- How To Choose A Record Producer/Recording Studio - Part 1 - Recognizing Past Failures
- Ask A Non-Music Dork For Perspective
- Programming Note - One Year Of Musformation!
- Anatomy Of A Buzz Band - How Many Publicists Does Neon Indian Have?
- You're So Much Better Live Than On Record? Why Does No One Know This?
- Band Tip: Don't Sweat A Bad Show
- How DIY Artist Noush Skaugen Got 1.2 Million Twitter Followers
- Watch A Great Video On Pitch Speaking
- Live Lessons: Have A Backup Guitar Ready In Case A String Breaks
- GuGuChu Is A New Service To Find And Promote Your Gigs
- Use A Rehearsal Drum Set For Writing In The Studio
- Words Of DIY Wisdom From Blood Red Shoes
- I Stand Behind It - Radial Bones Y Splitter
- If You Want Your News Shared On Facebook? Put It Up On The Weekend
- Use Hydrogen Peroxide To Clean Earbuds/Earplugs/In-Ears
- Jelli Radio (Digg-Like Radio) Expands Nationwide!
- Buddy Up For Cheap Mastering
- Take Advantage Of Google Buzz Sharing With ReBuzzThis
- A Video Introduction To Root Music's Facebook Pages
Possibly one of the great rock docs of all time, Dig takes a look at two bands who you don't need to be fans of to enjoy this amazing doc. Capturing the two seperate career paths of the bands, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, this is one of the most enjoyable displays of rock debauchery and music industry reality you will ever see. Don't miss it.
At Musformation we have decided to follow Twitters lead and suggest
you a Twitter feed we find to be totally awesome every week. We figure
it is time to show people by example who is using Twitter right and
good the awesome resources it holds.
It's been a while since we featured a Follow Friday tweeter, since we haven't been finding new and inspiring tweeters to point you to. That ended this week when I stumbled upon the AWESOME tweeter, CreateMusicTips. They constantly tweet out the same kind of cool tips and tricks you find on Musformation and if you like us, you will surely like them.
It's been a while since we featured a Follow Friday tweeter, since we haven't been finding new and inspiring tweeters to point you to. That ended this week when I stumbled upon the AWESOME tweeter, CreateMusicTips. They constantly tweet out the same kind of cool tips and tricks you find on Musformation and if you like us, you will surely like them.
The great electronic duo Modeselektor discusses their music (with plenty of dorky details from their personal lives) and also live setup.
While it would seem like common sense to not put something dirty back in your ears when you can visibly see residue on it, everyday I watch musicians put wax filled dirty things in their ears. After doing this, these musicians will then wonder why their ears are clogged up and feel swollen. The easy solution is to carry some hydrogen peroxide with you in your road kit. Simply dip your plugs in and then with washed hands pull the gunk off. With In-Ear monitors, dipping the plugs in a cap-full of liquid may not be recommended, but you can Q-tip the solid part down with the liquid to get rid of any excessive gunk.
If there is anything most bands regularly hear from their adoring fans it is that they are, soooo much better live than they are on record. While some of this hyperbole just comes from the energy of live, loud music and enjoying it with others, there is many a time a band can bring a whole new experience to fans with their live show. The funny thing is, many bands who are great live do not exploit it and show this fact off to their fans as much as they should. After the jump we will go over some ideas on how you can show off your live skills.
Drowned in Sound has up a fantastic article on the buzz band Blood Red Shoes, who have dispensed some amazing DIY advice to up and coming groups that you don't get to hear everyday. A fantastic read with great advice like the tidbit below.
"This is a sad fact because there are people around our band, and a lot of bands, who really believe in what they're doing and will work fantastically hard to make things happen. I have a lot of love for these people. A lot of folk in the music industry are not evil contrary to popular belief. Actually they mostly start out really genuine music fans who want to work in a music environment and the issue is actually the system itself, which like everything else under capitalism, is set up so the workers are the ones getting ripped off the most. Nevertheless, no-one will quite feel like you do about your band, nobody will have that 10 minutes of suicidal end-of-the-world depression you get after a shit gig. Or that utter disappointment when you see they've printed your album sleeve on the wrong kind of paper."
This past Saturday was March 6th, which while being insignificant in the
grand scheme of things, this was a big day for Musformation. After two
months of planning, brain storming and research Todd and I officially
started posting to Musformation on a daily basis on 3/6/09. It wasn't a
planned launch as much as a bunch of bugs got fixed, we started giving
out the URL, and we had something to say. The later part of that saying
is a lot of what this site is about. We have something to say.
- How To Pursue A "Corporate Sponsorship" To Get Funding For Your Music
- Band Tip: Spend Energy Making New Fans Instead Of Badgering Your Friends
- Lessons On Building Fan Community From Lady GaGa
- Surround Sound Coming Soon To iTunes
- Getting Paid By SoundExchange - Watch The MetaData!
- Music Business Reality - You Need Smart Management And A Smart Label
- Root Music Is A Great Way To Make Your Facebook Page Look Fantastic
- Why Attending Your Mastering Session Can Hurt Your Record
- RockBand Network For Unsigned Artists Has Launched
- Exercises To Improve Your Controller/Button Timing
- Initial Reports On Rock Band Authoring Is DIY Is A No Go
- Scratch Off Record Covers Are All The Rage - See The New MGMT Cover In Action
- MP3Cut Is A Website To Edit MP3s/Make Ringtones
- Mistakes You Shouldn't Make When Writing A Press Release
- Recording/Mixing Tip: Don't Get Lost In Overdubs And Double-Tracking
- 7 Ways To Inflate Your Mailing List
- Using Shuffle To Improve Your Mixes
- BroadTexter Can Help You Text Your Fans When You Come To Their Home Town
- Engaging Your Fans Through Creative Contests
- Band Tip: Get To Soundcheck EARLY!
- GigLeader Is Another Site Where People Can Search For Your Band For Potential GigsWhy SoundCloud Is Great To Get Your Music On To Blogs
- Band Names Are Running Dry, How To Avoid a Generic Name
- TuneCore Now Offering Ringtone Uploads And Free Software With Tutorial To Do So
- ReverbNation And AudioLife Go Public With The Reverb Store
- Gain Studio Is Studio Management Software
- How To Setup A SoundCloud Remix Contest
- SellABand Will Reopen Under New Ownership
- Is Your Client Dense? You Still Have To Make It Work!
- Innovative Album Packaging - Scratch Off Album Art
- Aphex Twin Outdoes Himself Again - Embeds His Face In A Spectragraph
- Musformation, FanBridge, ReverbNation and MusicGlue all offer way to trade free songs for an email list.
- TweetForATrack not only will have fans Tweet out a message about downloading a track from you, but will also capture an email address from your fans.
- Stores like Nimbit and Bandcamp will capture your customers email addresses for you.
- Make a email list sign up form available on your website and your Myspace. FanBridge and ReverbNation both have fantastic widgets to do this with.
- Offer giveaways only to mailing list members, like guest list passes etc. Announce them on Facebook and Twitter so your fans hear about them and sign up for the mailing list.
- Take credit card payments at shows through services like Square, which will capture your fans email addresses.
- Get a Netbook with a email list signup and give away something like a sticker, button or patch to anyone who signs up for your email list at every show you play.
Instructables has up a fantastic tutorial on how to make a multi-voltage power supply for your guitar pedals. A great learning experience and one that can be rewarding on your wallet to get rid of all those spare $9v battery purchases.
Hey Everyone,
First off thanks for baring with us through our growing pains. As the site grows, the internal gears get cranky and need some oiling. Jackie as always did us solid and tweaked out some of the problems with RSS, Commenting and the site crashing. Thanks so much for baring with us and as always if you have any problems please email us here. Sorry for the trouble and as always thanks for the support.
First off thanks for baring with us through our growing pains. As the site grows, the internal gears get cranky and need some oiling. Jackie as always did us solid and tweaked out some of the problems with RSS, Commenting and the site crashing. Thanks so much for baring with us and as always if you have any problems please email us here. Sorry for the trouble and as always thanks for the support.
Music Radar has up a fantastic article on the process that goes on behind one of the groups that is influencing a great deal of the musicians in the world today, everyone's favorite indie band Animal Collective. The article gets into great detail on some of the bands intricacies and creative thoughts and is a great read for anyone looking to
If you are in the type of group that is constantly looking for more paying gigs by any means necessary, GigLeader may be a great site to setup a profile on. Providing a list of groups indexed by location and genre, promoters are able to search their database to find talent for a wide variety of gigs. Check it out.
While many electronic artists out there seem to be phoning it in for their live show, Edison really takes performance to the next level. In the above clip he shows off his custom Monome and Novation Launchpad and then tells us exactly how he does it all. For more awesome performance footage check here.
- WaTunes Announces Marketplace To Sell Music Directly To Fans
- Ian Rogers Of TopSpin Talks Staying In The Newscycle
- The Bizmo Launches Hit Or Not Facebook App To Test Your A&R Skills
- The World's First Remixable YouTube Video?
- Walmart Will Allow You To Sleep In Their Parking Lot On Tour
- Guitar Intonation Intricacies
- YouTube Launches Automatic Playlist Generator/Music Discovery Tool Disco
- Giving Superfans With Tattoos Free Admission To Shows
- Tips From Consumer Reports On Keeping Your Van Running For Less Money
- Facebook Album Downloads/Sharing Start To Heat Up With Angels & Airwaves And GBC
- Merch Strategies - Don't Just Give It Away, Get An Email Address
- The Jamie Thomas Ruling Shows 1 Illegal Download = 3 1/3rd Dead Relatives?
- The Lessons From Public Enemy's SellABand Fail And How To Do Crowdfunding Right
Anyone who has seen live music knows there is nothing worse then a shoe gazing anorexic sitting in front of the crowd strumming a guitar. However, some of you too-cool-for-school types don't seem to care and do this anyway. If this is the case, one way you can actually entertain us is using a slide show. Thankfully, Instructables has up a cheap way to make a slide projector out of an Ikea lamp. That way you'll have more money to spend on girls jeans!



































