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Help save the Kosmic Free Music Foundation 60

Posted by CmdrTaco from the free-tunes dept.
Duchamp writes "Kosmic Free Music Foundation is in desperate need of hardware and cash to stay alive. They are running an online fund raiser and if it slops, so does KFMF. For those who have not visited KFMF before, they have an extensive library (currently offline, hence the fund raiser) of music that is donated by participating artists for free distribution. Think of it as freeware for the ears. "
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Help save the Kosmic Free Music Foundation More

Help save the Kosmic Free Music Foundation

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  • I've downloaded over a gig of kosmic mp3s in the past... and now they are selling a 2cd set for $12 (including shipping!) packed with mp3s and other goodies. What a great deal! Much better than normal audio cds. :-)
  • I remember these guys for a long time now, ever since they were called KLF. They release some funky music, and their demos are great too. Help save KFMF--click on the banner ads, donate hardware and cash. KFMF is somewhat related to the Open Source movement in that their music is freely distributed and licenced.
  • I'm talking about the "Kosmic Loader Foundation," the name the KFMF used to be called. For many reasons, including avoiding postings to Slashdot calling people morons, they decided to change their names. This was way back in 1994.
  • I own most (if not all) of the Kosmic CDs already, and am going to order the '98 archive. It's great stuff. Unfortunatly this is the second or third time they've been in such a crisis... Although I haven't actually downloaded music from them in a long time (I just order the CDs - doesn't take up hard disk space, don't have to deal with dodgy mod players), I don't want to see Kosmic go.
  • Posted by mayhexx:

    Interesting, can you tell me where to get the same drugs you're, on they seem to have a pretty strong effect.

    How can you even compare mp3 to mod? It's like comparing a zip file to a txt file.
    How do you make music as mp3s? You record a song and compress it, there as ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE between a mod converted to mp3 and a tune by Celine Dion, only different tools have been used to compose and record them.
    It all comes down to artistic talent, not the tools you are using.
    Personally, I think most mods I've heard are way much better than the shit you hear on radio every day.

    And btw, since newer is always better, does that mean the drawing i made yesterday is better than Mona Lisa?

  • An Alpha??!?!? That's crazy. They need RAID more than they need killer CPU. I think all they should do is get a fancy hot-swappable RAID system and be done with it.

    2mbps is nothing for a P120 running Linux.
  • I already donated some $$$, along with an order for the MP3-archive CDs...
  • I have downloaded a WHOLE LOTTA music from Kosmic, and they are a real quality organization. Go there now, click all the ad banner links... Personally, I'm going to A) donate, and B) try to round up some more sponsors for this place, because it really kicks butt.

    http://www.kosmic.org [kosmic.org]

    Hey, what kind of hardware do they need?

  • ...and ripped samples, and recorded .IT tracks on to tapes for friends, and other related atrocities, so I will galdly give them my money asking nothing more in return. I spent $25 on ONE store purchased compact disc last week (FSOL) and to not contribute to an organization like this, that gives it's product out mostly for free, would be the worst kind of hypocracy, considering how much I hate the mainstream music industry and commercialism in general.

    Of course, that's me. If Kosmic goes back up, and you've never heard of them, go check them out because I think you'll like it, even if electronica etc isn't your bag ;)

  • Whoa...

    I certainly didn't expect to see strife like this in the demoscene...oh wait, yes I did.

    Zorro

  • Troll (Score:1)

    by dzawitz ( 2120 )
    Don't feed the trolls, people.

    --Zorro
  • cdrom.com runs on a 10 mbps link, usually fully saturated. They have one BIGass RAID, and are running on a lone PPro 200 (I think OCed to 233?).

    I'd think a quad PPro 200 box with a similarly beefy RAID would do the job for a dedicated OC3. But I doubt that's what they're getting... OC3's from what I've seen are over $100k/month...
  • Last night, I put up a Shoutcast server (http://shoutcast.com) which is currently broadcasting over 4 hours worth of Kosmic music.

    All you need is the latest version of Winamp, press Ctrl-L, and type "http://139.78.87.109:8000".

    The playlist:
    http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/9703/shou tcast.html

    more Kosmic songs:
    ftp://wallajl.student.osktate.edu/pub/music/kosm ic
  • Is the Kosmic Free Music Foundation actually a foundation? Who is "Dan Nicholson" and why should donation checks and money orders be made out to him? Seems like a great way to get the I.R.S. all over you. Shouldn't donations go to some sort of legal entity? Especially so people could get tax deductions on large donations?
    Pity the call letters KFMF are already in use by a Chico, California low-power FM. A listener supported radio station would be a nice showcase for the music and the philosophy, assuming either or both are any good.
  • I would imagine that the most serious aspect of kosmic's situation is where to get bandwidth. Most of the site traffic is not page downloads, it's mp3 downloads. If he's sending 2mb outbound on a 24-hour basis, just getting a DS1 from a carrier will cost him in the neighborhood of $3000 a month. He lives in the 95th percentile so he has to buy a price-protected span. Can't be burstable. Colocating at an ISP might reduce the price by $1000 a month or so, but much of that would be due to the local loop savings. Also, a DS1 would constrain his bandwidth by 25% so it's likely that a colocation price would actually be the same or more than a DS1.

    He can host a site with that kind of throughput on a P2-300 running apache and linux, which can be had for less than one month's bandwith cost.

    What I suspect he really needs is a no-charge bandwidth provider.

  • CD's? (Score:1)

    by ilkahn ( 6642 )
    I guess my question is: just how much money are they going to make out of me preordering the CD's for 12 bucks... I mean, if they would just rather I donated 5 bucks, it might be in their best interest to just say so...

  • CD's? (Score:1)

    by Krux ( 8331 )
    They did ask for donations, but for those who also want to feel they have 'gotten' something for their money they can order some CDs as well. Of course one of the great things about KFMF is that you can download all their music online, and not have to buy anything. The CDs are cool because not only do they look and sound cool, it saves the time to download a gig+ worth of data.

    CD's cost about a buck or so to produce in mass, so they are still making some money to put towards server hardware/bandwidth, and $12 for a CD is still a good price considering all the music you get.

  • Comparing the substandard pop crap that plays on the radio today, tracking is by no means dead. The technology is obsolete, but so is that computer you just bought yesterday.

    A majority of original music I've heard is tracked. It gives a good place for people to experiment with sound. Mind you, if you base your opinion of any of Kosmic's latest songs (no offense here, but they aren't the greatest) you will come away with a fairly bad opinion of tracking. It takes some effort to find the classics, but they are there.

    To criticize and mock the people tracking tunes is absurd. It's a wonderful art, and should be respected.
  • ...Is that Dan (Maelcum) was originally called ModDan, wrote terrible music for AOL's online music forum in the early 90's, and came up with KLF because he liked to rip the *real* KLF's samples for his music.

    Sorry to burst your bubble, Dan... History sucks, don't it?
  • We didn't shut down the archive because we couldn't make money from it--we shut it down because we didn't want to spend the time (6+ years, mind you) maintaining it any more.

    We never tried to make it a business.

    Please do some research before you open your big yaw.
  • Sorry. KFMF used to be called KLF till about the middle 1994. It origionally was called the Kosmic Loader Foundation... obviously for good reason they changed names hehe.

    _Onyx
  • A better name for this article would be "Feed Maelcum." the irresponsible, live-at-home-with-mom leader of Kosmic is a selfish, unfair non-leader. Profits from all sales of Kosmic related merchandise is not appropriately directed to the people with talent: the musicians. Andy Voss (aka Phoenix) never received *any* payment for the tape he released and sold through Area 51. Maelcum does not have a job other than placing banner ads on the Kosmic web site.

    Don't fall for this act of desperation. Force Maelcum to find work or file for welfare. Hopefully the quality musicians still left in Kosmic will eventually get the respect they deserve without the "administrative fees" charged by a lazy worthless Maelcum.
  • Walnut Creek did not shut the demo archive down. Snowman did.

    Try visiting ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos and see how shut down it is.
  • Oh dear. That's just the motivation I needed to get off my arse and finish this record. Just to wipe your maniacal MORE POWER-obsessed grin off your face.

    If you've been sentient for any amount of time, you'd realise what a silly statement "if it's newer, its better -- always, automatically, instantaneously." is. Most MP3's I've heard sound significantly worse than CD-quality audio, and often lag behind mods played back on a decent player as well.

    Besides, considering part of the imperative for getting a faster computer was so I could get the oodles of channels and rezzo filters in IT, and mess around with Buzz [buzz2.org] as well, your point about "it was great in the days when computers had neither the hardware nor the horsepower to do proper music" seems rather moronic. The tools evolve to fit the capabilities of the platform.

    Who cares about your 31337 warez "kiddies", anyway? They're too thick to produce thier own music, they can only squeak like newly hatched starlings "gimme mp3z! gimme mp3z!". Gotta love scene bitchiness.

    Getting back to the KFMF, yes, Maelcum is an annoying bugger, but from what I can tell he isn't making an awful lot of money out of it. Probably making a loss. To insist that he is somehow profiteering, to place him in the same category as the Big Six^H^H^HFive, to play the worn-out punk reactionary "SELL OUT" card is inappropriate in this case.

    From some of the music he's done, he's isn't a slouch in the musician department, either, though I don't think Celine Dion's in any danger.

    And yes, while there's been a fair amount of dross on KFMF recently, there's been the odd gem worth all the trouble.

    There's not just the KFMF, of course, as has been said before, but the point needs to be made, NOISE [noisemusic.org], Five Musicians [fm.org] and the like also bung out great music.

  • If they get as much traffic as their current page claims, one would think they could support the site on ad revenue alone.

    Sounds like they need to do a better job of promoting themselves.
  • I've been into the underground music scene for a while and I really respect these musicians who just release their hours of toil as free for whoever wants to download it. I am going to donate to keep them alive! They have some of the best tunes.
  • Fortunately Vision Online is aware of our bandwith requirements and have been gracious enough to say that's fine with them. They've got two DS3s, so we should be good to go in that department.

    If it came down to paying for colocation, we'd be gone! There's just no way to subsidize that kind of cost. Thank God that's not the case.

    Also, i should mention, any potential advertisers out there, feel free to contact me at maelcum@kosmic.org.. every bit helps!
  • A quick comment from the irresponsible leader of Kosmic. I would invite Mr. Neely to attempt to do what I've done with KFMF in the last seven years, in exactly the same manner, and then get back to me about what a non-job it is.

    incidentally on the subject of old debts and lack of gainful employment, mr. brett neely owes me US$35 for a CPU he purchased from me in early 1996, which he was unable to pay for at the time. nevertheless i figured he needed it more than i did, so i gave it to him. unfortunately brett seems to think that since i was unable to attend an event in summer '96, where he promised to pay for it, the debt was voided. some people might call this hypocrisy. personally i prefer not to call people names in a public forum =)

    just to prove what a "selfish, unfair non-leader "i am, and how concerned i am with "profits from all sales of Kosmic related merchandise" i am, i will be releasing my "low grey cloud" cd in it's entirely in MP3 within the next 24 hours on the website. must be another marketing ploy! ;)

  • Personally, I think that it is about time for the kfmf to be out of the picture. I've found that the quality of the music is 10% hit and 90% miss, the bloated memberlist being one of the key factors. It is nice that the kfmf has had such openness to new trackers, but their open-door policy has let too many people in who should've been honing their skills for a much longer period of time before being in any group. Ever since kosmic dropped their lf and went to the fmf, i've seen the paradigm shift from quality to quantity - apparent in their "Over 99h of music on a cd..." business (whichever hours it is). Plus, the emphasis on the website shifted from musical to commercial a while ago. Too many people are using ModPlug and WinAmp to listen to songs and it seems that there are people who either have no clue about what a mod is, or are simply wasting their time (See: "Where is the source" comment above). All in all, i think it is high time for the ship to sink, lifeboats to be used, and individuals to go elsewhere or spend some much needed time in the pitstop.
  • I've been an avid but slient listener of trak music since the PC MOD format and "House of the Rising Sun" sample MOD. It was a marvel to have my 286 spit out music from it's internal speaker. Since then, I have watched it evolve all the way to the new IT format. I've always preferred it to MIDI, because it generated the a much closer appoximation to what the original designer intended. I've watch groups and artists come and go, and over the last few years watch it slowly die since Wavetables replaced the FM OPL-3 chips and the creation of the MP3 format.

    Why keep trakking alive?
    1) File size much smaller.
    2) Endless end-user customability - speed, channel isolation (get rid that annoying hand bell) pitch, etc.
    3) Lower system overhead than MP3 (most of the time)

    Why should trakking die?
    1) Inferior sound quality (one sample size does not fit all)
    2) Difficult/Inconsistant programming format

    What could keep traking alive?
    1) multi-platform player and web plugin (CP is my favorite, but windows likes MOD4WIN better, and IT has wierd memory contrants, nevermind linux...)
    2) multi-platform traker that supports staff notation, MIDI input, good sampling ability.
    3) PC Games and Game boxes
    4) This one is the hardest - an universal MOD format. I vote for some combination of XM and IT, or conversion. Supporting all those formats out there must be a nightmare.

    I for one rather see trakking stay alive - I rather have a 337 KB file than a 13MB techno MP3,
    but I fear that most of the good trakkers have already gone to ASM heaven. Rest in peace, Siren.

    -wilkinsm
  • I for one have been involved in the free music scene (demoscene) for quite a few years. I can speak for Kosmic as far as the fact that this is genuine. They do need money! This is not a ploy to make money...I garuntee it would be non-profit. And if you don't think its worth it? Keep this in mind: I got their first CD collection for roughly $10. Sure, I will admit, I didn't like every song on the disk. But I would say I liked about half of them. The collection was for about four years worth...roughly a couple thousand songs and software applications (freeware) all on one CD. It's worth it. Their site is down at the moment, but you can check out some other websites of similar stuff. Hornet Archive (should be up for a short while) is one place you can get access to a lot of these files as it is: http://www.hornet.org
  • Tracking is an art that will almost never die. First of all, it can keep up with the times...it has not yet gone obsolete as far as I or anyone involved in tracking is concerned. Second, the tracking scene is at an all time large. It might not have the edge that it did when midi was made of 7 sounds -- but it's up there. Third, there are still hundreds of games that still use the MODULE format (IT, S3M, XM) as a means for music and sound. Fourth...if a person becomes really skilled, they can turn this module format into something like an MP3 or even CD-Audio formats that are much more popular. I have friends in Obsidian Dream who write via a tracking program, but record it (mastered and all) onto an Audio CD.
  • I don't have much to add here.. Other posters have already said most of what I think, but I'd like to affirm that Kosmic is a great resource that I'd hate to lose, and everyone should contribute what they can. Say... does anyone work for Compaq that could take a little ``ten fingered discount'' on a nice server? :)

    BTW, for those who've never heard of Kosmic before, there are still links to music on the main page, so you can check it out and see if you like their stuff enough to donate.
  • The KLF is the name of a two-person techno music group: Bill Drummond and Jim Cauty. Only two of their songs have charted: "3AM Eternal" and "Justified and Ancient". The KFMF, the Kosmic Free Music Foundation, also at one time assumed the initials KLF, sanding for "Kosmic Loader Foundation".

    Strangely, though they're unrelated they seem to have similar goals. The original KLF stood for "Kopyright Liberation Front"; the misspelling "kopyright" having a similar meaning to the GNUish "copyleft". They also believed in free music, pushed the bounds of legality by sampling other artists willy-nilly and incorporating them into their music. One such artist, Wanda Dee, received a settlement, then proceeded to rip off the KLF's name and music in a sort of live tour thingy. Bill and Jim have gone by other names, such as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the Timelords, the K Foundation and now just in time for the year 2000, "2K".

    Note that while the KFMF's music is freely redistributable (although the legality of its samples, taken from such sources as "The X Files", is also in doubt), don't even attempt to copy and distribute the KLF's songs, despite their manifesto, as Arista, an evil record company, will likely come down on your ass! That said, there are apparently a few of their recordings that have been released from copyright, and I got an MP3 of a rare one.

    Is that enough information for ya?
  • Doctor Who the TV series? I don't think so. If it was a song then yes, it was them and by "charted" I mean in the US. The UK has been graces with their presence for over a decade.

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