Your music is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, what does that mean?

In two words, you have the right to:

• Freely download and listen to our music
• Copy and distribute our music as soon as you credit us for this work
• Make derivative works, provided that you cite the author and release your work under the same license.

You can get to the Creative Commons Website for more details.

So you are just doing free music?

Yes and No. The term “free music” in english is a bit ambiguous because it may mean “zero price” or “with little restrictions” (see the license). Refer to the Wikipedia article for more details.

I would like to use your music in a video, am I allowed to do it?

If the license of your video is CC-BY-SA, you can.

Else, you need to ask us first. Don’t hesitate to contact us!

Why not selling your music like everyone else?

We want everyone to have access to our music (and not just a small piece in degraded quality). We want to give the opportunity to those who come on the website to listen to what Marker Beacon produces in the best conditions, as often as they want.

By respecting people who like our music, we believe that we encourage them to support our project.

In addition to all of this, we think that access to culture should not necessarily be traded. Open source projects like Wikipedia and Linux show that alternate approaches are also possible!

“Marker Beacon is a non-profit organization”: what does that mean?

Being an non-profit organization (in french: association loi 1901) guaranties that the revenues of the association will only be used to serve the goals of the association, which are: compose, record, distribute our music. (refer to the articles of the organization for more details), and not to serve the interests of the members of the band (for instance buy us golden toilets).

Who funded the production of your CD?

All costs incurred for the production of CD are contributions made by the members of the band. These contributions are called “apport” in french: in the legal sense of the term, it is somehow comparable to a 0% loan made by members of the band to the association.

We hope that the association will recover funds through the sale of CDs, so we will be able to reimburse the contributions to the members. After that, the rest of funds serve the interests of the association (see the articles), in other words recording a new album!

How do you define the price of your CD?

Despite downloading our music is free, the CD is paying for the simple reason that it has manufacturing cost. But more than the price of the item itself, the purchase of our CD is seen as a symbolic act, supporting Marker Beacon.

The price of our CD is 9.90 euros. It means we would have to sell about 700 units to reimburse all costs. However we give our listeners the opportunity to give more: for reference, a commercial album costs about 15-20 euros. If you want to help us to fund a second album, take a look to the account page, and decide by yourself what amount would be the best!

When will the next album be released?

The composition of new music already started! As recording will be done in our home studio, it does not cost us anything. But for anything that requires an access to a professional studio we have to wait that the organization have enough money for that… in short, as soon as we sell enough CD and receive enough donations, we can do it!

What will you do if you sell millions of CD?

If you read the other answers of the FAQ above, you know that:

• It is very unlikely 😉
• The money would only serve the goals of the association: the creation and recording of music as well as its distribution.
• We would support other projects in accordance with the articles of the organization
• Probably we would also become masters of the world

How did you record your music?

The recording has been made by us in our home studio. Most guitars go through an ENGL amp Powerball, others were made on a Marsall JMP1 and ADA MP2. The bass goes to the console (Tascam DM24) through a DI and a distortion (Ibanez DS7). For the vocals, we used a Shure SM7A in directly plugged to the console. The drums are initially performed by a free software (hydrogen) but reworked by the studio. The synthesizers are done with rosegarden, fluidsynth and zynaddsubfx.

All these tracks have been then exported to ardour, a great (and free) multitrack audio sequencer. Some tracks have been slightly reworked, cleaned, and pre-mixed by us. Then all was exported again and sent to the THD studio for mix + mastering. Ephrem Charmois did a really great job!

Who designed the cover of “Dead Frequencies”?

All graphical design of “Dead Frequencies” is done by Aurélia Trutet. Thank you very much to her!

Who took the pictures?

The pictures for “Dead Frequencies” are done by Sylvain Mary (2006-2007) and Pascal Bally. We would like to thank them here.

Are you a member of the SACEM or another authors guild?

No: there is no benefit for us to be a member of the SACEM.

For how long Marker Beacon have been existing?

The band have been existing in its current formation since 2000.

What are your influences?

We define ourselves as a melodic heavy/thrash metal band.

Our influences are diverse, they range from the Rock (Foo Fighters Smashing Pumpkins, Joe Satriani) to Black Metal (Dimmu Borgir, Immortal) through Heavy Metal (Metallica, Iron Maiden) or Melodic Death (In Flames, Soilwork).