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Hi Jeffrey On 02/05/2007 you wrote; JK> The music industry as a whole are merely reaping what they've sown. The JK> artists and the consumers are the ones hurt in the end. This is not really the place to discuss this subject, but I can't let this one go unheeded :) . People have always blamed the 'music industry' when sales drop. Heaven knows, the industry is not exactly blameless for all sorts of things, but the public also had a role in todays poor sales. With the possibility of every computer in the world being capable of making music at low cost, there has been a huge upsurge in people doing just that. Their output is posted on any one, or several, websites (SoundClick, MySpace, et al) and freely available for listening or download. OK - a lot of it is pretty worthless, but there are plenty of gems among the dross. Couple that with the availability of almost any piece of music, you might think of, being illegally available for download via P2P sites and it's easy to understand how a large section of the public has come to believe there is no value in music and that it *should* be free to all. Worse still, owners and promoters of venues that put on live music are of the same opinion and many of them simply won't pay the going rate. They've been aided in this by the technology to make a single person sound like a full orchestra (at a relatively low cost). Hence, where a number of musicians were once employed, you will now find a solo artist - at best, a duo. Without the money, there can be no development of musicians. It's harder to make a living out of playing music today than it ever was before. In fact, I'd say it was nigh on impossible for the average jobbing musician to make a living out of music as a full time professional. Forty years ago, I could earn somewhere between £35-50 a night (as a member of a band) - a not insubstantial sum of money at the time. Today, I count myself lucky if I can get a gig for €50. Forty years on and I'm earning the same, or less, money and a lot less often! Where's the future in that for todays young players? The saddest thing is the public who attend these venues don't even care very much. They are just as happy with a poor solo act (with backing tracks of dubious quality, downloaded illegally) as they would be with a ten piece band. That's because people don't really *listen* anymore, music has become a sort of 'wallpaper', against which the public does other things, like eating or drinking. So, blame the music industry if you want, but the real problems are brought about by the artists and the consumers themselves. The artists for making their music freely available (because it's just about the only way they can get heard) and the consumers for not wanting to pay for it. Graeme Jaye [log in to unmask] Audio Restoration http://www.personal-cd.com