Finally! We now have a forum where you can discuss the new music business, gear, websites and promotion tactics for your music. Todd and I often talk about our disgust with many of the forums today in the music biz. Unfortunately, mods let trolls and negativity run rampant in fear of alienating their users instead of trying to create a positive and productive environment. Our goal with the Musformation Forum is to curate discussions that are positive and intelligent in the music community. Feel free to go there and discuss anything about music. Enjoy.
On The Music Think Tank Brian Hazard has written a great article on another way to use Jango. This week we have posted a few articles on ways to use Jango and this is another one that should not be missed. Read it here.
In case you haven't heard many people predict that Android will soon overtake the iPhone in users. With that said everyone still wants an iPhone App, but really you should be looking to make an Android App. Thankfully, the people at Google are quite wise and have made an easy way to make an App for anyone including the web illiterate. This means any musician can now easily make themselves an App. Check it out here.
With the news of ReverbNation's fantastic new and improved MyBand App we have been flooded with questions about it. The main thing that keeps coming up is the question of how to make your Facebook page default to MyBand (or any page for that matter). The answer is simple. Go to your Band's Facebook page and below your picture click "Edit Page". Once you are there click the edit button on Wall Settings. You will see the above screen and you can then change your "Default Landing Tab For Everyone Else" to any page you would like. This coupled with the ability to choose your own URL on Facebook brings us one step closer to never having to update that stupid MySpace page again.
For far too long we have all rejoiced in the fact that we could have an amazing service like Bandcamp be free to us aside from the PayPal fees. We all knew the day would come when they started to change and that day is upon us. In August Bandcamp will begin to take a 15% cut from artists and 10% off artists earning over $5,000 on their account. The bright side is with increased revenue we will continue to see their amazing service grow and hopefully gain even more useful tools. Even with this cut and PayPal combined the fee hovers around half as much as iTunes takes so we cannot get our panties in a bunch. I for one am glad the wait is over to discover what their cut would be! Read more here.
The question on many band's mind is when do you stop putting money into the band and start taking some money to live off. If you have gotten anywhere near this point it is probably a very pressing issue, since your life is probably fully consumed with band work leaving little time for your "real job". If you have hit this point congratulations since it is rare. Let me help you figure out when to start cutting the pay roll checks errr.... or dolling out the scraps.
Yesterday, we told you how to get a fancy URL for your Facebook but if your desired URL is taken (very likely) you could be left wanting a little more. There is a easy workaround if this is the case. Go and buy a domain from your favorite provider such as www.yourbandnameFacebook.com and have it redirect to your Facebook page URL. This can become very important as Facebook comes into it's own as a music service just as we saw yesterday with ReverbNation's fantastic new MyBand App.
Jango's Airplay Campaign's have long been a great way to get yourself some new fans. On their blog they have some wise tips on easy to overlook features with their services. Don't miss it.
Yesterday, Wired Magazine published an interview with Tom Silverman of the New Music Seminar. In this interview Tom made the repulsive quote of:"80 percent of all records released are just noise -- hobbyists. Some companies like TuneCore are betting on the long tail because they get the same $10 whether you sell one copy or 10,000"Jeff Price of TuneCore took Tom to the woodshed in a blog entry on TuneCore and showed his quote to be what I deem disgusting to come from the mouth of someone promoting a "New Music Seminar". If I was attending this function I would ask for a refund it seems another celebration of tired, old ideas.
Last year we did one of my favorite interviews we have ever done with Pomplamoose's Jack Conte. We talked the music business and the CD Baby Podcast has now done an excellent interview that gets some great thoughts on the business that we did not discuss in our interview. A great listen.
My Band from ReverbNationBlog on Vimeo.
Well that is a big update! ReverbNation have done what is probably their coolest updates and that is saying a lot. Their MyBand App for Facebook is now looking like it is even more of a must have for your Facebook page. Watch the above video or check out their blog on the subject. In the meantime I am going to get started on installing this on every artist we work with's page.
We all want one of those fancy Facebook names that says http://www.facebook.com/username/ and as usual Facebook has made it way too difficult to find out how to do it. Well actually it is very obvious if you are a total nerd simply go to that address I just typed out (or click here). Once you go there you can click a button that will allow you to do this for your Facebook pages if you want to do it for your Band/Musician Page.You will see this screen and you can choose a URL for your Facebook page.
- Interview With A Master Engineer: Fred Kevorkian
- The Effect Of The Facebook Like Button On Artist Pages
- Amazon Launches Customizable Artist Central Website
- Merchluv Offers Groups A Means To Do Innovative Merch On A Budget
- Watch A Tour Of Rdio
- Dropping the Bass In and Out
- Merge.FM Allows Fans And Others To Collaborate On The Songwriting Process
- Pandora's Tim Westergren On Charlie Rose
- A Few Ways To Get More Fans On Jango
- TuneCore Now Allows Multiple Uploads
- Latin for Truth have signed to Mightier Than Sword Records
- GDP signs to Run For Cover
- Texas In July have signed to Equal Vision Records
- Villanova sign to Republic
- Colette Carr signs to Interscope
We love the many ways Jango allows you to turn lasting fans on their site into real fans for your music. In the past we have written about how we use Jango and make it effective, but by no means is it the be all end all. Thankfully, the blog We Are Listening has written 5 tips on how to get more fans on Jango that is a great look at how to make this service look at you.
Tunecore is a great service that tons of artists use everyday. But for being such a large part of many indie groups existence it has always been painful to upload files to their service. Kiss those days goodbye- Tunecore now allows uploading up to 20 songs at once! A welcome change to a great service!
After beginning his career in France, Fred Kevorkian has been working in New York for over 20 years. Initially an audio engineer at the internationally renown Sear Sound, he also has a thorough background in electronics as well as studio design. Since branching off and working as a mastering engineer, Fred has worked with some incredibly impressive clientele including Ryan Adams, Iggy Pop, The White Stripes and The Walkmen. Currently working out of Avatar Studios, we got together with Fred recently and dove deep into what mastering really is and how you can improve your recordings.
Amazon has now allowed artists to do what Authors have been able to for some time - customize their pages and allow a better interface for fans to discover and buy music. You can now go to their artist central page and claim your profile, which will allow you you to go crazy and make it loaded with features like the above profile.
Merchluv: Empowering Artists. from M Luv on Vimeo.
Merchluv is a sit that enables groups to upload their logos to the site and then designers can make innovate merch designs they can sell to fans. The site hooks groups up with designers and you can then make a 20% profit on the merch the designers sell, enabling your fans to get new and innovative designs that are easy to sell to them. (via Hypebot)
- Dynamics In Songwriting - Making It Work
- Pay With A Tweet Is Another Way To Give Out Tracks For Tweets
- MacForMusicians Teaches You How To Make Music On A Mac
- Dont Bother Your Manager With The Little Things
- PayPal Mobile Express Checkout Allows iPhone Purchases To Be Made Easier
- Uploading Samples To SoundCloud Using Scup
- How To Run A Successful Campaign On Headliner FM
- Why You Should Keep Word Press's 2010 Theme On Your Blog
- Cool New DropBox Tricks
- SoundAround Band Based iPhone App Builder Has Launched
- BandsInTown Facebook App Is A Fantastic Way To List Shows
- Sayvee Is A Musician Aimed Website Builder
- ArtistData Releases Some Updated Features
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