Instrumentalist Kaki King discusses her background in music, being a female guitar player and her experience with indie and major labels.
A nice documentary on intellectual property rights in the digital age. Perspectives from musicians, artist and even lawyers. More parts after the jump.
Via Synthtopia
At Musformation we love challenging the brain dead echo chamber of rock criticism. Which is why we love Create Digital Music who has published a decimating attack on the stupid things you read about audio fidelity from journalists and rock critics. This article is a must read for anyone who likes a well informed debate on music today.
We love our comments! We got a particularly interesting one from a Anonymous reader who had this to say about a service we love MP32Tube. "No, it's no secret that YouTube is a great tool for bands. What is a secret though is that MP32Tube distorts the sound of the uploaded mp3 file, puts its link on the video AND - last but certainly not least - puts the link to download your - YOUR! - song for free? I mean, who gave them the right? I'm so mad!"I gave some tests to the service myself and did not notice the distortion, just the usual low fidelity that YouTube streams bring! Be warned before you use this service if you are allergic to free downloads!
Life really sucks when someone else owns the domain name you wish you had. It can be depressing, but there is a way you can reconcile this sadness and make the best of it. Most bands deal with this disappointment by picky a very stupid domain name and/or naming themselves by what state they are from such as yourbandnameCA.com. Registering the .net can be OK but the way to really close the deal on getting good SEO on your domain is to simply add the word music and/or the name of your genre of music after your name. Seeing as when most people can't find someone's music in Google they will then type "music", this will add to your SEO and make you have a much better chance of connecting with fans. If for some reason your band name with music at the end is taken, consider doing something smart like my friends in Transit and using TransitMakesMusic.com.
We have long talked about how powerful a promotional tool it can be to upload your own files to BitTorrent servers. You can also use this medium to host parts for remixes and live content if you don't want to weight down your server. LifeHacker has up a awesome tutorial on how to use Bittorrent and give your music some legs!
Not the most shocking news in the world, Myspace is really dying. Now we are seeing new numbers that show YouTube is taking up much of the old traffic. What this should mean to every artist is that any song you would normally think to put on Myspace you should now be putting on YouTube. Don't forget to use simple tools like MP32Tube to make this as effortless as possible.
It is becoming a everyday part of everyone's releases to incorporate tweeting in exchange for a track. However, what we don't often think about is there are other ways to spread the word about your releases that don't involve free downloads. The smart people over at Run for Cover Records have put up a contest where you can tweet out an announcement for the pre-order of their latest releases and you can win test pressings of some of these releases. A perfect and effective way to spread the word around while recognizing a incentive that will make their record collector nerd audience drool. Check it out here and put your mind to what you can be doing.
SongClash is one of many battle of the bands sites on the net looking to show off what bands have got in a competition against one another. Bringing in live shows that are broadcast over UStream, fans then choose their favorite acts who end up winning prizes and features on the site. Another way to prove you really are as good as you claim to be.
Your merch selling prayers have been answered! Square is now in the App store and out of beta for all of you who want to take credit cards and capture email addresses of your fans in a small compact way. Check it out here.
Sequencing your record can be one of the most unexpected troubles you can have making a record. One of the biggest mistakes I see young bands make is they come in with a list of what the song order should be, without ever having listened to this order. In this day and age of DAWs and iTunes playlists there is no reason to ever do this. Many times when a band comes in with a list I ask them to give me a minute to play with the sequence. I load all of the songs into my DAW and move songs and how much they overlap with each other around till everything feels good. This usually results in the group being much more happy with their order with a lot less guess work. The way song's keys blend together and the moods are very hard for most people to conceptualize, instead use your ears and your emotions and listen back to how they blend together and you will make much better decisions.
Last week we posted up a fantastic article by Bruce Warila where he discussed the failures of music websites. One of the main ways you can encourage your fans to spread the word about your music and bond over you is to install a messageboard on your site. Boards like phpBB are free and easy to install and can do wonders for getting fans to spread the word about you as well as bond with your music. Most modern groups who have diehard fanbases have made sure to have a messageboard ready for their fans who want to bond. Don't miss out.
- Are Viral Videos The New Concert Flyers?
- How To Get Your Podcast In The iTunes Store Easily And For Free
- The World Cup Will Change Music
- The Industry Truths Behind The Whole Brittney/GaGa "Telephone" Controversy
- Obituary Of A Theory - That's The First Line Of The Song I Gotta Get It Perfect
- Every Band's Website Is A Failure
- DIY Concert Promoter R5 Productions Launches iPhone App For Upcoming Shows
- Getting More Mileage From Your Free EP By Diversifying Your Sharing
- Check Out ReverbNation's New Facebook Integration
- TuneCore Goes Chart Wild!
- HTML 5 + Javascript Sythesizer - The Future Of Synthesis?
- Installing Tweet For A Track From CASH Music
- BandCentral Launches Powerful Band Management Tools
- MusikPitch Is A Songwriters Marketplace For Songwriting On Demand
- Faster Than A Soundwave: Google's Newest Chrome Browser Release
- YouTube To Allow Users To Charge For Rentals Of Their Content
It never ceases to amaze me how many groups/labels sleep on the power of Podcasts. Labels like Mad Decent regularly put out quality hour long Podcasts that give fans something cool to bite into. Whether using them for radio like broadcasts or even sampler purposes a Podcast is another format for fans to inject your content. The other thing many people neglect that is that it is free to get your Podcast in the iTunes store. All you need to do is follow these instructions and your Podcast will be up in no time.
Bruce Warila of The Music Think Tank has written a fantastic article about the potential for music acts to do more with their websites. He points out that while much of the web is developing most artist sites aren't taking full advantage of all that they can be doing. A great read and food for thought.
It makes me so happy when I am reading articles on other news sites and see bands doing something really smart. For example, the band I The Mighty decided to both sell and put up their debut EP in exchange for some sharing. As you can see in the above shot taken from their MySpace, they did the smart thing of giving away each track in exchange for a different method of sharing. A great way to get your fans to really spread the word and stay in touch with you. Very smart!
Last year, we told you about an exciting new management tool for bands called BandCentral. They have now launched their service and it seems to offer an amazing set of tools for bands looking to keep things organized. Here are some of their awesome features: - Communication - Keep all internal band communication clear, and in one place with an IM-style internal message board. Replace those tedious multi-thread email discussions!
- Band Calendar - Keep track of everything from gigs to holidays to recording sessions. Export to iCal/gCal/Outlook so you always know who's available.
- Files - Upload, store & share your band's music, artwork, videos & contracts in one secure & easily accessible spot.
- Gigs & Tours - Log all info, from venue essentials to load-in times & promoter details. Create and print setlists, guestlists, tour-books & day-sheets; post new events to social networks.
- Band Money - At-a-glance and detailed info on all revenue and expenses. Log money in/out, costs to be split across the band, IOU's, pending payments and outstanding costs.
- Social Network Syncing - Sync status updates & create events on MySpace, Twitter & Facebook directly from your BandHub. More social networks coming soon!
- Merchandise - Track sales, stock-levels and pricing info. Crunch the numbers to identify best sellers.
- Contacts - Keep track of your all important band contacts. Import contacts directly from your address book or email account.
- Fans - Manage your fans and send city targeted HTML Emails & SMS. Collect fans from any webpage, directly into your BandHub fan database!
- Music - Manage all admin relating to music production, single/ EP & Album releases; from master song files, lyrics & sales info to ISRC codes & distribution.
- Tasks & To-Do lists - Keep track of the things you, or your band members need to do. Create To-Do lists, set deadlines & SMS/Email alerts so you don't forget to do anything important!
- Access Controls - Set access permissions for each hub member & allow selective access for third parties.
MusikPitch - Get unique music created for your movie, video, product, or project! from MusikPitch on Vimeo.
For those of you who pride yourself on your ability to write a song for any occasion MusikPitch may have just opened up a wonderful world for you. People are now able to post what they need from a song whether it is for a jingle, film, TV or a video game. The buyers are able to post what they want from a song and provide songwriters with feedback and then the winner gets paid in the end. While some of their terms of service were a bit questionable, it seems they have sorted everything out. A great opportunity for songwriters to get noticed and make some extra cash!
Interesting to think what a browser with this kind of speed could do for the future of music. Could speed up the implementation of browser-based instruments and certainly something to check when designing your band's webpage and checking across platforms. A browser with this kind of speed is going to get a lot more users very quickly. And yes, we've tried it. It's fast. Very fast.
Mashable is reporting that YouTube has taken another step towards becoming more friendly to musicians making a living from their site. Users will now be able to charge rentals from their site and share in the profits from these rentals. Another great step in giving DIY artists the ability to make a living. More here.
CYMBALS EAT GUITARS @ THE WONDERBAR from THE VAMP GROUP on Vimeo.
One of the cool things I have been seeing lately is bands/promoters adapting to the fact that a lot of successful show promotion is done on the net. With that said, some smart people are taking advantage of this by making viral videos as show flyers in order to get the word about their shows out to fans. In the above (NSFW) video, The VAMP Group made a very cool video to promote a upcoming show for Musformation favs Brick and Mortar and Cymals Eat Guitars. The group has been doing lots of cool videos to promote other shows that you can see on their Vimeo channel. A fantastic promotional idea that everyone would be smart to embrace.<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106
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