- How Man Overboard Made Their Record Leak Turn Into A Good Thing
- Martin Atkins At The New Music Seminar 2010 (Part 1)
- Derek Sivers On Perspectives On Value
- Oh Sleeper Explains Why You Can't Win As A Mid-Level Touring Band
- Nimbit Discusses Fan Interaction At The New Music Seminar 2010
- How To Tell How Loud Your Record Should Be
- Big Champagne Launches The Ultimate Chart
- Headliner FM Offering New Features To Promote Your Music
- How Bandcamp Will Handle Free Downloads Now That They Will Be Charging
- Planning Far Ahead Is A Waste Of Time
- Courtney Holt Discusses Future Of Myspace Music At New Music Seminar 2010
- Veoba Offers CD + LP Manufcaturing, Online Distro, Merch, A Venue Datasbase And More
- Metric Use Facebook Share's To Unlock Extra Content
- Ditto Music Launch 24 Hour iTunes Service
- MUST READ - Your Future in Music Depends on What You Know, Not Who You Know
- Who Are The Millenials
- MOG Launches Mobile App
- Finding A Good Manager - Avoid The Yes Men
- GuGuChu Launches It's First Generation Of Widgets
Recording guitar and bass can be a fun time, but also an excruciating experience if you are missing some simple tidbits of knowledge. We assembled some of that knowledge so that you can easily get through the process.
- Announcement - We Now Have a Forum!
- How To Get Your Facebook Band Page To Default To MyBand
- Bandcamp Announces It Will Start To Take A 10-15% Cut!
- So When Do We Start Making Money? - Touring Band Edition
- Make Your Facebook A Memorable Fowarding URL
- A Few Tips For Executing A Better Jango Campaign
- An Perfect Example Of How To Ask A Blog To Take Down Your Music
- Sequencing Your Record Pitfalls - From Best To Worst
- Fairshare Music Is A Philanthropic Music Sales Site Where You Choose The Charity
- If You Have Rough Mixes Put Them To Use
- Using A Jango Focus Group
- The Android App Inventor Is A Easy To Use Android Development Platform
- Thounds Is A Sample Collaboration/Online Music Recorder Type Thing
- Jeff Price Of TuneCore Slams Tom Silverman Of New Music Seminar
- Listen To Pomplamoose Talk About Making a Living Off Music Without Touring
- Reverb Nation's My Band App Gets Way Better!
- 10 Things You Should Know About Recording Drums
- Band Tip: Learn How To Set Up Other Members' Gear
- How To Get A Easy To Remember, Simple URL For Your Facebook Page
Finally! We now have a forum where you can discuss the new music business, gear, websites and promotion tactics for your music. Todd and I often talk about our disgust with many of the forums today in the music biz. Unfortunately, mods let trolls and negativity run rampant in fear of alienating their users instead of trying to create a positive and productive environment. Our goal with the Musformation Forum is to curate discussions that are positive and intelligent in the music community. Feel free to go there and discuss anything about music. Enjoy.
Thounds looks to be an interesting way to collaborate with other musicians online. With interesting social features the site looks like it can open up some fun opportunities.
- Interview With A Master Engineer: Fred Kevorkian
- The Effect Of The Facebook Like Button On Artist Pages
- Amazon Launches Customizable Artist Central Website
- Merchluv Offers Groups A Means To Do Innovative Merch On A Budget
- Watch A Tour Of Rdio
- Dropping the Bass In and Out
- Merge.FM Allows Fans And Others To Collaborate On The Songwriting Process
- Pandora's Tim Westergren On Charlie Rose
- A Few Ways To Get More Fans On Jango
- TuneCore Now Allows Multiple Uploads
Sometimes the right approach for the bass part of a song is to not have any bass at all. As the following examples demonstrate, delaying the entry of the bass or dropping it out for one section of a song can make the instrument's impact much more pronounced than maintaining a constant bass presence. Let's look at some variations of this approach.
First up is the Rolling Stones 1973 classic "Star Star" (AKA Starfucker). The band makes it through a full-verse before the bass comes in (33 seconds into the song), and it adds a nice subtle lift to the song as well as keeping the verse from getting repetitive. Note that this late entry differs from an introductory passage with just one or two instruments. In SF, the full band, including drums, is playing for the first verse except for the bass. The Stones use this approach in "Honky Tonk Women" as well, except that the bass enters in the chorus.
Ok, we have to admit that this is pretty impressive.
- Dynamics In Songwriting - Making It Work
- Pay With A Tweet Is Another Way To Give Out Tracks For Tweets
- MacForMusicians Teaches You How To Make Music On A Mac
- Dont Bother Your Manager With The Little Things
- PayPal Mobile Express Checkout Allows iPhone Purchases To Be Made Easier
- Uploading Samples To SoundCloud Using Scup
- How To Run A Successful Campaign On Headliner FM
- Why You Should Keep Word Press's 2010 Theme On Your Blog
- Cool New DropBox Tricks
- SoundAround Band Based iPhone App Builder Has Launched
- BandsInTown Facebook App Is A Fantastic Way To List Shows
- Sayvee Is A Musician Aimed Website Builder
- ArtistData Releases Some Updated Features
- Interview With An Author: Randy Chertkow -The Indie Band Survival Guide
- Some Tips On Spreading Your Music On Tumblr
- Great DJ Tool - Mixed In Key In Action
- Friendly Music Makes Music Licensing Easy!
- Devote Your Oversharing To One Site
- Free eBook: How To Really Get Your Music Covered On Blogs
- An Overview Of DropBox's Useful Features For Musicians
- Enable Your Fans To Follow you At FourSquare And Reap The Benefits
- Google Voice Now Available To Everyone Is The USA!
- TuneCore Now Aggregating To Spotify
- Flavors.Me Is An Easy Website Builder
- FanBridge Announces iPhone Fan Collector App
- On iTunes In Less Than 24 Hours via TuneCore
- Using Reverb Nation To Spread Your Music
- Op-Ed: Major On The Major and Minor On The Minor
- The Stupid Thing Every Band Does - Having A Terrible PA
- Variable Merch Prices Can Reward You In Sales
- Pros And Cons of Signing A Publishing Deal
- A Few Tips On Becoming A Better Engineer
- Cool Merch Idea: Custom Sigg Bottles
- Don't Sleep On Reverb Nation's Fantastic Gig Finder
- YouTube Busts Out Online Video Editor For Editing Uploaded Clips Together
- Mixlr Is A uStream Like Audio Streaming Service
- Sound Around Is A Band Orientated iPhone App Builder
- Starbucks To Offer Free Unlimited Wi-Fi
- Organizing Your Merch: Include A Show Schedule
- ArtistData Acquired By SonicBids, Gold & Platinum Services Free For The Summer
- How To Make A Fast, Easy And Good Looking MySpace Layout
Musformation is filled with a lot of information - the kind we believe can bring you ultimate success in the music business. But just what do we do with this deluge of data and knowledge? Even for us, the primary authors, it's often overwhelming. With all the advice and options out there for how to improve your songwriting, shows, production and sales, it can be quite confusing as to what one should do next, where to spend money, how best to spend your time, etc.
I didn't respect many of my teachers in high school, but one of my history teacher's favorite maxims my senior year was something I'll always remember: "Major on the major and minor on the minor." What the hell exactly does that mean? Choose the things that are most important to work on and don't sweat the smaller stuff. If your band doesn't have a decent recording yet, it's probably not important that you spend all your time worrying about the type-face on your Myspace layout, or the 15th new t-shirt design for your band when you haven't released a new single in 10 months.
Pick and choose your battles and don't get caught up in the minutia. We provide a hell of a lot of information, but we're the first to say that it's not for everyone nor is all of it the most pertinent stuff you should be worrying about. We want to put up all the data out there and let you decide what is worth doing and what is not. Further, no one is in the exact same boat, so as songwriters, producers and artists ourselves, we must do the same.
When getting bogged down with an enormous project or to do list, ask yourself: "is any of this going to make a significant impact on the goals for my music?" If the answer is no, move on to something that is likely to produce significant results for your music. Your music, like most everything else, is a business and you too should be looking out for that magic formula of maximum return on minimum investment.
I didn't respect many of my teachers in high school, but one of my history teacher's favorite maxims my senior year was something I'll always remember: "Major on the major and minor on the minor." What the hell exactly does that mean? Choose the things that are most important to work on and don't sweat the smaller stuff. If your band doesn't have a decent recording yet, it's probably not important that you spend all your time worrying about the type-face on your Myspace layout, or the 15th new t-shirt design for your band when you haven't released a new single in 10 months.
Pick and choose your battles and don't get caught up in the minutia. We provide a hell of a lot of information, but we're the first to say that it's not for everyone nor is all of it the most pertinent stuff you should be worrying about. We want to put up all the data out there and let you decide what is worth doing and what is not. Further, no one is in the exact same boat, so as songwriters, producers and artists ourselves, we must do the same.
When getting bogged down with an enormous project or to do list, ask yourself: "is any of this going to make a significant impact on the goals for my music?" If the answer is no, move on to something that is likely to produce significant results for your music. Your music, like most everything else, is a business and you too should be looking out for that magic formula of maximum return on minimum investment.
- How To Use MySpace Artist Dashboard Analytics To Help Your Group
- iTunes Exclusive Tracks? No Way! Bandcamp Exclusive Tracks!
- How To Join YouTube's Revenue Sharing Program
- Organize Your Merch: Roll Your Shirts With Rubberbands
- 5 Not Obvious And Awesome Ways To Use SoundCloud
- Songwriting Tips: Even On Vocals, Melody Is King
- Jango Now Allows Mass Emailing Your Fans
- TuneCore Can Now Get You On MediaNet Sites Like MOG
- Formspring Is A Quick And Interesting Way To Connect With Your Fans
- An Introduction To Audio Boo
- Uvumi Is A Music Discovery For New Artists
- Allow Taping At Your Shows To Keep Fans Happy
- Upload And Share Art And Other Files With Google Docs
- Aviary Launches "Garageband In The Cloud" Music Creation Tool Roc
- uSocial.net Is A Pay For Digg Votes Service
- The Nuts And Bolts Of Touring
- Interview With An Artist/Author: Hugh MacLeod
- Using FourSquare To Help Your Music
- Interview With A Record Label A&R Rep - Achal Dhillon From Almost Gold Recordings
- Pick A Format And Get To Work
- BigCartel Is A Easy To Use Webstore To Sell Merch Through
- Rdio Is Another New Music Streaming Subscription Site
- The Zoom H1 Is A Tiny $99 Recorder, Perfect To Record Shows And Practices
- Marcato Musician Is A Online Manager For Your Group
- Using FourSquare To Help Your Music
- Humor Tuesdays - Best Drummer Ever
- Bad Interviews Are Your Fault, Not The Interviewer
- Chartfixer Will Put You On The Singles Charts For A Pay To Play Price
- Bandcamp Now Offering Multiple Bundle Packages Per Album
- Learning Good Digital Straegy Practices
- Interview With A Remix Artist: Gigamesh
- Facebook Wizard Will Help You Spam And Annoy People On Facebook
After an auspicious beginning where their first release just happened to be Peter Bjorn and John's Writer's Block, the independent label Almost Gold Recordings has turned nearly everything they've touched into, well, gold. Some of the other amazing artists the label has already worked with include Black Kids, Harlem Shakes, Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Calvin Harris. Considering all that, it only makes sense that Almost Gold would have some of the best A&R reps in the business. Both friendly and insightful, Achal Dhillon is a gentleman well versed in the savviest details of the industry while still not coming across as the typical, disingenuous A&R creep. We recently spoke with Achal in what turned out to be one of our best and most relevant interviews on the music industry yet.
Blogger, artist, and now author of the amazing book Ignore Everybody, Hugh MacLeod is one of the leading authorities on the creative process. Famous for his business card drawings (as seen above), Hugh gained a great deal of initial popularity through his always intriguing Gaping Void blog - filled with drawings and personal insights on art, creativity and a myriad of other topics. In addition, MacLeod is an avid music fan with some keen insights on the industry, even appearing as a panel speaker at SXSW 2010. This week we were lucky enough to pry Hugh away from his artistic endeavors long enough to record some of his piercing observations. - Capitalizing On The Excitement Of Your Fans And Mobilizing Your Merch
- Imogen Heap vs. Lady GaGa - Is Touring Where The Money Is At?
- Tweet For A Track Now Charges Way Too Much For Fans Emails
- Everybody Is A Music Maker
- Lady GaGa And That Doofy 15 Year Old Tween Pop Dude's Manager Talk Marketing
- Contracts With Incentives Are Always The Best Way To Go
- Promoting Your Hip Hop Record
- MOG's Online Radio Service Gaining Traction Fast!
- Jango Pay-To-Play Now With 3 Speeds
- Seesmic For iPhone Integrates Ping.fm For Social Network Management
- Pro Tool Tip Of The Day: Inside Avidgate!
- Bundling Samplers On Bandcamp
- Nimbit vs. Topspin - A Blog Covering The Experiment!
- OpenStudio Is A Rehearsal/Recording Studio Locater!
- Humor That Can't Wait For Monday: Even Jesus Loves The Talkbox
- Tips On Getting Better Press From About.com
- Tonehammer Reqium Is An Amazing Vocal Synthesis Program
Back on the attack! This week was a great week for the music biz with tons of exciting new stuff. We are looking forward to a hot summer of banging content as we prepare the Musformation book. Here is what you may have missed this week.
- **Musformation Exclusive**: Interview With An Author/Marketing Guru - Seth Godin
- SoundCloud Hits 1M Users - Are You One Of Them?
- CASH Music Makes UI Tools To Improve Your Groups Website
- Taking Pictures Of Street Team Promotions
- Streampad Is A Great Music Player For Your Blog
- Spread The Word By Making A Free Online Scene Sampler
- TuneRights Is A Stock Exchange For Your Songs
- Google Introduces Froyo For Android - Web Based iTunes Competitor
- Ultimate Merch Tip - A Charismatic Merch Person
- Decibel Will Teach You About Your Music
- New Service Fuzzed Out Offers Song Exposure, Free Downloads
- Next Big Sound Now Tracking Individual YouTube Videos
- The Music Library Report Card Rates Music Libraries
- Flavorpill Fix Debuts - Submit Your Content For The Next One
- Wonderful Waste Of Time - Let Them Sing It
- GreenDisk Will Recycle Your Technotrash (AKA Your CD's And DVD's)
- Are Sprinters The New Econolines?
- ReverbNation Now Offering Free Sales Reports
- Diplo At ToughGong Studios
Best-selling author, widely-read blogger and universally recognized marketing guru, Seth Godin hardly needs an introduction. If you read this site with any frequency you know that we often attempt to incorporate his ideas and insights into music marketing and the industry. If you haven't yet read any of his brilliant books, start with Linchpin - then go back to Tribes and Purple Cow - at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it will drastically change the way you look at the world and especially marketing. Recently, Seth was generous enough to sit down and give us an interview, relaying some of his latest insights on music marketing, the creative process and the state of the music industry today. Prepare to take notes. Just a quick note everyone, we had a problem on Facebook where our posts would appear three times, that is now fixed. As well, We have given The Musformation Guide To Getting Your Band Somewhere a long needed update. This should be updated every Friday just like it used to be as we prepare it for it's book form!
Another day ruined by a piece of Internet magic! Let Them Sing It is one of those pieces of technology that really does nothing but make you smile all day long as you watch your productivity go to hell, as you listen to your favorite singers sing whatever you may type in to a typepad. Give it a try and waste your life away.
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