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Dmx-the Pure Art Of Music?

Dmx-the Pure Art Of Music? image
Parent Issue
Month
December
Year
1996
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

DMX IS ONE OF THE SECRETS of cable TV I keep waiting for everyone to discover. When I finally got it for myself I realized some of the reasons it isn't taking over the world. But anyone seriously interested in the art of music should probably get it.

DMX stands for Digital Music Express. It consists of 30 channels of music that play 24-hours-a-day with no DJs, no advertisements or any other interruption. Pure music, all the time. If you want to know what is playing you press a button on the remote and it tells you the name of the song, the artist, the composer and the album, as well as the record company stock code, and the DMX code for the song. It doesn't tell you the performance date. however.

The list of channels has something for almost everyone:

Symphonic; Chamber Music: Gospel: Lite Jazz: Classic Jazz: Big Band/Swing; Classic Rock: 50's Oldies: Adult Contemporary; Folk Rock: Modern Country: Traditional Country; Ranchero Téjanos: Salsa; Urban Adult Contemporary; Christian Inspirational; Dance; Reggae; 60's Oldies: Love Songs; Great Singers; Beautiful Instrumentals; New Age; Hottest Hits; Album Rock; Heavy Rock: Alternative Rock; Show Tunes; Rap Hits; Blues.

They don't repeat as much as Top 40 stations, so I always hear something new. A sample of songs played in a row from four of my favorite channels: Dance - Can U Feel It, 3rd Party; Superfreak, Rick James; The Boy From Ipanema, Crystal Waters; l'm In Love, Georgie Porgie; Heavy Rock - Return of the Warlord, Manowar; Until It Sleeps, Metallica; WildOne. Dio; Traditional Country - Then and Only Then, Connie Smith; Kiss An Angel Good Morning, Charley Pride: My Arms Stay Open All Night. Tanya Tucker; Make The World Go Away, Eddy Arnold: Great Singers - Deed I Do, Jeanie Bryson; These Foolish Things, Ella Fitzgerald; Anytime. Anyday, Anywhere, Nat King Cole; A Fine Romance, Billie Holiday.

Almost none of these genres are available in this area 24-hours-a-day. Our hard rock stations play a lot less metal now, but new stuff is still coming out. Some genres are heard locally only on AM, or in two hour shows on WCBN.

DMX's most eclectic channel is 50's Oldies, where jazz, rock, country, and R&B are all mixed together - if it was a hit, they play it. The down side is that you don't hear the obscure greats unearthed by DJs on public radio stations like WCBN, WEMU or WDET. Most of the channels have an inescapable commercial feel, even without advertisements. I also miss the human touch of the DJ. But when l'm making love. the last thing I want is to hear is the booming voice of the DJ, and the next to last thing I want is to have to change the record.

DMX originates as a satellite uplink from Atlanta. GA. Continental Cable downloads it and adds it to the rest of the signals in the cable feed. The installer splits a "y" patch off of your incoming cable, so one cable goes to your TV or VCR and the other goes to your DMX receiver. The DMX receiver is a small box that decodes the digital signal. lts output plugs into your stereo's auxiliary channel. The service is $8 a month, and you get a lot more music for that $8 than if you spent it on a CD - literally more music than you can listen to.

About three years ago I saw an executive from DMX on C-Span promising to introduce 30 more channels the next year, with more world music in the mix. It didn't happen. Damn - I was looking forward to the Avant Garde channel. But there's still lots of great art on DMX.

Music and the other performing arts have risen to a new importance because of modern recording media. In the past fine art was defined partly by the permanence of its media-it had to result in an artifact. The only musicians who were considered artists were the composers who produced written music. With recorded music performers have a new importance. and their work is now preserved for the ages. Recorded music is more a part of people's lives than most other art forms.

DMX has a couple of technical problems. Occasionally I hear a loud pop interrupting the sound. When this repeats I use a rebooting routine that the cable company sent in the mail as a remedy. It doesn't always work. A more constant problem is volume level . DMX has taught me that there is no universal Standard volume level used for mastering recordings. I have read that radio stations compress the dynamic sound levels of what they play so that their fare has a uniform level, but apparently DMX. with its ability to deliver CD quality sound, doesn't tamper with the purity of the mix by squashing its dynamics. The result is that at low volumes songs vary considerably in their volume. I often have the volume set to just the level where I can hear all the instruments, and no higher. With DMX, some songs seem to drop to a whisper, or they blast out. Because of pychoacoustics. people who listen to music at louder levels will likely not notice these variations, luckily for them.

My most frustrating problem has been with Continental Cable. The DMX receiver box has nine buttons and the remote has 28, and the installer left no instructions. It looks like there are buttons to actually order the music and pay for it, if we had two-way cable. As it is, I haven't even been able to set the preset buttons for my favorite channels. I sent a note requesting documentation in with my bill in April. Two months later and no reply. I was upset. I called Continental to find out why. "Oh, they threw out that note. They are just a billing service. You were supposed to call Customer Service. Can I help you?" When I explained what I wanted, 'Customer Service' said they didn't have any documentation there, but would order some from the warehouse and send it out. She said it would take six weeks, but it hasn't arrived yet. I don't think it will, unless they hear about this article.

Still. I recommend DMX to anyone whose appetite for music can 't be met by their CD budget or the available radio fare. It's great for making tapes, and you can learn all the names of songs and performers. Teil 'em I sent ya.

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