Atlantic Records discovered that the track "Heathens" by Twenty One Pilots from the "Suicide Squad" soundtrack was released months ahead of schedule and uploaded to filesharing site Dropfile.to.
On the same day it was posted on the filesharing site, a Reddit user named "twentyoneheathens" shared the link on Reddit.
Here's the Reddit post from the user, whose only activity on the site was posting the link to download the leaked song:
Atlantic Records quickly noticed that the song had been leaked and tried to stop it spreading. Its initial court filing says that "Atlantic attempted to have the illegally distributed copies of 'Heathens' removed from the Internet. Despite expending significant effort and funds in this attempt, the removal efforts were ultimately unsuccessful in curtailing further widespread distribution."
But Atlantic didn't stop the leak, and it was forced to release the song officially the next day. That meant that the music video wasn't finished, and the marketing agreements it had weren't finalised either.
Atlantic Records is asking Reddit to hand over the IP address of the user, but the company is refusing. It says Atlantic can't prove there's a link between the filesharing site and Reddit, and there's no definitive proof that the Reddit user is an Atlantic employee anyway.
Technology Didn’t Kill The Music Industry. The Fans Did.. First of all thanks to Sahpreem A. King for this article.
It is a scary proposition when paying artists for their music has become a voluntary act of kindness, rather than a consumer responsibility. The free music fans consume like water, cost artists money to create; money they will never recover as long as the artist’s fan base consumes it for free. Nothing is wrong with giving away an exclusive FREE track every now and again, but that should be the exception and not the rule.
As artists, we must stand our ground and set the expectation.
The ideology behind music freemium has destroyed the working class musician and independent labels.
Everyone thought that Napster was the second coming of Christ—and the beginning of the music revolution; however, in the midst of this transformation, the fans became increasingly desensitized to the fact, that the free music they were consuming was created by artists who have to make a living from their music. The fallacy that artists/musicians are ultra rich is just that… a myth, nonetheless, perpetuated thanks to over-the-top hip hop videos and MTV Cribs, leading fans to believe that all artists are rich.
This is hardly the case when only 1% of artists are successfully making a living from their music.
Nevertheless, fans have been disillusioned to believe that their enjoyment of the free music obtained from the remaining 99% only affects the major labels, meanwhile most artists are literally starving.
The music industry is a brutal bitch, a beast that chews up artists and shits them out.
What if artists and musicians grew tired of the abuse and decided to stop making music? What then? Radio stations would be nothing but dead air between commercials — if all their advertisers don’t abandon them like rats on a sinking ship — and televisions stations that play music videos would be blank screens. Imagine your favorite movie with no music to set the tone, or going to a school dance minus the dance. Like I said, a scary proposition.
When fans are left the option to pay whatever they’d like for music, they almost always choose zero.
As a content creator of music, why should I have to pass around the collection plate or hold out the tip jar and jingle it to capture your attention? What if artists told fans that they would have to work at their jobs for free? Do you think they would go quietly in the night to the land of acceptance? Hell no, they would be in outrage, so why do they expect artists to just take one for the team?
Greed perhaps, ignorance maybe, but the one thing is for sure is that fans have a lopsided perspective as to what really goes on in the music business. Artisans should be able to make a living from their work no different from a nurse or auto mechanic.
Sure, the 1% is living the lifestyle of the rich and famous; however, the 99% are one poorly-promoted show away from being homeless. For God’s sake, something has to give.
I believe the healing will begin when the public is educated on how the music business works sans the VH1 movies and Hollywood imagery.
If fans understood what it takes to make a record — all the time, money, people, and energy — they would have more respect for the art and science of it. If they could experience, on some part the dedication and sacrifice artists endure, their nonchalant attitudes toward paying artists what they owe would change. Fans don’t realize that artists of today were fans of yesterday and the cycle is everlasting.
Fans and artists must come to an agreement on how music will be monetized using fair and equitable practices. According to a recent CNN poll, the average football fan will pay $143 per game, which includes the cost of the ticket, parking, and refreshments, for a one-time event. For music, a fans have the opportunity to play a CD as many times as they desire; yet they complain about spending $16 for the CD. In order to set the wheels of change in motion, there must be a catalyst.
Turns Out Composing Music for VR Is Not Exactly Simple
One of the many games available on the Oculus Rift is Farlands, an exploration title that plays out like a laid back safari through a peaceful alien planet. The otherworldly zoo is supported by veteran composer Jason Graves’ pleasant, ethereal score. Graves has previously composed music for industry hits like the Dead Space series, Tomb Raider, and Far Cry Primal, but took a break from the intense world of action gaming to craft a score for virtual reality.
We got the opportunity to talk to Graves about games, his process, and what it’s like to compose music that’s truly interactive.
What was it like to compose for VR as opposed to a more familiar console experience?
From a technical standpoint, there’s a lot to consider when making a VR game, because there’s not just a 3D visual world — you’ve also got a 3D audio world. Just because you can do a lot of things, though, doesn’t mean you should.
Restraint is a good word to use. With the music more than the sound effects, a lot of times, less is more.
In addition to the score, do you get drafted to do cues, as well?
Depends on the game; I actually love doing stuff like that because you get this real sense of immersion from the score. It makes everything sound like it comes from the same world.
I tend to give developers lots of options and layers, so they have more control over the final product. So, we did a lot of “Victory” and “End of the Day” and those kind of sound cues for Farlands that were made up of sounds that I used in the score itself.
Do you think about your music appearing out of order when you’re composing it?
When I’m dealing with short pieces, I do try to write them so that they can be interchanged and randomized. The biggest pleasure I get is doing some things and sending them to the developer and then hearing them in the game and being surprised.
That’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s interactive. The player is determining the score. There’s a symbiosis between the gameplay and the music in ways that I could never accomplish if I just sat down and wrote a static piece of music.
How much creative freedom did you get going into the Farlands project?
Enough to hang myself with.
But, that’s honestly the way it’s been for the last six years or so. I’m given a lot of creative freedom within projects, but the understanding is that I’m being creative within the sandbox established by the game. Farlands was no exception. There was a surface-level discussion with the creative director and a few others when I visited Oculus, and no one talked about specific instruments or genres.
What everyone talked about were the feelings they wanted to evoke, which is really what music comes down to anyway. Then, they left it to me to figure out how that would sound.
When you worked on Evolve, producers mandated a non-orchestral score, and when you worked on Far Cry Primal, you collected a variations on wood and brick to create the score. Where does that motivation come from?
A lot of it really came from game developers saying, “Hey, what can you do that would be different? We want something iconic and unique where we can hear five seconds of the music and know it’s our score.” I mean, that’s easier said than done, but when you start using original sounds, and you’re not confining yourself to “traditional” instruments, then you’ve got more opportunities to create something memorable.
When I realized that game developers were going to let me have fun and do some really experimental things that even I wasn’t sure would work, it just created this snowball effect that’s grown from project to project.
Do you think your rhythmic bent has helped distinguish you from the competition?
I really hope so. In school, I felt like I was at a disadvantage. I was worried that I didn’t know how to fill in the blanks, I wished I’d studied piano more than drums. Then, after I scored the first Dead Space game, I discovered that I was very comfortable with rhythm. And, for me, that’s the heart and soul of music. From there you build up pitch and harmonies, but the rhythm is the base.
Once I embraced being a drummer and really leaning on as a strength has really shaped the music I write. Of course, on my own, I’m still learning about orchestration and composition, but that’s what makes this job so much fun. Every day, I get to come into the studio and learn something new.
What would you say you learned while composing Farlands?
Farlands was so relaxing and meditative. I learned how to use space, both in terms of physical distance and space in the sound itself. I didn’t want to have music playing all the time, even when the song was going. Hopefully, there’s an ebb and flow to the final product.
Of all the game’s you’ve worked on, which score is your favorite?
Well, that’s tough, because all of the scores I’ve worked on were kind of ripped from my hands and completed without me. I wouldn’t have that any other way, because otherwise I’d never finish anything, but if I had to pick some, there were three games that kind of tie for first. The first was Dead Space 2, because we weren’t even sure we’d get the opportunity to do it in the first place.
The second would probably be The Order: 1886. Sony literally let me do anything, so I had this crazy orchestra with no violins and no brass, no high woodwinds. It was just all male singers, low strings and low woodwinds, which gave it a slightly somber score.
I also have really good memories of Far Cry Primal because it was all live, but it was all done entirely by me in my small studio at home. I learned so much about how to layer music and make new, big sounds.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
How To Sneakily Promote Your Music Without Actually Talking About It
While the idea of self-promotionwithout talking up one's self may seem backwards or impossible the reality is that, as an artist, more subtle forms of marketing and promotion can often be the most effective.
I know it sounds completely counterintuitive to promote your music and raise awareness for yourself as an artist without actually talking about your music – or your music career, for that matter. But it’s being done more and more and has become a really powerful way to make a name for yourself by bypassing the crowded indie-musician market.
Let me explain. The key is to establish yourself as an expert in some related topic like gear, self-releasing music, or songwriting. It’s about sharing valuable information on a topic you have a lot of experience in to draw potential fans. They find you by searching for “how to write a song,” or “how to book your own gigs,” or “guitar pedal review,” and discover your music through that connection.
Push vs. pull marketing
Traditionally, there are two ways to go about promoting your music. You can either push your message out to fans and potential fans (push marketing), or you can pull them in and get them to come to you (pull marketing).
Push marketing is those typical advertisements you see on TV and hear on the radio. They’re just pushing information out about their product to a large audience hoping to reach someone who may be interested.
Pull marketing is about giving out valuable information that you know your target audience is searching for. This valuable information could be exclusive or behind-the-scenes access to you as an artist. This kind of content will pull in current fans and deepen your relationship.
But you could also share advice on something you have a lot of experience with. This will help you reach a new audience who may not even be familiar with your music.
The first step is finding something you have a lot of experience and knowledge in. As a musician, you have a few really obvious routes – music, songwriting, mixing, mastering, music theory, gear, instruments, etc. These are the skills that form the very foundation of your career, so you definitely have a lot of valuable information to bring to the table here.
Many musicians, including Scale the Summit’s bassist Mark Michell, have set up online schools to share their musical knowledge and techniques. The key here is to bring this training online instead of doing local lessons. Not only will you be able to reach a much larger audience, you’ll also start showing up in Google searches for things like “online bass lessons.”
Other musicians pull on other skill sets like music business knowledge, booking gigs, or creating YouTube videos. DIY musician Ari Herstand, for example, runs the blog Ari’s Take, where he shares his experiences and the skills he’s learned from booking his own shows and generally running his own career. Other musicians like Alex Cowles share their knowledge on self-releasing music.
2. Find the right platform
If you want people to organically find you, the best option is to go online.Depending on the kind of information you share, your platform may be a little different. So, if you’re creating music lessons, videos may be your best bet. Try making YouTube tutorials, playthroughs, and lessons, and release them regularly to build an audience.
On the other hand, if you’re sharing the things you’ve learned on getting your songs licensed orbooking college gigs, a blog may suit your information better. Gear and guitar pedal reviews and demonstrations might use a combination of blog posts and videos.
You could also aim to partner with other media outlets to share out your information. This will help you get your name out to a larger audience. In addition to his own blog, Ari Herstand also writes for Digital Music News. Maybe you could get a regular column in a small online music magazine or music industry blog – start small and grow from there.
3. Show up in search
Now that you have your content up, you need to make sure people can actually find it. There are plenty of SEO guides out there, but basically, you just want to think about what people are actually typing into search. There are also a lot of cool tools like Google’s Keyword Planner that can give you some ideas.
You want the keywords and article titles you choose to be relevant and specific to what you’re posting. So if you’re posting a review of a certain guitar pedal, a title like “Boss Waza Craft VB-2W Vibrato Review” will perform better than “Guitar Pedal Review.” Likewise, if you’re sharing your tips on how to set up good lighting for a music video, something like “Setting Up Good Lighting for a Music Video” will probably do the trick.
Of course, good SEO won’t instantly drive thousands of people to your articles and videos. It’s going to take a lot of work and consistent posting to build up an audience.
4. Create the connection
Here’s the most important part of this strategy: you need to make the connection to your music and drive your viewers or readers to check it out. After all, music is your main gig.
There are a few options here. You could obviously host your blog on your band’s site, or share your tutorials or gear reviews on your band’s YouTube channel. That way, your music is just a click away. This works, but it will make it more difficult to get the SEO working like you want.
If you host your content off your music website, you need to make the connection obvious. Include an “About” page that shares your story. Highlight your musical journey and your creative career as an indicator of your expertise on the subject.
You should also mention your career and bring out stories in your articles and videos.Preface an amp review by saying you brought it on tour and recorded some awesome sounding live videos with it. Include the live video to prove your point (and introduce your readers to your music).
If you’re teaching people on YouTube about modes, you could mention that you used a certain mode when writing a new song you have out. Play a short section of that song to show your point and include a card in the top right corner to link to your music video.
Tomorrowland Breaks Its Social Media Records With 175 Million Unique Views
Day 4 of Tomorrowland Festival on July 24, 2016.
You might feel like hot shit because you've got a couple thousand Instagram followers. But you're nothing compared to Tomorrowland, because the final numbers are in, and the Belgian dance music festival just smashed its existing records for social media reach and involvement.
A press release confirms that during the three day weekend of July 22 through July 24, Tomorrowland reached 175 million unique viewers and 490 million online touchpoints. If you're not a web geek, that just means 175 million people watched or interacted with Tomorrowland via Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or live-stream 490 million different times. That's a staggering figure no matter if you understand it or not.
“As an artist, it’s very important to be part of Tomorrowland’s online experience,” says Armin van Buuren in the release. “It allows me to connect with millions of fans and to showcase new tracks and musical collaborations. Performing at Tomorrowland is one of my personal highlights of the year, and I’m very happy I can share that moment with so many people across the globe.”
Breaking down the numbers, Tomorrowland's live-stream reached 4.2 million people 13.7 million times, figures certainly boosted by the 1.8 million Chinese viewers who were able to tune in for the first time.
Facebook and Snapchat provided the greatest reach. Facebook Live shows were viewed 14 million times while the Tomorrowland Facebook page was visited by 140 million unique individuals.
But like, your social presence is definitely strong, bro. Don't let this news get you down.
The Important Truth About Succeeding In the Music Business
First of all thanks to Brendan Clemente for this article.
”I don’t want to mix music and business”.
Have you ever found yourself or someone else saying this? It can be one of the biggest and most problematic emotional hurdles for a musician to get over before being successful.
Trust me, I know the feeling. We’d like to think that music is pure, and mixing it with business is a fast way to kill creativity, do things for the wrong reasons and become an evil entity.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a truth that you must realize about being a successful musician, and once you embrace this you will find yourself done battling with this crippling emotional hurdle.
The truth: Music is a Business!
Yes, that’s right. If you want to make a living out of music, then you will have to organize your project in a way that makes money.
But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Before you quit and get all emotional about it, think about what this really means.
Business is just a word
It’s easy to think of a business as an enormous corporation that spews toxins into the air and only functions to make executives rich. But many businesses are nothing like this!
You pay money for food, right? You pay for a place to live and call home. If so, then you will need to make money to cover these expenses. A business is just an organized way of getting money for your goods and services. And what business is more rewarding or beneficial than taking the creative gifts you have and spreading them to help others?
Creativity and business go hand-in-hand
Remember, your band (business) is just a reflection of you. You’re in control of how much things cost, how well your workers and customers are treated and what the goals of the company are. If you’re not in it for the greed, then the business isn’t in it for the greed.
If you are worried that having to make money will compromise your creativity or pureness, then make sure that you don’t do it for these reasons. Always act with the intention of helping others, and have the confidence that getting them your music will greatly help them out.
Furthermore, being creative is a trait that many successful business owners have. Use the same creativity you have for songwriting in the business. Set your business up to help communities or charities.
Start a band that does good for the music business. Look at how much Radiohead changed the music world when they offered their album for whatever the customers wanted to pay. If you don’t think it should be about profits, then make your company a non-profit. I actually know a band who successfully established themselves as a non-profit business entity, and things are working out great for them.
The bottom line
I have found my preconceived notions about the evils of the music business were just little voices in my head holding me back. There’s nothing about it that has to be evil. If you do things for the right reasons, and set your business up in a way that is ethical and beneficial to yourself and others, then you can change the world.
If you feel that music should be nothing more than a creative outlet for the soul, and should never be mixed with business then that’s fine. But just think of all the people you can potentially reach and help by spreading your message; maybe it’s selfish not to share your art with others.
The bottom line is that business is just a word. You can sit back and not make a move because you associate the word with bad things, or you can change things for the better.
I hope that this post has helped you gain some insight into the often false notion that music and business shouldn’t be mixed. How do you feel about mixing the two?
Welcome to the third installment in our series on the fascinating possibilities created by virtual reality motion tracking, and how the immersive nature of VR may serve to inspire us as video game composers and afford us new and innovative tools for music creation. As modern composers, we work with a lot of technological tools, as I can attest from the studio equipment that I rely on daily (pictured left). Many of these tools communicate with each other by virtue of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol, commonly known as MIDI - a technical standard that allows music devices and software to interact.
In order for a VR music application to control and manipulate external devices, the software must be able to communicate by way of the MIDI protocol - and that's an exciting development in the field of music creation in VR!
This series of articles focuses on what VR means for music composers and performers. In previous installments, we've had some fun exploring new ways to play air guitar and air drums, and we've looked at top VR applications that provide standalone virtual instruments and music creation tools. Now we'll be talking about the most potentially useful application of VR for video game music composers - the ability to control our existing music production tools from within a VR environment.
We'll explore three applications that employ MIDI to connect music creation in VR to our existing music production tools. But first, let's take a look at another, much older gesture-controlled instrument that in ways is quite reminiscent of these motion-tracking music applications for VR:
The Theremin
Last year during the Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York City, I had the chance to play a bit with one of the newest incarnations of that venerable motion-tracking instrument, the Theremin.
Named for its Russian inventor, the Theremin has been around since 1928, entertaining us with the weird and awesome electronic sounds it makes. The instrument I encountered at AES, the Theremini from Moog, features a wider variety of sounds than the classic version, and also offers options for a more forgiving motion-control scheme. Otherwise, the Theremini is the popular device we know best from old sci-fi and horror movie soundtracks.
To demonstrate the motion-control mechanism of this unique musical instrument, here is a skilled theremin player, Clara Venice, demonstrating the instrument with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner:
It's useful to remember the control scheme of the theremin, because it bears a striking resemblance to the ways in which we control and manipulate musical content within VR applications. In software such as Pensato, The Music Room, and AeroMIDI, we use sometimes one hand, sometimes two, and always with an eye towards the careful spatial positioning of the hand to control the corresponding musical content. So let's now take a look at these three software applications:
Pensato
Since 2001, the famous Ableton Live application has enabled composers, songwriters and DJs to create music with a streamlined visual interface highly suitable for live performance applications. As a Digital Audio Workstation, Ableton Live provides all the recording, sequencing and post-production tools we've come to expect from these powerful music applications. However, the Ableton Live tools are all wrapped in a utilitarian GUI designed to get digital music creators out of the recording studio and in front of a live audience. The creation, alignment and triggering of loops is designed to be intuitive in Ableton Live, making loop-based music in Ableton Live especially suitable for concert venues and clubs. So, how is this relevant to the world of VR?
"In order to interact with Ableton Live, Pensato functions like a music hardware controller," said Byron Mallett (pictured left), during an interview with the Ableton Live Blog. "This allows me to capture the entire Session View of Live, including all the tracks, clips and device parameters that can be controlled as part of a performance, and turn them into virtual controls."
The composer controls the sounds in the VR space with hand motions, as pictured to the right. Special gloves worn by the performer deliver motion tracking data to a set of two sensors that relay this data to the Pensato application. While this is going on, Pensato is also projecting the images from the VR headset to a set of three projectors for the audience to enjoy. The result is a futuristic presentation that lends a new level of sci-fi slickness to the performances of any electronic artist or DJ.
"Most of Pensato has been designed with my own “what ifs” in mind as the basis for how a VR musical interface can be designed," Mallett observes. "I'm hoping some of these ideas might be useful or encourage others in creating their own VR music interfaces in the future."
Here's Byron Mallett himself, performing the composition "Fissure" using Ableton Live and Pensato:
The Music Room
Last month, the National Association of Music Merchants staged its annual Summer NAMM 2016 convention in the Nashville Music City Center. Over 1,500 product brands in the professional music equipment industry showcased their hottest products to a convention crowd of musicians, music retailers and audio industry experts. The show floor teemed with the usual plethora of booths devoted to microphones, DSP racks, guitars, keyboards, DAWS, and other pro audio gear.
Those looking for a more unusual experience, however, could visit the Chroma Coda booth and experience their virtual reality music-making application, The Music Room.
According to the product description, The Music Room "will make you a multi-instrumentalist" by providing an assortment of virtual reality instruments hosted inside their VR environment. The software comes bundled with a selection of virtual instruments, which the developers at Chroma Coda describe as "drums, laser harp, pedal steel guitar and our unique chord harp." According to Chroma Coda, these virtual instruments "encourage you to explore different ways of songwriting, that aren’t usually possible with electronic instruments. Strum chords or slide from note to note. Change drums kits on the fly with clear visual feedback." Here's the trailer for The Music Room that Chroma Coda produced for the Summer NAMM 2016 show:
In addition to these bundled instruments, The Music Room also comes with a simple, compact Digital Audio Workstation application called Bitwig 8-Track that enables some audio recording and processing, as well as access to some additional electronic percussion and synths. What's interesting about this functionality is that it allows the VR music-making interface to reach out beyond the virtual environment and interact with traditional music software. The Music Room can function as a MIDI controller that sends musical performance data out to traditional DAWs hosting their own virtual instruments.
The Music Room will be initially available later this month for the HTC Vive VR headset, and the developers plan to make their VR application compatible with the Oculus Rift with Touch and the PlayStation VR when those VR systems release later this year.
AeroMIDI
The AeroMIDI software predates the emergence of consumer VR. It was first introduced by Acoustica in 2013 as a way to use motion tracking to control MIDI devices, but it made the jump into the world of virtual reality by way of the Oculus Rift during a showing (pictured left) at the 2014 convention of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). As a software package designed to communicate with any existing MIDI applications or external hardware, AeroMIDIallows the user to trigger notes and control musical performance data using hand gestures that are tracked by the Leap Motion device.
The makers of the software, Acoustica Inc, describe AeroMIDI as "the virtual 3D glue between your music and your hands." As seen in the picture to the right, the visual interface consists of an array of three dimensional blocks and cubes that can represent both note values and expression changes (such as vibrato, pitch bend, low pass filter, volume, or whatever other parameters the user wishes to manipulate).
Because the graphical user interface has always been a three-dimensional construct, AeroMIDI was well suited to make the transition to VR. While there aren't yet any videos showing the VR experience offered by AeroMIDI, this video shows the software in action, allowing us to easily imagine what the experience must be like within a VR space:
Conclusion
So that concludes this article about the intersection between music composition and VR. I hope you've enjoyed reading, and I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments below!
In order for a VR music application to control and manipulate external devices, the software must be able to communicate by way of the MIDI protocol - and that's an exciting development in the field of music creation in VR!
Since 2001, the famous 
Enter 
The composer controls the sounds in the VR space with hand motions, as pictured to the right. Special gloves worn by the performer deliver motion tracking data to a set of two sensors that relay this data to the Pensato application. While this is going on, Pensato is also projecting the images from the VR headset to a set of three projectors for the audience to enjoy. The result is a futuristic presentation that lends a new level of sci-fi slickness to the performances of any electronic artist or DJ.
Last month, the National Association of Music Merchants staged its annual Summer NAMM 2016 convention in the Nashville Music City Center. Over 1,500 product brands in the professional music equipment industry showcased their hottest products to a convention crowd of musicians, music retailers and audio industry experts. The show floor teemed with the usual plethora of booths devoted to microphones, DSP racks, guitars, keyboards, DAWS, and other pro audio gear.
According to the product description, The Music Room "will make you a multi-instrumentalist" by providing an assortment of virtual reality instruments hosted inside their VR environment. The software comes bundled with a selection of virtual instruments, which the developers at 
In addition to these bundled instruments, The Music Room also comes with a simple, compact Digital Audio Workstation application called 
The AeroMIDI software predates the emergence of consumer VR. It was first introduced by 
The makers of the software, Acoustica Inc, describe AeroMIDI as "the virtual 3D glue between your music and your hands." As seen in the picture to the right, the visual interface consists of an array of three dimensional blocks and cubes that can represent both note values and expression changes (such as vibrato, pitch bend, low pass filter, volume, or whatever other parameters the user wishes to manipulate).