Although the possibilities of working with a lot of virtual instruments are incredibly vast, one of the pitfalls is that your music can start to sound inorganic and manufactured. Drums especially can lack character when every note is a quantized sample. Here are three tips that you can use to make your sampled drums sound more realistic and more musical.
Whether you're an amateur or expert producer, one of the most important disciplines is to study and learn from great music. There's now an online tool that can streamline that process and quickly teach the music theory behind thousands of pieces of music, Hooktheory. Here's how Hooktheory may completely upgrade your songwriting process.
HBO released a trailer for its new series 'Sonic Highways' last week and it looks like one of the coolest ways yet to experience the living history of American music. The 8-episode series premieres next month and will follow the Foo Fighters to historic studios in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Austin, Washington D.C., Seattle and Nashville as they record their forthcoming record of the same name.
The Internet has afforded today's musicians some incredible tools for connecting with and building a fan base. And, as online social equity becomes more and more of a status symbol in the music business, it's never been more important for artists maintain and develop a strong social media following. Here are two less traditional tips for building up your Internet fan base.
Having enough headroom from recording is essential to the mixing and mastering process. Also, there's no better way to add headroom than from recording your tracks properly at the start. Here's why headroom matters, as well as two tips for creating headroom in your mix in the recording process.
SoundCloud has announced that it will implement advertisements into its streaming service. Similar to Youtube, the "On SoundCloud" service will allow users the option to allow audio ads to play before their tracks in exchange for a share of the ad revenue. While it will likely prove to be lucrative for some artists, others are decrying the move as a loss for indie artists to commercial interests.
We're partnering with Modern Producers, a music production studio that makes high-quality loops, VSTs, plugins and custom vocal performances for producers of pop, hip-hop, EDM and orchestral music. With the tools offered by Modern Producers, anyone from seasoned producers to bedroom composers can find a unique element to take their music to the next level.
Several key players in the music industry are negotiating a new international standard day for album releases. If adopted, all albums would be released on Friday in every country. The proposal is an effort to reduce piracy caused by albums being released in some countries days before they drop in others.
One of the trade-offs of having your music available everywhere via the Internet is not being able to monitor where and how your music is being used. Because of this, you could likely miss out on a lot of royalty money you're owed. Thankfully there are performance rights organizations (PROs) that can help monitor, collect and distribute your royalty payments. Here's some basic information on how PROs work and how they can help you monetize your music.
Tracking a great piano recording is only half the battle. Once you get to the mixing process, working with piano in the context of your other instruments requires some special attention–thanks to the piano's expansive range of tone and color. In our previous post we discussed some tips for adding EQ and compression to the acoustic piano recording in your mix. Here, we'll talk about using reverb and panning.
The piano is one of the most versatile and expansive instruments to record and mix. It offers a massive amount of possible tones and timbres to work with. Because of this, mixing for piano can be a challenge of its own–especially when there are multiple instruments in your mix. To help you produce the best possible mix, here are some tips for adding equalization and compression to the piano in your mix.
In a recent Wall Street Journal OP-ED, Taylor Swift shared an overall optimistic view of the future of the music industry. While new challenges certainly do exist for artists, the world's top-selling musician believes that the key to success in the future is doing a better job of engaging fans and creating memorable experiences for them.
Pandora has pioneered an agreement with indie rights coalition, Merlin, to skirt the standard rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board. This will offer independent artists better pay per stream and better exposure on the streaming service. The deal is the first of its kind, enabling independent labels and distributors to negotiate with a major streaming service directly.
Radio is still the dominant medium for people to listen to and discover music. Ironically, it's also one of the worst in terms of quality. Nearly all radio stations add a significant amount of multiband compression to their playback that kills the dynamic range. To counteract this, you can make an alternative radio mix for your music. Here are three tips on how to do it.
Nielsen, one of the top music industry reporting agencies, has released its middle of the year report. Overall albums sales have dropped due to the increasing popularity of streaming, while vinyl record sales have jumped a remarkable 40%. Here's why one of recorded music's oldest formats may be the key to producing a profitable album.
