Monthly Archives: April 2009


SHOCKER: Indie Labels Not Getting Fair Shake On Radio

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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, the
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.”

What else can you say to that? Except, a sarcastic “NICE!”


Re: 7 SEO Mistakes Bands Make

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seo.jpgYesterday, 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!

Pro Tools Tip Of The Day: Use Ticks Mode Instead Of Samples

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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!

For Every Five Promises/Oppurtunities You Receive, One May Come True

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“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.

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Record Sales Would Argue Pirates Don’t Buy More Music

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sharing2.jpgI 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?


EMI RS61 V72 Mic Pre Of The Beatles On Ebay For Just $1 Million

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Check out the eBay maddness!!!
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.


4/29/09 Round Up Of Music News – For Hump Day – Late Edition

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We save you the trouble of going
to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming
over.


Twitter Search Yourself

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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!

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