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Frequently Asked Questions

about t:me recording ltd. - em:t records

about em:t.cc the Web site

I love this stuff and want to hear more! Where can I purchase original em:t releases?

Unfortunately, you cannot. T:me Recording Ltd, owner of the em:t label, went bankrupt in 1998. Their releases have been unavailable since. See also our online store for clues in finding em:t material on the Web.

What happened to em:t and T:me Recording Ltd. again?

They went bankrupt and abruptly closed doors in mid-1998. See Dallas Simpson's recollections for a first person account of what happened to t:me recording.

A new entity named "em:t records" is preparing to release new albums. Read more about the em:t relaunch...

This site is cool, and I want to help! How can I contribute songs?

Thanks a lot! It is very gratifying to hear that other fans out there are enjoying the music too. So, you want to help? Here are three possible ways:

  • scribble a little something into the guestbook.
  • you have some of the missing songs: encode them and upload them to the site. E-mail us for the details.
  • this site needs a better look: whip out that Photoshop, teach yourself Cascading Style Sheets, and submit a new design.

I am a big em:t/ambient fan. Is there any place online where I can find like-minded people? A kind of community centered on a shared interest for ambient music and its derivatives?

There sure is. What you seek is Hyperreal's ambient mailing-list. With topics ranging the last Brian Eno album to the cooking of gourmet mushrooms, that list has everything you need to satisfy all your ambient cravings!

What happened to the artists who contributed to the em:t collection?

Most of them are still making great music, although under different labels obviously! Some have their own Web sites, where information about their recent releases is often available. Links to the sites can be found on each artist's page.

What does the asian character on the em:t logo mean?

We were told the Japanese/Chinese character on all the covers is "Shine".

I can't play the songs!

There are a couple of reasons why you may be unable to play our tracks.

  1. you're using an MP3 player we don't support. Currently supported are Winamp (Windows), iTunes (Macintosh) and some others. They're the most popular. If your player does not work, do let us know and we'll do our best to resolve the issue.
  2. you're too far away, or your equipment doesn't offer the performance required to play the songs (e.g. network bandwidth). Tough luck.

Look, we know it sucks, but we're just a group of fans. No big money here, and not too much time either. We try our best, and that entails catering to the largest audience with the limited resources we have available. Sorry.

What is the relationship between this site and t:me recording ltd.?

Thin, quite thin. They died out before we were born: we never knew each other. Consider the following rant as our official position on the matter.

  1. We are emit.cc, not t:me recording ltd. -- the music label. It's a subtle difference, we know. They may relaunch, put out new records, do whatever they please... they're not us. And we're not them. We exist, and doing very well thank you. Auditions on the rise, a new design coming out, things are happening over here.

    As much as we want them to start releasing records again (and we really think it'd be awesome), we feel like we should stay focused on what we have here, now. And let "them" sort out the label stuff.

    We know, we know. Without them, we're nothing. But at this point, it's really starting to look like no-one is t:me recording ltd. and can tell us what to do. But does this mean we can simply hijack the label? we don't think so.

  2. We don't have any plans to start making/selling records. Maybe others do, and we want to give them all of our support, and help them whenever we can, but we cannot do that. We don't know how, don't have time for it, and not much interest in the matter either.

  3. We want to keep in close touch with t:me recording ltd. -- or whichever current incarnation of it. Badly. Let's face it, without them we're nothing. But until the day someone who is a legit representative of the label (and we're going to ask proof) says either "get off the scene, we don't need you" or "let's work together", we won't be taking action in either direction. Because ultimately, they're responsible for their own actions, which aren't ours.

    It all boils down to responsibility. We have taken full responsibility for operating a Web site about a music label. We think it's going well, it's been a fun project so far, and the future looks bright. The dev team is really great, and we're making progress every day. But we haven't taken responsibility for running a music business -- because that's what a label is.

How do I get in touch with the new em:t records?

em:t records' official representative is Matt Hall. He is your contact for all em:t-related inquiries not involving this Web site.

The message I wrote in your guestbook was edited/removed!?

We welcome any and all comments from our visitors, provided they add value to this Web site. To increase this value, and ensure the best content for our readership at large, we may edit messages, correct spelling, add links, reformat paragraphs, etc. Offensive, inappropriate, or simply off-topic messages will be edited or removed, at our discretion.

We like to think of this as editorial management; you can view it as censorship if you wish.

Who designed the unique (and striking) visual identity of the em:t series, including the CD sleeves?

UK-based The Designer's Republic is responsible for this gorgeous artwork that helped define em:t as we know it.

What are the fonts used for the album cover titles?

Opinions diverge on this topic. Joe Rapoza <joe@etherwold.com> says:

Well, through my undying effort to figure this out I finally found the em:t font used on the album covers. A few months ago I discovered one of the two fonts used, one for the letters and one for the numbers (found this one previously). Also, the colon (:) used is separate and not part of either of the two fonts. Here's the info — letters: Praxis EF Regular, and numbers: Helvetica Neue UltraLight.

I don't have the actual fonts so if people can search their font libraries I would appreciate it. I used this site to make the discovery: http://www.myfonts.com/

While our very own Rob <rob@digitalburn.com> is of the opinion that:

The fonts of the original sleeves are Verdana and Nimbus Sans Nov T Ultralight. They're both relatively common... just about every computer comes with Verdana installed, and Nimbus Sans is used quite a lot in advertising and that kind of thing (Bacardi for a start). You can check www.myfonts.com if you want to see te whole family. Just Verdana is used on the new releases.

What do the auction statistics mean?

em:t.cc tracks eBay auctions for em:t material and calculates some numbers to help you bid smarter. Here is an example.

The chart shows auctions that took place in the last 6 months. Purple bars, anchored at the auction end date, represent bids -- the bar begins at the starting bid and ends at the winning bid (or purchase price for Buy It Now items). All prices are converted to US Dollars. Gray bars represent number of bids.

Mouse over a bar for more information about a specific auction. Click the bar to show details about this auction, including the bid history. That page includes a link to the auction page at eBay.

Minimum/maximum/median are computed over the same time period. Median represents the "average" value of a given release.

More about this soon.