Bjorn Lynne's news archive

Norwegian site about royalty-free music

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:11:00 +0000

Hello people,

I just wanted to mention quickly that today I have launched a new website in Norwegian language for Norwegian media production professionals looking for royalty-free music. The site is www.AvgiftsFri.no and it explains the use of partly royalty free and fully royalty free music in Norway, and how it relates to TONO (Norway's composers royalty collection organisation) and Ncb (Nordic Copyright Bureau).

I'm sorry that this is of course completely irrelevant for non-Norwegian people, but it should be a useful resource for people working in film production and other media production in Norway. I hope some of you will find the site valuable and useful.

High Resolution, 24-bit , 48-khz Sound-FX series from Lynne Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:51:00 +0000

Hello everyone,

Over the past several months I have been working on developing a high resolution, high definition sound-fx library. These days most video editing and media editing suites operate at 24-bit, 48-khz resolution, however the vast majority of sound effects available from commercial sound libraries are still at standard CD-resolution, 16-bit, 44.1 khz.

Check out the sounds at Shockwave-Sound.com

In fact, we have nearly all of these sounds in 24-bit 96-khz, but "only" 48-khz files are available to the general public at this time, because this is the resolution at which most professional media editors are now working.

The library contains somewhere around 1,000 sound files so far, spanning several categories of sounds from spacey whooshes, swipes and zooms, to high performance cars and motorcycles, everyday household sounds, footsteps, nature sounds (rivers & streams, ocean, forest), traffic sounds / city noise and more, billiard sounds, horror sounds, office / work sounds, industry & machinery sounds and much more.

The sounds were recorded and edited by myself Bjorn Lynne (in Norway), Christos Panayides (in Cypros) and Ric Viers (in USA) and published by / copyrighted to my company, Lynne Publishing.

We plan to keep adding to this collection of sound effects in 24 bit 48 khz over many years ahead. If you are a sound recordist yourself and you are interested in recording sound effects on-location for us, we may be interested in buying the sounds from you. Please get in touch with Lynne Publishing if you would like to talk about this.

Check the high definition sounds at Shockwave-Sound.com

Why my MIDI music tracks are not free for use on websites or in other projects

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:15:00 +0000

From time to time, I get emails from people who want to use my MIDI music tracks on their websites, or in their own developed games. My answer is always the same:

To use my music on a website, you have to buy a license. The license costs $29.95 and can be purchased from Shockwave-Sound.com. (Specifically, the MIDI music can be found here: http://www.shockwave-sound.com/royalty_free_midi_music/). It doesn't matter if you make a profit on your web site or not. Either way, you need a license.
As for home-developed amateur games: If your game will only ever be seen and played by yourself and your immediate friends and family, then you can use my music for free, without paying for a license. However, if the game is going to be included on a web site, available for download, or distributed in any other way beyond your immediate friends and family, then you will need to buy a license. Again, it doesn't matter if you make a profit on your game, or if you sell the game for money or give it away free. If my music is in there, you need a license.

There used to be a time in the past when I allowed people to use my music on web sites for free, only in return for a link back to my site. But. about 3 years ago, I took the decision that everybody who wants to use my music for anything (other than personal listening) have to buy a license for it.

The reason is that I had already for many years before that tried the idea that I let some people use the music for free, in return for credits/links, which would in turn lead to more people getting interested in my music, and then some people paying for it. Unfortunately, after years of trying this, I realized that it just doesn’t work like that. The only thing it leads to is even more people who want to use the music for free, and nobody who wants to pay for it. The more people who got it for free, the less reason there seemed to be for anybody to pay for it. And this is my work and my living. It's not a hobby for me. It's serious. It's what feeds myself and my family. I can't afford to take it lightly.

It also started to get difficult to determine what was really a “free” project and what was a commercial project? Some people had “free” projects that they didn’t charge money for, but they had lots of Google Adwords advertising on their page. This means that my music was part of their project, which drew lots of traffic to their web site, which in turn generated a profit for them. Is this a free project or now? And how about if somebody made a free demo, and the super quality of their demo resulted in the fact that those people were then able to get a paid project? My music was then part of the free demo which, in turn, led to the team earning money from it, although not directly. It was starting to get very difficult to determine what was free and what wasn’t...

So in the end I took the decision that everybody who uses my music will now need a license, it doesn’t matter if the project is a free project or a paid-for project. This has worked better for me. There is more real interest in my music, and I am now able to make a living as a musician. My music has more value, both to myself and to other people.

If you feel that my music really adds something of value to your website, your game or any other project, then you should buy a license. If you don't think my music is worth anything, then you also won't be losing anything when you can't use my music in your project.

I hope this all makes sense, and I hope that this puts a rest to the endless questions of whether you can use my music for free in your project. :-)

Thanks for reading!

- Bjorn Lynne

Irish & Music Instrumentals now available from iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:40:00 +0000

Dear friends,

I just wanted to mention that my latest album "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals" is now available to buy from iTunes and PayPlay.fm. It's also making it's way to many other download shops as we speak, including MSN Music, Amazon.com, Coke Music, RealRhapsody and many more.

Here's a link to this album on iTunes
And here's a link to this album on PayPlay.fm

More music news to follow soon...

New Bjorn Lynne CD: "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals"

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:40:00 +0000

Dear friends,

I'm very happy and excited to announce the release of my new CD, "Irish & Celtic Instrumentals", today. The CD features 12 tracks of Irish & Celtic tracks that I have arranged, produced and recorded with a little help from some musician friends.

The origins of this CD goes back to the late summer of 2007 when I was lucky enough to spend some quality time along the southern shores of Ireland, a truly beautiful and inspiring place. I came back to my home in Norway full of ideas and inspiration, and I set to work on producing this collection of traditional Irish/Celtic music, arranged produced in the way that I would want these tracks to sound like. :-)

It's not the first time I've used Irish & Celtic influences in my music of course. Many of my previous albums, such as "Witchwood", "Return to Witchwood", "Wolves of the Gods", and others all feature more or less obvious Celtic influences here and there. So for me it felt right to do a sort of "homeage" to some traditional Celtic / Irish music, recorded and produced with "The Bjørn Lynne sound".

When I started working on this project, I decided early on that there would be no shortcuts, no easy outs. No "half-arsed" solutions using a computer plug-in when I could be using the real live instrument etc. So as it ended up, this album is actually my most "acoustic" album ever. There isn't a single "electronic" sound on the entire CD which, I guess, is pretty weird since I started my carreer very much as what I would call an "electronic music composer".

I still very much love electronic music and I will definitely return once more to my electronic music heartland for my next album release. But I have to say, for this album, that it really did pay off to use all live instruments and leave all electronics out of this project. When the temptation was to just use a plug-in and get it done quickly and cheaply, I thought, no, not this time. No shortcuts! The real thing, or nothing. :-)

I don't mean to suggest that no computer was used for producing this album because, as always, I used Cakewalk SONAR Studio Edition v6 to produce this music and everything was recorded directly to hard disk in 24-bit 48-khz. I also used some samples, including "spoons", some drums, Irish Bodhran and electric piano. What I meant to say is that there are no real electronic sounds (synth sounds) used on this album.

Besides various acoustic type samples, I myself played guitars (acoustic & electric), piano (acoustic & electric), tambourine, shakers, djembe drums, and sang live various "vocal pads" (not sung words or lyrics, only "ahh" style vocal instrumentation). My friend Steinar Borvik played various flutes (Irish flute, penny whistle, tin whistle, orchestral flute, recorder), Nicolae Bogdan played live accordion and violin and Jeremy Sherman played dobro and slide guitar.

When it was time to put together the final CD master of this album, I got the idea to include -- as a bonus -- an "underscore version" of each track. An "underscore version" is simply a version where the main/lead instruments are removed, leaving only the background music. This can be an interesting thing to listen to in it's own right. Once you remove the main/lead instruments from a piece of music, you're left with a whole new perspective on the music -- in fact, a whole new "insight" into how it was all put together. So these bonus tracks were included especially for those of you who would like to hear these tracks "from another angle", and get a little glimpse of what goes on "under the lid" of each track. So, tracks 1-12 are the actual main tracks on the CD; whereas tracks 13-24 are all the same tracks again, without the lead instruments. This pressed the CD right up to the very technical limit of how much music you can put on a CD -- about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

CD track listing:

Lovely Leitrim
The Bonny Boy
Scarborough Fair
The Jolly Beggar
Danny Boy
The Rose of Tralee
Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
Whiskey in the Jar
In Dublin's Fair City (aka Cockles and Mussels)
Amazing Grace
The Riddle Song
Greensleeves

13-24: All tracks again, underscore versions.

You can hear about the first 1 1/2 minutes of each track, on the official page for this CD: Irish & Celtic Instrumentals.

I truly hope many of you will enjoy this CD. You can buy the album now either as a physical CD from my own personal CD shop , or from CDBaby, or you can buy it as a download (320-kbps MP3 files, with high-res cover artwork files included for printing your own cover), from my own personal download-shop.

To encourage you to order this CD early, I will personally autograph - in Gold ink - all copies of this CD ordered from my own personal CD-shop, in the first two weeks of release (that means, within April 15, 2007).

The album will also soon be avaiable from iTunes, PayPlay.fm and many other music download shops. (Takes a few weeks to make it up on those sites).

One last note... the photos in the CD-cover are from my own trip to Ireland; although the actual photos were taken by my friend Kent Fonager -- he had a better camera than me. Kent is one of the guys whom I visited these places with.

Thanks for reading!

- Bjørn Lynne, March 31, 2008

Some rare and deleted items for sale

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:17:00 +0000

Some limited CD’s for sale:

There are some CD’s that are noted on my site as being “sold out” and have been so for ages. But after some serious tidying and some returns of unsold stock from some people who aren’t distributing my CD’s any more, I have the following for sale. These aren’t actually available to buy through my web shop, because I have such limited quantities of them. If you want to buy any of these, email me. First come, first served. These are all rare, limited products...

Amiga: Immortal 3 double-CD – I have two copies. Both are brand new, but one of them has had the plastic wrapping removed for scanning. Never played. Price: $20 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne: Witchwood – These were completely sold out, but three copies were returned from Soundoo in Belgium when they closed down. So I have those three copies only. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

DesertPlanet: Asteroid Hopper (See http://www.lynnemusic.com/desertplanet-asteroid_hopper.html)
I have ONE copy. The cover/case is slightly damaged. Price $10 plus actual shipping cost.

CyberLogic 1, 2, and 3: See:

http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds/clogik1.shtml
http://www.discogs.com/release/15122
http://www.discogs.com/release/15123

These three are HIGHLY sought-after very limited edition rare items. I have ONE of each. They are used, but handled carefully and in great shape. Price: $15 each plus actual postage.

Opportunity Vol. 1: Various artists from the demo-scene (including myself). See: http://www.synsoniq.de/productdetails.php?pid=76&searchtext=opportunity
I have ONE copy, again, used but in very good condition. Price: $15 plus actual postage.

Bjorn Lynne & Seppo Hurme – Hobbits & Spaceships ORIGINAL PRESSING 1992:
The very first CD to come out of the demo-scene. 2000 copies were pressed. For years, I thought they were all gone, but lo and behold, I found TWO at the bottom of a box. They are brand new, never been played. These are quite rare, so: $30 each, plus actual postage.

Bjorn Lynne (as. Dr.Awesome): X2 – Original pressing 1996

Pretty much the same situation with these. They have been sold out for years, but I found TWO copies. They are brand new, never been played. $15 each, plus actual postage.

Divinorum: “Talisman” – limited Oriental release

In 1998 I got a deal with an Indian music company to release and distribute my CD “Talisman” (done under my electronica pseudonym ‘Divinorum’). These CD’s were ONLY sold in India and Malaysia, no other countries. I have FOUR copies, brand new, in plastic wrapping. These are very rare, so: $30 each, plus actual postage.

Jesper Kyd – Hitman 2 Soundtrack

I have ONE copy of this limited release. It’s brand new and still in it’s shrink-wrapping, but the jewel case is slightly busted in one corner. You can just replace the jewel case and it’s as new. This is pretty limited and much asked for, so: $30 plus actual shipping cost. I have only ONE.

Bjorn Lynne – The Void, original 1997 pressing

The original mastered pressing of this CD has been sold out for many years, although I have still been selling a “re-issue” with slightly different cover etc. and I’m still selling that re-issue. However, I have THREE copies of the original first pressing from 1997, released on the UK record label Cyclops. One is brand new and still in its plastic wrapping. The other two are used, but they are nicely kept and in good shape. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne – Revive, original 2000 pressing

It’s pretty much the same situation with this. The original version of this CD has been sold out for many years, although I have still been selling a “re-issue” with slightly different cover etc. and I’m still selling that re-issue. However, I have TWO copies of the original first pressing from 2000, released on the UK record label Cyclops. They are opened, but they are nicely kept and in good shape. Price: $15 each plus actual shipping cost.

Bjorn Lynne – Accelerator

I don’t actually have any copies at all of this CD, but I would like to say that the LAST 10 COPIES of this are now for sale at CDbaby.com – on this page: http://cdbaby.com/cd/bjornlynne01 . When CDBaby have sold these last 10 copies, this disc will not be available any more, and will be a collectors item like the others, so... maybe it’s a good time to hurry up and get one. :-)

Well... I hope this little garage sale of rare treasures will be of interest to some of you. :-) Should you wish to buy any of these CD’s, please email me and I will put the CD’s aside for you.

Add me as a friend on Facebook and MySpace

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:53:00 +0000

If anybody reading this would like to add Bjorn Lynne to your friend on Facebook or MySpace, please follow these links:

Bjorn Lynne on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503781394
Bjorn Lynne on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/bjornlynne

It may take some days before I respond to the friend request, but that's just because I don't have enough time to log in there every day. So don't take that personally. :-)

- Bjorn

A photo I took today from my balcony

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:56:00 +0000

I'm really not going to turn this into a "photo blog" (I promise!) but I took this photo today and I thought I'd post it here, just this once. I took the photo from the balcony on my house here in Stavern, looking out at the "Larvik Fjord" where, twice a day, the boat "Petter Wessel" comes in. This boat travels daily between Larvik, Norway and Hirtshals, Denmark. The sun is setting, giving the ship a red-ish ting, and the dramatic skies in the background work as a kind of nice frame. I hope you'll like this photo. :-)

New Bjorn Lynne album, "Quiet Places"

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:12:00 +0000

Dear friends,

I hope you are all well and ready for some new music from this northern corner of the world.

I mentioned a while ago that I would probably be releasing two new albums this year; one with quiet, reflective, ambient music -- and another one with more upbeat, melodic electronica.

My ambient CD, "Quiet Places" is now available to purchase as a downloadable album from my own download shop and will soon also be available to buy as a physical CD, through my own personal CD-shop as well as through CDBaby. (The CD's are being produced at the time of writing this).

This album, Quiet Places, has been composed and produced over a period of more than 2 years. I didn't want to hurry it or push it. I worked on it only when the feeling came over me and I really felt like I wanted to work on it. The music on this CD is made for quiet reflection, maybe for some personal time. The inspiration for the music has come from taking some quiet walks in the beautiful and rather desolate nature which is available to me, here in my home in Norway. Far from being "all pretty", the album also has it's odd, bittersweet, and introspective moments.

The CD contains a number of photos, all taken from the area around where I live (max. 1 km from my house), in Stavern, Norway, where all of this music was "born". I wanted to include the photos because I felt that they somehow represent the source of the music. I also took all the photos myself.

I have made low-fi previews of the entire album, start to finish, available to listen online on my site. Just go to the dedicated page for this CD: http://www.lynnemusic.com/quietplaces.html and you can listen as much as you want (low sound quality, though).

I will write again when the actual physical CD is available to purchase. For now, it's only available as a purchased download in 320-kbps MP3-files (no protection/DRM) from my own download shop, and this purchase also includes high-res image files of all the cover artwork, so that you can print the cover yourself and burn a CD.

The actual physical CD will be available to purchase from my shop within a week or so. This time I have ordered only 150 physical CD's to be stocked here at my home in Norway, and all the rest to be stocked at CDBaby in USA. The reason is that the physical CD's cost SO much to ship. It's almost pointless to sell my physical CD's from here, due to the shipping cost. I pay about $2 per CD to have them shipped from the factory to my home in Norway, and then it costs me about $12 in stamps to send a single CD to USA. Plus about $1 for a padded envelope. So for each physical CD sold from my personal CD-shop here in Norway, I have shipping costs of about $15. I charge $7.90 in shipping when someody orders a CD on my web site -- which means I take a loss of about $7 in shipping when I sell a CD from here.

This is why, this time I will have only 150 copies here at my own personal shop, and all of these will be autographed. After these 150 are sold out, the physical CD will be available from CDBaby in USA, and from many different music download services such as iTunes, PayPlay and many more.

But at the time of writing this, "Quiet Places" is only available from my download shop: http://www.lynnemusic.com/downloadshop.html

I hope that (some of you at least) will enjoy this little outing into "quiet music for reflection and personal time" which I have made for you all. Some of you may have heard some of the tracks before, as I've had them posted on my web site -- such as Kaleidoscope, Solnatt, and Waiting.

If you buy the album, whether it be as a download or as a CD, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to the dedicated page for "Quiet Places" and write your own review of it. The review doesn't have to be so artistic, long, or well written. Just a few words about whether you enjoyed it or not, and why. This helps other people to make up their minds on whether to buy the album.

Letter from Alastair Jamieson-lane - use of MIDI files for project

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:19:00 +0000

Hey Bjorn

I am amateur Java program just fooling around with a little Platform game. I'd really like to use a couple of your midi tunes for background music, but am not sure if the game would be considered "at home listening" or "any kind of project" and am not sure if I'd have to buy a liscense. Thought I'd ask your permission and see what you say about it. Great music man, keep it up!

- Alastair

Hi Alastair,

Thanks for your email. So long as the game is just for fooling around between yourself and your friends/family, you may use my MIDI’s for free.

If the game is going to be distributed in any way, i.e. available for download (even free download), then you need a license to use my MIDI’s. (License costs $29.95 per track and can be purchased from http://www.shockwave-sound.com).

I hope this helps.

- Bjorn

A sign of life from the depths....

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:34:00 +0000

Dear friends around the world,

* Hello and little update
* $10 for all Bjorn Lynne CD's until Christmas

Hello and little update
-----------------------

I'm very sorry that it's been so long since I wrote anything to this list. I think, the last time I wrote, I was about to set off for my first ever visit to the US. Since then, so much has happened, unfortunately not a whole lot of it has been about my "Bjorn Lynne CD's" in the traditional sense.

It's been two years now, since I quit my day-job as a musician/sound guy for the video game company Team17, and set out trying to make a living "on my own" as a one-man music provider and music company. I'm happy to be able to say that things have gone really well for me. My company Lynne Publishing is now a fully-fledged record company with 4 artists signed (myself included) plus several more artists "co-operating" non-exclusively. I don't really concentrate on selling CD's to consumers in the traditional record company way -- instead, I concentrate on licensing our music to companies, for use within their projects such as games, film, TV/broadcast, etc. Not only are we making a lot of money from direct sales of licenses, but as a secondary effect we are also getting our music used a lot in TV, film, games, broadcasts, websites, etc -- which is a lot of fun.

To have taken a chance, jumped off my day-job and "made it" on my own, now making 4-5 times as much as I did as an employee, feels extremely satisfying. :-)

As you can imagine, in the midsts of this success with the music licensing business, other things have unfortunately suffered, and one of those things is the composing and recording of my own "personal" music which is just made for releasing Bjorn Lynne CD's and selling them to a few hundred fans.

I still do plan to release another CD -- hopefully in 2008. I have written 3 tracks for my next album (one of them being over 14 minutes long), and I will return to this project at some point in the near future. So let's just see what happens.

My visit to New York and New Jersey this summer was wonderful, although too short. Of course I couldn't leave my "work head" completely behind, so I brought with me a portable recorder, and I recorded a collection of "Sounds of New York City", which can now be seen on my music/sound licensing web site Shockwave-Sound.com, more specifically on this page, in case you want to have a quick listen to them. :-): http://www.shockwave-sound.com/genre/95.html

Only a few weeks after returning from the U.S. I also went on a trip to Ireland -- to the very south end of the country, a small place called Skibbereen, where I spent a week relaxing and doing fun stuff with a group of friends (including Andrew "Nightshade/Crusaders" Barnabas and Adam "Skorpic" Skorupa). As you can see from this photo, among other things, we went fishing. :-)

$10 for all Bjorn Lynne CD's until Christmas
---------------------------------------------

I want to give a little extra boost to my CD sales before Christmas (the idea being that some of you might buy them as Christmas gifts for yourselves or friends/family), so I'm happy to announce that all my CD's are only $10 each from my personal CD-shop: http://www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html between now and Christmas.

(Normal price is $16.99 per CD)

CD's ordered from this page are packed and sent out by me personally, so if you would like to have your CD's autographed, just send me an email about it, at the same time as placing your order.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks very much for reading and have a wonderful weekend.

All the best,
--
Bjorn Lynne

www.lynnemusic.com
www.shockwave-sound.com

Older Bjorn Lynne CD goes for $200 on eBay

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:44:00 +0000

Hi folks,

This month, my old CD "Alien Breed 3D Soundtrack" went for EUR 145.00 (That's about 200 US$) on the German eBay site -- check it out here.

I found this to be quite interesting and of course, very satisfying for me as a musician. :-)

Maybe some of the CD's that I'm currently selling in my CDshop will also be able to get such collectible prices, some time in the future. :-)

- Bjorn

Two new tracks I've made for music library licensing

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:43:00 +0000

Hello friends,

By the time you read this, I will probably be on my way for an 11-days trip to USA, where I will be staying in the New York / New Jersey area until August 6th. The trip is a combination of a little bit of work, a little bit of vacation / tourist time, and a little bit horse related, because my wife is really big-time into horses, and next weekend is the weekend for the big horse trotting race, "Hambletonian". Believe it or not, we own a 1/120th stake in one of the favorite horses to win it -- Donato Hanover.

Anyway, enough of that. Before I leave, I wanted all you guys to know that I haven't been lazying around here, but have in fact been working on two new "pop" like tracks which are not meant for release on any Bjorn Lynne CD, but have been composed and produced purely for licensing through music libraries (including my own royalty-free music library site, Shockwave-Sound.com.

The two tracks were created and produced right here in my room (in fact, on the same PC as I'm typing on now) :-). The saxophone in "Jazzy Chill" was played by my friend Steinar Borvik.

Here are the two tracks in reduced sound quality (should be good enough to hear what they're like). I hope you'll enjoy them. If anybody should be interested in licensing these tracks for use in any kind of media (TV, web site, multimedia, slideshow, anything), then you can buy a license for that at www.shockwave-sound.com

Okay, I'm off "stateside" for the next 11 days and will write again when I return. :-)

All the best,
- Bjorn

Bjorn Lynne music for Flintstones & Home Alone

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:05:00 +0000

Just a quick note, people, to say that you can now hear my music in the two new PlayStation 2 games, "The Flintstones: Bedrock Racing" and "Home Alone".

So if you get a chance to play one of these, crank up the volume. ;-)

Letter from Dave Lundy - Music Purchasing

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:09:00 +0000

Hey Bjorn,

Longtime fan here. I've gotten every one of your albums since Hobbits, way back when. I actually still have my old MOD music files from back in the day. Brings back memories...

Anyhow, I'm wanting to purchase "Undercover" and future albums, but I want to help you out as much as I can. While I love having physical CDs to listen to, I understand that you've got a high overhead on making them. What would be the most beneficial (for you) way to purchase your music? I want to keep you in business, bro. You're a great talent and I'd hate to see that go away.

Thanks again for the great tunes! Take care...

Dave

Answer from Bjorn:

Hi David,

Thank you so much for your email and for your support. I appreciate it -- not only that you want to buy my music, but also for thinking about me and how much I get out of each type of sale.

My answer is that really, the amounts I get from different types of sales, don't really differ that much from each other.

If you buy my physical CD at CDBaby.com I get $12.99 (CDbaby takes $4), minus the approx. $2 it cost me to have the CD made, and about $0.50 it cost me to send the CD to CDBaby. So I guess a profit of about $10.

If you buy it as a download from iTunes, then iTunes pays CDBaby about $6.30 or so, and CDBaby only takes 9% of this, so after Paypal fees (when CDBaby pays me by Paypal) I'm left with about $5.50 or so.

If you buy it as a physical CD from my own personal CD-shop www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html , you pay $16.99 for the CD and $7.90 for postage. Some feel that the $7.90 I take in postage is a little bit too much, but postage out of Norway is very expensive, and in actual fact, the true postage cost for me to send one CD from Norway to USA is about $11. So I actually lose a little bit over $3 in postage, even when I take $7.90 in postage from the customer. So in this case, I take $16.99 for the CD, out of which Paypal takes about 4%, minus the $3 I lose on shipping, minus the approx. $2 it cost me to have the CD made, minus the $1 approx it cost me to have the CD shipped to me from the place where it was made -- leaving me perhaps with a profit of about $10 or so.

If you buy the CD as a downloadable CD from my own personal download-shop (www.lynnemusic.com/downloadshop.html) then you pay $11.99 and you pay through 2checkout.com who takes 5.5% plus they "skim" about 2% on the currency exchange rate when they pay the monthly payment to me -- so I'm left with a profit of around $11.

So, as you can see from all this, really there are several ways to buy my CD's that more or less work out at just about the same profit for me. Frankly, if it's a matter of a dollar or two, I'd rather my customers actually have the physical CD if that is what they prefer. :-)

The bottom line is, whatever way you choose to buy my music, I very much appreciate it, and for me it's more important that you buy it in the way that gives you the most pleasure, even if I should make a couple of dollars or less, one way or the other. :-)

Thanks again!

- Bjorn

Voyager: New Surround Music track for free download

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:56:00 +0000

Dear friends,

Today I have uploaded a new free surround music track to my web site, which can be downloaded in WMA (Windows Media Audio v10) and in AC3 (Dolby Digital) 5.1 surround format. The track is a 14-minute "typical Bjorn Lynne style" :-) spacey synth-rock thing with added guitars. I hope you'll enjoy it.

The track also features a guest guitar solo towards the end, by my friend Marc Pattison . Everything else was played by me.

You need a 5.1 surround setup to play the WMA or AC3 versions. You'll get the best listening experience by downloading the WMA file (it sounds better than the AC3), downloading Windows Media Player v10 or higher, and sitting in the center of the surround speaker setup while listening.

The AC3 file can be downloaded and burned to DVD for use in regular home DVD-players, using a DVD authoring program such as Sony Media DVD Architect or another similar program. That way, you can listen from your DVD-player.

To download the Surround Music version of Voyager, go to my free surround music page.

I also created a 5.1 surround setup test file, because I have a feeling that a lot of people have 5.1 surround speaker setups, but haven't connected it correctly or set up the software correctly to play it. So you can download the test file which will play a voice in each speaker, saying "front left", "front right" and so on -- so you can check that you have your speakers connected and setup correctly. This is also available in WMA and AC3 format from my free surround music page.

I already know that I'll probably get some complaints from those of you who don't have a surround speaker setup :-), so I've also created a normal stereo version and made it playable from the below Flash player. No surround setup needed for that.

I hope you'll enjoy this track! It will be featured on my next Bjorn Lynne synth-rock style CD release, hopefully sometime this year or early next year.

If you have comments etc., please use the "comment" feature in this blog. Thank you!

- Bjorn Lynne

Have yourselves some free MP3 ringtones

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:21:00 +0000

I know a lot of independent musicians these days are trying to make a bit of an income by selling their tracks as ringtones for mobile phones / cellphones, and selling these tones for small amounts like $2.99 each or whatever.

I have instead decided to give away some of my music for use as ringtones, completely free. To be honest, it just gives me a kick to think that somebody might actually have my music playing from their phone when it rings. :-). It's not that I don't want to sell my music, but if people are going to buy something, I'd rather they buy my CD's, not a 30-second ringtone.

Some old Bjorn Lynne favorites like "12th Warrior", "Space Deliria" and "Secret World" are now available to download as MP3 and upload to your phone. Just go to www.lynnemusic.com/ringtones.html . I hope you'll enjoy them.

All the best,
- Bjørn Lynne

PayPlay.fm - a good place to buy my music - for US customers

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:49:00 +0000

(Update January 2008: In the text below it says that PayPlay is only available to people in the USA, but I've been told that Payplay has since also set up so that Non-US customers can use them too).

All of my CD's are now available for U.S. customers to buy through a new digital music shop called PayPlay.fm

At PayPlay.fm U.S. customers can choose to buy the music as unsecured, regular MP3 files for $.088 per track or $8.88 per whole CD, or a little bit cheaper ($0.77 / $7.77) for secured WMA (Windows Media Audio) files. Either way, I get about $0.58 per track sold, or $5.80 per whole CD. This is actually a very good artist payment. (For example, it's a lot - LOT more than I got when my CD's were released by a real record company and sold in the shops).

PayPlay.fm is a no-nonsense place, with no software to install, and they have a very attractive web site, with extra options such as cover printing and more. In short, I feel it's exactly what a music download shop should be. No nonsense, great for the customer, and very fair payments to the musicians. Well done, PayPlay.fm! The only drawback is that they only sell to customers in the U.S. (for now, anyway), which is a pity. [Thanks to Björn in Sweden who informed me that only U.S. customers can use PayPlay.fm].

Here are links to each of my CD's at PayPlay.fm:

Bjorn Lynne CD's:

Divinorum CD's:
(Divinorum is my pseudonym when working with trance/electronica/techno music)

My Nature Sound Series (One-hour nature sound recordings, available either with or without Ambient Music composed by me):

CD's by my friends:

Two new Ambient music tracks - your feedback welcome

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:59:00 +0000

Hello friends,

Over the past week or so, I have composed two new Ambient music pieces. I plan to release an Ambient CD some time before the end of this year. So far I have about 8 tracks completed, I'm going to make maybe 5-6 more of them. (EDIT: I wanted to add here, that I haven't actually made 8 tracks in the past week or so.. I've only made two new ones in the last week. The other 5 or 6 have been composed over a period of more than 2 years, one here and one there). :-)

Anyway, here are the two most recent Ambient works. I could use some input/comments/feedback from all of you, because for one of the tracks, "Ambient 2", I can't think of a good title, and for the other one, "Kaleidoscope", the title is perfect but I have two different versions and I can't decide which one to use!

Let's start with "Ambient 2". I know exactly what I'm trying to "visualize" with this track, but I just can't find the word(s) for it. Something slightly odd, maybe creepy, slow flowing mud, a feeling of experiencing time in a slowed-down state. If any of you have good titles that come to you while listening to this track, please use the "Comment" feature below to let me know! You can hear the track by clicking on it in the Flash player below.

Next up is the track "Kaleidoscope". A Kaleidoscope is one of those toys we had as children, it looks like a little telescope. You look into it and twist the end of it, and different beautiful patterns, colors and shapes appear inside (See pic on the left). :-)

For this track I decided to use NO quantization, but to record everything straight in and leave it exactly as recorded, with no tweaking. I made one version without any drums, and another version with an extremely simple drum track. Even the drums were "recorded" by actually playing the drum notes on my keyboard, and then left untouched, unquantized. I wanted it to be imperfect and "feel live".

I can't decide whether I like the version without drums, or the version with the simple drum track. Again, any feedback, comments, votes would be very welcome. Use the "comment" field below to have your say. All input is appreciated. Thank you!

Here is the Flash Player where you can hear the tracks:

BTW, I am now working on two new albums. One with Ambient music in this style, and another album with more synth/space-rock type music like some of my previous albums. I hope to have at least this ambient album released before the end of this year. Maybe the other one, too, if I can get enough time to work on the music.

Thanks for reading!

- Bjorn Lynne

"Undercover" now available as a CD

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:40:00 +0000

“Undercover” now available on CD

I’m happy to announce that Undercover is now available as a CD!

“Undercover” is a 14-track album that I have made together with my friend from the Amiga/PC demo-scene, Adam Skorupa, aka Skorpic. The music is in “Spy/Thriller/Crime soundtrack” style.

The CD was “pre-released” in my download-shop about 2 weeks ago. As of today, it is also available as a physical CD, from two different places:

From myself, in Norway: www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html
and from CDBaby in USA: www.cdbaby.com/cd/lynneskorupa

World wide shipping available both places.

I have to mention that this CD was not glass-mastered and duplicated in an industrial CD pressing plant. It was made in 300 copies at a “short-run” CD duplication company where they use big CD-copier machines to copy from the original master CD-R. So it’s neither a fully industrial CD, nor a home-made CD... but something in between, I suppose.

The album will arrive in a few weeks at iTunes and other downloadable services – but if you wish to buy it as a downloadable album already now, you can of course do so from http://www.lynnemusic.com/downloadshop.html right now.

To listen to the whole album online, just go to www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html and click on the “Undercover” album cover.

Update on other musical things....

I’m working on a long(ish) track for my next forthcoming solo album. I think I’m going to call the track “Voyager”, because it appears to me that every electronic music composer or band has to make a track called “Voyager” at some point in their career ... and I have yet to do so! :-) I’m trying out different ideas and throwing away quite a lot of stuff that isn’t working the way I’d like it to. :-) I’ll try to keep you updated.

As usual, I’m also working on my royalty-free music licensing site, www.shockwave-sound.com, which is how I make most of my income now. My music gets licensed from that page an average of 25 times every single day, and after years of this, it makes thousands of productions that use my music. Most of these productions I have never seen or heard. When somebody buys a license from www.shockwave-sound.com, I don’t actually ask the customer exactly what he’s going to use the music for. I just tell the customer what he/she can and can’t use the music for. So it’s kind of weird to think that my music is being used in thousands of different productions all over the world, and 99.5% of them I never get to see or hear about. A couple of times I have “stumbled across” my music while switching channels on the TV. :-)

"Work in Progress" -- first signs of life for new album

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 16 May 2007 10:57:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks, I have started to build up some inspiration and ideas for what will eventually be my next solo album!

I'm really quite excited about it. For a long time now, I have been working with other people, working on my music licensing business, working on various side projects and actually, well, watching TV!

But now something in me has begun to stir up some new music. I decided to just let things start to take shape naturally, and it seems to me that the album is going in the general direction of my other melodic sci-fi synth rock albums, i.e. like "The Void", "Dreamstate", "Colony" and "Beneath Another Sky".

So far I have composed the framework for two different tracks. They are not finished yet, but below are a couple of sneak preview tasters! Yesterday I was in a pro recording studio with a drummer and we recorded live acoustic drums for one of the tracks; tentatively titled "Temp-6"

Both tracks written so far tick in at about 6 minutes. Below are about a minute-and-a-half clips from the beginning of each track. The one called "Temp 6" has acoustic drums; the one called "Arpeg 2" has programmed drums for now.

I really need great sounding Song Titles for these two tracks, so if you have any suggestions for track names, please use the "Comment" function on this blog to make your suggestions!

MP3 preview: Temp 6
MP3 preview: Arpeg 2

I might put up one of these tracks in full-length version a little later on, when one of them is actually finished. :)

- Bjorn

Undercover - the CD by Bjorn Lynne & Adam Skorupa

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:52:00 +0000

Undercover is a 14-track CD composed and produced by Bjorn Lynne together with his good friend and musical collaborator, Adam Skorupa (also known to some as "Skorpic" from the Amiga / PC demo scene, or from his electronica band Aural Planet).

Undercover is released today as a download purchase from the Bjorn Lynne download shop! Here you can buy the album as an instant download, in true CD-quality, 256-kbps unprotected MP3-files. Also included with the purchase are High Res cover artwork images, so you can print the cover yourself and make yourself a real CD to put in your CD collection.

The album will be released as a physical CD in about 2 weeks from now, and then released on iTunes and many other music download sites, about 2-4 weeks after that. At the time of writing this (May 15, 2007), it is only available through the Bjorn Lynne download shop.

The music is inspired by Spy movies, Crime thrillers and international crime/spy action flicks. To hear the entire album through a neat Flash music player, visit the web page for the Undercover CD.

Should you be interested in licensing music from Undercover to use in your project, you can buy a royalty-free license from Shockwave-Sound.Com

Comments about the CD or the download-shop welcome any time! :-) Thanks for listening.

Music for sea life video

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:39:00 +0000

Josh Jensen and Liz Harlin of Undersea Productions have released a double DVD-video entitled Marine Life of Fiji and Tonga, containing my music.

This detailed and beautiful 288-minute video is an encyclopedic reference guide to tropical fish and other sea life -- except that instead of being a book full of pictures, it's a video with stunning real-life film footage of each fish and species. This was a nice project to be made part of! Check out the video clip here.

Two new releases in the Bjorn Lynne download-shop

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:21:00 +0000

Dear friends,

I’m happy to announce two new Bjorn Lynne music releases which are available exclusively though the Bjorn Lynne download-shop:

The way it works is: You add an album to your shopping cart, pay with a credit card, and then download the whole album immediately, in true CD-quality (256-kbps) unprotected mp3 files. The download link is displayed right in your browser after payment, and in addition, the link is also sent out to your email address.

Tropical Ocean Surf - With ambient music

This is a new CD that I have made as part of my “Nature Sound Series”. The CD contains ambient / relaxing / floating music mixed with the calming, soothing sounds of slow ocean waves coming in on a tropical island beach.

The CD contains one very long track that plays for more than 1 hour uninterrupted. The download also contains hi-res album artwork, so you can print the cover artwork with a color printer, burn the audio track to a CD, and that way you can make yourself a real CD if you want.

This CD will become available as a physical CD from CDBaby.com in a few weeks, but for now it is only available to buy from the Bjorn Lynne download-shop. Price: $8.99

Click here to read more about it or listen to a preview

Click here to go to the Bjorn Lynne download-shop and buy it now

Bjorn Lynne: Wacky Races

This is a collection of 11 tracks in “video game music style” that I produced in 2005. Until now, these tracks have only been available to industry professionals (music licensing for games and media), but now I’ve decided to release it as a game music CD, exclusively through the Bjorn Lynne download-shop.

To download the whole album as 256-kbps mp3 files: US$ 7.99

Click here to read more about it or listen to previews

Click here to go to the Bjorn Lynne download-shop and buy it now

Selling stolen music

noreply@blogger.com (Bjorn Lynne) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Today while more or less randomly browing the web, I came across another musician's web site. I started listening to the music tracks that he offers on his web site, and was completely gobsmacked to find MY track "The Next Step" posted on his web site under the name "Highlander".

As many of you will know, I composed the track "The Next Step" in 2002 and released it on CD in 2003 on my album "Power Liquids". This guy had simply taken the track straight from the CD, changed it's name, and posted it on his web site as his own music.

I can only assume that all the other music on his web site has also been stolen from other musicians.

What's wrong with some people? Have they NO shame? Has the internet become so big and so complex now, that people like this think that they can just steal what they want and SELL it -- because the chance of being found out amongs millions of other musicians, is so low?

It has to be said that when I confronted this guy about it, he removed the track from his web site, so in this particular case, the problem has been solved. But it's got to make me wonder; how many other "musicians" out there are selling my music as their own?

I mean, there's stealing and there's stealing. There's the guy who downloads my music album from some pirate or peer-to-peer network, to listen to it himself. I don't like it obviously, because afterall I'm trying to make a living on my music. But I'm willing to forgive this to some degree.

But when somebody starts SELLING my music, credited to themselves, that's when things get serious and it's time to involve lawyers.