation game. This track was not made for any Bjorn Lynne CD or anything like that, but for licensing to media producers, Flash producers, animators, etc. as stock music. You can hear the track (albeit with a "preview" voiceover) at www.shockwave-sound.com/track/7050

As you can tell, I like to play around and have fun with various music styles, even though the music is a million miles away from what I would call my "musical heartland". :-)

Twitter:

I’d like to connect with as many as possible of you through Twitter.. I’m at www.twitter.com/BjornLynne . In the words of that old Genesis song: "I will follow you, if you follow me..." ;-)

Facebook:

If you’d like to connect at Facebook, you can find me at www.facebook.com/bjornlynne

Sound/Music for Nintendo DS games

Since I started my music publishing company and run www.Shockwave-Sound.com the royalty-free stock music website, I don’t really tend to work much on games any more, but there is one games development company that I still work for a little bit now and then, and right now I’m working on music and sound-fx for a Nintendo DS game. I can’t share any more details yet due to Non-Disclosure etc

On a personal note, my wife and I have just bought a piece of land here in Stavern, Norway. We were pretty lucky and managed to grab hold of what is probably the largest piece of land still available for development here in this small town. We’re now embarking on the long and costly affair of building "our dream house". Should be lots of fun, and lots of work!

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

All the best,
- Bjorn Lynne

New track, "Fantasy Exploration #1"

2009-11-12T21:27:00.000+01:00

I composed a new music track, "Fantasy Exploration #1", which you should be able to hear in the Flash player below... The purpose of this track was to make it available for licensing for use in media such as games, video/film, exhibitions, installations, etc.

With this track I've tried to create a track that would be a nice background for exploring new areas and mystical lands. I've deliberately tried to make it non-emotional, not too sad, not too happy, not too light, not too dark, not too exciting, not too boring, not too spooky, not too light... :-) Just middle of the road, all the way! But still with a little bit of mysticism. I hope you'll enjoy it. If you want to license the track for use in media, you can find it at www.Shockwave-Sound.com

- Bjorn

Get your own Flash MP3 Player

My two new CD's now available as MP3 or FLAC downloads

2009-10-21T09:58:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

The "pre-ordering" period for my two new CD's "Crystal Horizon" and "Nanoteknika" is now over. In total, exactly 100 Crystal Horizon and 97 Nanoteknika CD's were pre-ordered. Many thanks for your support!

All pre-ordered CD's have been shipped out. If you haven't already received yours, it's right around the corner.

The two CD's can now be purchased as download albums, in high quality MP3 (256-kbps) or in Lossless FLAC format. The purchase also includes high-res cover artwork images - with cut and crop marks and everything - so you can print the artwork and make yourself a CD-cover for the album, if you want to. The whole album is $10.00 as MP3 or $12.00 as FLAC. They can be purchased from my download shop, where payment is done through 2Checkout. 2Checkout accepts all major credit cards, and Paypal.

It is still possible to buy the physical CD's as well! These can be purchased for $15.00 from my CD-shop.

For those who have already received your CD's, I hope you enjoy them. :-)

All the best,
- Bjorn

Now taking pre-orders for two new Bjørn Lynne CD's

2009-10-03T22:15:00.000+02:00

Dear readers,

I'm very happy to say that today I have opened the pre-ordering for my TWO new CD albums, "Crystal Horizon" and "Nanoteknika", both of which will be released later this month (probably around the 25th of October).

Many of you are asking about buying autographed CD's, and I have decided to do it like this: All copies of this CD that are pre-ordered before the actual release date will be autographed by me and shipped out to you by me, personally. As soon as the CD's are actually manufactured, I will autograph, pack and ship out all pre-ordered CD's personally. After the actual release customers will have the CD shipped to them directly from the manufacturing plant - NOT by me personally. Therefore it is only possible to get it autographed if you pre-order it before the actual release date - which is tentatively set for October 25th. This goes for both of the two new CD's.

The two new albums will also be available to buy as high quality MP3 and lossless FLAC downloads, with high-res cover artwork, directly from my site. But only from the same day when I actually start sending out pre-ordered CD's to customers.

Over the coming weeks and months, the CD's should also eventually make their way up on other services like iTunes, CDBaby, Payplay.fm etc. But this will take a good number of weeks from the release date.

Crystal Horizon and Nanoteknika are both $15.00 each as physical CD's. They can be pre-ordered right now from the Bjorn Lynne CD-shop.

The download versions (with high-res printable cover artwork) will cost US$ 10.00 each in 256-kbps MP3 files, or US$ 12.00 each in lossless FLAC format.

You can listen to previews of all the tracks on by "Crystal Horizon" and "Nanoteknika" on the web pages for each of the albums. I hope you'll enjoy them. :-)

All the best,
Bjorn Lynne, www.lynnemusic.com

New Bjorn Lynne album(s) on the Horizon....

2009-09-23T12:59:00.001+02:00

oday, I got this email from Robert Kriger: "Is there a way that I can purchase some of your latest creations that have not made into an album yet such as solar winds, Funkwah, perpetual flux, Koloss, etc… I have been a great fan of yours since 1998, and have pretty much all your albums. keep up the good work! By way, please tell your friend Jogeir Liljedahl that his album out of silence is phenomenal and I can't wait to hear new material from him."

I thought that this kind of deserved a real answer, not just to Robert, but to other people reading this...

The situation is: I’ve actually got a lot of music more or less ready for release on new Bjorn Lynne CD’s. I think I have enough material for at least two CD’s. The only thing that’s kind of keeping me from releasing this new material on CD’s is that I need to “collate” it. I need to go through the material and choose what to use and what to leave out. Also, choose which tracks to use together on one CD to make it either one or two more or less cohesive albums, rather than just a totally random collection of tunes of all styles and moods. Also, I need to put it all together as gapless albums (I like to make gapless albums) :-) And not least, I have to try to come up with some cover artwork / CD cover design/layout, all that. It’s these things that have been holding me back somewhat for the past 6 months or so.

But…. After I got your email, I got a little “kick in the behind” and I will actually try to pull myself together a little bit and get this done. Most likely I’ll release one album of only my own stuff (electronic, spacey, melodic), and another album with more upbeat/driving stuff, together with my friend Adam Skorupa. (We’ve released one album together in the past).

Please keep watching my website and my newsletter for updates soon!

Question about using music in a film

2009-07-11T14:12:00.002+02:00

Question from Kacpar Królak:

I got a question. If I buy one of your present/future tracks. May I use them in one of my movies? "Under cover of darkness" suits well to my idea for a vampire movie :-)

Answer from Bjorn Lynne:

Hi Kacper,

You can buy my tracks in two different ways:

You can buy my tracks cheap like $1 per track or less, from places like CDBaby.com, iTunes, Payplay.fm etc. You pay very little for the track, but the track is then only for personal listening. The same is the case if you buy one of my CD's for around $12 etc.

The other way you can buy my music is to buy it from www.Shockwave-Sound.com. Here you pay a lot more per track (about $15-30 for one music track), and here you are buying a license for using the music in media and in-public. So you get to download the music, and you also get the legal rights to use the track in your movie, or whatever other media you want.

So... the answer is yes. If you buy my music from www.Shockwave-Sound.com you can use the music in a movie etc. But if you buy it very cheap from some place like iTunes.com etc., then you can only use the music for personal listening.

Of course, I very much appreciate ALL support I get from people who buy my music, whether it's from iTunes, Shockwave-Sound.com, my own personal CD-shop, or anywhere else.

- Bjorn

New sound effects site launched by Bjorn Lynne

2009-05-19T09:42:00.005+02:00

Dear visitors, readers,

I'm happy to announce today the launch of my new website, www.1SoundFX.com. This is a brand new site that I've been thinking about developing for years, and I've finally got around to doing it. Today the site is taking live orders for the first time.

1Soundfx.com is, quite simply, a site to obtain sound effect files from. Even though the site is now live with approx. 10,000 sound effect files online, I'm in this for the long haul, and I plan to keep developing the site and the sound effects catalog for years and years.

I know from experience that it takes a long time to make a site successful in the long run. I started my royalty-free music website Shockwave-Sound.com back in April of 2000, now more than 9 years ago, and this site is a huge success today with more than 3,000 unique visitors each day and doing a lot of business. Over time, I want to do the same thing with 1SoundFX.com

So, what's so great about 1Soundfx.com? :-) It's a quick and convenient site with a huge sound effects library that will keep growing for years and years. Customers can easily and quickly buy sound effect files and then download the purchased files any time they want to from within their user account. Customers can buy larger amounts of "Credits" before buying sound files, thus saving up to 40% off stated prices. Once a file is purchased, you can download your sound file as well as a printable tax invoice from within your account area.

Contributors are welcome to participate with their own professional quality sound files. See "Contributors" at the bottom of www.1SoundFX.com for details.

And finally, each week there are 5 new professional sound effect files to download completely free from the "Free downloads" section inside your Account area.

Welcome one and all, to 1Soundfx.com !

All the best,
- Bjorn

Help me name this track!

2009-03-26T22:18:00.005+01:00

Hello folks,

I've been working on a new music track over the past few days, and the result can be heard below (this is a 95% finished version, a few minor tweaks may still be done...). My problem is that I can't think of a name for this track! So I'm asking you people to help me name it.

Additionally, I have two slightly different versions. The first version (Drums type 1) has some rather electronic/spacey drums whereas the second version (Drums type 2) has a slightly more organic/live style drum track. Please be sure to let me know which one you prefer!

This track was produced with two guitars (one electric and one acoustic) and the rest is 100% software. No hardware synths were used for any sounds. The main the soft-synths used are Novation V-Station, IK Multimedia Sonik Synth 2, Spectrasonics Atmosphere, Pentagon and SONAR's built-in "DropZone" synth.

Type your title suggestions in as "Comments" to this blog post, or post them on my Facebook wall (My Facebook profile is here), or even email your suggestions to me -- just as long as I get to see your track name suggestions, I'll be happy! :-)

On an entirely different subject, I have an update regarding my CD "Dreamstate" from 1995. This CD is now completely sold out from my own personal stocks. They have 16 copies in stock at CDBaby.com. Those are the last 16 copies ever. No more copies will be made of this CD will be made. When those 16 last copies are sold from CDBaby.com, the album will become a "download only" album forever.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading! Here is the Flash player with the two versions of the new "As of yet untitled" track:

Various news and new music from Bjorn Lynne

2009-01-31T23:04:00.005+01:00

Dear friends around the world,

It's been a long time since I posted any real news about my music and upcoming releases, and I'm sorry about that. Trust me, I haven't been lazying around. :-) I have been very busy with various music licensing deals, my music publishing company Lynne Publishing and, of course, I've been producing some new music.

Although I have no specific plans for a new album release just yet, I'm starting to build up a good number of tracks in at least two different genres: (1) Progressive electronica, like Colony, The Void, Beneath Another Sky, and (2) Upbeat, melodic, techno-trance, more like the Amiga-scene music with a lot of patterns, sequences, synth lines and arpeggios.

Below you can hear my latest creations. I used a long time on "Solar Winds" and this is the style of music that will be on my next "progressive electronic" album. "Koloss" will probably also be on that album. If anybody has any suggestions for album title, or suggestions for album cover artwork, please send them to me. I'd love to see/hear your suggestions.

"Perpetual Flux" is an example of my more demo-scene like music of which I also hope to release an album this year. I've already posted a few other tracks in this style earlier, including "Supersymmetry" and "Tempest Drive". I have about 7 or 8 tracks in this style that I'm satisfied with... and one or two that I'm not really that satisfied with and will probably be "shelved".

"Funkwah" is something I started and finished in a single day. It was meant as a light hearted escape from my larger musical projects. It's just a little tune, made for licensing through my stock music library. It won't be on any album.

Either way, I hope you'll enjoy my latest creations. I spend a lot of time with "admin" these days but I do still enjoy composing and producing music. I'm now almost entirely software-based, having got rid of a lot of my outboard music studio equipment. I'm now working almost exclusively with my RME Fireface 400 Firewire sound card, SONAR v7, three guitars and bass guitar, a bunch of software plug-ins and, of course, my trusty old Kurzweil K2500 keyboard which I'll never get rid of. They'll have to pry it from my cold, stiff hands... :-)

I have a couple of holidays coming up. Next weekend I'll be in Manchester UK with a couple of mates to visit pubs, a football game and a stand-up comedy show. A real boys weekend. :-) Then a couple of weeks after that I'm off to the Canary Islands (off the coast of Africa) for two weeks with my wife and daughter. It's good to get a break from the long, dark Norwegian winter.

As ever, thanks for taking the time to read this and to listen to my creations. I hope you're enjoying them. I'm very much looking forward to being able to announce a new CD (or even two!) some time in 2009.

All the best,
- Bjorn

PS: Hook up with me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Bjrn_Lynne/503781394

Bjorn Lynne launches series of one-hour Ambient music albums

2009-01-31T22:20:00.003+01:00

Dear friends,

From time to time over the past few years, I have been composing and producing a long, continuous album of ambient/relaxation music. This has been done partly to provide a music track for my "Nature Sound Series", which is a series of hour-long nature sound recordings (slow waves, rainfall, forest ambience, etc).

For the first time, this music is now available without the nature sounds -- as pure ambient music albums.

There are 6 albums available, and each one plays just over 60 minutes continuously. Each album is made as a single, long track. However, each long track is not simply a bunch of repeated notes and lines over and over again. Each one contains a fair bit of variation and exploration of various ambient moods.

The titles are as follows -- follow the links to hear a 10-minutes sample of each album.

Should you be interested in these albums, they are available to download in MP3 ($8 each) or in lossless FLAC format ($10 each) from the Bjorn Lynne download-shop.

Nature Sound Series:

As I mentioned, these same musical recordings are also available mixed with sounds of nature. They go under the artist name Nature Sound Series (which is another of my pseudonyms). The Nature Sound Series CD's are not available to buy through my personal website, but they can be bought through CDBaby.com, both as physical CD's or as MP3 downloads. Specifically, you'll find the Nature Sound Series CD's here:

All the best,
- Bjorn

All Bjorn Lynne & Divinorum albums now available as FLAC downloads

2009-01-31T22:05:00.002+01:00

Hello folks,

I have to say "due to popular demand" -- which means that more than 2 persons have asked me about it! ;-) -- I have now made nearly all my albums available to purchase and dowload instantly as lossless FLAC files from my download-shop. They are also still available as MP3 downloads. Both versions (FLAC/MP3) also include high-res images from the cover artwork, so if you want to print your own CD cover and make yourself a real CD that way, you can do that. The FLAC versions cost $2 more than the MP3 versions.

Albums now available as FLAC/MP3 downloads:

Bjorn Lynne: "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals"
Bjorn Lynne: "Quiet Places"
Bjorn Lynne & Adam Skorupa: "Undercover"
Bjorn Lynne: "Beneath Another Sky"
Bjorn Lynne: "Soothe"
Bjorn Lynne feat. Eco-Mcz: "Statement"
Bjorn Lynne: "Return to Witchwood"
Bjorn Lynne: "Colony"
Bjorn Lynne: "The Gods Awaken"
Bjorn Lynne: "Accelerator"
Bjorn Lynne: "Wolves of the Gods"
Bjorn Lynne: "Revive"
Bjorn Lynne: "Wizard of the Winds"
Bjorn Lynne: "Decade"
Bjorn Lynne: "The Void"
Bjorn Lynne: "Witchwood"
Bjorn Lynne: "Dreamstate"
Bjorn Lynne: "Montage"
Bjorn Lynne & Seppo Hurme: "Hobbits & Spaceships"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "Amazon Evening"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "Under the Sea"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "Tranquil Landscapes"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "Image Reflections"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "Endless Oceans"
Bjorn Lynne Relaxation Music Series: "A Journey Within"
Divinorum: "Power Liquids"
Divinorum: "Talisman"
Divinorum: "Isms"
Jogeir Liljedahl: "Out of Silence"
Jogeir Liljedahl: "The Wanderer"
Bjorn Lynne: "Worms World Party - Original soundtrack"
Bjorn Lynne: "Worms Armageddon - Original soundtrack"
Bjorn Lynne: "Phoenix - Deep Space Resurrection"
Bjorn Lynne: "Worms 2 - Original soundtrack"

For more information or to purchase any of these albums in FLAC or MP3, please go to the Bjorn Lynne download-shop.

Buy 2, Get 1 free - on all Bjorn Lynne & Divinorum CD's until end of 2008 !

2008-12-12T14:58:00.003+01:00

Dear friends,

I'd like to tempt you with a special limited-time offer on my music CD's. From now until the end of the year, I'm giving away one extra CD completely free, for every 2 CD's purchased from my personal CD-shop: http://www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html

I ship CD's all over the world, and although admittedly, the postal service is quite expensive from here, it works out to a really great deal if you buy 2 and get 1 free. You can also buy 4 and get 2 free. Or buy 6 and get 3 free... and so on.

Why not use this as an opportunity to grab some unique Christmas presents, for yourself or for your friends and family?

The offer is for ALL CD's listed on this page: http://www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html and the offer is good until December 31st at 23:59 your time.

If you have any questions or just a friendly word or two :-) Feel free to email me any time at the address posted at my contact page (Please note that my old/previous email address bjorn@lynnemusic.com is no longer in use).

If you don't hear from me again before the Christmas & New Year holidays -- let me take this opportunity to thank you all for listening to my music throughout the year, and to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I have plans for two new album releases in the new year! But first -- I'd like to sell some of the CD's I already have here, so come on, use this opportunity to get yourself a deal! :-)

All the best,

- Bjorn Lynne

Three new music tracks

2008-11-16T14:00:00.005+01:00

Dear friends,

I have composed and produced three new music tracks since the last time I posted something here. You can hear the tracks below. They are all in totally different styles, so I hope you'll enjoy at least one of them. :-)

I like to work with different styles of music, this way and that -- I always have.

The first track listed below is China Temple Morning which started as a simple arpeggiated bell pattern which just sort of "happened" on my keyboard the other day. I've purchased a new software synth called Omnisphere from Spectraconics and I'm using it for several of the sounds in this track. This track was finished very quickly; I did it all in one day from 08:30 until about 23:00. :-)

The next one is Blue Sky which is just a "nice and easy" sort of instrumental soft-pop track, or pop/ambient crossover. I wanted to make something that would be good as background use for media, video, film, presentations, etc. mostly with the idea of licensing it through my stock music library. I try to combine synthesized sounds with acoustic guitar for a softer feel. In the last part, a subtle electric guitar also comes in. I never use "plug-ins" for these kinds of guitar parts, because I find it takes me a lot longer to fiddle with the settings to get it to sound close to a guitar sound, than it takes me to simply pick up the guitar and play it into a microphone. Much quicker. :-)

The third track Tempest Drive is quite similar in style to some other "upbeat electronica" tracks that I've been making over the past few months. It's not exactly techno, not exactly trance, but something like energetic electronica, I guess. In this track I'm using some sounds from the Top Production Samples CDROM that I made and published myself, a few years ago. I still find myself using sounds from that CDROM from time to time. I know the sounds well and keep coming back to them. Also present here are some other synth sample loops and three instances of the software synth plug in z3ta+.

Anyway, the tracks can be heard in the player below. I hope you'll enjoy them, and like all my other tracks, they can be licensed for Royalty-free use in media production through my music library website, www.Shockwave-Sound.com

All the best,
- Bjorn

New email address for Bjorn Lynne

2008-10-30T15:33:00.002+01:00

After using the address bjorn@lynnemusic.com for about 8-10 years, and having the address posted publicly on the web site for most of that time, this address now receives as much as 2,000+ spams each day. Even with pretty hard spam filtering, some of it is coming through to my email inbox and is quite an annoyance... so, it's with a heavy heart that I have to let go of this email address.

My NEW email address is:

I'm trying to thwart the spammers a bit by posting it like this, instead of in plain text.

Asian-pacific domains -- scam or genuine?

2008-10-30T15:22:00.002+01:00

Today I received a rather interesting email from a Chinese domain name registration company. The company wrote to me and claimed that "(company x)" had applied to register the Asian-pacific versions of the domain names to which I own the .com domain.

Specifically, I own shockwave-sound.com and the claim was that (company x) had applied to register the domains shockwave-sound.cn, .com.cn, .asia., .hk.cn and .tw.cn. Additionally, they said, (company x) had also applied to register the "internet brand name" shockwave-sound.

The email went on to say that, as the owner of shockwave-sound.com, I had the right to "dispute" the attempted registrations by quickly registering these Asian-pacific domains myself. I could do this through this company, and that would effectively put a stop to (company x) being able to register these domains.

I answered back that I was obviously interested in protecting the Asian-pacific versions of my domain name and also this "internet brand name" which, I have to admit, I've never heard of before.

The Chinese domain registration company then sent me a registration form in which they are inviting me to register shockwave-sound.cn, .com.cn, .asia, .hk.cn, .tw.cn for $30 for 1 year, and also to register my "internet brand name" shockwave-sound, for $100 per 1 year. They are saying that I can fill in the form and register the domain names with them within 5 days, to ensure that (company x) does not take these domains and take the "internet brand name" shockwave-sound.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities: (1) This is a genuinely helpul company who want to help international domain owners make sure that their brands/domains are not registered to some dubious/competitive company who wants to "take" their domain names and their "internet brand name", OR, (2) this is a very sneaky ploy by a Domain Registration company to sell me .cn, .hk etc. domains, perhaps at a overblown price, that they they would not normally be able to sell to me because, well I just wouldn't normally be interested.

Does anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Help me sell my music and make a few bucks doing it

2008-10-20T17:11:00.002+02:00

As many of you will know, my music work in the last few years have been more and more aimed towards selling music tracks for commercial use, not so much for personal-listening use. Like most other musicians, I started noticing around the year 2000 that it was getting more and more difficult to sell CDs to “consumers” (i.e. to individual people who buy the music just to listen to it), so I started to venture into the world of “music for professional use” (i.e. selling it to people and companies who want to use the music in a media project).

I’ve had some success with this over the years and I now have a music catalogue consisting of about 3,000 music tracks – that includes my own compositions as well as tracks by other musicians that I work with. These are sold through my site www.Shockwave-Sound.com and for the 8 ½ years that this site has been online now, it has enjoyed a steady increase in traffic and sales.

Anyway, to my point. I would like to invite you to help me to promote this web site, and in the process, make a 10% commission on any sales that you generate. The system is simple, like other Affiliate programs. You make a link from your website (or from your Blog or even from your Facebook page etc.) using a unique link code that I give you. If somebody clicks on that link, my site knows that the user came from your link. If this person ends up making a purchase, you will be paid 10% of the purchase sum. Even if the user doesn’t place an order right away, but comes back to my site any time within 7 days, you will make the 10%.

So…. If you are interested in helping me to sell my music to commercial users more often, and make a 10% earning while doing it, then please respond to this email and let me know. I will make a unique link for you to put on your web site.

Please email me at the following address for your unique web link. (I'm sorry I have to hide the address in a graphic like this, but it's necessary, to thwart the spammers' web bots)...:

New music track: "Let's Go" in MIDI & MP3

2008-10-20T17:06:00.001+02:00

Hi folks,

I just wanted to send a little note to say that I’ve posted a new General MIDI track on my web site. The track is called “Let’s Go” and I guess you could say it’s kind of “game music pop”. :)

General MIDI isn’t exactly “cutting edge” technology any more, but there’s a surprising number of people still listening to and enjoying MIDI tracks. These days, mostly when I add a new General MIDI music track, it’s because I’ve already composed the tracks using “real” instruments and it’s then a reasonably quick job for me to make a General MIDI version of the same composition. So anyway, you can hear the new MIDI track now, it’s called “Let’s Go” and can be heard at my MIDI Music page.

Should you wish to hear the same track in it’s original form with guitar etc., you can hear it at http://www.myspace.com/bjornlynne (it’s one of the tracks featured in the music player on that page).

It's nothing big or groundbreaking, but I hope you'll enjoy it. :-)

- Bjorn

An article about YouTube Safe Music

2008-10-09T22:24:00.002+02:00

I wrote an article for Shockwave-Sound.com about how to properly credit music use in YouTube videos and how this relates to performance royalties. Should you be interested in reading it, head on over to this page at Shockwave-Sound.com.

Letter from Era Scarecrow regarding "Dissolve" and "d" tracks on the Divinorum: Talisman CD

2008-10-06T14:00:00.002+02:00

Talisman Track 11 - 'd'. Is that only suppose to have about 1 minute (out of 3+) of music and the remainder sounds rather blank... i noticed when i ripped it, that it's a 3 minute song but only took up a tiny amount of space, and i can't hear anything on it. hmm...

- Ryan, aka Era Scarecrow

Hi Ryan,

It's done like that on purpose. I wanted to give the album a long, fluttering, gradually dissolving end, as if dissolving into fragments floating off into space. Really, those two tracks were first done as a single one track called "Dissolved". I then decided to put a track marker about 2/3rds into the track, just where the track started to get really "dissolved" or "disappearing" if you will. So I divided "Dissolved" into two tracks: "Dissolve" and "d" in an attempt to be a little bit clever. :-)

- Bjorn

Two new Electronica tracks from Bjorn Lynne

2008-09-12T13:31:00.003+02:00

Hi folks,

Over the past few weeks I have been somewhat "electronically minded" and have produced two new House/Trance/Electronica tracks which I hope you'll enjoy. Much of the inspiration comes from reading a little bit about the grand science experiment they have been carrying out lately with the Large Hadron Collider, in an attempt to recreate some of the cosmic conditions surrounding the Big Bang, the very start of our universe. It's incredibly mind boggling stuff, and I find it all pretty fascinating. Anyway, these two tracks were produced with these experiments in mind.

You can hear the two tracks below Feel free to let me know what you think by using the "comment" feature below.

As always, these tracks are available to license for use in commercial media, through my stock music licensing web site, www.shockwave-sound.com.

Perhaps the tracks will also be on a future Bjorn Lynne album release -- we'll see. Either way, I hope you'll enjoy them.

- Bjørn

A note about my "Statement" CD

2008-09-12T13:00:00.001+02:00

The Bjorn Lynne feat. Eco-Mcz CD, Statement (2004) is now completely sold-out from my own personal CD stocks.

There are a few copies left in stock at CDBaby.com. Those are the last CDs in existence for this album. When those are sold out from CDBaby.com, this album will be download-only from then on.

I just wanted to mention this in case there are any collectors who want to get their hands on this CD before it becomes unavailable forever.

New Jogeir Liljedahl album released today

2008-08-27T10:30:00.004+02:00

Hello folks,

I'm writing to let you know that my good friend and long-time fellow Amiga-scene musician Jogeir Liljedahl has released his second album, Out of Silence, today. As with his previous album The Wanderer, I was privileged to be trusted with the publishing/release, so the album is now for sale, exclusively, from the LynneMusic Download Shop.

The album features 11 new tracks from Jogeir, with a total playing time of 1 hour 3 minutes and with guest contributions from Chris Hülsbeck and Fabian Del Priore.

This is a download only release. The album can be purchased as MP3 files (256-kbps) for $10 or as Lossless FLAC files for $12. Both packages include high-resolution cover artwork with full 4-page booklet and inlay tray. The artwork comes as printable PDF files, so if you would like to make your own CD for your collection, you can print the artwork, burn the music to CD, and you have a fully official, legal, original CD.

The album will be made available on iTunes, PayPlay.fm and other such download shops, but it takes several weeks to get an album made public in those places, so for now it is only available in the LynneMusic Download Shop.

The album has an official page from which you can listen to the first 1 1/2 minutes from each track.

Jogeir and myself both very much hope that you will enjoy his new album. He worked on it, on and off, for an incredible period of 9 years. :-).

His previous album "The Wanderer" from 1999 is still available both as a physical CD and as an MP3 or FLAC download.

A couple of new rock tracks by Bjorn Lynne

2008-08-25T21:40:00.003+02:00

It's been a while since I posted any new music. But here I am, back with a couple of new tracks. :-) This time I've tried to work more towards Rock than Electronica, and I've produced the two tracks below. Actually, I haven't done them all by myself.

The first track, Cruise Control, was made together with my old friend Arndt Kubosch. First, I made the "A" part. Then Arndt made the "B" part, and then we both made the "C" part together. We play about 50/50 of the guitar each, and I play the bass guitar and did the programming, production, etc. I've tried to keep this track "neat" and tidy with a minimum of reverb, delay and the such, which I've probably used a bit too much of in the past. :-). I've made two different mixes of the track. I'd be interested in hearing which one you like best, so please use the "comment" function below, if you have an opionion on that.

The other track, Slam Dunk, is much more energetic and heavier. This one I made almost all by myself. I just got some help from a Polish guy called Olek, to some of the faster guitar solos. I enjoyed making this track. The biggest challenge was the "B" part, for which I tried a lot of different things and threw away a lot of different ideas, before I finally ended on the one heard here.

Both tracks were made primarily for licensing to commercial users, for film, media, games, film trailers, sports video and things like that. If you'd like to license either of these tracks for use in any kind of project, you can buy a royalty-free license from Shockwave-Sound.com.

Well, I hope you'll enjoy the tracks. I have no idea what style/mood my next tracks will be in. :-)

Thanks for listening!

Bjorn Lynne
August 25, 2008

General update from Bjorn Lynne

2008-08-25T21:26:00.004+02:00

Hey everybody,

I'm sorry about the long time of silence from me. It's been a long and nice summer here in Norway. I spent quite a bit of time outside with my daughter, who is now almost 8. Some of you will remember me posting about it on my newsletter mailing list when she was born. :-)

I have been working quite hard with my music publishing company, Lynne Publishing, which is now a publisher not only for my own Bjorn Lynne music, but also for a few other artists; Dan Gautreau, Dan Phillipson, Jeremy Sherman, Arjun Sen and Adolfo Marques (although only one track so far by the latter). This music isn't being published for personal use or for sale on CD's. Instead, we publish the music only for use in films, games and other commercial and non-commercial media. Our main website for this is Shockwave-Sound.com, but we also make the music available through some other sites.

I've also been working on my ever growing library of high definition sound effects. Again, this is for use by media developers, film makers and game creators, for use in their project. The library now sports some 3,000 sound effects, and all the new stuff we've added is available in High Definition audio, 24bit 48khz.

New Jogeir Liljedahl album coming

Many of you will be happy to hear that my good friend and long-time fellow Amiga scene musician, Jogeir Liljedahl (aka Noiseless, aka JL), is ready to release a new music album. His previous album "The Wanderer" was released back in 1999 and has sold well. His new album, to be titled Out of Silence comes a full 9 years after his previous effort, and this album will be released, right here at LynneMusic.com, as a download-only album. It will be available to buy both in lossless FLAC format and in MP3 format. The download will include the full album cover in high-resolution PDF files, so those who want to make themselves a real CD with cover and everything can burn a CD and print a cover from the supplied artwork files.

We hope to release the album in the next couple of weeks. Jogeir is just laying the finishing touches on a couple of the tracks, and writing some liner notes for the inside of the cover artwork. Keep your eyes on this site for updates.