Nettwerk’s Terry McBride on ProTools mash ups

I got a kick out of this interview — Canada’s Killer of Major Labels in Wired — with Nettwerk’s Terry McBride. His whole approach of letting the equivalent of influencer customers play with Nettwerk’s bands original ProTools files and audio recordings is encouraging your customers to mash-up your productions.

“Let’s give away the ProTools files on MySpace. Vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. We’ll let the fans make their own mixes.” The room falls quiet. Musicians usually record their instruments and vocals on separate tracks; the producer and mixer combine those tracks into a finished product. McBride wants to make the individual files available so that amateur DJs can use them like Lego bricks to create something all their own. The record industry likes control. McBride is proposing unfettered chaos.”

Can you say DangerMouse’s The Grey Album? ; )

And on that note, this is something that my old friend, Christopher Bock would have loved to see: people doing things that push the creative and control envelope.

Tags: ProTools.