SoundToys makes some seriously awesome plug-ins. When they aren't doing that they consistently post some seriously awesome interviews on their site. This time it is with amazing producer and TV On The Radio member Dave Sitek. In it he spills about some of his production techniques and favorite sound toys (har har har). Go check it out.
New Music Strategies has up some great interviews from the streets that talk about the new music model and what many people think is going to happen to the new music industry. These videos by a group called Broken Records look to be pretty awesome with some great content. Head over to New Music Strategies for the full deal.
Over the years we have seen some very, very lame publicity stunts to get artists in front of the public eye. Last night, Gawker posted an item that Warner Brothers will now be placing artists on California State Lottery Tickets. This barftastic news is another one of those ideas where you have to wonder if this is really the best use of time and limited resources that go on in the major label bubble fantasy world these days. I think not.
Last week we linked you to a great article by Ariel Hyatt where she interviewed
Deirdre Breakenridge about many obsolete PR techniques and some of the new ways people are breaking through to get exposure. Today, they are back for even more. Read up so you don't fall behind.
We all love free stuff and Line 6 is taking advantage of that by giving away Pod Farm for 30 days to anyone with an iLok. This means get moving and get another cool tool in your palette. Features include:
POD Farm (for iLok):
- 42 guitar amps and cabs
- 10 bass amps and cabs
- 29 stompboxes and effects
- 6 mic preamps
- Dual Tone
POD Farm (with compatible Line 6 gear):
- Standard POD Farm model set
- Unlock all the amps, effects and model packs from your Line 6 gear and add them to POD Farm.
- Dual tone
NI have just announced that they will be making some big upgrades to their line of soft-synths. This includes Kontakt 4, Guitar Rig 4 Pro, Absynth 5 and Komplete 6. All of them look to have major improvements with Kontakt seeming to get some real extra might. For full details head over to ProToolerBlog. BTW all of their latest versions are Snow Leopard Compatible.
Pandora has announced a major upgrade to it's desktop app. If you are a fan of this service you are bound to enjoy these new features:
- You can now view your song history. Just click on the album art to reveal arrows to navigate through the last hour of your playlist. Thumb up (or down) or buy any song that played in the last hour.
- We've added a progress bar. Want to know how much is left to play of the current track? Just click the album art to reveal the time elapsed and remaining for the current track.
- Windows users can hover over the system tray icon to see the name of the currently playing artist and song.
- The app remembers where you placed it on your desktop and how loud you like your music. The next time you start it, it's right where you left it.
- Song transitions have been sped up so you don't need to wait long for a thumbs down to get rid of the current song.
International tours are a mandatory second language not only for weathered bands who have earned their stripes, but also for upstarters that are looking for an extra boost.With the global market, one of the quickest ways to separate your band from the rat race is to generate an international fan base. Having an international fan base potentially means a larger market pool, which ultimately leads to increased album sales.However, first things first, to generate a fane base and sell albums overseas you must first tour. Touring abroad is no joke and a far cry from hoping on a plane to backpack Europe. Learn the ropes at: Music Globalization.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
Last week for our FollowFriday pick we suggested Derek Sivers. One of the reasons we suggested him is he continually brings amazing content from outside the music industry into it. This week was no exception when he linked Elizabeth Gilbert's awesome speech on creativity. If you value your originality or struggle to get a more unique voice I highly suggest you watch the above speech. In his blog he explains the real beauty of this speech and writes a piece that gives a added bonus to a great speech. Check it out.
BandCentral has put up a great article that shows some of the full potential they offer to artists by starting a blog. In their current blog post they discuss how to manage your fans. A great read for anyone who is curious about any of the emerging band management services.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Bad Lieutenant (New Order + Blur) readies debut release
- 15 Snow Leopard Tricks You Have to Try
- Comes With Music: Not Coming to the US Anytime Soon
- Save Spotify claims to let users rip and save Spotify streams
- Dead Man's Bones Gear Up for Residency...in a Puppet Theater
- Napster Commits iPhone-cide; Opts Out Of Steaming App Competition For Now
Keeping up with van payments, insurance and repairs can be the death of your morale. There is nothing worse than paying out of pocket for something that is supposed to help make you money. With that said, there are times that you can take a weekend or two and make up the payments with a little manual labor. Simply go on craigslist and type up an ad saying that you have a van and can do small moves for cheap. Anytime you need cash put this up for a week or two in advance and odds are if you price it right and live in a small town, college town or city you will have some business. It definitely helps to learn the ropes of how to pack things right and pad them so they don't get damaged so you aren't paying out of pocket, but I have seen many musicians make a ton of money whenever they need it via this route. I have even had roommates who want to be moved by musicians with a van in "hopes of meeting a cute boy." Need I say more?
Last time, we explained that having your music remixed by other artists can be a powerful promotional tool. We suggested putting it up on torrent sites and and told you how to get the part you will need for an effective remix. This time we will give you a few other ideas on how to seed your remix, and how to get the word out about it.
SoundCloud have been hosting some awesome remix comps of late from the likes of Tony Allen and Imogen Heap. In their newest feature, Royksopp is giving you the chance to show what you got and listen to what you are up against. We always encourage anyone looking to break out into the remixing field to do these contents since we have found some of our favorite artists through them. Check out the remixes and learn how to get involved here.
As we showed you recently with the Spring Chicken Reverb, Malekko is making some amazing pedals as of late. The new Malekko Ekko 616 Analog Delay is an incredible sounding unit at a good deal (around $150). What you get is a true-bypass analog delay with 600 milliseconds of beautiful delay that decays oh so naturally. In addition, the pedal allows for some strange modulations that can get INSANE (think vintage Roland Space Echo style). We are VERY impressed to say the least - hopefully you can hold out until early October when shipments are expected.
Modern life is awesome! Thanks to the kindness of others and the
open source movement there is free software that does an amazing job of
nearly any task you could want to do. In this new series we will point
out many of the amazing software options available to you for free that
help level the playing field so that anyone with a good idea can get it
out. For other installments go here.
At some point in your career in music you are going to need to do some graphics work. Whether it is album or flyer design you are probably going to need to get a little technical with it. If you don't feel like lining Adobe's pockets just to make a logo for your next music project there is Inkspace. Inkspace is a open source alternative to Illustrator and can be had for free right here.
At some point in your career in music you are going to need to do some graphics work. Whether it is album or flyer design you are probably going to need to get a little technical with it. If you don't feel like lining Adobe's pockets just to make a logo for your next music project there is Inkspace. Inkspace is a open source alternative to Illustrator and can be had for free right here.
ValhallaDSP, who designed the Audio Damage EOS Reverb that we are totally in love with, has just unleashed an awesome FREE VST delay. With the promise of, "Sonic results range from subtle chorusing and double tracking, to
barberpole phasing and flanging, to runaway echos spinning through your
skull, to endless glissandos. Perfect for those Dr. Who sounds, dub,
and all of your psychedelic needs," I can't wait to get off work today and put it to the test. However you can check it out right now!
Wow. Maybe it took you 20 years to finally come to terms with that keytar you used to play in your old new wave band. Well, if you have the guts to face your fears, Roland has recently released their AX-Synth that can bring all that back to you. This time their keytar has the ability to be a MIDI controller, is velocity sensitive and has after-touch control. With 256 distinct tones, this synth actually sounds like it has quite a wide variety of lead sounds, bass tones and everything in between. Even some of the classic Roland pads and brass come preset with the unit. Why they chose this Euro-metal-d00d to showcase the instrument we have no clue, but the AX-Synth definitely sounds worth a listen, despite how ridiculous it looks.
Everyone in the music industry loves a good Terry McBride interview. Thankfully the awesome website Crazed Hits does tons of interviews with industry figures and they have served you up just what you were looking for. Listen now.
Make has a interesting tutorial that can make your percussion much easier to amplify in the live environment as well give you some interesting recorded sounds. This tutorial teaches you how to amplify your maracas with a piezo microphone to send them direct to a preamp. An interesting idea that we would love to hear the sound of. If anyone does this please post results! Check it out.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Dr. Dre's The Chronic To Be Re-Released w/ DVD and New Songs
- Nokia Delays U.S. Free Unlimited Music Downloads
- BREAKING: eBay to Announce Deal to Sell Skype
- Twitter is Now Bigger than MySpace in the UK
- Dimmu Borgir Part Ways With Two Members
- Timbaland's Beaterator Coming To The iPhone
- Matt Sorum to drum for Motorhead
- Recording Industry Lobbyists Says Politicians Worried About User Rights Are 'Disgusting'?
- Snow Leopard Reports Hard Drive Capacity "Correctly" (in Base 10) [Disk Space]
- Most Complete Snow Leopard Compatibility List Yet
- Michael Bolton and Lady Gaga Collaborate on New Song
- uTorrent iPhone App Rejected by Apple, Goes Underground
We all know that if you want to get the word out about something having everyone and their mother writing about you on twitter and becoming a trending topic can do a lot of good. Never mind when you can get your fans to do much of this leg work in return. Following emo-goth-rockers' AFI's lead who had their fans tweet their new albums announcement in order to see the track listing of their new album The Used seem to have taken a step further in using Twitter as a genius promotion. From Mashable:
We think this is a genius way to crowdsource the publicity of your album and look forward to more artists finding a way to use Twiter for what it is good for - discovering other things people with like-minds are into.
"Go to twitter.theused.net and click on the pre-populated Twitter message. This will take you to an OAuth screen that will add @wearetheused to your Twitter account and send out a tweet with a link to the listening party. That tweet will let you listen to the entire album "Artwork," including two B-side tracks. The listening party will be taking place for 24-hours."
We think this is a genius way to crowdsource the publicity of your album and look forward to more artists finding a way to use Twiter for what it is good for - discovering other things people with like-minds are into.
Remember when we were a bit skeptical about a Cnet article where we wondered how valid the claims were that investors had no interest in music startups anymore? Indie Music Tech has posted a list of startups that have gotten some serious funding in the last year that may disagree. With 11 different startups listed that got serious funds this month we have to let out a bit of a "told ya so", and gloat. Here is just a few examples, you can go to Indie Music Tech for the rest.
- MOG raises $5 million (August 27, 2009)
- MySpace acquires iLike for $20 million (August 19, 2009)
- FanSnap raises $5 million (August 17, 2009)
- Spotify raises $50 million (August 04, 2009)
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