Amazon.com Widgets Vocformation, a Division of Musformation | Daily Musician's News, Tips, Gear, Business & Gossip

Watch A Great Video On Pitch Speaking

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

#FollowFriday @CreateMusicTips

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Createmusictips.png
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.

I
t'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.

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. 
Musformation.gif
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.
musformation.pngFrom our initial conceptualization of Musformation, the idea was to help create an open community with spirited dialogue and a constant flowing ideas instead of attempting to be the final word or end-all-be-all site of musical elitism.  We are musicians and producers who write about our real world experiences that are our own personal reality.  But we also want to hear from you.  We have a loyal audience, a great set of consistent commentators and a very intelligent readership that always surprises us.  Agree with us, disagree with us, love us, hate us, but give us your own take.  We love links, articles you've written, ideas and anything you've got.  It's been an amazing run so far and 2010 is looking even better.  Keep it coming, ya'll. 
Thumbnail image for Musformation.gif
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.
0917c5a7.jpg
One of the things that separates professionals from amateurs is the ability to deal with who is hiring them. Often times we do not get to work with ideal personalities when working in the music business and our clients can be so ridiculously slow you want to go to their childhood home and look for lead paint on the walls. The sad thing is if you blame the client you will probably fail them and you will not continue to grow your business. What a true professional does is learn how to idiot proof their process and get through even the most dense mind. Smashing Magazine, despite being aimed at graphics nerds, has written a fantastic piece on this subject that can be enjoyed by anyone who works in the music business and looking to gain a little more peace in their life working with mentally "special" people in this business.

Make A Portable DIY Vocal Booth

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
DIYvocalbooth.pngIf you are traveling the country trying to do the vocals for your record whenever inspiration strikes you can meet some very acoustically unfriendly environments along the way. This plan for a DIY vocal booth is a cheap and small way to cure some of these ills if you want to record in hotel rooms and nasty crash pads on tour. Check it out here.
One of the first questions we are asked regularly is how we know so much about the music business? Today Todd, Jackie and I have decided to go public with something we have been doing for a long time. Musformation Services and Consulting is what we have branded the service we have been providing to many artists and labels. Whether it has been strategy, campaigns or web development, we have been coming up with winning ideas for various projects for quite a while. Today, we felt it was time to go past the word of mouth stage and spread the word a bit. Check out our site, where we explain what we do and if you have any questions or need help, we are at your service.
earlove.jpg
A while back we received some complimentary EarLove earplugs to review for our site. I kept forgetting to take them with me to shows until last night and I was very glad I did. Upon popping in the EarLoves I was shocked at how they lowered the whole frequency spectrum instead of the horrible muted tone most earplugs give. As I watched MiniBoone rock Brooklyn I got to listen at a comfortable volume while not losing the energy and mix of the instruments. With a 12db rating , they take the sound down just enough to make the concert enjoyable while still being able to feel it. For just around $16 these can make your music listening and practice a much better experience. Color me impressed.

An Interview With Vocal Coach Siobhan Quinn

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
jessica_simpson_singing.jpg
Songwriting Scene is a kick ass blog that covers a lot of content of interest to songwriters. One of their better pieces of content of late has been an interview with vocal coach Siobhan Quinn who gives great info on how to get your vocals the best they can be. Check it here.

Circuit Bending A Megaphone

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)


Many of us remember Bjork's mystifying (and often frustrating) Medulla album where she recorded the majority of the record using only vocal sounds, and now David MeShow has gone in a similar direction, but with a more traditional sound for his vocal band. Using only a little distortion for the guitar and pitch to to get the bass correct, MeShow has constructed a pretty traditional rock song using only his vocals. Pretty amazing stuff and having video of him making the sounds certainly helps us appreciate what a feat it actually is.

Via I Have Synth

Watch A Live Online Jam Session

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pro Tools Tip Of The Day: Comping Vocals

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Watch A Great Video On Writing Vocal Harmonies

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many Wireless Mics Will No Longer Work In June!

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
phil-collins-07.jpg
Why is the man always trying to bring us down? Our beloved congress passed an act last year that gave much of the bandwidth used by wireless mics over to Telecom companies. This means your wireless microphones may no longer work come 6/12/10. Fortunately many manufacturers are offering rebates for upgrades and you can find a list of all of the mics affected. Read up more on this subject here.
lasko-space-heater-773025.jpg
In case you haven't noticed it's pretty cold out right now. Your practice space may be even colder considering many of the bands I work with often neglect the fact that these spaces need a good amount of heat. If you are looking to no longer freeze during practice The NY Times just tested out 10 popular space heaters and make some recommendations. Enjoy!
<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19




Follow Us On:

Follow Us On Facebook   Follow Us On Twitter   Follow Us On Myspace   Follow Us with RSS Feeds   Follow Us On YouTube

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner








It is no secret that online radio is one of the best ways to promote your music. With services like Pandora, Last.FM, Jango, Blip.FM and other services not only can you get your music before the ears of listeners who like the type of music you make, but you can also get paid for your plays as you begin to dominate the online radio airwaves.






It all comes down to this. As you come down to entering the studio and then recording your songs you are now tasked with one of the most difficult balancing acts ever known to man (ok... well maybe to musicians). We have written countless articles on how to avoid many of the pitfalls many musicians fall into when they go to capture their material. Read on and make something great for us all to hear.






With everyday, as the gatekeepers die and the major labels lose power it becomes more and more about just having a great song. This being the case you better start brushing up on your skills! We have assembled a lot of advice and tools for you to use to write better songs on the other side of this link.






When trying to break your music out of your circle of friends and out to the whole world, you are inevitably going to have to take on the hat of doing some publicity for your own music. As you begin to take on this large task there is numerous bits of advice that you may have overlooked on how to do this effectively. We have assembled numerous articles on how to take over the world of music and get it out there.






Now that you actually have songs recorded you need to get them out to the world to be heard. With every day that passes more and more amazing tools become available for artists to do this without the help of a label. We keep an up to date guide of everything you could ever want to know about what you should do in order to make the right choice on how to get your music out to the world.






Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, YouTube all become more and more important everyday (well maybe not Myspace, but contrary to much chatter it is still important to know the most up to date ways to make Myspace feed your other pages). We keep musicians up to date with the most current ways to use all of these social networks to promote your music. If you are not reading our guides to social networks you are missing out on the crucial knowledge of how to promote your music with the most up to date techniques.






What separates the winners and losers is how well you handle playing live and then getting your show on the road. Playing live and touring may seem easy but there are countless pitfalls that one can encounted over time. We show you all the new tricks of the trade as well as wise advice that has been passed down over the years.






Managing a group of people and keeping everyone on the same page and motivated is one of the biggest make or break factors of any sucessful group. There are many emerging tools that can make this easier and we sort through them, all the while dispensing valuable advice on how to deal with your members with minimal chaos.






Getting covered by blogs is fast becoming one of the things that everyone wants to figure out. Sadly, there is not a lot of information out there on how to do just this. We have quite a few articles with the techniques we use to get the bands we work with on to some of the top blogs out there.