Paypal India, the new RBI rules and what it means to a freelancer - It's not bad news!

If you landed here, you've probably heard about the new rules that RBI has enforced on Indian PayPal users.
If not, here's the deal -
With effect from 1 March 2011,  you are required to comply with the requirements set out in the notification of the Reserve Bank of India governing the processing and settlement of export-related receipts facilitated by online payment gateways (“RBI Guidelines”).
In order to comply with the RBI Guidelines, our user agreement in India will be amended for the following services as follows:

1. Any balance in and all future payments into your PayPal account may not be used to buy goods or services and must be transferred to your bank account in India within 7 days from the receipt of confirmation from the buyer in respect of the goods or services; and
   
   
2. Export-related payments for goods and services into your PayPal account may not exceed US$500 per transaction.

This coupled with the existing rules i.e. minimum withdrawal amount of $10 and a transaction fee of Rs.50 (~ $1.12) every time you transfer money to your bank account in India makes it look like a dead deal for Indian PayPal users, especially freelancers.

I gathered from many sources that balance would be lost if not withdrawn within 7 days. This appeared totally ridiculous to me because money can't just disappear.  If I have $5 (less than $10) in my account, I wouldn't be able withdraw it. What will happen to this money? Will PayPal gobble it up? Will it be given away to charity? Unlikely. So, where will it go?

I decided to shoot a mail to PayPal, asking them to clarify. Here is what they had to say -

Me:  I'm an independent musician from India. I setup my sales so that money is credited to my PayPal account as soon as a customer buys a song. I understand that the 7 day rule is by RBI but the $10 limit and a transaction fee of Rs.50 enforced by PayPal India will take away a good percentage of earnings. Please help me in this regard. 

Paypal: Hello, my name is XXXXXX from PayPal Customer Services. I understand that you are concerned about the new policy that was implemented for Indian account holders. Please be advised that were still updating our system and at this time you can still keep the funds on your PayPal account for more than 7 days. Once we complete our system update, Indian account holders will no longer have minimum withdrawal limit, and fees for transferring funds of less than Rs.7000.00 will be waived.
I understand that it is difficult, however it is how the system is currently set up. Please be advised that these concerns are being taken into consideration by PayPal and we will research on this to further update the service to provide better and more convenient transactions for you.
We are committed to making your experience with PayPal pleasant and rewarding. Thank you for choosing PayPal.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXX
PayPal, an eBay Company

In a different conversation, PayPal confirmed that PayPal balance will be automatically transferred to the linked bank account, if a manual transfer is not initiated within 7 days of receiving money.
 
As you might have guessed it, this is great news! What surprises me is that they didn't put this piece of information on their website. Infact, they should have this on their FAQ considering the amount of traffic this particular topic drives. That apart, it means that Paypal India is still the best option for freelancers.

Mood Indigo 2010 - I saw God!

After a 14 hour drive from Hyderabad, I was welcomed by the horrifying peak hour traffic as I inched my way towards a rather well equipped hotel suite. It was only after I saw the serpentine queue at IIT Powai’s SAC (Student Activity Centre) that I realized how lucky I was to have off campus accommodation, thanks to a good friend of mine who made all the arrangements beforehand. The organizers, however, certainly need to be complimented for the surprisingly easy registration process and ticket collection, given the innumerous footfalls that the forest-like campus witnessed. 

The tickets had to be collected before 2pm, which meant that I had a good 4 hours to spend at the fest before I got into the lines for the concert. After a quick browse through the well made event booklet, I decided to head towards Mantra, a Hindi band event which was the only live music event happening at that time. Most of the bands were a sound engineer’s nightmare to say the least, although it was nice to see some bands with sitar players, flautists and a few decent vocalists.
On my way out, I met the guys from Inner Sanctum who were as bored as me, if not more. Someone hurriedly told us that the queues had already started building up. After a 40 minute wait and a two stage security check, I entered IIT Powai’s much famed OAT (Open Air Theater) where Goddess Gagged were playing their last song. Impressive guitar work and tight drumming came as a relief and having watched them for the first time, I have to say that they had a very well rounded sound.
With Indus Creed sound checking, I went out for a quick bite and realized that the coupons given were totally useless. I bought myself a burger and ran into Sahil Makhija and Vinay Venkatesh who were checking out the food stalls. I walked back into the OAT with Indus Creed rocking it out, midway through their set. Despite one obvious timing glitch and a few sound issues, they quite easily qualify as one of the best rock acts in India, as far as I’m concerned. The precision and feel with which Mahesh Tinaikar executed some bends and solos is a rare find in newer rock bands. After an encore, Indus Creed unplugged and suddenly, the audience started to bother me.
Amidst chants of ‘Sheila ki jawani’ fluently sprinkled with locally popular expletives, I patiently waited for Katatonia to get on stage as the audience started pushing from the back. Needless to say, the crowd was disappointing as they repeatedly mistook the sound engineer for a band member among other stupidity that better not be mentioned.
The lights went out and flashed a few minutes later as the mighty Katatonia assumed position on the stage. The first notes of ‘Day and Then the Shade’ justified why I was there. Having watched Katatonia’s ‘Black Sessions’ DVD on a 5.1ch sound system innumerable number of times, I can safely say that the live sound at Mood Indigo was amazing and probably the best I’ve seen in India. I was slowly sinking into the reality that Katatonia was playing before me and I was just a few feet away from the doom metal Gods.

The next half hour or so was pure bliss as Katatonia played a good mix of songs from old and new albums. The set list included Day and Then the Shade, Liberation, My Twin, Onward Into Battle, The Longest Year, Soil's Song, Omerta, Teargas, Saw You Drown, Idle Blood, Ghost of the Sun, Evidence, Criminals and July in that order.

Katatonia is one of those bands that enjoy a small but select fan following worldwide. Unlike typical death metal concerts, we don’t see many moshpits and the intense aggression when Katatonia play. There is this unique aura on stage and an almost eerily dark atmosphere that is created by the music which just grips the audience.
As the band walked off after playing one of the most perfectly executed sets I’ve seen, I realized something - only the ones who saw any live concerts of Katatonia would know how to shout out for the encore. ‘Ka-ta-tonia’ could be said in different ways and isn’t as simple as ‘Lamb-of-God’ or ‘Mai-den’. With each little group of people doing its own encore, the chances were slim that Katatonia would get back on stage.
Thankfully, the few that knew the band well enough wanted ‘Forsaker’ & ‘Leaders’ badly enough to get the syllables right and Katatonia was back on stage! Personally, the encore was the best part of the concert as they played my favorite songs and some of the crowd had walked back during the encore, making space for some of us to go crazy in the first few rows. The encore included For My Demons, Forsaker and Leaders which brought the amazing concert to the best possible end.
The concert was definitely one of the best I’ve been to and it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t congratulate the people behind setting up the sound system which was just perfect. One thing that anyone, whether a fan or not would agree is that Katatonia is a no-nonsense band. Jonas Renkse gripped the audience with his voice of doom, perfectly complimented by the brutal look. Never did he speak out an extra sentence apart from saying that the guys from Opeth described India as ‘one crazy place’, adding that the Indian crowd was ‘very different from the Swedish audience’, hopefully in a good way. They played a fully packed set and made every second of my time completely worth the wait and travel.

Any Katatonia fan who missed the concert can slap oneself repeatedly while watching the ‘Katatonia - Live Consternation at Summer Breeze’ DVD to realize what he missed.

When VIT was Motherjaned!

31^st Jan, a Sunday evening, the second day of Riviera, VIT’s Annual Fest, an hour before the show, I waited in the first row to experience the Motherjane magic. I hadn’t seen them after they came back from Indonesia. Let me be frank. The crowd was way less than I expected. About a fifty on the guy’s side (yes, they put up a barricade separating the guys and girls in our college and I’m not proud of it!).  Yeah, so there I was, listening to random people abusing the sound guys and making fun of the ‘hello check - mic test - 123’.

Two weeks back, when Motherjane was confirmed for the fest, I was thrilled – because I’d get to see them once again but mainly because all the people in my college would get to experience a passionate Indian Rock act, full of energy and originality.

The next thing I know, I was sharing my ‘gyaan’ about Motherjane with all my friends. The way they started, progressed and went on to become Asia’s no.1 Rock act, without being commercial at any stage and how they let their music do the talking. Fields of sound was an instant hit in the hostels and so was Mindstreet. Maktub struck a chord with the carnatically oriented folks.

Back to the day of the show, the crowd started building slowly as the evening grew into a clear night. Everyone turned their head to the stage as a ‘thaka thakita thaka thakita thaka thaka thakita tha’ boomed out. The few people who heard Motherjane before knew what it meant.  Then the video played to the mesemerizing track of Chasing the Sun. That very moment, I felt the crowd pressing on my back and knew they were building up.

Motherjane’s names and faces, so very familiar to me, splashed on the screen. The crowd applauded the band as they entered the stage, as Chasing the Sun faded away. The moment they hit the first note, I looked back at my other musician friends with a gleam in my eyes. What amazing tones the guitar duo had! They complemented eachother perfectly. I tried hard to get a look at the pedals but the monitors were in the way.

Suraj was amazing towards the crowd. He managed to get across every song’s message very clearly without sounding like he was preaching it. The crowd loved it when he explained the girl child theme behind Maya.

After Maya, the crowd really got into the music. They started chanting ‘Fields of Sound’. It was then that Suraj went on and explained what the half-painted faces stood for – a part of us is modernized, materialistic and practical in the worldly sense but we are still made of the ancient fibres. There’s a face of us which reflects the heritage which we are a legacy of (Okay, I made those words up but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant :)). The crowd roared into appreciation.

‘Fields of sound...’ was still echoing among the crowd. Baiju went into the same frenzy he went into at Bangalore, years back, at my first Motherjane concert (when I turned a Janiac!). The insane solo was transformed into a very mesemerizing Vande Mataram. That very moment, many in the crowd realized why Motherjane deserves to be where it is and even higher.

My hair stood up as the perfectly harmonized intro of Fields of Sound was heard. The crowd went into a frenzy as Suraj came down to the crowd and climbed over the fence. I was lost in the song, headbanging my way into the riffs. Halfway through the main solo, I had literally had goosebumps on my arms! The song was over and the crowd was really loud by now!

Maktub was played shortly after and I was so happy to find all my friends enjoying the same music I enjoy! I almost felt like a part of Motherjane, so proud was I! The show ended sooner than I expected, rather Motherjane was so awesome that everyone lost track of time.

The band was handed the customary memento and it was over, to say so. The music lingered on in the air till some idiot came and pulled a cable out of a live amp. I tried to get back towards the food stalls and it was then that I noticed what the meagre crowd snowballed into. The stadium was almost full. Atleast 10000 people, I thought to myself! I was walking back to my hostel, with a smile on my face and an inspired heart that I too might be able to live the musical life that my idols were living, some day.

I could overhear people talking about how amazing the band was and to many, it was their first ‘rock show’. At this point, Motherjane was richer by atleast 2000 more dedicated fans. I packed up my gear and headed towards the jam room for a last practice before the next day’s competetion. I plugged into the amp and played Chasing the Sun god knows how many times! I couldn’t get over the music. When I finally did, we played our set and I dozed off.

Now, when I logged into Facebook, it was a pleasant sight to see many people from VIT on the Motherjane fan page. My page read ‘xyz and 31 others are now friends with Baiju Dharmajan’, 'xyz and some 100 others have joined the page Motherjane' and so on.. It feels so good when I hear Motherjane songs from the hostel rooms.

And so, Motherjane made its presence felt and carved a place in the hearts of many new music lovers (newly turned Janiacs :)).

As a fan and a musician, I thoroughly admire each of the members - Suraj Mani, Baiju Dharmajan,  John Thomas, Clyde Rozario and Deepu Sasidharan. Suraj has a very inspiring voice. He gets the message across in an amazing manner. Clyde and John form an amazing duo. It's tough to resist playing really fast double bass loops and killer slap bass solos all the time once you know how to do it, but their control and intelligent use is what makes Motherjane sound so great. Baiju is one of the most versatile guitarists according to me and I always felt Deepu was left a bit unnoticed. He’s a very important part in completing the sound of Motherjane and the one behind all the amazing vocal harmonies. Respect.

Wish you guys great luck and keep going strong! You’ve got all of us to count on!

Ethnic Spirits, Global Rock – We Salute you!

The Swara Sutra Story

Swara Sutra is a one-man band conceptualized by Sriram Ved, currently an engineering student in India. The band is very experimental and draws influences from various forms of music ranging from Carnatic Classical, jazz and alternative, all the way to extreme metal.

It all started on a hot summer afternoon in May 2009 during an agonizing power cut by playing guitar chords on a Veena. Thanks to the duration of the power-cut, after a few attempts it soon turned into a 3 minute untitled song that was put up on SoundClick the following evening. It received a great response and comments asking for some more music and that was when Swara Sutra was born online. It has come a long way since then, quickly making a good connection with musicians and music lovers online.

"Just like a painter paints pictures on an empty canvas, a musician paints feelings on silence."  -Anonymous. 

Believing in this freedom of 'painting' it's music, the band has created a very unique and original sound which rapidly moved the band up in the rankings on many popular platforms like SoundClick, ReverbNation and Myspace. The band was featured in the SoundClick Top 10 Charts after the release of it's track - Aura Esoteric. Arabian Sunset, another popular track debuted at #7 on SoundClick World Charts and climbed upto #4. The band is currently #3 on Indian Alternative Charts in Reverbnation, after Junkyard Groove and Blakc. 

Swara Sutra is known for seamlessly blending in Carnatic style music into it's tracks and for the 'crazy' transitions which leave the listener guessing as the song progresses.

"Mixing it up like that was so outta control! Awesome songs!! " as Mike from MWB Recordings, USA put it.

"Really well composed bass solo in Aura Esoteric. Congrats!" - Baiju Dharmajan, Motherjane.

  

Swara Sutra is currently writing and simultaneously recording a full length self-titled album. Some of the tracks shall feature artists with whom the band has collaborated and enjoyed working with. 

Cheers to original music!

Line 6 POD X3 Live vs. Boss GT-10

This is probably one of the toughest choice to make for someone looking for a high-end digital processor. There are probably a million pages out there that compare these products but none of them helped me much when I had to make the same choice. Also, most of them are outdated and don't consider the recent upgrades that both of these products have undergone.



Firstly, I have used both of these for around the same period of time as of now and I'm impressed with both, so it is a fair review. For the benefit of the reader, I'll categorize the comparison into various fields and provide a basic overview of each. The main aim here is to help the reader make an informed choice and avoid regretting later.

Usage and accessibility: The POD X3 live has a flow diagram of the effects being used and a cursor arrangement to navigate and edit any setting. It differentiates between a double and single click and this makes things very easy. The GT-10 on the other hand lets you toggle through a 4 way nav + rotating button. There's an EZ mode which is a very easy way to make tones but it limits the possibilities by a large extent. All in all, to get the same tone, GT-10 takes a lot more tweaking than the X3. My pick : POD X3 Live

Sound: If you love clean passages and subtle effects, the GT-10 is a great device. The X3 live is capable of great clean tones too but the GT-10 sounds more 'real' in this department.
If heavy distortion and high gain tones are your thing, then the X3 Live is a definite winner. You can create amazing distortion patches using the X3 Live. The GT-10 sounds frail when it comes to this area.

The GT-10 has some modelers that the X3 Live currently doesn't offer.

A harmonizer and a whammy. Line6 has a stomp called 'bender' which can be used as a whammy/harmonizer but the GT-10 beats it in this department.

A sitar modeler. GT-10 has a fairly decent sitar modeler. It's not quite possible to get the same sound on the X3 Live.

A looper. The GT-10 has a 55 sec instant looper.

However, the X3 Live's dual tone is an amazing feature. There are endless possibilities with it. You can check out youtube for videos about the same. I use it a lot and it should be seriously considered before making a decision.

Considering everything,

My pick:

For clean passages: Boss GT-10

For high gain stuff: Line 6 POD X3 Live

Durability: The GT-10 has a metal casing and has tough build like the other Boss products. The X3 Live looks breakable but it is pretty well built, however, the foot switches in the X3 Live are more fragile as compared to the GT-10. I haven't experienced any problem with any of the products. My pick : Boss GT-10

Recording: This is where Line 6 products totally rule. The X3 Live has an amazing clarity while recording. It is the best thing after a professional studio. GT-10 has the feature but nowhere close to what the X3 Live offers. My pick: Line 6 POD X3 Live


Online community and support: This another area where Line 6 is amazing. Line 6 customtone has a collection of amazing, stage ready tones submitted by various users and the ratings are generally accurate. Many signature tones by artists themselves are available for direct download into the processor. Also, softwares like Gearbox and Line6 monkey are amazing free tools for making patches on a computer. The GT-10 has software editors but the libraries and features are primitive compared to Line 6. My pick: Line 6 POD X3 Live


Overall: It's close but the X3 Live does it for me owing to the great quality, dual tone and the ease of use. I would readily suggest it to anyone who is confused between the two products. If you are very concerned about a harmonizer/whammy/ looper, then you can give the GT-10 a thought but you can always add a Digitech Whammy to the X3 Live, if needed.


Winnner: Line 6 POD X3 Live

If you have any conflicting thoughts about anything above, you are free to discuss it but I can guarantee you that the above article is an honest attempt at comparing the two and the X3 Live is better for me. Cheers!