April 2009 Archives
Musformation has declared this week Click Track Week. Check back
here all week to see many articles about making life with the Click
Track much easier!If you record enough songs, you will eventually program in a tempo change. Many musicians fear the tempo change, and some feel they sound wrong. One of the reasons Tempo Changes sound wrong is they are performed wrong. Many times the tempo needs to naturally ramp up over a period of time, instead of switching on a dime. Often times it will be over the course of the drum fill. The way each Tempo Ramp will be made is up to the Producers ear. To do a Tempo Ramp go to Event and Tempo Operations choose from Linear, Parabolic, S-Curve, Scale and Stretch shapes. You will then be asked to enter the Tempo Ramps start and end point, after which you will have made a successful Tempo Ramp.
Musformation has declared this week Click Track Week. Check back
here all week to see many articles about making life with the Click
Track much easier!
In the studio every detail is magnified. Many times a drummer is missing the groove because they just cannot hear the way it should sound. The Click Track can sometimes make a drummer forget how to groove a beat the way they did in rehearsal. One way to get the drummers groove back is to edit the stiff sounding drum part to the way it should sound inside your DAW. Play it back for your drummer and get him to memorize the sound of the groove. If that still doesn't work, simply turn this edited groove into the click track and have the drummer play to it. With these tools in my pocket I can get almost every drummer to play a groove the way I would like to hear it.
In the studio every detail is magnified. Many times a drummer is missing the groove because they just cannot hear the way it should sound. The Click Track can sometimes make a drummer forget how to groove a beat the way they did in rehearsal. One way to get the drummers groove back is to edit the stiff sounding drum part to the way it should sound inside your DAW. Play it back for your drummer and get him to memorize the sound of the groove. If that still doesn't work, simply turn this edited groove into the click track and have the drummer play to it. With these tools in my pocket I can get almost every drummer to play a groove the way I would like to hear it.
We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- Seeqpod is kinda back online
- Faith No More announce Euro Tour, unfortunately Mike Patton still will be dressing like a mexican greaser.
- ZZ Top/Aerosmith Ticket Prices WTF, SRSLY!?!?!?
- MTV and Justin Timberlake #retards
- Street Musicians From Around The World Play "Stand By Me"
- MIA recordinging follow up to "Bird Flu" enitiled "Swine Flu" No LOL
- Brandon Flowers is the Joe Biden of Rock N Roll
- Interview with Mad Decent and Downtown Records
- Clear Channels profits are down YAY!
- Get the new Del The Funky Homosapien record FREE
Today, Cycling '74 has posted a diatribe of their experience implementing Jitter for MIA's Coachella performance. Jitter is Cycling'74 newest video software that takes many of MAX/MSP's ideas and applies them to video. Pretty cool stuff!
Over on Gearslutz today, there is a great thread entitled "Mistakes On Hit Records", where the users are compiling some of the wierd mistakes left in on popular records. It's a great read if you have a big music library handy.
RCRDLBL.com is a lot of things:
- One of the best places to discover awesome new music! Most of the time, you won't have heard of the bands you see there, but that shouldn't stop you. The artists are quality, and even if one isn't your thing, it is still a great artist for their genre. Personally, I cant miss a day.
- A LEGAL blog that curates artists to give away free Singles/EPs, that also maintains a quality control of which artists the site works with!
- They are partnered with a bunch of great labels like Dim Mak, Modular, Warp, and Fools Gold that give the site exclusive content.
- A staff of awesome writers who do great interviews, put up choice cuts and YouTubes on a daily basis.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Metallica discusses their music being used as torture - (they must have used any album after "...And Justice For All")
- Bjork to release extravagant multimedia piece called "Voltaic" - fans prepared to pretend like they still think she's not out her head crazy
- Lilith Fair will return in 2010 - sales of Subaru wagons rumored to have risen in reaction
- Pete Seeger has some suggestions for simple living and surviving the recession - his first bright idea is to marry a hippie
- Garageband Lesson store still kinda sucks
- Swine Flu may kill us all, but in the meantime, it's enhancing our musical palette
- Another Jools Holland performance proves why Sonic Youth are living legends (with the gray hair to prove it)
We've been talking a lot about click tracks this week but haven't really focused on the musicians with the worst timing - guitarists! Joe Satriani, better known as the guy who said Coldplay's crappy song was ripped off from his crappier one, actually has some good exercises he does to achieve his guitar wizard wanker status. Hate the messenger, not the message.
When I was a small lad buying records I had a crazy idea for the music industry: instead of selling CD's for $17.99, why don't you lower the price considerably and sell A TON more records? Oh, how naive I was way back then. However, punkish purveyors Fat Wreck Chords think I was on to something. Not only is the new NOFX record out now
(sweet d00d!), but it will cost less than 10 bucks. In fact, the label has announced that all it's records will be under 10 dollars, and many of them under 8 dollars. I'm not a math genius and I didn't go to no fancy school or nothing but I think when demand goes down, the price should too (take note, Tim Geithner)! Should be interesting to see how this works out for them. 
In an age where fewer people seem to be buying music, no matter what your style or genre, an artist's live show is becoming even more important. Many artists are ONLY making money from playing live, so without a doubt, this is where you're going to want to shine. We've spoken before about things to do to improve your live show with things like video-taping yourself, but Adrian Try over at Audio Tuts has composed a list of 8 great things to think about, whether you are a seasoned veteran or putting together your first live show. After the jump we take a look at Adrian's analysis.
Coordinating schedules with numerous people is painful, to say the least. Nevermind when you are trying to coordinate unorganised, retarded musicians. One tool that can really help this pain be eased, is to have everyone using Google Calendars. With Google Calendars you are able to have all of your band members subscribe and edit the calendar. Simply click "Share" on your GCal menu and invite your band members. You can access GCals from anywhere that gets internet, including your phone. GCal will even email you, to remind you that something is about to happen! This will give your drummer little to no excuse to sit around playing GTA IV instead of showing up to band practice.
This week, we linked you to a great article that explained the idea, what will hold you back from making it in the industry will soon be the workload. As Labels die, it is easier for bands to make it without a label, it will become a matter of outsourcing as well as smart and hard work. Today over at MusicMarketing.com, they have dropped a few thoughts on this subject. If you start to believe that this case is true for your band, perhaps visit our Essential Tools For Your Band link bar over to your right!
The Future Of Music Coalition has released a report that comes as no surprise to anyone who has turned on a radio in recent years; Indie Labels do not get their fair share of airplay. Some of the better quotes from the story include:
"When FMC looked at airplay share by release date, theWhat else can you say to that? Except, a sarcastic "NICE!"
data showed that in almost every format measured, a large share of the spins on any given format's annual playlist were comprised of songs more than five years old."
"Independent music accounts for approximately 38% of digital sales in the U.S. and over 40% of audience impressions at internet radio ,but consistently receives only slightly more than 10% of traditional commercial radio airplay. It's obvious that music fans want independent music, and commercial radio programmers continue to ignore that demand at their own peril."
Yesterday, we linked you to a great article about the mistakes that bands make when trying to achieve optimal SEO. Despite the majority of the article being a great lesson, there was one bit of knowledge in need of a fact check. The first rule was to avoid a site being built totally in Flash. While this was the case in the past that Google would not pick up the content of the site, they have since fixed the issue. The times change way to fast, these days for anyone to keep up! H/T to our Web Developer Jackie Brennan for pointhing this out!
Click Track Week continues! Many times a experienced drummer may have a particular click sound they like. However it may not be available in Digidesigns Click plug-in. In this case it is very easy to loop a sample in the Gird to play throughout the song. Though if you make tempo changes the audio files will get out of sync. Unless you put the track into Ticks Mode! Every track has the option to but into Ticks Mode which will preserve the postion of each Audio File on the Grid. So if an audio file falls on Bar 1 Beat 1 Tick 480, in Ticks Mode it will always stay there through any tempo changes. In Samples Mode it would stay in place and not adapt to the the tempo changes. This is also helpful for any rhythm tracks such as song built off Audio Samples. Use it as you will!
"Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket"
Everyone knows the Music Industry is cut throat. It is loaded with ego bruises and dissapointment around every turn. Whether you are a musician, producer or manager you will be promised opportunities, given offers and other things that will get your hopes up time and time again. Over the years I have watched many close friends get their hearts broken when a powerful member of the music industry told them they would do something and it didn't actually happen. Whether you are The Killers or a local band I can tell you one thing that will ring true at any level of the industry, in any profession- for every five promises/oppurtunities one may come true! Follow me to the jump and I will explain more. 
I will start out by saying I don't quite know where I stand on File Sharing still to this day. I do know that I find the argument that "Pirates Buy More Music" to have very little factual weight. Both sides of this argument claim to have studies to back up their claims. Anyone who has ever read Frank Luntz knows these studies are easy to manipulate, so I give both sides no cloture when citing their respective studies. The one fact that I do see that is very clear is record sales are WAY DOWN, and I work with a lot of bands who steal, and nearly everyone I know steals music from Torrents/Blogs. I feel the "Music Industry" has the fact that record sales are miserable on it's side in this argument and would be very curious if the "Pirates" really have any evidence that strong to show to counter it. Please, enlighten me?
Check out the eBay maddness!!!
Lots of poorly spelled details below!
Lots of poorly spelled details below!
EMI RS 61.
Possibly the best and most rare microphone preamplifier ever made on earth.In excelent working condition.Comes from EMI (Electric and Musical Industries), one of the top players
and inventor of the music inductry. Was used among others by the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios [1].Sends other great tube or not microphone preamps for tea. It was designed at EMI's CRL Central Research Laboratory; one of the world's top research laboratories. This is where many innovations took place and one of the key figures there was Allan Blumlein, after working at Western Electric International Labs, possibly the best Electronic Engineer of all times, best known as inventor of stereo record cutting [2]. One of his 128 patents on simultaneus application of current and voltage feedback [3] to match impedances relates directly to this amplifier as both of these techniques are implemented if one follows physicaly the layout and interconnection of components. A D Blumlein died young in 1941 while radar prototyping testing. While at CRL he liked visiting the younger engineers labs educating them by helping them or sometimes was amused by playing music with his colleagues on test signal generators [4]. While this particular amplifier was built on 1956, it seems to be one of his brainchildren and more of his patents made be related. As you can see from the serial number which is really a date code it was made on 1956 9th week or 9th month. This amplifier is designed to operate between impedances of 200 Ohms as this seems to be the protocol used by EMI. They had a switch to use if you do not want its input impedance to be 200 Ohms.
Cosmeticaly it is in good condition. It is in excelent working condition and has been cared of like a baby. Needs an external psu of 6.3V, HT, (not included). Buyer could even use the (LT, HT) option of an RCA BA6A limiter to supply a preamp. Has been tested with 6.3V ac, 160V dc. Comes with original female 4 pin connector to feed the LT 6.3V and HT dc. Everything is original. Comes with lid, not in good condition, but serves well its purpose of electromagletic
shielding and dust protection. Signal input and output is of course transformer balanced, by EMI transformers. Original balanced (3 pin) EMI connectors for input and output are included.
The capacitors used are excelent quality paper in oil ones, do not seem to be Western Elecric and not shure if EMI even made these, please do your own search. There are only two electrolytic capacitors as cathode bypass, so there is no reason why this microphone cannot survive with care a few centuries.This great preamplifier with perhaps the smoothest sound mankind had the chance to taste comes at the price of a small airplane. And with it you can fly on earth.
We have been on a SEO Crusade, here at Musformation. The PBS blog MediaShift has an awesome article on the SEO mistakes bands commonly make. If you don't understand why SEO is so important for your band, you may want to go back and read these articles.
Tip via Alex Still of the awesome The Walk Ons
Tip via Alex Still of the awesome The Walk Ons
This week, The New York Times ended a fantastic collection of essays on Songwriting entitled Measure For Measure. For a full year they held a forum for insight on songwriting from artists like Andrew Bird, Jeff Lewis, Susanne Vega, Roseanne Cash, Darrel Brown, and Peter Holsapple. They are some great and insightful reads for anyone looking to refine their craft.We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- The Black Lips meet The GZA????
- Coldplay drummer goes prog!
- French Govermant brings back 3 Strike rule!
- Iggy Pop riles up Britans health insurance industry! It's not over concerns over how he gets his stomach to look like that.
- The story of the first Indie Label
- Sounds like every child is being left behind!
Always wanted to see world class god of engineering Steve Albini record? Through the power of YouTube your wish has been granted! Consider me your fairy god mother not dressed in drag! Watch the band Nirf get their hands dirty at Electrical Audio! More after the jump!
We all want to know what is being said about ourselves on the Internet. It is important to know if you are making a fool of yourself, whether that is your goal or not. Take note, this is one of the useful things about Twitter! You can now be updated with a search about what is being said about you in the Twittersphere. Simply bookmark the search or add it to your RSS feed. Coupled with Google Alerts can help you understand how the Internet is seeing you and preceiving what you do. For those of us who run businesses take note. Companies like Time Warner - notorious for their HORRIBLE customer service - have a Twitter search going and if you curse their service, they write you to help! Modern World!
The Korg DS-10 is proving itself to be a pretty cool tool for musicians. More and more we are being sent cool videos of people creating awesome songs with this ultra-portable interface. Above we have a video of electro-wierdo Jamie Lidell doing a remix with one and after the jump we have a few videos of some YouTubers showing the world what they got with a DS-10.
Welcome to Monome from sam_square on Vimeo.
As an addition to the video below of Deadmau5 talking about his live setup and the Monome, we thought we'd pass along this video which is one of the better introductions/explains of the device. Anything with this many flashing lights is sure to captivate.
We have gushed over Deadmau5 before. Above, is a video where he speaks of some of the gear that goes into making his live show the spectacle that it is. No, I'm not talking about the mouse head!
Seems hard to believe, but Rancid recently recorded their 7th album. Titled "Let the Dominoes Fall", this is a sneak peak at the making of the album to be released this June including a discussion of the history of the band.
Brian Green has just come up with another crazy contraption. We like the use of not one but two iPod touches on this guitar, making it possible to play music with one and Twitter about it with the other. Nice work, dOOd.
Some stoner took a few moments away from watching The Wizard Of Oz synced up to Dark Side Of The Moon, to make us this YouTube video. It's claim, is Tool's song "Lateralus" is written around the Fibonacci Sequence. Personally I think d00d may wanna lay off the w33d and quit smoking so much George W Kush and listening to the modern day Rush. Please, no more reading The DaVinci Code on acid, or we are going to take away your iMovie Sofware! Does anyone find it hilarious that some of the lyrics to the song are "Over Thinking, Over Analyzing"? HELLO! Maynard is talking to you d00d! Pick up the phone stoney!
The OB-Xa and OB-8 were two awesome but similar sounding synths produced in the early 80's by Oberheim. Many synth experts still disagree as to which one sounds superior, so we thought we'd like this interesting face-off to let you hear for yourself!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Wilco The Album
- Do Hip Hop Artists sign record deals to make enough material to release 8 records after their death? Either way I am excited for new J Dilla
- Chris Blackwell on Nick Drake
- Meet WFMU's 16 year old DJ
- I imagine The Web Sheriff to be a douche along the line of the guys on Reno 911 surfing round the web on a neon surf board looking for RapidShare links to the new Sonic Youth
- The RIAA sure know how to prove a $7,000 point.
- 13 Horrible Album Covers
- Brit Spears needs a restraining order from Pharmacies not managers
- The Flaming Lips Are In The Studio With Dave Fridmann!
- HMV UK Sales up! Oh wait... It's since their competitor went out of business... Duh!
- Lil Wayne will sue you if you sample without telling him
We at Musformation read A LOT of blogs. Like, A LOT! We often find things that are interesting, but we don't have the time to write em up for you guys. This makes us feel bad since we are trying to make our community a more educated and entertained one. So every Wed. I will be sharing with you Recording Nerd Links. So if you are that particular brand of nerd/insomniac/internataholic/crazy shut in, enjoy. Nerd. Click The Jump For The Links
Last month, we told you about the iDaft, a fun online soundboard that plays the vocal samples of Daft Punk "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." It is now available as a iPhone App, so when you are totally wasted out of your mind in your Dorm Room you now have a easy way to torture your roomate. BTW it's free!
In honor of Musformation's Click Track week, this will be a lesson geared towards The Click Track. The Identify Beat function is your friend, if you make records on the click or off the click. It can help you do many things, such as:- Create a Tempo Map to a track recorded without a click so that you can sync MIDI/Delays/Song Grid to it after the fact!
- Figure out the tempo off a demo/another recording so you can reproduce it in your present recording
- Create a click during a pause in a song where the drummer has stopped playing by calculating the rest length and measuring it.
We love Pro Tools! But there are occasions we cannot believe they have
never addressed some features we think they should! Since Musformation
likes to think of itself as an optimistic, positive community, we want
to help make Digidesign know what we want! Starting with this post I am
going to be listing the "Pro Tools Features Wish List". Every so often,
when we get a few suggestions I will find a way to deliver this list to
Digidesign. If you have any suggestions to add to the list, please send them to me.Anyone who works in Command Key Focus and uses the Space Bar to perform Play/Stop duty knows the pain that the stupid N key inflicts upon us all. This Enables and Disables Timeline Insertion follows Playback. This is infuriating when you accidentally hit the N key and are trying to cue up a punch in point for a vocalist. When I show this key to many new users they look at me like I am Indiana Jones and just unlocked the Holy Grail! PLEASE allow us to disable this key permanently in the preferences!
To see the rest of the list click the jump!
Musformation has declared this week Click Track Week. Check back
here all week to see many articles about making life with the Click
Track much easier!If you have decided you aren't going to listen to yesterdays tip and use Kick Drums as a click in quiet parts of a song. I have another alternative for you. Use automation on the click to turn it down during quiet parts. If the song is done, there is no need to have click track still playing, and if someone hears it click away as the song ends you look like a retard. If the drums take a 4 bar break its very easy to take the click down 6-12 db, cut down on the bleed and your player can still hear it loud and clear! You can even do this by hand, but if you know the song form, its easy to draw these moves in to the automation very quickly.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Old people still think keeping curses off TV is going to preserve our society. Apparently they have never seen For The Love Of Ray J
- The Pirate Bay verdict never ends... You can now read it in English!
- iTunes ruins Americal Idol, and all this time I thought it was Paula Abdul being a pilled-out drunk that made it suck so bad!
- "Now fans of, say, Weezer can sue for every record released after The Green Album and Metallica diehards can be compensated for what followed the group's 1991 self-titled release."- Carrie Brownstein
- The Decemberists return to Colbert!
Columbia Records artist and friend of the site Nicole Atkins recently gave us an exclusive interview where we got the opportunity to discuss her new album, her songwriting process, Chris Isaak's mirror suit and the best philosophy for your band. If you haven't had the opportunity to hear her debut album Neptune City,
you're missing out on one of New Jersey's finest. Now, on to the interview! 
Are you one of those people who think your ideal lover is someone who loves the same obscure band as you do? There is now a site called RockNRollDating.com just for you. Why not find your ideal mate who loves MGMT "Kids" as much as you, to make Kids with!?!?! While I don't think this is the best idea for procreation, who am I to judge?
Above is a "Commercial" for the "Car Kit" that you can buy with Taking Back Sunday's new record, New Again. This kit includes the following:
- Digital LP on Street Date
- 2 B-Sides Only With This Package: "Didn't See That Coming"& "Catholic Knees (26th St.Shakedown)"
- Model Car
- Autographed Booklet
- 152 Dice Air Freshener
- Sticker Sheet
- Mini Dice
- 2 GB Key-shaped USB
- Drivers License
- Limited Edition T-Shirt
M-Audio has issued a warning about USB ports on all Mac Book Pros. The Left Hand USB port is not quite as up to par as the Right Hand Side. Any heavy lifting (Audio Interface/Drive with high density of edits), should be done from the Right Hand Port. Use the left hand port for MIDI devices and iLoks. (via Create Digital Music)
Today Sub Pop puts out your favorite records by bands like Fleet Foxes, The Shins and Iron & Wine. This video shows you how they got there. (via Hypebot)
Over on the Music Think Tank, there is yet another fine post. This time it is discussing the idea - since the Gatekeepers are now dissapearing, what stands between you and success is time management/workload. Go check out some of their awesome insight. Once you realize that you will need to optimise your workload, go check out some of our time saving tips, and start reading Lifehacker.
Hey everyone, give a nice welcome to John Zaremba. John plays in an awesome band called Say When - a band that is able to support themselves being on the road year round with no label! Any advice he gives you, your band should be listening to! -ed.Frank Zappa said it best when he described rock journalism as "people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." But I think we have it in us to prove Frank wrong. There are insightful interviewers, interesting musicians and a public who would like to know more about the music they love (or about a band they don't know they love yet.) After the jump are some tips on how to conduct yourself in an interview.
Part 2 after the jump!
We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- Pirate Bay makes it official and files for retrial!
- Rapper moons Nazi Rally... Just another day in the news!
- Time Magazine shows itself to be the bunch of old retards they are. 4Chan shows themselves to be the winners of Time's most influential person. If only Pedo-Bear won!
- Van Halen are the next Guitar Hero's... Free fake black teeth in every pack so you can look like Eddie!
- Avril Lavigne Canadian Ambassador SRSLY!
- Clipse are such real rappers that their manager and nightclub owner Anthony "Geezy" Gonzalez has been charged in U.S. District Court with running a $10 million a year drug ring.
- Spotify hits 1 million users!
- Take That! You are going to pay money to watch Take That play nothing but an iPhone at Wembley!
- Rapidshare decides the bell tolls the person who uploaded Death Magnetic
- Siren Festival lineup announced!
- Interview with guy from annoying Facebook App iLike
- OMG OMG Katy Perry and The d00d from Gym Class Hero's are wearing each others promise rings again!
- Kim Kardashian and Timbaland to remake No Doubt's "Don't Speak". I hope the video has Ray J in it!
- Jimmy Eat World vs. Fall Out Boy in TWITTER WARS!
Vox has annouced a very small and very portable new amp called the Night Train. The all-tube amp will be 15 watts with twin 12AX7 tubes. With a weight of less than 17 pounds, this amp could mean a big sigh of relief for those hauling around vintage Twins or AC-30's to get to get a great clean tone. The amp also features a switching option where the amp can be set to half power, giving 7.5 watts if you don't need the full 15. Vox will also be releasing Night Train cabinets (with a Celestion Greenback speaker) to compliment the head. Look out for that this summer. Full story here.
Somewhat surprising to find that Rachel Maddow is a huge Metallica fan beginning with Master of Puppets. To promote the band, Lars makes an appearance on her show. In what shouldn't be a shocker, Lars and Rachel get all nostalgic about being liberals. Nice scarf, bro.
People's Music Store, a digital download company based in the UK, has just signed an agreement with Universal to license 300,000 more tracks of music. The idea behind the company is that users (actual music fans) promote the songs/albums they like in the their own personal and customizable store and then they get a commission (10%) which they can use to buy tracks from the site. So far there have been around 1,000 stores created, including ones made through record labels. While this seems like somewhat of a fresh idea having fans market music, it's unclear whether there is enough incentive for music fans (who in this business model seem to be doing most of the work) to promote these artists. More on the store here.
In this Logic Lesson, our buddy SFLogicNinja tackles Beat Mapping in Logic. The Ninja takes an older song that wasn't recorded to a click and creates a tempo map with this built-in feature that comes with Logic - this makes a remix SO much easier!
Musformation has declared this week Click Track Week. Check back
here all week to see many articles about making life with the Click
Track much easier!Do you have trouble - when recording quiet instruments like Acoustic Guitars, Vocals, Strings etc. - keeping the click track out of the tracks? Nothing screams amateur quite like hearing the click track in a quiet part of a song. A simple trick to avoid this plague is to use a Kick Drum as your click sound . Since the frequencies are more concentrated in the lower range that are often rolled off, it is much easier to get the sound from bleeding in to a performance. Many players also respond very well to a kick drum as a click since it is a bit less grating.
Musformation has declared this week Click Track Week. Check back here all week to see many articles about making life with the Click Track much easier!
As more and more bands incorporate backing tracks into their setups, the need to play live and rehearse to a click track becomes greater and greater. Even for those bands looking for a stripped down live set a click track can still make you sound a million times better live. As simple as this seems, there are some simple things that bands often neglect when trying to pull this off. We will demystify and answer some common questions about how to get the most of rehearsing with a click track!
As more and more bands incorporate backing tracks into their setups, the need to play live and rehearse to a click track becomes greater and greater. Even for those bands looking for a stripped down live set a click track can still make you sound a million times better live. As simple as this seems, there are some simple things that bands often neglect when trying to pull this off. We will demystify and answer some common questions about how to get the most of rehearsing with a click track!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Metric is making much more money without a label!
- Harmonia Mundi Defies The Music Industry Blues
- Some LIBERALS (cue screaming) are making a movie that is a hit job against the beloved Major Labels!
- Talib Kweli's music is worth rioting over?
- Sonic Youth found their stolen gear!
- MGMT call French Pop, Freedom Pop! Oh yeah, they are working on a new album so you have something to listen to while shopping at the thrift store and reading Street Carnage.
- The Germans rat out Rapidshare
- 100 DVDs on one disc! Oh Noz!
Zach Lind Blogger/Drummer of Jimmy Eat World has posted some pictures of the bands current studio setup, as they record drums! There is also a written explanation of some of the micing. Pretty exciting stuff from a band that always makes awesome sounding records! Josephson e22s on all those drums!
Ray Kurzweil - you know - the guy whose name you see on the back of every expensive keyboard. I got news for you, his keyboard is not what he is famous for! Some people consider him a total lunatic and some think he is one the great mind of our times. There is now a movie documenting his existance entitled Transcendent Man. It speaks of his theories that Singularity is in our near future and many of his other past predictions. Cameo by Stevie Wonder!
The register recently interviewed surprisingly pompous Bittorrent founder Bram Cohen. It gave us a ignorant and short sighted quote on the "Peacock Tail", that music has to deal with: "Music has a bigger problem, it's that people want to make it. It's the peacocks tail. The reason guys make music is that they want to get laid. So men are usually willing to pay a lot of money in the hope of getting laid. Anything that helps you get laid with amazing regularity is something you would expect a tremendous oversupply of. So we have unbelievable amounts of music. People pay a lot to learn how to play music and it's ridiculous to expect people to make money off it. Normally if you want to make money you do something no one wants to do."As well he neglects that many girls play music for the same reason! Granted you can expect a computer nerd to have ever come in contact with an actual girl before!
Ross Robinson has discovered tons of seminal bands like Glassjaw, Slipknot, and Korn. If that weren't enough, he produced all of those bands as well as The Cure, At The Drive In, and The Blood Brothers. Ross has always been an innovative thinker in the music industry, using his imprint I Am Recordings to shape many trends in the industry. In one of his newest endeavors, he will be broadcasting the whole recording process of Repeater's forthcoming LP on a Ustream feed, for all to see.
Over on The Air Users Blog, they have posted a video showing some of the potential of the new Air Fuzz-Wah. An awesome new tool in Pro Tools 8, the Fuzz-Wah delivers an audio quality I have never heard in any other plug-in attempting to capture this effect!
If you like tormenting your neighbors playing Guitar Hero, you know that it's very easy to beat the hell out of the instruments. They often need expensive replacements, making the cost of your hobby a little unreasonable. However, if you are the crafty type there is a DIY guide to repairing your Guitar Hero gear! (via ARS)
In another sign of the gloomy music industry forecast; The ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards, which last year celebrated their
40th anniversary of recognizing outstanding music writing in an array
of media, have been suspended for 2009.
Since you cannot watch TV without a mention of Twitter every 5 seconds, we like to keep you up-to-date on how you can use Twitter. Below are a few recent Twitter developments.
We know you are all upset about being back at work. Team Musformation has decided that we will take it upon ourselves to cheer you up every Monday. Click the jump for some choice humor!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Creed reunites! Date Rapists rejoice!
- The Philly police do what many wish they could BEAT UP AN EMO BAND. Forever The Sickest Kids & We The Kings beaten by the police. I am sure the one in FTSK kids who think Obama is the antichrist has some interesting theories on this incident.
- Record Stores may be closing but Vinyl Stores keep emerging!
- DMX is now on Celebrity Rehab! The fights this season are gonna rule!
- The New Music Seminar returns!
- Electro Clash is back! Hold the Larry T plz!
- The Flaming Lips exposing hypocrisy in politics! They really do it all!
- European Parliament approves 70 year long copyright for audio.
- Judge says you cannot cut school, eat Cheetos all day and watch the RIAA trial!
- Pink Floyd for Gay people: Depeche Mode have a new doc coming out soon.
- 10 Billboard Milestones
- The lineups for NY's Summerstage and Celebrate Brooklyn shows have been announced
- Flaming Lips fight city hall and win! "Do You Realize??" becomes OK's official state song!!!
- PETA asks Pet Shop Boys to change their name. World asks all animals to attack PETA.
- A career-spanning Depeche Mode documentary will be released in June.
One of the biggest enemies of the songwriter is distractions and unfortunately, the pace of the modern world offers far too many. Like many modern lyricists, I write using a computer because of the speed I can type, correct errors and move things around. However, writing on computer can be a huge problem. With so many other things to do, instead of finishing the last line in that chorus you've been working on, you find yourself surfing the high seas of the internetz for Susan Boyle forums or more Kay Perry noodz! One simple answer I've found is to close my email (which is usually set to automatic download) and turn off the internet (as easy as disabling the AirPort on top right corner of your MAC). It's amazing how quiet the world gets when there is no internet. Time slows down and your brain can think again. It sounds easy but you'll be surprised how tempted you'll be to switch it back on, but like any drug, the cravings eventually subside!
If you're like me, you're always looking for distractions (like effects pedals) to make up for the fact that you actually suck at guitar. Well, Visionary Instruments might have just what you're looking for because now you can visually distract them too with video effects (the LCD screen is actually part of the body of the guitar)! Apparently, the video can be triggered by the audio or manipulated by moving the guitar. Hippies beware, this thing looks seizure inducing.
Due to budget cutbacks, the good folks at Idolator have announced that much of their staff has been cut. Although they say they may continue on in some form, it sounds as though the posts will be fewer and further between. We want to thank them for all their great work in the past, they are a site that will actually be missed!
Alan Douches, Mastering Guru, head of West West Side Music, and truly amazing thinker, gave a quote I feel should be discussed by the community:"If Digital Audio had existed for 60+ years like Analog has, it would sure sound much better than analog - and we are already getting there, although it's been around for about 10-15 years."
I am curious what you all think of this statement? I hear some recordings that are the best sounding records ever made - coming out today - to my ears. I agree with this statement wholeheartedly, and think we have reached the days where it is no longer whether Analog is better then Digital and merely what flavor you would like your record to have. I look forward to seeing what will be coming in the coming years, as manufacturing catches up with recent innovations in electronics!
We report on a lot of iPhone apps, many of them interesting, but with varying degrees of pragmatic use. The iTM pad seems like it could be could quite useful as a touch pad controller. It works on an X-Y graph, similar to how you would use a Korg Kaoss controller. Check it out, this could be the a big part of the future for live music!
If you are like me, you are on one too many social networks then you have time to deal with. As a Smart Phone owner, I like my messages getting to my phone. It allows me to deal with email on subway rides and other boring moments. One way you can get back a few moments of your life - from the never-ending barrage of Social Network messages - is to have your Myspace message become an away message, with your email address listed as you contact. To do this simply sign in to Myspace and click the "MyAccount" button follow by the "Miscellaneous" tab. Below you will see a field to enter your away message. Mine reads:"Hi! We dont regularly check this profile. With all matters relating to the site please email musformation@gmail.com. Thank you!"Now click the "Show Away Message" button and you are set to go!
If you are going to be recording numerous takes/keeping different arangemants, one of the best orgnisational tool you can do is to use the 0 playlist (the one with no number) next to it as your master playlist. This helps avoid confusion later down the line, and keeps you more organized in your project. You will also be forced to commit to an idea being the one you are going to work with and another left as the alternate, with a visual reminder of which you choose.
Let's be honest, the Digidesign De-Esser works, but it leaves something to be desired. I have never plunked down the cash for the Waves De-Esser since there isn't enough Waves plug-ins in a bundle that I actually want, but it definitely works great. I am a big fan of The Sonalksis CQ-1 as a De-Essing tool, but it works much better to rescue poorly recorded tracks as opposed to just a little work to make a well recorded track sound even better. When a vocal sounds great and just needs a little De-Essing help, nothing stays out of the way - while getting the job done - better than The Massey De:Esser. I know I have been drooling over Massey on here lately, but you cannot beat the quality of these plug-ins for the price! I don't think you can find a better RTAS/TDM De-Esser for $89 or even 4 times that!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- NSFW Porn made in the Dim Mak Records Office NSFW
- IFPI, RIAA, WTF?
- Shocker: "Producer" Scott Storch is a coke head moron!
- Oh Noz now every Label is a Twitter!
- Lil Wayne tells the broads on The View about banging chicks while high on Weed and Robitussin
- Switchfoot recorded 4 records of Alt-Christian Rock!
- Hulu is the new Vevo, I have a four letter word for both of them!
- The nerd behind The YouTube Symphony
- The Sex Pistols and Blondie need $$$
- Burial and Four-Tet team up!
One of the biggest changes in my life, in the last year, has been the ease that Back To My Mac, has brought to my life. Life is a little easier, I don't spend so much time in the studio. Instead I work from home or even the beach in Hawaii (Seriously!). Never, has one simple tweak to an OS made my life so good. Hopefully, I have your curiosity piqued. If so, follow me to the jump and I will show you all the awesome ways Back To My Mac can help you!
Current TV has an awesome, 30 minute Doc on Death Cab for Cutie, showing them recording their latest LP Narrow Stairs, prepping for tour, and then playing the first show of the tour. Some pretty great insight into this exceptional band's ways.
No matter what style you play, if you want your drums to sound as awesome as they can, there is a simple rule to follow. The Batter Head should be tuned lower then the Resonant Head. This means that then tension should be tighter on the Resonant Head, than the head you hit (for those of you who are terminology challenged). This will produce a clearer and punchier tone, that is usually what most of us are looking for.
- Leighton Meester, star of "Gossip Girl," signed with Universal Republic
- Damiera Leaves Equal Vision Records
- Breaking The Silence signs to Tooth And Nail
- Awaken Demons signs to Trustkill
- Erik Hassle signs to Island
- Balance And Composure signs to No Sleep
- We Came As Romans have signed to Equal Vision Records
- Revolution Mother has signed to Ferret Records
Anyone who knows anything about Torrents, knows that Google is just as good as any Torrent Search for finding some choice torrents. The kids these days are very angry about this whole Pirate Bay ruling (perhaps you have heard about it), so someone has taken it upon themselves to put up The Pirate Google, in order to show the "hypocracy" behind this ruling. Have Fun!
This is one hell of a guitar! If you have never caught Muse live, you have not seen some of the crazy things Matthew Bellamy does with his guitar live. The guitar features all your standards fare high-end guitar features, but where it really shines is the built-in Kaoss Pad ! The guitar has a MIDI output where you can map the Kaoss Pad to external effects. Featuring a few other bells and whistles you can see in the above video, we have a feeling this guitar will be expanding many players creative palette.
In case you haven't heard, MOTU developed a really cool piece of software called Volta, to control all your CV synths that don't have MIDI inputs (pending you have a MOTU Interface). This video shows you some awesome tricks for making this happen! (via Wire To The Ear)
Over on ZDnet, they have done a comparison of all the major Digital Music Stores, showing the differences in prices between them all. The above chart, gives you a breakdown of which sites give you the best and worst deal. More on ZDnet.
Yesterday, we told you about using Midomi to check if your song sounds like another. Another awesome way to use your iPhone to write better songs, is to use all the Apps on the iPhone that allow you to look up lyrics! Let's say someone thinks the lyric you are singing is from another song; Just look it up! There are a bunch of free or cheap iPhone Apps that will look up Internet lyric databases and see if you just wrote a classic line, or stole it from someone else. Check out these Apps:
Since we talk about Roland Juno's so much and since we've already mentioned another contest this week, we thought we would show you one more. Anyway, what's the prize for winning and why am I talking about this contest? Naturally, it is absurd. Roland keyboards were made famous in large part due to the affordable and amazing Juno series from the 80's. Their line of Juno's now are nothing short of awful and an attempt to capitalize on their past success. The "prize" is a free POS Juno Stage keyboard. Wow, thanks, great news. So if I use my two awesome vintage analog Roland Juno's synths to advertise for your company, you're going to give me one of your new clunk boxes that no one wants? Super. How about just pay the bills when my 106 goes in the shop for another chip replacement?
Pandora has been doing a pretty cool video series profiling a few different artists. In their newest series they are profiling the songwriting and recording habits of seminal punk band Bad Religion. Go check it out!
We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- Sufjan Hearts Sofia Coppola. Indie Rock Swoon
- The Filthy Rich Rock Stars Aren't So Filthy Anymore
- The Pirate Bay judge is the problem! But, what could be next, in this page-turner???
- The Hot Gossip is Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester got herself a recording contract with Universal Republic. Now is she the not-so-hot-one? Or the not-hot-at-all-one?
- Skyscraper Magazine has fallen... Well fallen into Internet Only
Above is the first single off Passion Pit's upcoming LP, a band that is bound for a lot of hype in 2009. They are now offering a Remix Content! Really, who doesn't love a Remix Content, I have seen some of Dance Musics biggest stars start their path to Neon fame by doing these and getting hype. Maybe you should step up?
Here's the rules:
Passion Pit is offering up snippets from "Little Secrets" right here, a full month before the track is available with the May 19th release of Manners. They want you to take those pieces and build your own songs around them. All you have to do is offer up your email address and you'll be sent a stem snippet of the unreleased track. Trade with your fellow remixers and musicians until you have all the snippets, or just create a new composition around the one piece you have.
Hover over the shapes on the player to hear the snippets. Submit your info on the player, and when you receive your piece, get to work - the sky's the limit, add synths, guitar, cowbell, more children's choirs, your best Michael impression. Post the results here, where fans will vote for their ten favorites until May 15th. After voting closes, Passion Pit will pick five remixes to be released along with a special vinyl version of "Little Secrets," while the five runners up will receive a copy of the vinyl and a signed CD of Manners.
Not sure how confirmed this is yet, but my guitar tech sent me a link to this video that Analogman sent him showing off his new Delay pedal . This one has a spot for an expression pedal and even with the crappy video quality, you can tell this pedal is going to be awesome! No word yet on when this might be released.
I don't know about you, but I love to listen to music while I work! I get really inspired by listening to other records in the dull moments of a record. When I am doing menial tasks like aligning triggers, checking fades, setting up mix templates, etc. I take the time to listen to some music, that may give me a great idea for the song I am working on. So how do you do this without having to hit Play/Stop on iTunes a million times, slowing down your workflow? First off, follow my previous Pro Tools Tip Of The Day, and download the essential Massey Tools FOR FREE! The next thing we want to do is make a new Aux Input. Insert Massey's TalkBack plug-in on to this insert. Next, route your iTunes/playback device to an open input (note: if using iTunes route your computers line output to the desired input). If you have an HD system route this to any open input. If you have a DIGI 002/003 you are in luck! Route your iTunes/playback device to the ALT SRC L/R input, then simply click the button that says "ALT SRC to 7-8". Next we set the input of our Aux track to the input we plugged our playback device into. Hit play on your iTunes/playback device. Whenever you hit the play button in Pro Tools the audio from your iTunes/playback device will be muted and when stop is pushed you will have audio from your playback device again!
In our new series, Cutting Down Cable Clutter, we will be telling you
the many ways to get the pain of Cable Clutter out of your life.Here is a quick lesson you may have missed; If you have different cables running all over each other, you are destined for a world of hum, noise, clutter, and eyesores. Before we start organizing any cables you have. The first rule: do not run every cable you have, all together. Each set of cables should bun in their own groups. Let's first identify the different groups of cables so we know what to run together:
- Computer Cables/Firewire/USB/Audio Interface Cables (Such as the cables from your Pro Tools Interface)/MIDI Cables/Monitor Cables
- Power/IEC Cables
- Audio Cables/Speaker/Mic/Line/Guitar etc.
- Word Clock
We have told you before, you still need a website! Since you need one, Bandzoogle is here to help make you one! This week, they announced that they have facilitated more than $1 million in commission free sales from their service! That is pretty impressive! You are able to setup a great looking and unique website through their service. Bandzoogle enables you to make a webstore, where you can can sell Merch and recieve payments through PayPal. Now that PayPal is accepting Micro Payments, this should open even more doors for bands to go it alone! While there are many sites that will help you make money, Bandzoogle takes no percentage. They have 2 plans: Standard for $14.95 or $149.95 a year or Pro $19.95 or $199.95 a year. After a look around the sample sites, I am sure they will be making another million dollars for bands soon!
ABOVE VIDEO VERY NSFW!!!!
We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- The BoomBox is dead! My subway rides aren't upset!
- Pharell no longer has sleeves. He had Laser Surgery, but for some reason left the neck tattoo? I have a feeling he is going Soft... errr Soft Rock!
- New Super Group from Unicorns and Arcade Fire members.
- Is anyone else looking forward to the Thorns of Life (Jawbreaker, Pinhead Gunpowder, Jets To Brazil) LP as much as me?
- Biden says the MPAA will love the copyright czar, which means the RIAA is already humping his leg.
- Indie-Rock-Dream-Girl Alison from The Kills/Dead Wether/Discount has been hospitalised, but is now OK!
- You can now bet on InTrade if Susan Boyle will win Britans Got Talent. Good luck with that!
- Andrew WK get another TV show!!!!
- 5 Amazing Songs That Were Almost Never Released!
- The Flaming Lips are now Oklahoma's State Song. Trippy!
Ahhhh, the power of blogging, initially we thought you could do this with Shazam but we were corrected by Chris from Shazam saying that their program is not capable of this task. So here is some correct information. Anyway!
Everyday I see it working with bands: at some point someone says a part sounds too much like another song. This is where your iPhone comes in! There is an App, that is very popular called Midomi, where you can hum, sing or play a song and it will tell you which song it is! Most people use this out at the bars, clubs or cars to figure out what a DJ is playing. However, the really amazing use of this is to be able to see if your melody is too close to another songs melody! If Midomi sees your song as being the same as another popular one, you may need to go back to the drawing board. Of course it could also tell you, you sound like a song you think you are going to be way better than. In that case, carry on!
Everyday I see it working with bands: at some point someone says a part sounds too much like another song. This is where your iPhone comes in! There is an App, that is very popular called Midomi, where you can hum, sing or play a song and it will tell you which song it is! Most people use this out at the bars, clubs or cars to figure out what a DJ is playing. However, the really amazing use of this is to be able to see if your melody is too close to another songs melody! If Midomi sees your song as being the same as another popular one, you may need to go back to the drawing board. Of course it could also tell you, you sound like a song you think you are going to be way better than. In that case, carry on!
Since we spend so much time writing about these things, I figured you all should know about this contest.
Win A Lemur Or A Dexter!
Win A Lemur Or A Dexter!
We have told you how sites like MyBandStock, SellABand, and 100,000 Fans are looking to empower fans with the decisions of what bands get funding/budgets. Now it seems EMI are stepping into the Crowd Sourcing game, introducing a new service called SoundCheck. The service is offering up a few artists playing different versions of their songs and getting marketing advice from potential fans. Like most corporate plans they are a little slow on the curve, but could this be the beginning of the Majors conceding the inevitable Crowd Sourcing of music. More at CNet.
Over at The Guardian today, there is a discussion of a stamp of Fair Trade Stamp for music sharing sites such as Last.FM, LaLa, WeAreHunted, etc. What does this mean, in plain terms? In the Diamond and Coffee industries there is much exploitation of workers and profit gouging. These practices rape and destroy downtrodden countries that are trying to turn any profit they can on the few profitable industries they have. They drive the people who work hard for an industries quality of life lower and lower as profit margins are expected to rise. While on a much smaller scale this is what many Music Sharing sites are doing to todays music artists. Sites like Last.FM turned insane profits when they got bought out and many other Music Sharing sites are looking to do the same, and not pay artists a dime for their profits. This seems like it could be a great movement that takes the profits out of cunning startups pockets and puts it back into the industry.
NSFW Language!!!
Yesterday, we told you why Beyonce can really sing! It was then discovered that it was really an Internet prank! Well, really it was a college kids self promotion tool to earn a living. Talk about a weird self promotion!This martyr claims to have some big secret as to how he manipulated the audio; Anyone who has ever used Melodyne knows, that is how he did it. It's no big secret. Though I am sure now that the cat is out of the bag, this will not be the last we have seen of these type of videos. Unfortunately this poor college kid and his idealistic world does not get it. He is not a hero, a martyr, or the leader of a new movement and going to be seen as a self promoting schmuck. YOU DID IT WRONG. At least wait for the frenzy of downloads to settle down before you out yourself to suck the blood from this rotten corpse before you give up the secret!
Good luck, working with Beyonce in the future dude! Hopefully you have a lawyer that is as talented as you for the defamation suit.
BTW What was up with the ad for HelloHomo.com in this ad? OMG it's his self promotional site! Shocker! hopefully none of the kids at 4Chan are Beyonce fans or his site is in trouble!
BTWBTW If he is so talented he should know that Microphone Systems don't have Auto Tune built into them!
Over on The Velvet Rope, the news is breaking that ADA Distribution is swallowing up Ryko. To quote the Internetz:
"Going down as we speak. Do not have all details yet, but staff informed this morning. Some transitioning, others not. Wonder where this leaves the Ryko label? Distribbed labels will be just as well served by ADA, who, imo, ought to be folded into WEA distro themselves, as it's inevitable."
"Cuomo consulting for next 90 days, 12 employees being folded in to ADA, Ryko label no change. Changes at WEA also."
As of today, you can now start voicing your opinions on the various venues across the land, on Myspace Local. This should help many people have better experiences touring by being able to search cool places to play, hang and promote across the country! Go voice your opinion on your favorite venues across the land!
As an artist, we always walk a difficult line of trying to know what is constructive criticism and what is people just spouting uninformed rage. It is easy to write off criticism that you may need to address as "hating", while it is also easy to believe your own hype and fall flat on your face in an egotistical loss of self perception. Every person has to make a decision as to how they handle these situations. In light of this discussion I found a great blog post where Cynical-C Blog, has assembled a collection of Amazon reviews of various inarguable classics being trashed in the comments section.
The criticisms range from perceptive:
The Princess Bride
The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy
Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon
The criticisms range from perceptive:
The Princess Bride
"The book is so much better than this crummy movie, which is ruined by having Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, and Billy Crystal working very very very hard to be very very cute."To full-on deranged:
The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy
"The book begins with the hero sitting down in front of his house in order to stop it being demolished to make room for a highway. He's lucky he wasn't Rachel Corrie, an American who was killed by an Israeli driving a bulldozer. Her death didn't receive one per cent of the publicity accorded this book, which descends into a cycle of abstruse stupidity."To Ridiculous:
Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon
"This cacophony of commie buzz words and simplistic, condescending communist ideals both offends me as an American, and as a music listener. Should've been called Red Side Of the Moon."
DJ MSP, runs one of the most bad ass and informative blogs for Hip-Hop Producers. In this post he has compiled a few choice snippets from Producer Just Blaze. You may know JB from his productions of Jay-Z, T.I., and Janet Jackson. There's some pretty cool stuff in here but the one contradiction I do have to laugh at is:"I don't really like it when people say, "we can fix that in mastering."By the time you get to the end of the article you get this choice quote:
"Whenever I mix records," Blaze illustrates, "instead of just recording to half inch or DAT, we make stems. With stems, after the record is mixed, we take every sound in the mix and rerecord it back into Pro Tools with its mixed levels and effects. So at the end of the day, you get a mixed multitrack. If you are mastering from multitrack, and the bottom end is lost when you compress, for instance, you can go back in and manually correct it."
File Under: Why Didn't I Invent That?
If you are one of the less metrosexual members of our readership, you may have plenty of closet space, and not enough space for guitars. This may be the perfect place to hang up your guitars. The Guitar Hanger is a pretty awesome tool! Though, the first time I see a band show up at a gig with a wardrobe rack of guitars I may throw up in my mouth.
What's next, bands bringing rolling racks as guitars?
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Girl Talk To Write His Own Songs On Next Record. Trying to appeal to the curmudgeon demographic!
- Pirate Bay Lawyer wants retrial! This case just takes the most surprising twists and turns!
- I thought Record Leaking was part of The New Music Model?
- Orbital knows their fans: They now sell glow-in-the-dark USB wristbands of their live set!
- Facebook and Lawsuit ridden Project Playlist COO is your new friend on Myspace
- When Gavin Rossdale named his band Bush, it was really just a beard!
- More Buddyhead Gossip!
- New Genre: Recession Rock
What's that young man? You hate computers and you listen to nothing but the Velvet Underground on 180-gram vinyl with a wobbly turntable, in the dark and under the covers at precisely midnight every Wednesday to preserve it's natural intended sound? Why, let me guess, you wanna record on analog tape!!! While often a royal pain, there are certainly some rewards for recording on tape. There's actually a lot you should know first, but here are a few quick things to look out for if you've never done this before.
Some riffs are so damn good they just stay indelibly etched in our minds. We call these "Righteous Riffs" because they deserve to be so heralded. Today we're going to look at Queen's
"Killer Queen" guitar solo. If Brian May were a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character, he would definitely be Master Shredder. Author of countless Righteous Riffs, May's tone, creativity and skill level are nearly untouchable. After the jump you'll see the solo in it's original context and a YouTuber's lesson in slow-mo so you can get all the little details. (Original photo from Fickr user: TheRevSteve)
What may promise to be a somewhat regular column here , I will be turning regular IM conversations I have with my friend of 10+ years, an A&R rep from a Major Label that prefers to remain anonymous, into an article. With millions of records under his belt, and some of the most condescending cynical banter I have ever heard, he has a lot to say. In the last 2 months I have begged for him to write us one of his many insightful opinions. Only under the condition that I never utter his name, transcribe the IM conversations and "not be a p***y about losing advertisers", will he contribute. In what I hope will be a regular feature, he imparts some advice to anyone who runs a label or is still signing bands. Follow me to the jump and let's hear his very wise advice. 
If you own a Digi 002/003 and an outboard Mic Pre or Console, you may be not getting the cleanest signal possible. Despite what they may have taught you at school, you don't always want to plug the XLR output of your Pre into the XLR input of your Interfaces. All of the XLR In's on these Interfaces have Mic Pre's on them that cannot be bypassed (at least not without a soldering Iron), these Mic Pre's color the sound in an unpleasant way. Instead you should pick up an XLR to 1/4" adapter for a few dollars (try Redco) and use Inputs 5-8 on your 002/003 or Inputs Line L/R on your MBox 2 Pro. Enjoy cleaner audio!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- BEYONCE CAN SING! THE WORLD IS SAVED!
- Norway's Warner Music was mean to a Blogger! Sick the LOLpitbullz on them!
- Obama continues Hoing it up with the RIAA
- 86% of Illegal File Sharering users just steal cause you won't make them pay for it!
- Joe The Biden hates music
- The Death Of Print continues as Rolling Stone Magazine closes it's final SF office!
- Golem is the new Ian Dury
- Ian Svenonious is Rock's best hyperbolist!
- Remixes are over, it's all about the Dub version. Declares one, Franz Ferdinand
Mashups are all the rage these days. They are fun and the kids in the clubs love them! Additionally, there is nothing that helps you understand the endless songwriting possibilities, like realizing how easy it is to make two songs work together in a musical way. You can even do this in Ableton's ultra cheap Ableton Live LE software. For more info and perspectives on how to make a Mashup, head to the jump!
Anyone who has sold any Merch at a concert in the past few years knows the pain of kids wishing they could buy your merch with their parents credit card, but you have no way of charging them for it. Maybe, you're doing a recording session and are no where near an ATM for your client to pay you, so you are left high and dry without payment. Those days are now over! You can now run a Credit/Debit Card on any 3G/Wi-Fi/Edge network! If you have an iPhone you can now use a new iPhone App called Innerfence to run these transactions. The App is a steep $49.99, though when you sign up with Authorize.net you get a $49.99 iTunes Gift Certificate as a rebate (till 4/30)! Authorize.net is who you will be dealing with as far as getting paid for your transactions. They charge a $25.00 a month merchants fee as well as the standard merchant percentages. This is not a solution if you think you may sell 1 T-shirt a month via Credit Card but a great solution to opening up the world of concertgoers spending money they do not have! BTW So far, the reviews in the App Store are flawless!
MyBandStock, SellABand, and now 100,000 Fans are all trying to usher in a New Music Model. If you are a fan or a band and are tired of Major Labels deciding who gets the funding for their record instead of 40-year-old-pony-tailed A&R Reps, these are the sites you should be involved in. Right now, 100,000 Fans is in Beta, however you can submit bands they should work with and sign up to be a part of it upon launching. I will allow the site to explain what they are about below:
"100,000 Fans is bringing back the label of days gone by and we need your help. If you are one of those super fans of music that's constantly searching for the next big artist, YOU are our A&R department. We want to know who your favorite unsigned bands are...100,000 Fans is a place where today's tastemakers can let the world know when they've found a great new artist. If they make the cut, we'll add them to the 100000Fans.com website and notify members through our weekly newsletter that our army of super fans found someone worth talking about. We'll make their current recordings available for a $2-10 donation to members. Once your submitted band reaches 20,000 downloads, we'll approach them about a recording deal and help them grow to 100,000 fans...Once the band has proven that they have what it takes to get to 100,000 Fans, we'll put together a team and get to work on getting new material recorded and promoting them them to fans in a smart way. You'll get to follow and be involved in their career as they grow. After all, you're one of the 100,000 fans that helped them get noticed!"
It's Earth Day! I figured I should probably write something that is responsible to the enviorment. Well more so, I am going to tell you about something that will save you money and help you feel better about being Green and all that Eco-Friendly stuff!
Let's start off with a little electricity lesson. If you leave any of the following devices plugged in - whether they are on or off, charging or not - they are eating up your electricity:
Let's start off with a little electricity lesson. If you leave any of the following devices plugged in - whether they are on or off, charging or not - they are eating up your electricity:
- Radio
- Cordless Phone
- Computer LCD Monitor
- Desktop Computer
- Laptop Computer (even the charger sitting idle/unplugged from the laptop)
- Printer
- Plasma Screen TV (The Biggest Hog Of The All EVEN WHEN TURNED OFF)
- Video Game Consoles
UMG's latest idea to get you hooked on their music is to turn YouTubes into a Game! You know the kids love their video games! Now you can attempt to answer how many stretch marks you saw on Lady Ga Ga's butt in her recent video or how many white guys are in TV On The Radio!
The Music Think Tank has written an article identifying the Music Industry Crisis's Issues. Anyone familiar with a 12 Step Program, knows you need to identify your problem before you recover! This is one of the first steps towards recovery!
This morning the Internetz is going wild over leaked audio of Beyonce "not being able to sing." The video above is of Mrs. Z's board feed of a recent performance on the Today Show (it almost sounds like a vocal version of the YouTube phenom shreds). The audience heard the video below (after the jump). While many people will complain about bloggers being bored, the real power of blogging is to set the record straight and I will attempt to do that right now. I have never met Beyonce, or heard her sing in person but as a Engineer/Producer, I know some facts that are being overlooked in this instance. I will make one simple argument that all of these skeptics are overlooking, that makes this a very stupid controversy.
Big news and Gossip out of Avid/Digidesign/Pro Tools today. First off the good news: Pro Tools is now compatible with all of the newly released Macs! This includes the iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro.
In other news, Avid is doing some serious rebranding, some interesting chatter over on Brent Heber's Blog that gives some insight into the world of Avid:
In other news, Avid is doing some serious rebranding, some interesting chatter over on Brent Heber's Blog that gives some insight into the world of Avid:
"Over the last 10 years, Avid as a company have had many CEOs devoted to change, to the principles of "interop" of making the audio and video arms talk and co-operate properly. For various reasons, this hasnt happened at the times when it was promised. Gary Greenfield however, is making change happen. In the last 18 months, we've seen some folks lets go (for better for worse) and the marketing, logistics, manufacturing, management and sales teams of the big 5 Avid companies have been slowly but surely merged into one single company. Thats right, not just merging 2 companies, but 5, at the same time!"So apparently Digidesign is now Avid Audio? What other changes does this mean are coming an email from Digidesign we all received yesterday has some answers! More after the jump!
"Digi (sorry Avid Audio)"
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Matt and Kim have a new video and apparently taking off your clothes does not improve your songwriting abilities!
- Obvious report of the day: consumer accept ads for free music - DUH!!!
- Nirvana's '92 Reading Festival performance will be released on DVD (their cover of "The Money Will Roll Right In" is included for a sprinkle of irony)
- Green Day to play SNL May 16 to coincide with new album release
- Northern Europe - The New Music Industry Model? SOCIALISM!
- There will be a Lil Wayne Doc! All dialogue is Autotuned!
- Yes, Billboard is now obsolete, now you can find out which artist has the most Twitter followers!
- Tom and Chris will soon not be your friends on Myspace anymore. Rupert Murdoch is replacing them with Neil Cavuto and Megan Kelly, since they REALLY understand business!
Beyonce can't sing?
Some vocalists learn a dozen tricks and trills to make them unique (Jeff Buckley being one example of such an acrobatic singer), but Rufus Wainwright has always had one (seemingly) simple trick: vibrato. Not only was Rufus gifted with a booming voice that seems to fill up any room, his mastery of vibrato is stunning. He uses it nearly every song and one has to imagine that at this point, he does it simply out of habit rather than on purpose (as do many people who use the technique). Above is Rufus performing the appropriately titled "Vibrate", where even live his incredible vibrato stands out magnificently (even when he playfully misses the last extended one). After the jump check out the vocal lesson from YouTube.
Nothing better than hearing real guitar lovers geek out. This clip is complete with Elvis Costello giving a number of great stories, including one with a tragic ending (at least for the guitar).
Yeah, it is from Paul Van Dyk, but it actually has some seemingly cool items, like a BPM counter, frequency analyzer and noise-meter. And we weren't kidding about the virtual glowstick. Pacifier and Ed Hardy shirt not included.
For all you shy guys and gals out there, we have just enabled anonymous commenting, so feel free to love, loathe or lethargically comment at will. This means (assuming the privilege isn't abused) that you can comment without even using a confirmed email address. But please, remember that your mom probably reads this site too, so keep make your swear words sparse and clever and don't bother with your porn links (we've got our own links that are totally safe for work, thanks).
EH has been releasing pedals like crazy lately, even increasing the variants of Big Muff's that are out there. So how does the new Big Muff Pi with Tone Wicker compare? Well, it sounds as if it might actually improve the sound of the traditional Muff by having some more tone options. The Muff can be a beastly pedal but sometimes it is difficult to cut through the mix, hopefully this new incarnation shows some improvement in that area.
Throughout the forums of the net, people puzzle over how to get their Pro Tools HD systems wired. With the never ending odd assortment of cables to weave through, I have one solid reccomendation. Use Redco! Guitar Center and the other chains mostly carry Monster and Mogami where you pay for a brand name and not quality. While Digidesigns own cables are not of the highest quality. Throughout my years of designing studios for other people Chris Stubbs at Redco has always found a way to get any crazy idea I have had for a wiring configuration to work. As well, Redco makes a cable called TGS that is the same quality as Mogami for MUCH LESS!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- In honor of it being Robert Smith's Bday, The Cure are streaming their whole My Space Secret Show from December on their Myspace page! Happy Bday Robert!
- Milli Vanilli THE MOVIE!
- The Sounds new single is available FREE right here!
- Do we really need help sorting out The Pirate Bay verdict?
- Matador Records gets the horns from Pressing Plant
- 88 y/o Dave Brubeck cancels a few shows!
- Steve Albini will save the record industry... or not!
- Oh YAY! Vh1 is brining back their show
C**tsDivas - Kevin Rudolf/Cash/Cash Tour Cancelled!
- Fred Durst Is Getting Married
It's been a month since we gave you three lessons in Twittering! Since then, technology sure has moved fast! There's tons of cool new stuff going on on Twitter that can help you/your band dethrone that Punk'd loser as the king of Twitter. Follow me to the jump and we will catch up!
Audio Ease has released version 2 of its higly regarded SpeakerPhone software. If you are not familiar, SpeakerPhone takes sound treatment to a new level by using convultion modelling, so you can feed your audio through neat things like old telephones, tin cans, car backseats etc. Sounds fun right? Check out what V2 has in store for you.
In this video, astute YouTuber TImbreman, shows us his "Tap Bass" technique. Isn't it odd that you never hear slap bass in modern recording today, yet there is still 20 million YouTube videos demonstrating it! Despite it being overdone, this fine YouTuber exhibits great tone and it would be awesome to see him on a more HQ video showing the subtleties of this technique.
Here is the software every Karaoke Singer, DJ, Remixer, Sample-Based Artist, Audio Nerd, etc. has been waiting for. Sonicworx Pro now allows you to choose an instrument in premixed stereo audio, isolate it and play back just that instrument! The possibilities of this are endless, whether it is making Instrumentals, lifting samples to use in songs, or making Karaoke versions of your fathers favorite Percy Sledge songs for Christmas. This software, along with Melodyne DNA could usher in a renaissance of sample based music! However, clocking in at $1,850, is going to keep it out of reach of the common folk for a while! None the less, look for this software to start revolutionizing music!
If you haven't heard they hype yet, or if you have, allow me to reinforce it. This weekend I saw Anvil: The Story Of Anvil and it is an amazing movie. It is funny, insightful, heartbreaking and heartwarming. Like everyone says, YOU NEED TO SEE IT! There's a funny quarrel in my mind since seeing it:
As I get older I see some of my friends still living the Rockstar dream, past an age I find acceptable. They go on thinking their big break is coming soon, when really it isn't too likely. You look at them with supportive, but condescending eyes. These are the same eyes you look at these 50 year-old rockers with. However, the happy ending is their dreams are coming true, they were on CNN this morning, playing big shows and this week signed a deal to be included on Rock Band! Maybe fairy tales do come true and I should be less judgmental? Keep on living the dream, just get a documentary crew filiming it!
A few years ago I was turned onto a fantastic set of books from author Jeffery Gitomer , beginning with "The Little Red Book of Selling". A sort of sales/marketing genius, Gitomer proposes that you offer value before you ever try and sell anything (in this case, that would mean your band). So what exactly is he getting at? We think he means before trying to add a million friends on Myspace/Facebook or sending your CD off to a zillion labels, perhaps try giving something to the music community first. This could mean anything from giving a speech at a music event, writing an article about the industry, or helping other bands record themselves, for starters. If they like/trust you, they are much more likely to hear you/your music out. Once you become a leader of something and offer what you have, people will follow. After the jump, we'll expound upon this idea. 
FabFilter makes some very awesome plug-ins. I am a big fan of their delay plug-in Timeless. While I have never tried the FabFilter One, it right now it has a pretty irresistible deal going. They are selling the Mac/PC, RTAS/AU/VST, compatible plug-in for just 5 Euros this week! That's a pretty good steal since it is 90% off the original price. Try a demo and if you like what you hear, act fast!
We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over. - Bob Dylan, no longer hearting his Sirius Radio Show?
- Paul Williams elected the head of ASCAP! Is this all a ploy to advertise ASCAP as the place where "Someday you will find the Rainbow Connection?" If so, I have sad news, what is on the other side is a kid drinking a Slurpee stealing your music.
- David Byrne booking a stage at Bonaroo is me stretching to find news. Lollapalooza's lineup being announced is not. But it is not half as cool as The Coachella Awards. Lollapalooza deserves credit for starting the "Stupid name for your festival" craze though!
- Warp Records looks back on 20 years of being one of the best labels in the biz!
- In more shocking news The Pirate Bay has filed an appeal! Even though, Judge Paul McCartney of The Sgt. Peppers Lonely Appeals Court has deemed the ruling "Fair!"
- Dave Grohl now has 2 kids, as compared to the 0 good songs he has written this decade.
- The Pixies plan a box set. They know all of their fans have grown up to have money and need some place to spend it! Like $450 to spare!
- Why can't the world download Susan Boyle songs??!?!?!
In a very special WTF! moment, we just found out Old Navy is producing t-shirts with vintage synths printed on them (heads up to Suit And Tie Guy for this find). It's moments like this where we are really confused as to whether this is awful or awesome. I'll go with both. We pulled this spectacular quote from the Old Navy website, which really sums up everything: "Rock on! You can show your allegiance to the music scene with this cool graphic tee." At that, we're speechless. No word yet whether the shirts are analog or digital. 
It seemed inevitable, so finally someone is offering packages where you can upload your songs/album online and get it mastered (apparently as simple as drag and drop). Wellmixed.com, who also does mixing work online, can now work on your mastering needs too. For some people, not being present at session of mastering might be frightening, but many bands never bother to attend their mastering sessions anyway (and some mastering technicians don't even want you there!) No word yet on the quality of their services, but the idea of it certainly sounds exciting and will probably give you better results than doing it yourself.
Not matter how you feel about them, Gorrilaz certainly turned the music world on it's arse and brought a unique sound and a style that had yet to be seen. Most importantly, the are massively successful (approximately 19 million records sold to date). A new documentary about the band has been released this month called Bananaz. Watch the full movie here or wait for it to arrive on DVD in early June.
We've reported on awesome music-related iPhone apps before, but as time goes on they appear to get better and better. The iSyn Virtual Music Studio looks to have a lot going for it - the filtering options available with the touch screen look awesome!
Danelectro has decided to re-release their Coral Hornet guitar from the '60's, this time around calling it the "Dead on '67". Complete with two traditional Danelectro lipstick pickups, the "Dead on..." also has a tremolo bar and split pickguard. Originally, the Coral Hornet was available through the Sears catalog, probably where most people will have seen it before. The guitar is available in a wide range of colors and is listed at just a few hundred bucks, so it might be worth a shot from those who want a guitar that looks an awful lot like a Fender Mustang but can't afford the real thing. 
Pilotfish's Ondo is one of the strangest phone concepts we've seen - it's touch-sensitive, bendable and a modular music device. It has three panels (or sticks) which can be removed and used as clipped onto people or instruments and used as microphone. Sounds can be manipulated just by bending the device (similar to a whammy bar on a guitar). Sounds can also be send via MMS message. The device is only a concept right now, but tactile sound editing certainly sounds interesting. Full story here.
The day has come that you can be almost as cool as NIN and have an AMAZING iPhone app for your band. Mobile Roadie will build you a iPhone App including:
PS For a discount use this codefor a special hook up: Musform
- Music- Stream your music for your fans to sample and link to purchase on iTunes directly from your app.
- Photos- Upload new photos of shows, press shots, candids, ANYTHING, whenever you want.
- Shows- Allow your fans to follow your tour dates and alert them when you'll be in their area. Link to Ticketmaster/Live Nation (or any ticketing site) so your fans can purchase tickets on the fly.
- YouTube- Link to your YouTube videos from your app.
- News/Updates- Post news stories with pictures and links. Also integrate your Twitter and RSS feeds.
- Fan Wall- Let's your fans participate, talk to each other, post photos from your shows, etc...
- Profiles- Integrate all your online social profiles within the app. Fans can browse your Myspace, Facebook, Imeem, etc. profiles right in your app.
- Customization - Fully configurable. Upload your own images, choose your own colors, and fully control your content.
- Stats- In depth reporting from the number of downloads, to what tracks are getting the most plays.
- Song Notes- Add lyrics or notes about each song to better connect w/fans, share your process and get your users into your music.
PS For a discount use this codefor a special hook up: Musform
Have you ever needed 8 more Inputs or Outputs? Perhaps you have an Output Expansion Card in your 192 and would like another 8 Inputs? Simply grab another Digi 002 /003 (Rack or Control Surface), a Opitcal Cable, follow a few tweaks and you are ready to go. Seeing as 002 Racks now go for less than $500 on eBay, this is a great cheap way to get yourself 8 More Ins/Outs with some added features. Follow me to the jump and I will show you how!
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- Smashing Pumpkins go non-profit subscription model! Promising video updates. Hopefully none of them will be of Billy C and Tila Tequila getting it on!
- Google is the
newold The Pirate Bay - Taking Back Sunday unveil new single!
- JG Ballard influenced a ton of cool bands and now he is dead. However Stephen Hawking who has sadly fallen ill, is definitely more influential on today's dance music scene vocals.
- Poor Katy Perry, Apparently Saudi Arabia doesn't have Photoshop yet!
- Steven Reich (my favorite classical composer) wins the Pulitzer Prize!
Creativityist.com Interview With Zach Lind of Jimmy Eat World from John Chandler on Vimeo.
Jimmy Eat World is one of those bands that when someone is a fan, they are a rabid fan. A creative force that stays miles ahead of the crop by maintaining a creative edge on every band in their genre, they are regarded as one of the bands that keeps a very stagnant genre's songwriting moving forward. Awesome blog Creativityist has interviewed drummer Zach Lind about what goes into Jimmy Eat World's creative process to make them so exceptional. Not to mention discussing some of the awesome ways the band uses Twitter.
WTF is that? I was on Digidesign's site this morning and stood in disbelief that anyone approved a logo that illegible! Hopefully Pro Tools won't suffer the wrath of this blind Graphic Designer.
As an artist in the modern world, you need to send your tracks to other people, whether it is approving mixes, trying to get signed, or to collaborate. Using sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload and Yousendit comes with annoying wait times and file size restrictions. When you are trying to get someone in the industry to listen to your track, these wait times can be the difference between your track getting listened to or forgotten. This is where SoundCloud comes into the picture, eliminating the wait time on these files as well as a few other awesome features:
- The ability to upload high quality files, rather than low quality Pure Volume/Myspace streams.
- Download is optional for helping to prevent leaks.
- You can see if the files recipient listened to the file, eliminating the constant worrying if the label A&R man heard your song and awkward reminder emails.
- You can make files private! Making them only available to a few recipients rather then having the whole world be able to hear your file if a URL is leaked.
Twitter is becoming useful for things outside of killing time! Blogger Andrew Spitz, has developed a Mac App, where you can tweet Synth Patches. The software runs off Max/MSP, but shows hints of where some of the cool new technology is going!
Here, we have an article where corporate douche extraordinaire (does that make him a CDEO?), Seth Matlin of Live Nation, explains to Ad Age, how he is going to get all of you to stop playing Rock Band on a Friday night. What will you be doing instead? Paying for overpriced tickets from his upcoming monopoly when Ticketmaster and Live Nation merge. He is soooo psyched, to be raping your wallet with over priced concert tickets so he can redecorate his office!
via Alex Still of the kick ass The Walk Ons
via Alex Still of the kick ass The Walk Ons
One of the few people who can put up with Axl Rose, has spoken about some of the excessive creative process behind Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy. Even more interesting, he talks about his use of MPC 2000 programming and other drum techniques on Tom Waits album Real Gone.
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Now the kids are jumping on the vinyl bandwagon! Not according to this guy!
- The 15 Record Stores that might, still exist next year!
- Dee Dee
RamoneKing is the best Hip Hop artist of our time! - Tim And Eric do Kraftwerk
- Mike Patton's greatest YouTube hits!
- Pitchfork does the YouTube coverage of Coachella, for those of us WITH JOBS!
- Duh! No one was shocked by The Pirate Bay verdict, so stop writing articles asserting we were!
- Sasha Frere-Jones hearts Lady Ga Ga, while making some great points!
- Coachella had tons of non record buyers in attendance, while Record Store Day had good law abiding citizens.
- Hipster Runoff does Record Store Day!
- Perry Farrel brags about being difficult to work with, since he thinks that makes him a "deep" artist.
- Radio is back!
- Fall Out Boy + Vacation Spots = Trouble
- Pink Floyd is suing EMI
- Echo is Shutting down.
- Another study finds that people who steal music buy a lot of it, tomorrow the study finding the opposite will be published and the world will continue to spin.
- Douglas Wolk on Spoken-Word-One-Hit-Wonders.
While there is no shortage of exciting pedals for guitar players to use, there seems to be very few decent on-stage effects pedals for vocalists. However, one of the coolest sounding new toys announced at the NAMM show this year was the Voice Box from Electro-Harmonix. The pedal offers settings for reverb, up to 4-part harmonies and a whopping 256-band vocoder. One of the most exciting aspects of the pedal is the option for XLR ins and outs, which means you can control the pedal on-stage without having to burden the soundman, who probably isn't interested in turning it on and off or adjusting the settings for you. While the vocoder sounds good on the clips we've seen, having heard so many things vocoded lately, we are more excited about the Beach Boy-like harmonies that seem possible with this unit! We're also giving out bonus points to EH for having one of the worst demo songs in recent memory.
Which music software is best for you? Certainly a good question to ask before you plunk down a good chunk of money on one of the many programs offered out there. While you should do your research online and ask your friends their opinion, one good thing to do is try before you buy. Many of the big software companies offer quality demos that allow you try before you buy. Here is a good list of those companies that do, as well as a list of virtual instruments you can demo.
Quick keys can save your life when using music production software, but memorizing them can be a real pain. Someone has gone through the trouble of mapping out the commands for Reason 4.0, which will be a blessing for many of us. Just follow this link to the PDF download and you can print it and keep it close by. Sorry Windows users, this is for Mac keyboards.
Believe it or not, this ridiculous-looking axe is not modern, but in fact was made back in England in 1970. While we can find no evidence that Yosemite Sam owned one, sources say that Joe Walsh bought one (which is pretty close I guess). Dubbed the Colt Peacemaker Mark II, the trigger acts as the volume control and the hammer of the gun is the pickup selector. Apparently, back then you didn't need a license to carry this thing, only a willingness to look utterly ridiculous.
There are many good reasons to choose Logic as your recording/production software, but one that you often hear about but might not yet take advantage of is the environment. Although challenging at first, when fully understood, Logic's environment provides a whole array of things for it's users. In particular, the MIDI capability is immense!
Remember when you didn't get the Myspace or Facebook URL you wanted? Before Google takes over the whole world you should probably make a Google profile and get a good URL for it! This will also help your SEO, as we discussed in our previous article about if you still need a website. In fact, you could easily do a very lackluster nameplate website right on here! If you have already made a Google Profile you can now choose your own URL for it! Go check out Lifehacker for details!
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Pitchforks Guide To Record Store Day!
- 30 Kanye Blingees!
- Why The Pirate Bay verdict don't mean a thing!
- MixMag buys Dontstayin.com
- WFMU Interviews Throbbing Gristle, who performed in Brooklyn last night!
- My Back To Mono series should have included The Beatles!
- Anvil headed to Rock Band
- The Boston Symphony feels The Bush Recession
Last time we told you about the philosophies that go into being a good Assistant. This time we are going to talk about what those philosophies look like in practice:- You should be taking notes on what you've learned and questions you'd like to ask, at an appropriate time.
- You should be trying to figure out how you can be helpful without getting in the way of the sessions flow. For example, if you hear the snare de-tuning mid-take, it is not your place to stop things and go tune it up. However, when you hear the engineer mention that the piano overdub is up next, it is definitely helpful to get stands and headphones run ASAP.
- Take great notes for the Producer/Engineer. If you are in charge of recalls this is indispensable, this also helps you to learn what goes into getting tones. When something needs to be punched at a later date, you can save the day with a great recall.
- If someone mentions being hungry, it is your job to present them with the Menu Book instantly. You must take specific notes on the order, making sure they are repeated back to you on the phone. At the pick up location you then need to check that every piece of the order is in there. If you mess this up, the session may grind to a halt. If a cranky, under-fed musician has no dinner, they can easily throw a tantrum and complain about not nailing a part because of hunger.
- Having a singer set up with everything they need to be comfortable (untangled cables, clean environment, water, tea, a good headphone mix) before the Vocalist enters booth is a major Brownie Point winner.
- Be quiet during the session! Tapping to the beat or picking up a guitar/singing while people are working can get you instantly fired. Keep conversations to a minimum when they are with in earshot of those working.
- Do not offer your production ideas in front of the band, it is acceptable to suggest things when out of the band's earshot, but stopping the flow of the session can make the "too many chefs' in the kitchen" saying a reality. The last thing any session needs is a Assistant offering cymbal reverse effect suggestions.
- A Verse Unsung signs to Photo Finish an Atlantic Imprint
- We Came As Romans have signed to Equal Vision Records.
- He Is Legend has signed to Tragic Hero Records.
- Kid Cudi signs to Universal Motown
- A bunch of labels are currently courting Man Overboard over their new unreleased demos!
- The Matches have fullfilled their contract with Epitaph and for some reason are looking for a new label despite being on the best one around.
Our last practicing tip, was to use Marching Sticks at home. This time we have a great piece of gear that can help build up your strength and chops. The RTOM Moongel Workout Pad is not very bouncy. Many drummers get by tuning their drums very high in order to cheat on their fills. This sacrifices drum tone in favor of playability! By using the Moongel Workout Pad you build the strength needed to pull off awesome fills and when you get on your drumset it feels like you are playing a toy!
It's one of the simplest things to do, but many users still don't know how to use the automation in Logic. If you're not using automation you're missing out how all the subtle effects and movement it can provide your track. The video also includes moving and copying automation, which is very helpful! This tip will save you tons of time and improve your tracks by leaps.
Tapping looks easy enough! However, if you listen to most of today's Metal records, you hear awful tapping tone. This tutorial shows you how to avoid this plague.
Moby has a new single out called "Shot In The Back Of The Head" and the video has been directed by David Lynch. The instrumental song (thank god) is quite good and the accompanying video is even better. In other good news, he's gone all Trent Reznor for his business model and is giving away the song here. More on the story at Rolling Stone.
I don't think they could have found a better product demonstration!
That's right everyone, better start getting out your money and get on Last.Fm and Jango's Pay-To-Play programs. "The number of Americans that tune in weekly to online radio grew to 42 million, up from 33 million in 2008", claims Media Week via a study by Arbitron and Edison Research. This is fantastic news, seeing as traditional radio seems to be going more talk orientated.
Via Alex Still of the fantastic The Walk Ons
Via Alex Still of the fantastic The Walk Ons
Laments go around talking about copyright law like they are lawyers everyday! Since, Musformation loves getting facts straight we have 11 Copyright Myths that you may want to know before you run your mouth like you have been reading Ars Technica all your life!
Have you been wondering how to use the Axiom Pads to Trigger Transfuser? You are not alone, since Digi had to post a rare How-To on their site! Go check it out! (via The Air Users Blog)
The Pirate Bay trial has found the Pirates guilty, which means prison
sentences for the defendants and a $3.5
million fine. This seems to not be over since the Defendant is quoted as saying he "would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the dust from the burning!" More over at ARS.
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Time Warner backs down on raping your wallet!
- Idolator helps recession proof your band!
- The Bent Festival Is This Week!
- An Interview with Entertainment Lawyer Lisa Alter!
- Prefix Mag's Guide To Record Store Day Specials!
- RIP PHOTOGRAPHER SHAWN MORTENSEN 1966--2009
- The Dead Weather are alive and well!
Tonight, TechCrunch broke the news of a new site called, We Are Hunted. The site's intent is to update the music industries' charts by finding what people are listening to on the internet, rather than what they are buying in stores. We all know, no one buys music anymore, so a site like this would be very useful! The service monitors the most popular songs on iLike, BitTorrent,
Last.fm, MySpace Music and other Web music services, as well as
discussions on Twitter, blogs, and press sites. While TechCrunch may be the best site for Tech start-up news on the web, they missed the ball on this one! We Are Hunted claims these songs are the biggest artists on the web right now, my analysis is they need to tweak their algorithim! - "Corner" by Embarrassing
- "Life In The Future_M..." by Voxtrot
- "Whispering Your Name" by Alison Moyet
- "Tunisia Bambaata (mercury Remix)" by DJ Mehdi
- "Cat State Comity" by Mazes
- "This Tainted Love" by DJ Zebra
- "Whoa Billy" by Lucky Soul
- "Saddle Up" by the Boy Least
- "The Strangers" by St. Vincent
Now that's what I call embarrassing! Yet somehow, they are the number one band on the internet? I think this site is some poor girl in Australia's mixtape, not a tech startup! 
With a zillion plays on YouTube and an insane amount of press, you'd have to be half brain dead not to have seen the Susan Boyle YouTube clips from Britain's Got Talent (embedding was disabled) and to have not read some analysis about it. However, my take on the situation is a little different. I was certainly moved by the homely, unemployed, 47 year-old's performance, but it wasn't because of her age, employment status, or lack of aesthetic appeal. Susan Boyle is interesting because she's genuine. 
Have you ever had the pain of not being able to do a plug-in chain in a certain order, because one plug-in is RTAS and another is TDM? Every time you do you make your Delay Compensation go right to hell? A simple Set-It-And-Forget-It in your Playback Engine window will allow you to be as creative you want. Simply put your H/W Buffer Size to 1024 Samples and set your Delay Compensation to Long. This should allow you to utilize nearly every plug-in combo in the book with rare exception. This includes RTAS plugins on Aux's and Master Faders! For a picture of how this setting looks head to the jump!
Beatboxing has been thought to be a cheesey gimmick or for Hip-Hop songs. However, it doesn't need to be that way! There are many ways that using your voice to sing your drum parts can add creativity and innovation to your tracks. Above is a great example from The Flaming Lips, classic The Soft Bulletin, the song "Feeling Your Self Disintegrate". Despite having what many would deem to be a cheesy technique, the song retains a desperate, emotional tone and makes for psychedelic magic. Follow me to the jump and we will show you a few other ways to use this technique in a tasteful way!
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- WTF of the day! Brittany Spears has a Lip Sync Coordinator.
- The Difference Between $100 and $100,000 Speakers
- Phoenix New Video and Record Rule!
- The Ten Best Fake Bands Of All Time!
- Kevin Shields Of My Bloody Valentine MAY Finish the follow up to Loveless before Armageddon!
- All Warner Bros. Movie and TV music rights are belong to Universal Music Publishing Group
- Crystal Castles Castles Are Crumbling
- Payola And Internet Radio BFF
- $1.29 hurt iTunes sales but upped profits?
In past episodes, we have discussed how to set your rates on a supply and demand basis and the nuances of working for free while not seeming cheap. This time we are going to discuss some of the ways to get the most money from a project. Not only can you get a little more money out of most budgets, you can also get free promotion from them.
Proper Disk Allocation for your session is essential knowledge. If your files are not being recorded to the place you think they are, you will not be able to back up properly and are destined for problems. You may be asking yourself, "Why wouldn't my files just go to the session folder?" here are a few possible reasons:- You started your session on a drive not capable of Audio Playback/Record. Some drives are not fast enough to be qualified for Audio playback. If your Audio Software deems your drive insufficient it may put your Audio on a drive that can handle it.
- Your disk is full. If your disk fills up the Audio Software may move it to another disk that is not full. It will usually ask your permission to do so, but if you notice your main recording disk is full, be sure to check around and make sure all the Audio Files are still in their proper place.
- You copied your session to a new drive but did not change your Disk Allocation. Most Audio Software has fixed this problem, however if you copied your Session from another disk it is usually a good idea to check your Disk Allocation, to make sure your Audio is playing/recording on that right drive.
I recently penned an Op-Ed where I lamented the morons who say Radio is how people still discover new music. Gizmodo has come to the rescue and written article that perfectly sums up all the new ways to find awesome new music. It is a great article for any music lover.
PayPal has now instituted a MicroPayments System! What does this mean to you? You can now sell one song at a time through PayPal, without having to give anyone a cut aside from PayPal, who will take 5% of each sale. This opens up many doors since consumers trust PayPal and know they are accountable for people who do not honor their sales agreements. For more details head over to Hypebot!
NSFW
This tutorial will show you how to perfectly playback vocals in Reason with no timing problems or drifting audio.
You heard it right. Popular culture giants MTV have decided to bring back (gasp!) videos! Well, sort of. From the hours of 3-9AM and only Monday through Thursday. So if you work the 2nd shift at the Mini-Mart during the week (or smoke crack to stay awake at night) you might have a chance to catch your favorite Fall Out Boy video. Possibly better news is that the monolithic network has decided to try and bring back the Unplugged series, which actually did bring some decent artists WAY back in the day.
With an enormous audience and nearly every excuse not to fail, the Myspace Music project that launched six months ago seemed to have initially flopped. Search functions often didn't (and still don't) work properly, songs were difficult to find and there seemed to be a lack of focus and absence of actual social networking properties involved in the endeavor. In January, Myspace recognized their blunders and put industry veteran Courtney Holt in charge of the project. Now she has some new ideas to help save them, like: bringing back the album, making playlists more open and social and adding more independent music to the mix. Sounds like a good start to us, more on the full story here. 
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.
- The real return of The Rentals?
- Loser "Producer" Scott Storch, aressted for stealing a Bentley
- Michael Jackson is realllly creepy! Video Proof!
- Raspberries Singer, Eric Carmen is feeling a little sour as he goes to jail for a DUI
- Despite Recession people will still buy music. I think the charts may argue with this survey.
- The Dallas Cowboys form worlds first "Roid Rage" Metal Band.
- Frank Zappa's wife is a Rock Blocker!
- Warner is still not Bros with YouTube
- Eddie Van Halen Shoes? What next Dentures?
- 21 Free MP3 Label Samplers
If you've never tried Open E tuning for slide guitar, you're missing out. It's the tuning used on SO many classic artists (Allman Brothers, Son House, Robert Johnson and more) and best of all, it's super easy and sounds awesome!
The ultimate indie-rock shoe is now also a noise-generating device!
A great Assistant is one of the most valuable assets a Producer/Engineer can have. There is much thought on how to be a great Assistant. Below are the philosophies of a great Assistant:- An assistant should be always trying to think of how to be invisible. It is great to be helpful, but constantly asking how you can be of help can be very annoying. Being intuitive is what makes a great Engineer and you are in training to be just that. Asking too many questions is counter intuitive. Though the occasional, "What can I be doing?" can be helpful when you see the session is getting overwhelming.
- Make the Producer/Engineers' lives easier without them noticing. If you know things are going to need to be taped down and labeled, have the tape already in hand.
- Do not feel you are above sh*t work! Often times, doing things you are insulted by for a few weeks can prove your worth to a Producer who is hazing you. We all have our boundaries and if someone is being drastically inappropriate know when to say when, but also keep in mind you need to pay your dues.
- Think of the band as your significant others parents. Assuming most musicians are liberal types, you may want to avoid discussing Religion, Race, Gender, or Politics till you know the waters are safe to tread.
If you find yourself doing the same zoom level over and over again and clicking the R+T shortcuts numerous times, we have a great shortcut for you to try out. Ctrl+click the 1-5 zoom preset buttons to save 5 custom zoom settings. This is great for tracking and zooming in to align samples or edit drums! Then use the 1,2,3,4,5 keys to zoom to these levels!
Yes, you read that correctly, after years of complaints, Myspace finally has lifted the 6 song cap!
The always smart Music Think Tank has one of their best articles up today. It tell you how to increase your earning from iTunes, selling more music and making more fans! Sounds like a win-win situation to me! These tips are simple and take almost no time!
In the never ending story of Booking Agent Consolidations we have the story of Robin Taylor's Inland Empire Touring, joining ICM. This brings the Shins, Modest Mouse,
Band of Horses, the Hold Steady, !!! and Wolf Parade, among others,
into the ICM rock lineup.
Nettwerk Management and Label are trying out some new ideas. One of particular interest is the idea of the "Karma Table". Where an artist will be performing for donations after their set each night. An interesting experiment, that may be the future of unknown bands getting ahead! Techdirt has the dirt:
"Nettwerk artist k-os is doing this, setting up a "Karma table" where you can also get a free copy of k-os' "fan-mixed" album. This was the other experiment Nettwerk is running: rather than letting fans remix the album, they released all the stems so that fans could mixand the professionally mixed versions. the album itself -- and then they're releasing both the best fan-mixed versions"
"Nettwerk artist k-os is doing this, setting up a "Karma table" where you can also get a free copy of k-os' "fan-mixed" album. This was the other experiment Nettwerk is running: rather than letting fans remix the album, they released all the stems so that fans could mixand the professionally mixed versions. the album itself -- and then they're releasing both the best fan-mixed versions"
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.
- Sunny Day Real Estate may reunite!
- We don't need Audiophiles! But we do need Michael Fremer!
- Korn are recording a new record with Ross Robinson!
- Slate Mag loves Limp Bizkit, apparently we love Nu Metal!
- Rent Ozzy's House. Complimentary batheads for dinner every night!
- Will Oldham hates Wes Anderson. Indie Rock world is split!
- Interview with LaLa's evil creator
- Iron Maiden get a movie with a terrible title! Flight 666
- Jill Sobule fans paid for her record!
- iPhone bands are the wave of the future!
- Curmudgeon Bob Lefsetz speaks about "The Album"
Previously, we reported on rumors about Celemony not being able to deliver on Melodyne DNA. Celemony has responded and denied the rumor:
"Nobody is panicking at Celemony. We know we are late, and that may have raised some speculations. However, DNA still works as intended, and we are happy to invite you to our public beta test that we expect to start in late May or early June. Feel free to try this beta with your own audio files and not just "prefabricated loops""We can now sleep well at night knowing we will be able to do more audio manipulating soon enough.
Now that iTunes has a 3 different prices, you need to figure out where to get the best deal when you buy music. This App named Advantegous does all the leg work for you. Mac and PC versions are both available!
At Musformation we pride ourselves on giving you every bit of info you need as a musician. That being the case, I have a bunch of tips on how to not get audited by the government from Consumerist. If you didn't realize your taxes were due till you saw this post you are a retard, but there is hope for you. Just file for an extension.
Yes, you read that right. Not only do they have the coolest looking video game-like controllers for their live set, the Robots now have an amazing video game where you need to steal back the samples from Justice! OMG WTF doesn't even begin to describe it!
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.- I love Master Of Puppets too, but damn dude, breathe from your nose not your mouth!
- Live Nation sho iz dum!
- A Great Big Pile Of Leaves featuring insanely talented drummer Tyler Soucy will be touring
- George Harrison Gets Star On Hollywood Walk of Fame... It's about time! Have you ever heard All Things Must Pass?
- Apple releases iPhone OS 3 beta 3 to developers AKA every torrent site on the net!
- Obama smokes the best w33d with The Dead
- Warner Bros. is doing the walk of shame after getting in bed with Myspace... Like every ho, this makes their stock rise!
- Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is All Tomorrows Parties BFF or at least their cash cow!
- The Nine Inch Nail App is out today! Get ready to Socio Network with fat goth chicks across the land!
- When not smoking w33d with The Dead, all Obama does is hang out with his dog and hire members of the RIAA
- Stream new records from Ida Marie, Death Cab For Cutie, and Cold War Kids here.
- The Streets used Twitter to give away a new song
- I hope 50 and Rick Ross don't take it to this level
Announced by Trent Reznor via Twitter, the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app we recently reported on is finally out in the iTunes store. As previously mentioned, the app is free. Wired has a nice article about the app and it's implications. Having just downloaded it, we can tell you that there is incredible depth and amazing features available on this app - clearly a great deal of time was spent on developing this. Despite using the app just briefly, we are still convinced that this will be seen as a redefining moment in the way that successful artists communicate with their fans in the very near future.
Effectrix from Sugar Bytes is an awesome plugin that is SO easy to use it's ridiculous. Complete with Chorus, Phaser, Beat Stuttering and Vinyl Effects, Effectrix can give you some of the same sounds as the big boys without having to do so much tedious manual editing. This video has no voice over but you can easily tell what is going because the interface is that simple.
Nothing in the world sounds like a pedal steel guitar - it might be the saddest damn sound in the world. This little video from the Science Channel shows that there is actually a LOT that goes into it these weepy instruments!
This video is great evidence that no matter how advanced a player you are, you should regularly practice to a metronome.
Tom Gating is a touchy subject. Some feel it is best to maintain the natural sound of the kit, while others want maximum control over the sound without nasty bleed. Others feel you should still maintain some of the Tom bleed, just ride it down a little. I feel each one of those theories is a separate technique to be used at different times. In this video we are going to go to the extreme and delete out all the bleed from each Tom track in the session. The reason you would do this would be to get maximum control over your Tom's tone to compress and EQ them. Traditional Gates take up CPU or can be inaccurate, while drawing in automation can be a long cumbersome task, though it does offer more control. While some of the sound may be a little bit processed when soloed, once there are instruments on top it is the subtlety that is lost. For a more natural feel you can extend your fades much longer (or write in automation) if you'd like to keep a more natural sound to your tracks. In this video we explore hard gating your Tom tracks in the waveform.
Last time, we told you the basic guiding principle behind setting your rates. Today's questions is: what do you do when you are trying to get your foot in the door? How do you work for cheap without seeming cheap? How do you fit into a budget without word getting around town that you cost nothing to work with? Let's find out.
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.- The World Does Not Want A Zune HD
- Maniacal IDJ Leader LA Reid will be on Charlie Rose tomorrow pretending all his employees don't think he is helping run the ship into the ground.
- Rancid are back after a million years with their new single "Last One To Die" available on iTunes today!
- Let's hope Toby Keith is selling CDs over there so we don't have to buy them here!
- The modern world is very interesting to Brian Eno, particularly his daughters iPod.
- Sarah Jessica Parker is playing a coke loving Devo groupie! Oops that was reality!
- I doubt anyone will notice, Passalong Networks is shutting down.
- "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" is our "Stairway To Heaven"
- Moby is back, to counter the grunge comeback... again!
- Jack White speaks!
- The Decemberists know their demographic: 30-somethings sitting in front of the TV eating Americone Dream
- Dave Matthews
TwittersEmails New Song - Craig David Born to Do It second best album of all time?
From the I Use It Everyday files:
The question across every forum across the land is which ____ to buy? When it comes to External Hard Drives, I have one simple product recommendation that has stood by my side for 6+ years. Other World Computing Mercury Elite Hard Drives! If you do a simple Google search for any of the major hard drive brands found in Best Buy or Guitar Center you will see complaints about failures and lack of customer support. This is not the case with OWC. Throughout the years, OWC has replaced faulty drive enclosures (under their extensive warranty), brought drives back to life and been amazing with customer support. I am not one to usually get on the soapbox and swear devotion, but this company's products and support have impressed someone who is rarely impressed. In the past, I have stressed the importance of a workable backup drive. The OWC Mercury Elite collection have the connections and speed to handle high density Audio and Video, including insanely dense drum edits and track counts. I have recommended them to countless friends over the years and every friend of mine has become a convert. It is about time you become one too!
The question across every forum across the land is which ____ to buy? When it comes to External Hard Drives, I have one simple product recommendation that has stood by my side for 6+ years. Other World Computing Mercury Elite Hard Drives! If you do a simple Google search for any of the major hard drive brands found in Best Buy or Guitar Center you will see complaints about failures and lack of customer support. This is not the case with OWC. Throughout the years, OWC has replaced faulty drive enclosures (under their extensive warranty), brought drives back to life and been amazing with customer support. I am not one to usually get on the soapbox and swear devotion, but this company's products and support have impressed someone who is rarely impressed. In the past, I have stressed the importance of a workable backup drive. The OWC Mercury Elite collection have the connections and speed to handle high density Audio and Video, including insanely dense drum edits and track counts. I have recommended them to countless friends over the years and every friend of mine has become a convert. It is about time you become one too!
Friends of mine often ask me why I don't tell some stories about all the bands I have worked with and dish out some dirt? Well, dig in! You would imagine in a trial like Phil Spector's case, it would help the prosecution to call a character witness who had once had a gun pulled on them. In a VERY famous incident, while recording End Of The Century, Producer Phil Spector pulled a gun on the band and demanded they play wife Ronnie's hit "Baby I Love You".
Years ago, while working with Marky Ramone on a Misfits record, I said to Marky, "So why did Phil Spector pull a gun on you guys?" He replied with a very confrontational "HE DIDN'T PULL A GUN ON ME!!! IT WAS THOSE GUYS!!!!" I sheepishly backed down seeing that I had touched a nerve. Throughout the whole Spector trial, I was hoping one of the two surviving members of the band would get called to the bench. Sometime later it dawned on me why this would never happen: Marky adored Phil and wasn't there for the incident, whereas Johnny is a Crazed Republican and probably supports the right to bear arms in these instances. It then became clear to me I would never hear Marky's amazing accent on the stand and I was filled with sadness for the rest of that day. Apperantly, the prosecution didn't need the help.
Years ago, while working with Marky Ramone on a Misfits record, I said to Marky, "So why did Phil Spector pull a gun on you guys?" He replied with a very confrontational "HE DIDN'T PULL A GUN ON ME!!! IT WAS THOSE GUYS!!!!" I sheepishly backed down seeing that I had touched a nerve. Throughout the whole Spector trial, I was hoping one of the two surviving members of the band would get called to the bench. Sometime later it dawned on me why this would never happen: Marky adored Phil and wasn't there for the incident, whereas Johnny is a Crazed Republican and probably supports the right to bear arms in these instances. It then became clear to me I would never hear Marky's amazing accent on the stand and I was filled with sadness for the rest of that day. Apperantly, the prosecution didn't need the help.
Despite having been around for a while, The Fretlight Guitar System is claiming to be making a comeback. Supposedly Rock Band and Guitar Hero are making guitar lessons more in demand. The system entails a MIDI enabled guitar($500-$900), as well as seperatley purchased software lessons at $30-40 a piece. This can be an option if you need to practice on your own schedule, while still utilizing some expert advice. However, we would still suggest commiting to some Skype lessons.
Valencia are an awesome Pop-Punk band from the Philly area. They totally get the idea of promoting their band. As simple, stupid and obvious as it is, it amazes me how many bands don't realize, YOU HAVE TO HAVE STICKERS for your band. After you have the stickers you need to put them places. More importantly you need to mobilize your fans to put them places for you. In the video above the band shows the fans how to do it, after they have picked up free stickers from their Merch table. Yes you really do need to lead the horse to water to make it drink! DUH!
Here are two of the cheapest and best places to get stickers for your band:
Jakprints
Stickerguy
Allow me to gloat; I TOLD YOU SO! Despite not having a physical release out on the streets yet, Metric debuted at #1 on Billboard's Heatseakers Chart on the strength of digital sales alone. If that weren't enough the reviews are looking strong! To remind those of you who weren't paying attention, the band has decided to shun many label offers and put this record out on their own. I bought it and so should you!
The new MacBook Pro is out and there's good news for musicians. Now the battery on the MacBook Pros will last 5-8 hours (depending if you have the 15" or 17" model)! That's good news for people in the studio and on tour. Apparently, the size and weight of the computer is the same, which is another great feature for those of us who schlep these bad boys around a good bit. For more info, feast your geeky eyes on this.
The English amp manufacturer Orange is doing something very un-Orange-like and releasing a limited edition of white amps for 2009 (somewhat surprising coming from a company that has built their reputation on the very distinct look of their amplifiers). The white finish has been used by a few artists previously, including Madonna and The View. Call me crazy, but I think I actually like the look of them. The full story is here.
It seems that a classic design is about to die. Electro-Harmonix has announced that they are discontinuing their old trapezoid design for the Deluxe Memory Man in favor of the new die-cast chasis. Aesthetically speaking, the old pedal design was a classic and it seems shameful that it will be out of production (the new ones seem smaller and more pedal-board-friendly, but overall has a cheap look). If you want to buy one with the old design, you've got about a month left. 
In this world of cut/paste digital music, it is often the individual touches that make an artists's music unique. Diego Stocco is a sound designer and his music is certainly that. Check this video of Diego using samples of sand!
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over if you are really bored. - Phil Spector totally shot that chick!
- Regina Spektor (no relation to the guy with the crazy hair who killed the chick mentioned above) is releasing a new album that Jeff Lynne produced a few tracks on.
- Mars Volta will release Octahedron June 23 on Warner Bros.
- Buddyhead updated their gossip section for the second time in the 00's and have blamed Billy Corgan for Kurt Cobain's death.
- Idolator wants to know if we have seen the end of One-Hit Wonders?
- The only thing more annoying than a baby crying is one that sounds like every Hip-Hop song today!
There's nothing quite like the high of a crowd singing along to your lyrics. It should be noted, many people are to shy to sing them loud unless they think they really know the lyrics. How do you get people to know the lyrics in this day and age of no record booklets with printed lyrics? You put them on the Internet! Duh! There are three places every band should submit their lyrics to
All of these sites allow you to submit lyrics. When uploading your song myspace asks you if you would like to enter lyrics. This makes your lyrics easily googleable for anyone looking to find out what your mumbling in the second verse of your latest masterpiece.
All of these sites allow you to submit lyrics. When uploading your song myspace asks you if you would like to enter lyrics. This makes your lyrics easily googleable for anyone looking to find out what your mumbling in the second verse of your latest masterpiece.
Today, Gizmodo has some serious gear porn! The ten best looking pieces of Audio Equipment! As an owner of the Harman Kardon Soundsticks I will definitely say they are better seen then heard!
Do you ever get that stupid error that tells you that you cannot record to a drive that you have recorded 838398 songs on? Think you need to trash your drive right? Nope, it is a very simple fix! First thing is trash the Digidesign Databases Folder. Go to the Windows menu and then select Workspace. Under this menu is a list of drives, next to each drives name is a letter under the column A(for Audio). Select T for Transfer, P for Playback or R for Record. You can set any drive that you do not want to ever record on to(System or Backup drives) to a T and Pro Tools will never record to it. To solve the problem of recording to a drive simply select R!
It's a little known fact, but somewhere in the heavens, John Bonham cries every time he hears a poorly tuned snare drum. Most people think they know how to tune a snare, but the amount of terrible sounding snare drums could fill Wembley Stadium. This video is an excellent reminder that the snare is the most important part of your kit - it's worth properly tuning it! Bob from the Evans company (maker of great drum heads) does it like a pro.
This weekend, I was returning to NYC from my parents home and passing by many cars stuck in holiday traffic returning to the city. One of them that stuck out was a band with a trailer waiting in the non EZ-Pass lane. All I could think was, "That band is probably late to gigs all the time." EZ-Pass saves you time and money and as long as you aren't paranoid that the govermant is going to track you, there is no reason you shouldn't have it if you play gigs in a high traffic city that utilises the system.
A lot of people spend a fair amount of time choosing amps, guitars and pedals in search of a thick/chunky guitar tone. One aspect that often gets overlooked is the strings. If you take the time to get used to playing with very heavy strings, you'll notice right way that your tone is more full and certainly more chunky. An additional bonus is that you'll most likely find that you break fewer strings. Lastly, since strings that heavy are more difficult to do insane bends on, you'll be less likely to try and place guitar like this. Many people have been waiting for the promise of Melodyne DNA's ability to tune individual notes in a polyphonic performance. However the project is 9 months overdue and weeks past a promised public Beta. Over at gearslutz that natives are getting restless, with some of the less enlightened slutz wondering if it is in fact a scam? One astute gearslut has posted a troubling article claiming to have insider info that DNA may not happen. From the article:
"The technology demoed in Celemony's upcoming Melodyne Editor used prefabricated loops and edits to illustrate a 'what if' scenario.For those of you not nerdy enough to get why this is a big deal check out the video in the jump.
An insider told us: Everyone's panicing behind the scenes at Celemony. Peter used a mock-up of proposed technology for live demos. In reality, producing a fully working version is proving to be impossible. When he produces a mini demo for one sampled phrase the whole thing breaks for other phrases. He's panicing because very soon he expects Celemony to retract the promise of the holy grail DNA feature and apologize to the userbase. Peter has taken a month off work after a row with Editor's project manager over his persistent failure to make the feature a reality"
Jon Brion is a god among men! Whether working with Fiona Apple, Spoon, Aimee Mann or doing amazing soundtrack work, his work is exceptional to say the least. Today, The Music Of Sound, has pointed us to an awesome interview with Jon Brion on how he does it!
NYC Area Radio Station WFMU along with affiliates KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room, Halas.am, PhoningItIn, and CASH Music have launched the Free Music Archive. The idea of the site is: you assign a Creative Commons Licence to your music in order to promote your music with the theory that free downloads will increase sales by introducing listeners to music they wouldn't otherwise discover. This is big news for people who work with samples in their music, Podcasters, Radio DJs, To explain the idea behind the site further, I offer you my awesome copy and paste skills:
"Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet... Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by outdated copyright law. Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won't put your audience to sleep? A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist?Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artists' home page for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free Music Archive. We also seek to compensate artists directly. Artist, album and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from the artist and/or label's preferred vendor(s). Users can also "tip" an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to the artists' PayPal account. Artist profiles include tourdates, encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and see some real live music."
For more details as to what this can mean head to the jump.
"Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet... Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by outdated copyright law. Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won't put your audience to sleep? A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist?Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artists' home page for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free Music Archive. We also seek to compensate artists directly. Artist, album and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from the artist and/or label's preferred vendor(s). Users can also "tip" an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to the artists' PayPal account. Artist profiles include tourdates, encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and see some real live music."
For more details as to what this can mean head to the jump.
Welcome to our new feature where we save you the trouble of going to a million websites to waste time at work each day. - Grunge is back! Pearl Jam is making a documentary with Cameron Crowe!
- Randy Cain of the Delfonics has died.
- The New York dolls will perform at
CBGB'sThe John Varvatos Store! - The Pirate Bay will lose it's lawsuit on Friday!
- Simon Cowell may leave American Idol, or may have a knack for publicity stunts.
- A Great interview with TuneCore CEO Jeff Price.
- I can't believe this isn't a shreds video?
- People watch online videos for more then 3 hours a day on average!
- Radiohead aren't really gonna testify against the RIAA. Sorry kidz!
- The 8 most pretentious lyrics on the new Decemberists record. I am shocked they only found 8.
- Kanye gets pwned by the Cheesecak Factory!
- Why American Idol works.
- Amie Street acquires Songza
The new Moog theremin has voltage conrol outputs so that you can pair it with an analog synth. What does that mean for your sound? Listen to what this patriotic YouTuber came up with when controlling his Moog Voyager with the Moog Etherwave Plus Theremin. Amazing!
Earlier we reported about the release of two new Z Vex pedals. Now a demo of one of them, the Mastrotron, has surfaced on YouTube. Certainly appears to be a little more controllable than the massive sounding (and often massively confusing) Fuzz Factory pedal.
A pretty impressive sounding synth for the iPhone. Apparently it has 5-voice polyphony, three oscillators and wi-fi import/export. Synthtopia has the full story.
The only thing shocking is how fast we heard the report! From Billboard:
"Two days after the Apple iTunes Music Store raised prices on some individual tracks, there was evidence the increases have hurt the sales rankings of songs given the higher $1.29 price"
Full article here.
The sale of music via the internet and mobile phones has increased by 100 percent since the Swedish anti-file sharing IPRED law was enacted last week, according to digital content provider InProdicon. Could this mean the US will see a similar law or will everyone's fear of socialism make us fear any policy changes that the Swede's and their perfect genetics thought of first? Probably not! Check out the story!
Before, we told you that becoming a partner with YouTube can earn your band extra money. Well, we may need to eat our words; Gizmodo is reporting that, "Never Gonna Give You Up" songwriter Pete Waterman, was paid an insulting $16 for the 150 Million times this song was play on YouTube in 2008. For those of you over 30 years of age, the video recieved all these plays from an internet prank known as "Rickrolling", where you are told a link is one thing and in reality it is a link to the YouTube clip of Astley's cheesey video. Giz, doesn't seem to have all the details on whether Rick Astley and co. was involved in the partner program, whether this is the usual retarded Major Label dividend splitting BS or just the highway robbery that goes on with plays on YouTube these days. Either way it is very wrong. If your video is seeing serious plays on YouTube making Google rich, make sure you have contacted them about getting your fair share!
We're here again to blow up spots, this time the victim is Justice. The Justice song "Phantom" was actually a sample from a 70's Italian prog-rock group called Goblin. The band, known mainly for their instrumental work on soundtracks, actually had some interesting and atmospheric tunes. Definitely worth a closer listen with more after the jump (and just look at that dual keyboard action!)
At some point in your life in this business, you are going to need to charge people for what you do (whether it is working as a session/live player, recording a band, designing something for someone etc.) In this guide we will explore many of the factors that go into setting a rate and the choices you will make when deciding how to set it.
We figured we wouldn't ruin your work week productivity and instead make your weekend by linking you to the best thing on the Internet! Some genius took the Diamond Dave Soundboard and made it into an Asteroids Game, complete with attacks from Sammy Hagar and flying EVH heads. Have fun!
This is the second post in a series where we will be discussing how listening in Mono can help your mixes.Check out Part 1, 2 and 3.
I mix a lot of records and often times I will receive files, where every track, whether they were recorded in Mono or not, is given to me as a stereo track! Obviously this wastes valuable CPU resources and increases track counts. If that weren't enough there are many Synths out there, that output a stereo file but really are giving you two of the same exact file. Before I get started mixing I like to sort out these things. I have posted a video above on how I go about sorting out whether a stereo track is TRUE stereo or just 2 mono tracks. Enjoy!
Yesterday we told you about using backing tracks in your live set. Today we are going to offer you a few hints about getting them to work better.- Always leave 2 bars at the top of a backing track for count in!
- Record yourself counting in the song along with the click saying the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 to start the song. This way, if you are confused about which count you are on in the click track, it is easy to tell where you are and make sure you aren't off the backing track! You can easily record this one time and line the numbers up for each song!
- If you decide to use a sampler and play with a click make sure you take the right output from the sampler since the left output will usually playback in Mono giving you click and the backing track. On some samplers it may be necessary to plug a cable into the left channel and leave it dangling, even though it is not outputting anywhere, it may need a load to not playback in Mono.
- If you are using a Mac Laptop for your backing track create a New User on your Mac, this way you can use specific preferences to make your Audio Software run smoother and be less prone to mistakes and crashing. You can find this function in the System Preferences under the Users tab.
This picture was posted on kick-ass Drive Thru Records artists, Houston Calls, Twitter today. I think it speaks for itself!
Today we have our first original Pro Tools Tip video. Last week we told you about Wave Rider, a plug-in that among other things boasts the ability to ride your vocals for you! I was very interested in this plug-in so I sat down with it and played around and made a video of it. I would like to also note any distortion you hear in the audio from this clip is due to this being my maiden voyage in making a video capture video. I will post a cleaner version of this audio once I have the time and update you all with it! The video is also best viewed in full screen mode! If Wave Rider looks like something you are interested in, grab a FREE 30 day demo or plunk down the $75 for it!
You should know that Ableton Live 8 is now out! It also has a ton of new effects in it! So we decided to run around YouTube and find you some good demos of some of them. Click the jump for a few sneak peaks!
I have friends who are big fans of MixedInKey. It determines the key of a song and figures out if they will blend in a DJ set. Yesterday we told you how DJing can help your musicianship, I am sure taking a look at some of the keys of your favorite songs whether you are a DJ or not and seeing them on a list might give you some interesting songwriting perspective. It is definitely much faster then playing them all back and figuring them out.
Today over on ProToolerBlog they have a huge list of Kontakt Libraries that are free to download. This is an awesome way to expand your creative palette. If you are a Pro Tools user you can use the Chicken Systems Translator we told you about yesterday, to make them compatible with Structure.
(especially in Logic)
Whether it's the axe itself or the person who was wielding it, guitars have certainly helped change popular music as we know it. Here is an awesome article that lists ten of the top guitars that have been part of watershed moments in music (with an emphasis on artists who changed the musical landscape with their impact). 
If there is one thing every vocal agrees on, it's that dairy is not good for your voice. Some singers are immune to everything and can drink a 30-pack of Bud with a pizza in the other hand and reamain unaffected. If you aren't lucky enough to be one of those singers, you need to obide by this rule. This does not mean taking dairy out of your life forever, but it is a good idea to avoid it for a few days before a big performance or around studio time.
If you haven't noticed we have been working hard this week to get things looking nicer and running smoother! The biggest change around here is in the comments! It is now much easier to comment on our site now! If you have had something to say and had the system be confusing/broken before, we promise you, it is now fixed! There is now a bunch of now boxes down the right column, including a Blog Roll with lots of other cool blogs you should check out. In the next week there will be some awesome new things to come and some really great interviews and videos we have been making. We need Facebook friends so we can partner with them on some cool new things for you guys. Become a fan here! Once again a big shout out to webmaster Jackie Brennan for all her hard work. Stay Tuned!Perhaps you have Sample Libraries from Giga, Kontakt, Sampletank, Reason, EXS 24, etc. you can now convert them for use in Digidesigns awesome Structure! The above video shows you how to do it, and if you are looking for the Translator go here.
From The Air Users Blog
This is the second post in a series where we will be discussing how listening in Mono can help your mixes.Check out Part 1 and 2.
People usually hear music in Mono. While most systems reproduce in Stereo, most people are not sitting in the optimal position to hear Stereo. If your speakers are close together like on a Laptop or an iPod Dock you are essentially hearing the mix in Mono. If the Stereo System is in a corner and you are across the room you are hearing the mix in Mono. So what does this tell you? You should take Mono pretty damn seriously. One of the oldest mixing tricks in the book, is to get out of the perfect listening position and listen to your mix around a corner. This is one of the best real world checks you can get, since this is how everyone will hear your mix! I often find myself confused about the vocal level at the end of a mix, but the second I hear it on my laptop in a near mono environment, I know where the vocal is sitting! Mono Rules!
People usually hear music in Mono. While most systems reproduce in Stereo, most people are not sitting in the optimal position to hear Stereo. If your speakers are close together like on a Laptop or an iPod Dock you are essentially hearing the mix in Mono. If the Stereo System is in a corner and you are across the room you are hearing the mix in Mono. So what does this tell you? You should take Mono pretty damn seriously. One of the oldest mixing tricks in the book, is to get out of the perfect listening position and listen to your mix around a corner. This is one of the best real world checks you can get, since this is how everyone will hear your mix! I often find myself confused about the vocal level at the end of a mix, but the second I hear it on my laptop in a near mono environment, I know where the vocal is sitting! Mono Rules!
I am sorry to disappoint you all but it is a sad fact, but you still need to own a domain for your website. Why? Why? Why? This is 2009 and there are way too many social networking sites! You need to make sure you have your SEO on lockdown or else someone else is going to take it from you! I have good news though, it is going to be cheap easy and you won't even need to update it!
Bands often ask me what to do about backing tracks in a live situation. They either want to trigger some sounds or play to a click track with some elements like Sub Hits, Drum Machines, Keyboards, and Effects coming out of the PA. In the studio, we will often record some elements of a song that the band doesn't have the means to play back in a live situation, at least without a backing track. In this post we will investigate some of the ways to go about getting this to work live!
Apple has just sent out a letter letting all .Mac users know that any homepages you have using .Mac will be deleted on 7/7/09. Many of us who collaberate as Producers and Musicians have used this service to send files back and forth. Apple is advising you to use iWeb if you wish to continue to use their services for web file sharing. Personally, I have grown to love using Megaupload to share files since it is way faster!
Alright, this post is a bit of an excuse to post one of the funniest videos ever! Though this video isn't totally accurate since some people have found how to use it right! Wired has written an article with two great uses of Twitter for bands. One of these examples involves the band Moonalice and a recent live performance. I'll let Wired explain.
"The San Francisco Bay Area sextet used Twitter to broadcast, so to speak, its self-titled debut's April 3 release concert at Slim's in San Francisco.After each song, Moonalice's sound team digitized, uploaded and tweeted it before the next tune was finished. The idea was such a hit that Moonalice has decided to do it again, this time on Saturday in Redwood City, California."
Check out the whole article here, and if you are still confused about Twitter read the half a dozen articles we already have written about it.
If you haven't heard The Pirate Bay stepped into the Facebook App world with a Share widget that would link you to download torrents of various products from around the net. In barely shocking news Facebook have told The Pirate Bay to take their File Sharing Ways elsewhere. TPB is claiming this is censorship, but it is doubtful they will gain any sympathy from Facebook.
The NY Times has a pretty silly article that has the Internetz LOLing. It's about a bunch of ex-office workers now becoming DJs to make a few extra bucks. Yeah, it's a bit silly! Though for you musician types this is a great way to make some money and learn more about the DNA of music. Knowing how to DJ and Beat Match teaches you the tricks of matching Keys and Tempos. You start to understand the way songs you enjoy fit together and the commonality of their compisition. You can also earn between $50 (Free drinks!!!) - $1,000 a night even as an amateur!
Reverb Nation is definitely an under the radar tool for bands these days. I don't see a lot of bands I know using this site to it's full potential and it is really a shame. Today they upped their game with the addition of FanReach Pro. The new service will create HTML emails that include concert dates, schedules, songs, videos, ticket links, etc. The site has also added Fan360 which will allow bands to get specific info on their fans, in order to figure out their demographics for more effecient marketing. This can be used for help getting endorsements and figuring out who your fans are. Reverb Nation does this simply by getting your fans email address! Web 2.0 is crazy!
Everyone loves artists like NIN, Timbaland, The Neptunes and Radiohead. What do all these groups have in common? They all use Found Sounds in their compositions! Unique sound design is one of the things that separates an innovative artist from a normal artist. In this video YouTuber Oubliettezombie has given you an awesome tutorial on how to turn some odd sounds into Snare Drums! Part 2 is after the jump!
As a Record Producer, I have a great joke that I use all the time when people ask me if I watch American Idol. I simply respond, "If I wanted to hear out of tune singing I would just go to work!"
Bad-Dum-Crash!
I'll be here all week!
Anyway, a site has assembled a list of 30 Iconic Singers Whole Would Never Make It On American Idol. There is something to be said for the fact that they do consistently turn out some pretty generic choices and have yet to really deliver on a unique voice that will never be forgotten. .Granted, what are we supposed to expect from mainstream TV?
Bad-Dum-Crash!
I'll be here all week!
Anyway, a site has assembled a list of 30 Iconic Singers Whole Would Never Make It On American Idol. There is something to be said for the fact that they do consistently turn out some pretty generic choices and have yet to really deliver on a unique voice that will never be forgotten. .Granted, what are we supposed to expect from mainstream TV?
Awesome Blogger Cheeb Beats, has the lowdown on some alternatives to buying expensive Aurlex Foam. It is common knowledge that many of Aurlex's designs are easily reproduced and not very complex. Check out these sources and Cheeb's Blog to find out more!
The Kyser Capo is an essential tool in a guitarist arsenal. It is common knowledge that they are the easiest to use while being very durable. But did you know that they make some really cool ones for open tunings? They make Drop D, Open G and Double Drop D all the more easy with these simple capos. There is also one for DADGAD!
There's nothing that sounds worse than a sloppy bass player. It's like hot drunk girl with cigarette breath: totally useless and damn near repellent. Definition is half the battle with playing bass and Guitar-Lesson-Insider shows you how to clean up that bass tone and get your sound cracking.
We don't watch too much kids television today, but we're convinced it's probably not as cool as it was back then. Tip from David Ahuja of D As In Dead.
There is much overlooked wisdom to naming a band, that you never had to think about untill recently. If you are forming a band with the intent of making a living at it and not just putting up a Myspace profile to impress your potential Internet Girlfriend, you need to think long and hard about your band name. We will be giving you advice on how to figure out if someone is already using your name and what it means if they are.
Paul van Dyk is one of Dance Music biggest stars. In these videos he explains what goes into his tracks and some of his compression techniques. Part 1 is above and 2 is after the jump!
Have you ever noticed that if you have to walk up 3 flights of stairs everyday, at first it's the worst thing ever. Then after you do it for a year you can't believe it ever was difficult. Then when you walk up 1 flight of stairs it's a joke! This is the same principle of why you should use a heavy stick to practice with. Especially your rudiments! This will make playing your kit at practice, on stage and at the studio seem like childs play!
I have been using the Dynamic Delay inside Echo Farm for as long as I can remember, but I haven't turned it on in months. Now that I have Pro Tools 8's awesome new AIR Dynamic Delay I have all the control I could ever want in a delay. In this video The Air Users Blog, shows you how to use this awesome tool!
It seems that a bunch of the other major Digital Media Delivery services have all bumped their prices for high demand song to $1.29 or slightly lower. It is no shock that Walmart one of the most disgusting greedy businesses in the country would do this. However, it is odd that Amazon who was always praised for their low prices adapted to this practice. In similar news, Gizmodo goes on the hunt for a $.69 iTunes track. I have already asserted that I think there will be a TON of $.69 tracks as time goes on.
Avatar Studios is one of the most famous and amazing studios in the world! Formerly The Power Station, it has turned out many records that are regarded as the best sounding and selling records of all time. They have graciously donated their vast knowledge to a blog called Avatar Session Tips. In this post they tell you what to do when you get an esoteric instrument in the studio and need to mic it up!
Despite some of our recent posts, we are not a Nine Inch Nails fansite. The man is just is just really making waves in the industry these days. This week the industrial god St. Reznor did a interview with Digg. In the interview he spit some real controversial lines such as:
We have heard this before, however we have not heard Trent expound on his advice to young bands. I think what our readers should hear is what Trent has to say about what a new band should do in the current climate of the industry. Keep in mind, NIN being one of the biggest music industry success stories of an artist being a heretic and going his own way. Interview below, scroll to 10:30 for the good stuff!
"Anyone who's an executive at a record label does not understand what the internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact - no idea. I'm surprised they know how to use email. They have built a business around selling plastic discs, and nobody wants plastic discs any more. They're in such a state of denial it's impossible for them to understand what's happening.
One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they'll sign anything' - like I did. When we found out we'd been released (from their recording contract) it was like, 'Thank God!'. But 20 minutes later it was, 'Uh-oh, now what are we going to do?' It was incredibly liberating, and it was terrifying."
We have heard this before, however we have not heard Trent expound on his advice to young bands. I think what our readers should hear is what Trent has to say about what a new band should do in the current climate of the industry. Keep in mind, NIN being one of the biggest music industry success stories of an artist being a heretic and going his own way. Interview below, scroll to 10:30 for the good stuff!
Anyone who has been to a live concert since around 2003 has seen floors covered in big bright colored boxes, in the form of Lines 6's Stompbox Effects Pedals. Line 6 has now made it easy for those of you who owned all of the pedals to now be able to control your settings and only have to tap one pedal into tempo! The M 13 combines the MM4, DL4, DM4 and FM4 into one box. You can now make complex effects routings by creating "scenes" within the pedal that turn on setting melded between the 4 pedals together. I am sure we will be seeing a lot of the M 13 at shows!
I hope you have a job where you can get away with not working today. An amazingly giving human being has made us an online 16-Step Sequencer, with Synthesizer. Much like a simpler Tenori-On, it is super fun to play with. I will let the creator do the rest of the talking. "Simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. Each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave-map, which makes it more cute."
Via Adam Bird of Those Mockingbirds
Creating stems is quite useful for a number of things (remixes, passing along to others, just simplifying your track). This lesson from SFLogicNinja is useful for a number of things. First off, he shows you how to organize your tracks with groups of colors, then he details how to create some stems, as well as passing along some great quick keys!
It's one that most people slip over, but if you have an acoustic guitar that is worth a damn and you're not using a humidifier, you should be. It is a lesson some people (ahem, me) learn the hard way (I got a nice crack in one of my guitars due to drastic temperature changes). Luckily, humidifiers are cheap and easy to use (i use this one and it does the job). Most "experts" also say that you should keep your guitar in a case instead of on a stand to regulate temperature. While it's not always convenient, I like my Martin enough to go through the trouble.
We've been talking a good bit about samples lately and the site whosampledit.com is a great resource for the subject. Search by artist or song. Tip via David Ahuja of D As In Dead.
Press and hold Ctrl/Command when editing in Grid mode, to temporarily switch to Slip mode. Very useful for those of us who work in Bars and Beats mode all the time!
Brett Manning singing coach to many a star offers this advice:
"Some say that you should never clear your throat, but excess mucous inhibits free vocal cord coordination. The trick is to find a way to clear your throat without irritating it. Do a gentle "whispered cough" (without tone) and then swallow. Repeat. If this doesn't work, you need to deal with the excess mucous production. Squeeze a 1/4 of a lemon in a tall glass of water and sip over about 20 minutes. This should cut through a lot of the excess mucous."
The Slapstik looks pretty awesome! It allows drummer to produce both up and down stokes quickly and easily making it so you can do 16th notes at difficult tempos with one hand.
This is the second post in a series where we will be discussing how listening in Mono can help your mixes. Check out Part 1 Here.
Right now, some of you Musformation readers think I am smoking rocks. You can't tell panning in Mono!!! I will disprove your assertion by challenging you to try it. I first heard about this technique in a interview with Alan Moulder, one of the best mixers in the game, who said he used this technique to find room for the elements in the mix that shouldn't be panned LCR. To try this technique out, follow the instructions from our previous mono lesson and set you monitor section to play back in Single Speaker Mono. Next, we want to find an element of the song that we dont want to pan Hard Left, Hard Right, or Center, perhaps a background vocal, counter melody guitar or synth, or a synth pad. Take this track and bring it down so it is slightly buried in the mix. Try wiggling your pan knob on this track slowly and notice how you can hear spots where the instrument starts to get clearer. Thats where you should pan this instrument! Told ya so!
Right now, some of you Musformation readers think I am smoking rocks. You can't tell panning in Mono!!! I will disprove your assertion by challenging you to try it. I first heard about this technique in a interview with Alan Moulder, one of the best mixers in the game, who said he used this technique to find room for the elements in the mix that shouldn't be panned LCR. To try this technique out, follow the instructions from our previous mono lesson and set you monitor section to play back in Single Speaker Mono. Next, we want to find an element of the song that we dont want to pan Hard Left, Hard Right, or Center, perhaps a background vocal, counter melody guitar or synth, or a synth pad. Take this track and bring it down so it is slightly buried in the mix. Try wiggling your pan knob on this track slowly and notice how you can hear spots where the instrument starts to get clearer. Thats where you should pan this instrument! Told ya so!
Ever since Daft Punk blew everyones minds by using Jazz Mutant's Lemur on national TV the world has been buzzing about them. Many people don't know how powerful this thing really is. Remix Magazine has two great videos of Warp artist Richard Devine showing what a Lemur and Traktor can do together. I am really impressed with how amazing this technology can be for live performances. Once this technology becomes cheaper, expect it to revolutionise live performances as we know them!
Apparently Amazon is capturing some of iTunes market share in the adult demographic. What does this mean to you? It means you better check twice that all of your music is on Amazon whether your crowd is adults or not. The reason I will also encourage you to get your music on Amazon is websites, like ours, are able to link your music to BUY, very easily. This will continue to grow and will help your band increase sales! Do not underestimate getting your music on Amazon.
Perhaps you have heard that sore loser Joe Satriani has sued Coldplay, asserting they stole their song "Viva La Vida" from his royal show-offness. Today, Coldplay denied Satch's allegations that they ever would listen to his guitar wankery (I mean, these guys hang with Eno, they got no time for guitar masturbation albums, when they could be listening to the guitar solo in "Baby's On Fire"), in a Federal Court. While I think the Players will easily win this case, I have outlined how the Defense could make this court case the first case won solely by YouTube testimony. Follow me to the jump and I will put on my worst fitting suit and make my case!
Many people have still not gotten hip to some of the wonderful things that Transient Designers can do to your tracks. The above video shows Sonnox's Transient Modulater in action. If you want to experiment with this and don't have the dough, go check out Flux's free Transient Designer, Bittersweet.
For a band that is going on hiatus soon, NIN just took the iPhone where every band should be taking it. They have created a community for their fans to talk and find like minded NIN fans near to them. There is also a never ending amount of fan generated content to keep their fans always being reminded of them. The stuff they are doing with this App is what every band will need to be doing a few years down the line. There is no doubt that a service like Reverb Nation or other like minded sites will be building the facilities for every band to do this soon! Watch that video and have your mind blown by Rob Sheridan and Trent Reznors brain power!
Where else but Portland, OR could you get a band who tours on bikes? Soft rockers Blind Pilot, take to their bikes with trailers in tow and tour around the country. I think the unseen story is no one is going to trust someone from a band named BLIND PILOT!!! Anyway, now they tour in a van since they open for bands like The Hold Steady, Counting Crows, and The Decemberists. It actuallty seems like this could be a feasable means of transportation for the poor bands in NYC!
The band Kiss recently announced that their upcoming tour of the US/Canada will be determined by way of votes from fans. Through their participation, fans will decide what cities the band visits. Votes can be cast at the site eventful.com/Kiss as well as on Myspace, Facebook, VH1Classic.com and a few others. When voting, fans will have the chance to order pre-sale tickets as well as participate in marketing by creating videos and promotion for their city. At the concerts, Kiss plans to show compilation videos that fans created on the jumbo screen. Our prediction? This promotional will be insanely successful - Kiss are, if nothing else, still some of the best marketers in music. Full story here. 
Unless you live under a rock, you know that no one is buying CDs anymore. This means you need to be selling your music online. If you want to do this you need to choose a middleman to get your music to the internet! These middlemen offer you many bells and whistles and each one offers you different benefits. While you may think this is common knowledge, you may come to find there is our service more suited to your needs. We will give you the dirt on which one may suit your needs in a quick five minute read!
Amazing how synthesizers are still so intriguing even decades later. We recently exhumed this clip from the show 3-2-1 Contact that someone posted on YouTube. Look closely and you'll see they are using an Oberheim OBX and a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 (wow)! Girls from the 70's talking about the nature of sound synthesis... I think I just died and went to some kind of audio geek heaven.
Arturia has announced that their MiniMoog V 2.0 will be shipping out April 20th. The previous version proved to be a fairly awesome virtual synth and some of the reported improvements for the new model are automation, filters, bug fixes and better presets. The price looks to be around $250 in the US, but apparently the upgrade is free for all registered users (sorry pirates).
An awesome looking movie! In addition, the movie's creators have encouraged you to do remixes of the movie! The movie is actually open source! Pretty great idea! After the jump you can see one of the remixes!
Despite never really being impressed with octave pedals, I somehow ended up buying an Electro-Harmonix POG (poly-octave-generator) and then a Micro POG its smaller and slightly less complicated brother. Without a doubt, it has become one of my all-time favorite pedals both for its sound, and in the case of the Micro POG, it's ease of use. Great for solos, volume swells, bass sounds, 12-string sounds and much more, the POG sounds haunting and truly unique and quite frankly, I haven't heard another octave pedal that comes close. Most people would never recommend using an octave pedal on full chords but I've found that the POG still sings with an almost tube-like distortion quality when used this way. Check out the YouTube demo after the jump. 
Often times people have high aspirations to get great lessons, but there is no one in close proximity to them to do the job right. Here is where technology comes in. Skype, which enables video chatting over the web, can bring you closer to a great teacher who can really help you. I have been hearing many sucess stories of people doing this over the web these days. Amazing Vocal Teacher Marissa Dockery, has been doing lessons over Skype from New York City to Mexico City. If you are looking to expand your music lessons business or get better ones, definitely look into Skype Music Lessons as an option!
Anyone who has ever seen Metallica's embarrassment of a movie Some Kind Of Monster walks away being amazed a band can be so lame. It is mind boggling that a band would pay to make a documentary to show how lame they are! While many people see the band as the star of the movie, I would argue Bob Rock is the real character to watch in this movie. After the jump we are going to discuss what you can learn from him and admire his amazing skill!
The NPD Group has released a study stating that Teenagers music buying habits have changed. SHOCKER! Some of the no-so-shocking numbers are below: (beware of the lack of caps- ed.)
"teens (age 13 to 17) acquired 19 percent less music in 2008 than they did in 2007. CD purchasing declined 26 percent and paid digital downloads fell 13 percent compared with the prior year. In the case of paid digital downloads, 32 percent of teens purchasing less digital music expressed discontent with the music that was available for purchase, while 23 percent claimed to already have a suitable collection of digital music. Twenty-four percent of teens also cited cutbacks in overall entertainment spending as a reason for buying fewer downloads.Read the full report here. (via Tapelog)
The downturn in paid music acquisition was matched by a downturn in the quantity of tracks downloaded from peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which fell 6 percent in 2008. The number of teens borrowing music, either to rip to a computer or burn to a CD, fell by 28 percent."
Earlier today we discussed how songwriters will go about being compensated, since royalties are going to hell. The Future Of Music Coalition has come up with a great outline of what to do! They have proposed "Principles for Artist Compensation in New Business Models". To see what they are head to the jump or read the whole thing here.
If you read today's Bilboard Magazine article, you would be under the
impression that Senator Chuck Schumer's latest legislation would be helping the concert goers, probably since
Ticketmaster is one of the last entities willing to pay for advertising
in the obsoleted Billboard rag. Chuck Schumer, a man who makes conservatives lose their minds on a regular basis, has come to your defense.... Well kinda. He has proposed Federal Legislation that the evil Ticketmaster supports, that a ticket reseller must obtain a federal registration number
from the FTC, and post that number in conjunction with all ticket
re-sales on brokerage website and through other means. What this really translates to is the corporations are closing out the little guys. No one without big money to be endorsed through the FTC will be able to buy large amounts of tickets anymore, enabling disgusting businesses like Ticketmasters own Ticketsnow to buy up the majority of the tickets as a reseller and gouge consumers like they did during a recent Bruce Springsteen concert. While many will be celebrating this legislation after reading Billboard's spin, look at the fine details and see that this is really a way for another corporate entity to rape your wallet in the future. However, the story isn't all bad and there may be benfits from this new law.
Now that record sales have gone to hell, what is a Songwriter to do? Devoid of royalties from radio airplay and record sales, their old means of compensation is now a dried up nipple. While many who have seen how much most songwriters get paid in advance, will claim they are compensated thoroughly, many on their side will argue a new way to compensate should be found. The fine minds over at The Music Think Tank are discussing this question today!
As if you needed another reason to never use Microsofts POS Internet Explorer 8, it now can be a potential conflict with Pro Tools 8. On Friday, Digidesign issued a technical alert stating:
Digidesign is currently investigating reports of Pro Tools not launching after installation of Internet Explorer 8.Do you need another reason to use Firefox?
At this time it is recommended that customers avoid installing IE8 until we complete our investigation.
The generous people over at Izotope have given us a cool interview with amazing Producer/Songwriter Guy Sigsworth. In the interview he describes some of the process of recording Bjork's "Unravel":I took it to Bjork, she wrote the lyrics and melody, sang, and the vocals on the record are the very first take, sung with a hand-held SM58. When we took it to Mark Stent to mix, I learned one of the best lessons of my career (Spike, if you're reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you!). He threw up all the faders, and after just one play through, he went straight to the vocal & started riding it. Before that I'd always seen mix engineers start with the kick drum or something, work up through the track sheet, & only get to the vocals last of all. But reversing that just feels so right to me. The vocal tells you what the rest of the arrangement will allow.More at Izotope.
You're loud, you're fast, you've got a mean overdrive and even after a cool sixer of PBR, you can still play every Rancid bassline blindfolded and backwards. But can you slap? Bass legend Victor Wooten shows the art of slapping. Nice!
It has recently been announced that the Bob Moog foundation has received a grant for $600,000 to help with building a "Moogseum" in Asheville, NC. Reports indicate that it will be a hands-on sort of exploratory museum of science and creativity. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2012 and for us it can't come soon enough - never too early to honor a genius! Full story at Synthtopia. Ableton Live 8 is out and it has many new features and improvements. The new Looper feature is available for use remotely and seems fairly intuitive. The MIDI also seems much improved and grooves sound a little more natural. If anyone has any experience with it, let us know!
IK Multimedia has done something smart and started AmpliTube XChange. Now plugin users from other "Powered By AmpliTube" products can share their respective rigs and gain access to presets, including some by VIP users who may well be some of your favorite musicians. Full story here.
It's official that Stanton has a new controller called SCS.3m. This mixer-style controller works with USB and is supposed to interact nicely with Stanton's DaScratch (nice name, guys). There seems to be more and more gear popping up out there for DJ's, especially those aiming to improve the touch or feel of the digital DJ'ing process. However, every single time I'm at "a show" or "the club" I'm seeing people using Serato's Scratch damn near exclusively. The question remains: when will someone find a product to compete with it?
ProToolerBlog went over to Musikmesse 2009 and got the deal on some awesome gear. One of the pieces everyone is buzzing about is the new SSL X Desk, a modular and less expensive way to get into "The SSL Sound". The video says more then I can, and if you want the nitty gritty head over to ProToolerBlog.
SRSLY!?!?!?
Is This For Realz?
Steve Evetts, The Man, The Music, The Mofo! Steve has produced many of the awesomest Punk, Hardcore, Metal, and Indie records of the past few years and has a recording gear knowledge that is barely rivaled. Many years ago a strikingly smart and good looking man did an interview with him for Tape Op that never got published. However, they have made it available as a bonus article now! Great weekend reading!
In our final installment of Musformation's Data Loss Prevention Week we tell you why you should have a workable backup drive. What is a workable backup drive? Some cheap Firewire/USB aren't good enough to record/edit or even playback audio, the drives we want are heavy duty and can perform complex edits and record multiple tracks at once. Just because its in a big enclosure does not means it is fast enough to run audio tracks. There are a few reasons to buy a workable backup drive:1. You will end up working off of it. In crunch time to make deadlines I have had 4 computers going with band members doing some of the more menial edits. This could not have happened without a few workable backup hard drives!
2. If your main work drive goes down you can keep working without even flinching. Simply open the file on your backup drive and no one will even notice your Main Drive went down!
3. The transfer speeds give you many hours in bed resting rather then spending them at the studio. 7200 RPM+ drives mean faster transfer speeds, which means faster backups!
4. You can take this drive to any studio and know its going to boot right up. There's nothing worse then taking a record to another studio to work and then finding out your portable drive isn't qualified to record and they don't have enough space on their drive for your session or you will waste valuable time copying over large session files.
Somehow, someway, in some twisted universe it happened. Justice, apparently at the request of U2 themselves, have remixed "Get On Your Boots", the band's first single. And just like most recent U2 songs, it's pretty awesome until Bono jumps in there and puts his self-righteous stamp on things. But as a whole, Justice takes an awful song and makes it slightly less so. Kudos for that. Thanks to Stereogum for the heads.
Never underestimate how much Software Instruments can bog your system down. Before starting a mix, it is always important to print these tracks down to Audio Files. This will give you maximum creativity at mixdown and commit yourself to your arrangement, giving greater focus to your mix. This video shows you a quick and easy way to print your Software Instruments down to Audio Tracks.
Yesterday we linked to the Documentary, Before The Music Dies. I took the time to watch it last night and it is full of curmudgeons complaining! Throughout the Doc, there were assertions as if Radio's glass cieling of airplay makes it impossible to find new artists today. In case you haven't heard, every Music Radio Station is freaking out since listenership is WAY DOWN! They no longer have the influence they used to, since there are so many other options of finding music. I would like to introduce you all to something; It's called TECHNOLOGY. There are now Satellite Radio stations that play a DJs every musical indulgence, bringing us back to an ability to hone in on niche tastes like never before. If that weren't enough, theres this crazy thing called the Internet where you can go on sites like Pandora and Jango and simply type in a band you like and it will play you similar bands. You can even do this on your iPhone! There's more, if you miss the days of old, you can listen to those Free-Form Radio Stations that you miss so much on the internet! That way when you get old and move away from the city to the suburbs you can still listen to Radio Stations like KCRW and WFMU! As well, everyone has a music nerd friend with a Last.FM, Blip.FM, or a Blog where they post all the cool music one could ever want to hear. One of the oldest ways of finding new artists was for someone to play you a song, this used to require being in the same room. Today, I simply IM a friend a link to a song on Hype Machine, and they can instantly hear if they are into it. Nevermind how easy it is to copy someones WHOLE iPod with software like iPodAccess. The Music Industry is like anything else, ALWAYS EVOLVING, unfortunately
many people get alienated by change instead of embracing it. The ways people discover music have changed, if you refuse to aknowledge this fact your intellectual evolution is as dead as this theory!
As a Producer it always amazes me how bad musicians stress themselves out over not being able to get a part, that is SO simple. We all have brain-fart moments where we just can't get our head around something that is so simple. Unfortunately, when you get tense and feel embarrassed you tend to play even worse. It is important to keep in mind that while you should strive to feel better, there is a time and place for frustration and tension and it is not when learning a part. To make yourself feel better watch Metallica's resident bimbo Kirk Hammet struggle with a part. If one of the most idolized guitarists in the world doesn't nail everything on the firt try, don't expect the same of yourself. Simply get back on the horse and try again with no shame!
This is the first post in a series where we will be discussing how listening in Mono can help your mixes.
Mixing can be real tough, the first couple years. You are constantly losing your perspective while mixing and having WTF? moments where you thought you nailed the mix and and really the bass is taking away from the vocal. One of the ways to get a different perspective on your mix is to listen in single speaker mono. Often times if you are A/Bing your mix to another song you can get lost in the stereo field. Doing an A/B with one speaker in mono immediately clears up any confusion you may have had and instantly exposes flaws in your mix. This technique got me through many tough times in my early years of mixing and is still valuable when I find myself burnt out on a mix. It quickly dumbs down what you are listening to, exposing simple balances and helps you identify trouble frequencies. Most Monitoring Systems offer the facility to listen in mono, however you may need to flip the power on one of your Powered Monitor to take advantage of this facility. While many people often tell you to check your mixes in mono, one of the key elements to helping you understand your mix in mono is to hear it come from a single sound source, hence why we must turn off the second speaker.Lately I have even been using some awesome in-wall speakers that have been great for this as well. Stay tuned for more ways mono can help you! As always he gets super woo-woo about it!
Always awesome writer and DJ, Douglas Wolk, has penned a cool article on The Future of The Celestial Jukebox. For those not farmiliar, this is the concept of being able to have every song ever written in "The Cloud". The article discusses the monetization of the Jukebox and what forms it may come in. While many startups are gunning for the chance to bring this to you, most are set back by many a lawsuit. Check out a much better explanation then I can give right here. P.S. If this whole Celestial Jukebox ever happens it needs a name that doesn't sound like a throway Fleetwood Mac song!
Alec Empire! The man behind Atari Teenage Riot, countless Solo Albums, Remixes and the inventor of the forgotten 90's genre of Digital Hardcore. Alec is still at it and just made a new album entitled Shivers, in this video you can get a glimpse into his studio and some of what went into the making of the record. Part 1 is mostly him making music, and Part 2 have an interview which is after the jump!
The Peterson Tuner in my studio is a very polarizing machine. It is loved by me and my engineers and absolutely despised by the musicians raised on Boss Chromatic Tuners that tell them they are in tune when its really just "close enough." Earlier this week we told you of a iPhone tuner with Peterson-like capabilities, but now Peterson has jumped in the game to bring their classic detailed tuning algorithim to the App Store.
Musformations Data Loss Prevention Week is just about over. Before we finish, we thought we should discuss what your options are for backing up. Some people are not familiar with all the options out there, so let's go over them! 1. External Hard Drive- My recommended means of DATA backup. External Drives go for pennies on the dollar today. They are also useful for bands to take Data elsewhere to work at another facility or take a backup home. Some of the more expensive brands are even qualified for use with Audio Programs. We call these Workable Backup Drives.
2. DVD Backup- This method involves the creation of a Data DVD. A Costly method but secure since you have an unerasable backup that you can easily store off-site. There are archiving programs such as Toast or Sync X that will back up only the newest files you have created. The downside to DVD back up is you have one long day of backing up if you accumulate 30 GB of drum takes in a day.
3. Tape Backup- This method involved buying a dedicated Tape backup machine as well as Tapes to back up onto. A somewhat obsolete, slow, and laborious form of back up which has made it quite undesirable in recent years. However it has been known to have great lasting power and reliability.
4. RAID Array- A RAID is a rack unit with a number of drives inside it. The problem I have with RAIDs is they exist on the same power supply and are prone to massive Data loss in the event of electric failure. Despite being very practical I do not find these to be a secure a means of backup since the drives are on the same power supply.
5. Internal SATA Drive- Now that the Mac Pro's are outfitted with four SATA ports, some people think they should just back up to another internal drive. This is not smart in the same way RAIDs are not smart. They are powered by the same power supply and if electrical failure occours you are in a world of trouble!
From the "I Read It On the Internet, So It Must Be True" Files!
A user on Gearslutz.com has claimed he spoke to a Digidesign Rep at Musikmesse 2009 this week and they told him:
A user on Gearslutz.com has claimed he spoke to a Digidesign Rep at Musikmesse 2009 this week and they told him:
"I talked to someone there telling him how I thought it was unthinkable that LE or M-powered STILL didn't have Latency compensation and How PTHD was way too old technology to invest that kind of money in it right now.
He totally agreed with me said that they knew HD was too old and that LE needed to comp, he said don't worry it's coming I said WHEN?? he said I can't talk much about it right now but within the next 12 months....."
It seems it would be impossible for Pro Tools to not update HD at this point, so this does seem to be a logical rumor. (Source)
Manufacturing is a crazy world. If I had to think of three designs synonymous with three shapes in the music world it would be the Tele, Strat and Les Paul. Their shapes conjure an instant image and design the second you say the name. Even to a novice there is a basic association that happens the second you hear one of these words. Apparently that is not enough for the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The lawsuit was brought on by Fender suing Stuart Spector Designs, ESP Guitars, Peavey Electronics, Warmoth Guitar Products, Schecter Guitar Research, among others. Which makes Fender seem even more lame then they already do for anyone farmiliar with their treatment of Mom and Pop Music Shops.
The main statement concering the ruling is a pretty priceless quote: "The Stratocaster body outline is so common that it is depicted as a generic electric guitar in a dictionary." Truth! Read the entire ruling here.
The lawsuit was brought on by Fender suing Stuart Spector Designs, ESP Guitars, Peavey Electronics, Warmoth Guitar Products, Schecter Guitar Research, among others. Which makes Fender seem even more lame then they already do for anyone farmiliar with their treatment of Mom and Pop Music Shops.
The main statement concering the ruling is a pretty priceless quote: "The Stratocaster body outline is so common that it is depicted as a generic electric guitar in a dictionary." Truth! Read the entire ruling here.
Ampeg is the name in bass gear and the classic series is one of the reasons. This is a nice video that explains a little bit about why the classic series is so... well, you know, classic. A lot of the emphasis in this video is on the speaker cabinets and what differentiates the Ampeg cabs from others. Those 8x10 cabs are great, but god do I hate helping bass players move them!
Despite the Roland Juno 106 being an awesome keyboard that can still be had for a decent price, it does have a sort of Achilles heel. The 106, a keyboard we clearly love, was shipped out with quite a few voice chips that proved to be defective after continued use. That means that many Juno chips are destined to fail. The problem is that replacing the chips can prove to be a Herculean task because they are NOT EVEN MADE in the US anymore. One person we've found who consistently carries the chips (and provides stellar service with decent prices) is synthrestore.co.uk. Upon my first order they sent me some free ARP sliders because I overpaid a bit on shipping. The company is in the UK and it takes a bit of time to get your chips shipped, but it is well worth it considering there is little to no alternatives!
One of the best feelings in Audio Land is when someone makes a Plug-in you always wished you had! Today is one of those day for me as I discovered Wave Rider! Some of the features include:
- Maintain a user selectable nominal output level on the inserted track
- Apply automatic "ducking" via volume faders, and not rely on third party compressors
- "Auto Park" faders during silence, creating automatic mixing capabilities
Butch Walker is a Producer, Songwriter to the stars and a very active artist! With 20+ years of songwriting under his belt he knows a thing or two about it. He offers this to aspiring songwriters:
"One of my go-to things to spice up a progression is to apply a lot of 7 chords co it--major 7s, minor 7s, and dominant 7s. A lot of my favorite records from the '60s and '70s did that. but we lost that somewhere along the way. Another thing is to switch from major to minor on the same chord to resolve a phrase. That's a Beatles trick, and it really helps me melodically.
"Throwing in key changes for the chorus is another thing I'll do. I might modulate up a full step, but only for the chorus, and then come back down for the verse. It's pretty cliche to just wait for the end of the song to jump up a full step. It's very Celine Dion. Desmond Child was also guilty of that in the '80s. I worked with Desmond on the very first record I ever did. I was trying to explain a lyric about love, and he lashed out at me and said, 'What do you know about love? You're not even a person yet.' I was offended at the time butte was right. In order to speak from your experiences, you need to have those experiences first."
(Via)
photo by flickr user jnewland
"One of my go-to things to spice up a progression is to apply a lot of 7 chords co it--major 7s, minor 7s, and dominant 7s. A lot of my favorite records from the '60s and '70s did that. but we lost that somewhere along the way. Another thing is to switch from major to minor on the same chord to resolve a phrase. That's a Beatles trick, and it really helps me melodically.
"Throwing in key changes for the chorus is another thing I'll do. I might modulate up a full step, but only for the chorus, and then come back down for the verse. It's pretty cliche to just wait for the end of the song to jump up a full step. It's very Celine Dion. Desmond Child was also guilty of that in the '80s. I worked with Desmond on the very first record I ever did. I was trying to explain a lyric about love, and he lashed out at me and said, 'What do you know about love? You're not even a person yet.' I was offended at the time butte was right. In order to speak from your experiences, you need to have those experiences first."
(Via)
photo by flickr user jnewland
Awesome site Intergalacticfm.com has posted some really nice pictures inside a few different Synth enthusiasts studios. Take a look at some really well photographed Synth Porn.
I just came across what looks to be a pretty awesome Documentary on the damage the Music Industry does to a Music Listeners experience. Yeah, we have heard about that a alot, but this looks really good, and like a much better use of your time then watching Gossip Girl! Check out Before The Music Dies for FREE on Hulu!
It seems these days everyone is in need of a Pedal Board. Even SINGERS! There is a million ways to build a Pedal Board but I was intrigued by this thorough desciption and design. Check out A Guitar Teachers Lesson Notebook Blog on how to build a cheap, rugged pedalboard with a Carl Martin Pedal Board Octa-Switch!
Yuck Choruss! The latest stupid Major Label power grab offering you lawsuit immunity for downloading files. Yes, you read that right! This is where we are at in 2009 with the braintrust in the Major Label offices. If only Obama would pull a GM and yank these morons from their offices. Anyway, now that I have cooled down, there is a great article on the damages Choruss could bring to indie labels that you should really read. Anyone who makes money off of the Indie Label Model, should be mounting the resistance to this program IMMEDIATELY!
It is no secret that MySpace is dying. Not to say I am not happy that I don't have every band I know posting a bulletin every ten seconds to listen to their new acoustic version of One Replublics "Apoligize", sung out of tune. In an attempt to breathe life into their beaten down image, they have actually done something pretty cool. They are attempting to crowdsource communities and build a Yelp-like reccomendation database, where you can find out where are the cool places in each city to play, eat, shop, hangout, etc. This obviously can be an awesome tool for your band!
Today on Cyber PR, they have posted an informative article on how to write a great Bio for yourself. As someone who has written a nearly a hundred Bios over the years I think this article makes some great points if you are at a loss for how to do this. He writes this from the perspective of having once been a Major Label A&R Man, having been on the recieving end of countless Bios. Anyone who has to do this at a label quickly gets jaded and bored with the retardation they encounter in a Bio on a day-to-day basis. Learn how to not have your Bio get lost in the pile.
photo by flickr user powerbooktrance
photo by flickr user powerbooktrance
Producer El-P is a legend. His work on Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein is probably one of the best Hip-Hop productions of all time. If that weren't enough he stays busy remixing TV On The Radio, Mars Volta and Nine Inch Nails, and does his own solo work. Korg has generously posted a look inside his Brooklyn Studio today and shows a glimpse into some of his creative process.
Perhaps you have heard of The Pirate Bay? In the Music Industry The Pirate Bay is like the really hot chick that all the underclasmen love but every administrator in the school hate cause they know they are cheating on every test in exchange for n00dz and B33jers in the bathroom at lunch. It's just not fair in the schools eyes, but they are beloved and get away with EVERYTHING. In the attempt to insecure the populist love for The Pirates of the Internetibean the always awesome
Many bands end up hating their label and wishing they could get dropped. Most bands go the route of just releasing Greatest Hits, Live Albums, DVDs, and B-Sides records to fullfill their contractual requirements. Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls has choosen to go the route of penning a song entitled "Please Drop Me" and taking it to the stage at her recent live shows. While it is doubtful this will gain her much ground if her label Roadrunner (home of Nickelback and King Diamond) continues to see her as profitable. She also wrote a pretty insightful Blog about her recent struggles with video censorship.
Since it's Musformation's Data Loss Prevention Week we should mention why we are taking this Data loss thing so seriously. The consequences of Data loss are many:1. The band no longer trusts you and will probably never record with you again.
2. You will have to re-record what you already did with a band that is unhappy you wasted their time as well as one member will inevitably say what you originally did was better even if it is far superior.
3. You lose time, money, and you could be recording other bands.
4. Bands love to tell everyone when this happens so your reputation as a Producer will be extremely tarnished.
photo by flickr user blakespot
You probably know that on Myspace you can have an easy to remember URL like myspace.com/musformation. Well now you can have the same for Facebook! After you have created your band page, you simply need to just add this App to your personal profile and then click on it again and select to add it to your band page! This makes it a lot easier for people to remember where to check out your band when you give them a Facebook address! Just use this Facebook App!
In an age where nearly everyone in music is complaining about not making money, perhaps live shows will once again become a lucrative outlet. We weren't lucky enough to attend the Ultra Music Festival in Miami a few days ago, but fortunately, we had a good friend of the site who was there to witness the highlights and bring us back a few notes. Ticket prices were around 100 bucks a night and Ultra Music Festival claims that 2009 was their biggest year yet. Above is a snippet of The Prodigy and after the jump, read a short synop about the other acts.
I use Apple's Mighty Mouse with my home editing PT system. It is a pretty amazing mouse for the limited space Apple had to work with. In this video from website Killer Pro Tools Tips they show you how to unlock Mighty Mouse's full potential.
Hey everyone! Just want to let you know we tweaked some little things today and if you look at the bottom of the page, you can now easily scroll back and see the previous days (weeks, months) Posts. So if it is a reallllly slow day at work you can scroll back and read everything you have missed! Thanks to webmaster Jackie Brennan aka El Tauro Loco! She's everyone's favorite!
There were a ton of great pranks today as always. I thought Absolute Punk did a great one, The Digg/NIN prank was ehh, ours was unfortunately semi-true, but this one is priceless!
P.S. The Google one is great too!
P.S. The Google one is great too!
I just got off the phone with an old friend who now works as a Factory Repairman for a not be named Amplifier company. He said a quarter of the money the company generates comes from clients either not knowing how to change the fuse on their amp or going and buying a new fuse at the Hardware Store and purchasing a Fast Acting Fuse instead of a Slo Blo Fuse. He sees seasoned Pro's make this simple mistake regularly! So as a PSA to the Musformation community, I will remind you, when the Amp/PA doesn't power on, first check the fuse and then if it needs to be replaced buy the right fuse!
The insightful guys over at The Music Think Tank, did a little experiment with Last.Fm's Powerplay campaign. This campaign is one of the new Internet Radio Pay-To-Play campaigns to get your band some exposure. We previously profiled Jango's Pay-To-Play system here. The findings these guys experienced are quite interesting!
I was at the supermarket the other day when I noticed that the approximately 20-year-old cashier, a sort of neo-urban Puerto Rican girl, was spacing out into the distance, singing along audibly and quite enthusiastically to
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams", Green Day's now 5 year old song, blasting on the store radio. I've been an unabashed fan for years, but at that moment it really hit me: Billie Joe Armstrong is a true songsmith and this song was an absolute smash hit: catchy, hook-laden and irresistible. While not nearly the best song the band has ever done, or even the best song on the American Idiot album, it was a great choice for a second single and subsequently won them a Grammy for Record of the Year.
The one undoubtedly awesome thing about Torrents is all of the Multi-Track sessions that are getting leaked on the web. This enables everyone to see some of the techniques the masters used and just how good they really were. One of the most impressive ones I have seen is the leak of some Stevie Wonder tracks. Here this YouTuber shows the insane complexity of the Clavinet track in "Superstitious", as well as some of the drum and vocal tricks. Enjoy!
Esteemed Audio Engineer and Analog-To-The-Death hold out Steve Albini has finally given in to the changing times and installed a Pro Tools system into his studio, Electrical Audio. Opting to go for a Pro Tools TDM system with 16-Bit Convertors for a more vintage sound rather then the modern crystal clear HD system. The news has been quite a shock to many in the recording world who never thought they would see this day! For more details and photographic proof head to the jump.
As we told you, It's Musformation Data Loss Prevention Week! So now that I have filled you with the fear of the wrath of the Data Loss gods, what do you do to prevent Data loss from occurring?1. Make a system. Everyday you will have a routine at the end of day of backing up your DATA to an external format. THERE CANNOT BE AN EXCEPTION TO THIS!
2. Learn the file structure of your computer. It is very important that you are able to find your files to back them up and know you are saving them to the proper place.
3. LEARN PROPER FILE MAINTENANCE. Knowing how to consolidate, manage and delete files within the programs you use is of the utmost importance. If you are not consolidating files and deleting files you are wasting valuable hard disk space. Backing up a 30 GB file that could be 2 GBs will waste both time and money.
DJ Gustavo Bravetti shows how to create the sound of M.A.N.D.Y vs Booka Shade's Body Language using Ableton Live .
So you have your toolbox all packed up for your next live show. You have your wire cutters, screwdrivers, etc. There's just one problem.... When you had to change a string really fast in the middle of the set, you dropped your wirecutters on the ground and since you are now loading off stage in minimal light, you can't see them since they are all black. This is why tool companies make bright neon colored tools. It is not some weird marketing ploy to the kids of today. Those of us who work in dark situations really appreciate it, you will too if you buy some and and this happens to you!
Fugazi has always been a band I have idolized in the studio and especially on stage. One of the first live lessons I learned was from watching them. If you play aggressive music and you move around a lot, tape your cables and pedals down with duct tape. I've done it since I was very young and it has always been helpful. During a live show, all manner of things happen - you rock out, you sweat, bleed, dance and throw your gear around - bad things are bound to happen at some point. Having your cables get unplugged at an inopportune moment in a show can really ruin it sometimes. For those of us who are not yet using wireless, duct tape can, once again, save a musicians day. You hear it all the time and EVERYBODY is doing it - stutter editing. Also called glitching, it's all the rage, especially in Dance Music and it can really bring some added style to your beats, as well as break up the repetition. YouTube phenom SF-Logic-Ninja lays it out nice and easy. This particular lesson is in Logic, but the same principles hold true for other programs. If you are anxious, Logic-Ninja is a little talkative at the beginning, so skip to about :50.
We only recently discovered it, but it's interesting to note that Cut Copy seems to have lifted the verse from a song by Lime ("Give Me Your Body") and used it as a chorus. We couldn't find many other people who had discovered this and we're not sure if Cut Copy has acknowledged they, ahem, "borrowed" this melody, but even upon first listening, it seems very obvious. Check in at about 2:00 during "Lights and Music" and then at about :45 of Lime's "Give Me Your Body".
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