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.
- McDSP 6030 Ultimate Compressor Announced For Winter NAMM
- classicapi.com*VP2x Assembly Guide for 500 Series*Now Complete!!!
- Moby Gives a Tour of His Incredible Drum Machine Collection
- Free Plugin Of The Week - EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Free
- UAD-2 - Manley Massive Passive in the queue
- Studio Stories: Tree Sound Studios, part 1
- DMGAudio eQuality
- Zappa's Studio for Altiverb
Congorock - Babylon from Scion A/V on Vimeo.
What we are reading on the Internet that may be of interest to you or potentially melt your brain with it's stupidity.
- R.I.P. Willie Mitchell, Architect of Memphis Sound & Al Green's Producer
- The Origin Of Spooky: The Knife to release opera based on Charles Darwin
- Mixed Emotions: Stones will NOT tour in 2010
- Theatre de Punk: Green Day's American Idiot heads to Broadway in Spring
- Gaga helps Trina plead to "Let Them Hoes Fight" - in rap form!
- Nada Surf announce new tour and interesting covers ablum
- Apple Blocks Google App From iPhone While Trying To Patent The Same Invention?
REMINDER: Each of those buttons up top will make this site show articles written only on that particular subject or you can can follow our individual RSS or Twitter feeds.
God of music industry innovation Trent Reznor has struck again! Earlier this year NIN put out 450 GB of raw video footage from a recent tour. They put this out as a gift to their fans. Their talented fans then developed and edited the raw footage into a coherent form and NIN have now put it out as a free DVD. A smart idea and a great way to win the endearment of his fans.
Sadly, we can't all be Nine Inch Nails and have such a rabid fanbase but you can take this idea and make it work for your music. If you want the world to see how awesome your live show is but don't quite have all the cameras to show it off you can enlist your fans. Tell all of your fans that you will reimburse their admission to a show if they videotape you. You can then rip it from them at the show or offer them a guest list spot to the next show if they send the footage to you via the a file sharing site. These days when everyone has a Flip or an iPhone video cameras so you could conceivably get a dozen or more great video shots to edit between in software like iMovie.
Sadly, we can't all be Nine Inch Nails and have such a rabid fanbase but you can take this idea and make it work for your music. If you want the world to see how awesome your live show is but don't quite have all the cameras to show it off you can enlist your fans. Tell all of your fans that you will reimburse their admission to a show if they videotape you. You can then rip it from them at the show or offer them a guest list spot to the next show if they send the footage to you via the a file sharing site. These days when everyone has a Flip or an iPhone video cameras so you could conceivably get a dozen or more great video shots to edit between in software like iMovie.
While we will be busy on the blog and won't be able to make it, Martin Atkins is on tour this month and although he isn't stopping in NYC, he will make an appearance in Rochester at the Water Street Music Hall at 7PM this Thursday. On this tour Martin will be doing his a presentation on the music touring industry and discussing many of the ideas from his extensive Tour:Smart. . Having met the man, the myth, the legend, we can promise that Martin will be funny, irreverent and certainly leave you with plenty of new ideas. RSVP here.
One of the things we have argued is the fact that record stores dying is probably going to be great for your music career. With that said you still my want your CD in one to be like all those "cool" kids on the major labels and large indies. If this is the case RegionalCD will service Best Buy for you and get it in local stores so you can fit in with the jocks and cheerleaders by coughing up $250. While the idea of ever seeing an artist do this makes a little vomit come into my mouth, you may find this to be a valuable move for your music. Good luck with that. (via Hypebot)
What we are reading on the Internet that may be of interest to you or potentially melt your brain with it's stupidity.
- 2ManyDJs' Radio Soulwax reborn on the web
- Drummer of 'The Band' Sues Cingular Over Commercial
- Google And Spotify Dance Over U.S. Launch
- Courtney Love plugs Holes in band's lineup
REMINDER: Each of those buttons up top will make this site show articles written only on that particular subject or you can can follow our individual RSS or Twitter feeds.
Sunday night as I was polishing off a mix around 3 AM I decided I needed a snack of some pita bread. I popped it in the toaster oven as I have a million times before and about 5 minutes later I noticed that the room was getting a bit smokey and it wasn't from how hot my mix was coming out. I walked into the studio lounge to find that my toaster oven way on fire and burning everything in site. I ran for the power strip and flipped it off in case it was an electrical fire, but this then turned off the light in the room and I could no longer find my fire extinguisher. I ran to the other room while my toaster oven began lighting my coffee maker on fire and grabbed a fire extinguisher I knew the location of. In a short second the fire was out but it reminded me of one of the most important things we may not think of as studio owners, it is not enough to have a fire extinguisher you also must have one close by and know where it is. Another minute and all of my equipment could have been burnt or even drenched by the sprinkler system causing downtime, headaches and damage. One of the best tips is to put your hands and eyes on your fire extinguisher every once in a while, the fact that one of mine is in my line of site on a daily basis made it so I still have a studio right now. Make sure you do the same!
Collecta is a new search engine that will search Myspace for who is writing about your music. Despite Myspace being a whithering corpse this can be a great tool to find people who are passionate about your music who are still on Myspace and send them information on how to find you on other social networks or to get free stuff by joining your mailing list. (via Hypebot)
As we have covered in the past, Metric's Fantasies was a true success story for a band putting out their own record and achieving massive success. Their record ended up on tons of year end top ten lists (including ours) and proved that it is becoming more and more viable for a band to make more money on their own than with the help of a label. Myspace Music did a interview with the band that got into some of the details of how they achieved this success and some of the gears that put the band in motion to do so. Check it here.
Recently, everyone's favorite grunge rockers Eddie Vedder has been sued for changing the lyrics to Gordon Peterson's song "Hard Sun". While you are allowed to cover any song you want, the copyright holders do have rights to granting permission if you are going to change the lyrics of the song. This is in order protect copyright holders from the original intent of their lyrics from being distorted. While you may ask how Wierd Al can get away with what he does, it is because that falls under parody, which is also protected in copyright law. TechDirt has a great comment discussion on the finer details of this law and which laws protect what. Read it to make sure you don't get in trouble.
We have been linking you to many reasons why you should oppose the Live Nation/ Ticketmaster merger that the DOJ is considering. These thieves will not only be supressing your music career but also continuing the rape of your wallet at their concerts if this merger goes through. This is the last week to get your voice heard through the DOJ by emailing them at antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov. Please read these articles if you want more info or email them and tell them that these companies have not shown that they act in good faith of their customers interests.
Audio Geek Zine was kind enough to post a comparison between many of the popular time stretching plug-ins and their various settings. If you are like me you use this technology everyday, but never would have known the difference between a few of these algorithims. Check out this great shootout and see what your ears think.
Has your ego been down in the dumps lately and needed the boost of your own signature designed guitar pick? Perhaps your love Ed Hardy so much you want it on your guitar pick (BTW this would make you a total douchebag if this is the case). Whatever design you could possibly want on your guitar pick you can now DIY. For the low price of 24.95 you can buy the PickPunch which will print anything you would like on your guitar picks. How amazing is that?
- NIN and Justice remix U2 - now if only they could learn to mute Bono
- Soundgarden to reunite in 2010 - hope their cage isn't too rusty
- Stream Vampire Weekend's new record here
- Driving sloppy: Bow Wow caught driving drunk with Chris Brown
- Substitute? Not everyone wants The Who to play the NFL Superbowl halftime
- Black Francis finds time to record solo album (and Soft Cell's gonna cringe at it's title)
- Enough of the best, here are the worst songs of the past decade
REMINDER: Each of those buttons up top will make this site show articles written only on that particular subject or you can can follow our individual RSS or Twitter feeds.
Before fully ringing in 2010, let's reflect on the lessons learned in 2009. With out a doubt '09 represented the year of the foreigner. Mainstream acceptance for international musicians peeked in the U.S for 2009, however this trend is global. So how do you penetrate a global market you may ask? First, read the post and understand the essential components involved, and second get off your ass and do it. Enjoy - READ HERE
CHEERS to 2010!
What we are reading on the Internet that may be of interest to you or potentially melt your brain with it's stupidity.
- 2009 Pitchfork Readers Poll
- Update: Andrew WK: "I'm [not] a victim of mind-control"
- Trent Reznor shares 2010 resolutions; includes new material!
- Unreleased Michael Jackson Song Hits the Web
- Fear of Sting Forces Rock Hall To Consider Rule Change
- Lhasa de Sela Dies in Montreal, Aged 37
REMINDER: Each of those buttons up top will make this site show articles written only on that particular subject or you can can follow our individual RSS or Twitter feeds.
A few years ago I attended a show by neo-country crooners Old 97's. The band played an amped-up, blistering set and I was in such a great mood that I insisted on sticking around after the show and waiting to see if the band came out so that I could try and get a word in with Old 97's singer/songwriter Rhett Miller. Not only is Rhett a tuneful craftsman in the traditional sense of the Beatles or The Replacements, but he has such power over language you'd swear he was a prodigious creative writing scholar (which he was). Luckily, on that special night, after the crowds had dispersed and the lights had come on, I actually got to meet one of my influences and chat with him for a second. Naturally, one of the first things I asked him was: "What's the best advice you can give me about songwriting?" His answer was not quite what I had expected: "Write a lot of bad songs." Upon hearing this, I was shocked into silence. Of course not everything that drips from your pen is going to be Shakespearean and not ever melody you construct is going to be Wagnerian, but writing more of everything is going to give you a much better chance of finding those gems and of learning from your mistakes. It's often the fear of writing something "bad" that causes us to stagnate and not grow. Once you realize that it is inevitable that you write some tunes that just get thrown out you can then free yourself up and loosen the grip of some of the microscopic-type criticisms that cause you to second-guess yourself. If you're not writing a least SOME bad songs it probably means that you aren't pushing your boundaries or taking enough risks, which for creativity, means death. 
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