5 Steps To Self-Releasing An Album

With music equipment and software becoming cheaper and cheaper everyday, it’s becoming easier and easier to self-create a quality CD within the confines of your own home recording studio. So as creating and releasing your own CD becomes more and more accessible, more and more musicians are opting to do exactly that.

And why shouldn’t they? It’s a great way to spread your music (I don’t care if CD sales are plummeting, giving someone a physical product you can touch is always preferrable to a digital copy), as well as make some money off the music you’ve worked so hard on (if you’re selling the cds)

For those of you who follow me on youtube, you should know that me and my go-to singer / songwriter / business-partner Landon Reidy self-released underground albums earlier this year / decade. We sold a few hundred copies (not as much as we had planned, but other things came up for us so the albums was unfortunately put on the back-burner), and the whole experience, from idea to selling the final product, taught me a lot about marketing and how selling music works in general.

Today I've decided to put together a quick guide on how to put together your own cd or mixtape from the idea to releasing and selling it.

1.) Figure Out Your Market

This is key. Don’t just throw together a bunch of tracks you had on your computer and release it. Have a concept or idea and have a clear picture of who will be listening/buying your music.

You have to know your customers so you can create the music for them, because in the end they are the ones who will be listening and enjoying it. Now that doesn’t mean follow trends or change your creative vision to please everyone, but it does mean figure out exactly who your music appeals to and tailor your CD towards the listeners.

And definately don’t make one of those cds with ‘one of everything’ tracks where you try to please everyone.

Me and Landon went with a ""Electronic Rock" vibe with previous albums, and because we figured out the direction early, we ended up with a musically solid and consistent project at the end of it.

2.) Record The Music

This parts obvious, right? But a lot of people get into the marketing, and all the other areas of their project before even creating the product! I have to admit this is something that I did also, and while it’s good to have the steps laid out for you in the future, you have to remember that the music is the most important part, so don’t rush this step.

Put in the extra time to make QUALITY music. Fix up those tiny mixing flaws, re-record those shakey notes. Get everything as perfect as you can.

3.) Cover Design

Once you have the songs finished, mixed and mastered, you have to get the covers designed. I’d suggest you outsource a designer (you can find great graphic designers online for not too much $), and I'd definitely suggest getting professional photos done for the covers. When you’re trying to sell the product the cover is the very first thing people will see, and even though the music is the main focus, the cover is what they will initially buy.

A great cover verse a cheap looking cover will reflect (at least in the consumers eyes) on the quality of the music. Save up however much money you need and invest in quality pictures and quality cover art.

I know that when me and Landon were selling our cds, we had numerous people commenting on how professional it looked, and some even thought we were selling a CD by a major recording artist. It cost us a few hundred to get the quality we needed but it was definately worth the investment.

4.) Manufacturing / Pressing

Next you’ll need to get your CD manufactured. Do NOT burn and print the cds yourself! They will look cheap and tacky. This does mean you will have to invest MORE $ but in the end every little bit counts. Don’t skimp on any of these steps. Find a CD manufacturer who will do 1000 or less copies and get yourself a few hundred CDs at least.

It shouldn’t cost you too much if you buy in bulk, and if the professionals will leave you with a great quality pressed and printed CD. You don’t want your CD’s to look like you burnt them off your laptop.

5.) Sell It!

So you’ve figured out your market, recorded the CD, finished the covers, had your CD pressed up and ready to go, what to do now? SELL the product! OR if you wish, give it out for free as promo material! Either way, you have to get the music out there! Now, there are various ways to do this, and i’d advocate implementing as many as you possibly can.

Firstly you have to figure out WHERE your ‘demographic’ or basically, the people who will like your music, hang out. A great place to start is shows/events. The first time Marque and I started selling the ‘Back To Basics’ EP we wold it at an event that Marque performed at, where we knew much of the crowd would love our type of music. Because the people we wanted to sell our music to were there, plus Marque had some buzz due to the performance he had just given, we ended up selling over 50 copies in around 2 hours after the show. Not too bad.

Another great place is outside clubs when people are leaving. This actually isn’t as hard as it sounds, as long as you don’t approach people like a pushy salesperson and just be friendly and laidback. Just tell them you’re aspiring musicians, offer to show them some of your music through headphones on your ipod, and let them decide.

Don’t try force or beg people to buy it, cause if they feel awkward at any point they’ll most likely just leave. If you head to clubs that bring in a crowd that listen to your genre of music, you should be gold. This does require some effort and discipline, especially as you’ll be waiting in the cold till around 3 – 4 in the morning, but it’s all a part of the grind.

Lastly, you can sell physical copies online, as well as digital copies. CDbaby.com have a great service that allows you to send them your physical cds, and people can buy it from the cdbaby website, and they will handle the shipping and postage for you. As well as that they have an online retailers like itunes and amazon, which is great.

Anyways that’s it for today. Hope this brief guide gave you an outline of what it takes to self release an album/ep or mixtape! And remember, don’t do it for the money. Even though you’re selling your music the main motivation should be providing people with quality music that they will enjoy and be touched by, one way or another.

Also, as usual feel free to leave a comment! If you found the info in this article valuable don’t forget to sign up to the newsletter to get updates and more informative articles in your inbox!

How To Get Great Mixes Without Having To Mix

How To Get Great Mixes Without Having To Mix

First of all, before I begin writing this, I want to say that I do not consider myself a great mixer at all. I really only have basic knowledge, and I would never claim that I am anywhere near an expert on the topic. However, I still get a lot of people asking my how I mix my tracks and get all the sounds to sit well with each other.
The funny thing is, any mixing I do on my beats is really quite minimal. Today i’m not going to focus on my actual mixing process (that will be covered in a future post), but I will be talking about the MAIN technique I use to get everything sounding clear. And the thing is it’s really quite simple.

It All Comes Down To Choosing The Right Sounds 

Easier said than done, right?

Now obviously me telling you to choose the right sounds is worthless if you don’t know what the right sounds to begin with. And on top of that, there are no perfect sounds which will automatically make your mixes sound amazing.

But the main idea is to choose the right sounds that work WELL with the other sounds.

Over the years i’ve spent producing, sound choice is probably the number one factor that has contributed to getting me decent mixes. And the fact of the matter is, no matter how much technical knowledge you gain about EQ, compression, panning, and whatever else, if you’re a producer, the mixing process should really only enhance how your music sounds.

You shouldn’t expect the mix to make your poor tracks sound great.

They should really sound good before the mixing process begins, and if you’ve picked the right sounds then you won’t need to put in as much work in the mixing stage.

So, how do you find sounds that ‘fit’ right toegher?

Well, first of all, you have to understand the frequency spectrum. The frequency spectrum is basically the range of sounds that can be picked up by the human ear. You don’t really need to know specific numbers in this case, all you need to know that there is a range that goes from Low (think sub-woofer), to high (think a high-screetch, or that squeeky noise when you rub polystyrene)

Now the main cause of bad mixes is when one or more sounds are “clashing” with eachother, on this ‘frequency range’. ‘Clashing’ basically means that those sounds are fighting for the same ‘space’ in the spectrum, and because they’re both taking up the same space they cloud eachother and sound ‘cluttered’ as a result.

The idea is that you will want to choose sounds that all fill different ranges of the frequency, therefore each taking up their own seperate space, and so will all be able to be heard clearly.

I don’t remember where I read this, but someone said you should think of sounds as items in a closet or wardrobe.

You want to make sure everything is neatly packed into its own spot, so when you open the closet everything you want (shoes, jackets, hats) etc has its own space and is easy to find. If you have all your clothes messed up everywhere with your shoes all over the place, jackets pilled up rolled together with jeans and t-shirts, it’ll take you ages to find clothes when you need to. That’s basically the same with your mixes.

You have to place sounds that each take up their own distinct place so when you listen to your music, your ears can “see” each sound clearly.

First Off, The Kick

I consider the kick the most important part of the drum sounds. The kick provides the tempo and really gives the listener something to nod their head to. Kicks will almost always take up the lower frequencies. This means if you have to many other ‘bass heavy’ sounds, they will cloud your kick and make them harder to hear.

Really you should only have one other sound in the lower end of the spectrum, and that’s the bassline. However, you have to make sure that the bassline isn’t SO low that it takes away from the kick by fighting from the same space. If you listen to the beat below, you can hear how the bassline and the kick compliment each other.

The clap/snare is next, and getting your clap or snare to really ‘pop’ has a lot to do with the way you layer your drums. Because this article isn’t really focused on that, i’m not going to talk about the clap/snare too much. However, I will be writing a DETAILED article about the art of layering your drums, and I will have a video explaining my process on how I get my drums to really hit hard.

The most important part of this article is in the actual melodic sounds, as these are the ones that really have the most chance of clashing and fighting for “frequency space”. On average I have around 5 ‘melodic’ (non percussive) sounds in a track. Sometimes I have a bit more, sometimes I have a bit less. In this particular beat I had four.

So I’ve already covered the bassline. Once you’ve picked out a bassline you shouldn’t really have any other low-end sounds in your track. Most of the other sounds really will go from the mid-low to high frequencies.

Usually I ‘fill’ my mid frequencies with some kind of ‘chorded’ sound. This could be anything from a synth pad, to string chords. In this particular beat I actually created this sound using Massive VST, and it’s a sort of synth chord. If you look at how I played the chord, I am playing the the ‘root’ note on lower octaves to give the chords an extra thickness in the mid-low range.

This helps fill up some of the lower frequencies, but not so low that they compete with the bassline and kick.

Next ill pick some sounds to fill the mid-high and high ranges. In this beat you can hear the ‘verse lead’ and the ‘chorus lead’. They both were played at higher octaves to avoid clashing with the other sounds that were already present in the track. And even those two sounds were played at different octaves so they wouldn’t clash with each other.

If you listen you can hear that the ‘verse lead’ is played higher than the ‘chorus lead’, and because they are played at different octaves they sit in different spots frequency-wise, which means they both are easier to distinguish when played TOGETHER.

So that’s really the framework I use when choosing out sounds, and that’s how I get my mixes to sound clear before I even start the mixing process.

Now, after I finish my beat I do go in and apply EQ, panning, compression, and various other effects to the sounds in my track, but going through that process wasn’t the point of this article.

The reason I wrote this is to highlight the fact that one of the most important factors to getting a clear sounding mix is understand how sounds fit together in the frequency range, and learning how to choose sounds that COMPLIMENT each other rather than COMPETE with each other.

Obviously, this is a skill that has to be practiced, but you can start now by listening to some of your favorite music and identifying the sounds that were used, and how they sound against all the other sounds in the track.

I hope this helped some of you! I’m interested to hear your take on this so leave a comment below and tell me what you think, or if any thing wasn’t clear at all (I know this concept can be a little confusing for some).

Guide to Creative Commons: Giving it Away

This post focuses on Creative Commons, a collection of licenses designed help give creators of intellectual property the ability to reduce the strength of their copyright.

Creative Commons was created in 2002 and has since shown a substantial amount of support from the community. Essentially, when a person creates something they receive a copyright for it automatically. This copyright gives the copyright holder exclusivity with respect to the rights to sub-license, duplicate, make derivative works, etc. But sometimes the creator wants to share their work and doesn’t want everyone to have to ask them permission to do so. This is where CC comes into play. CC is a collection of licenses that strip away varying degrees of your copyright. You just need to choose the right one for your application. All CC licenses give up the exclusivity of the right to duplicate the works. This is extremely helpful in the digital medium, particularly online.

There have been some high profile uses of Creative Commons lately, including Nine Inch Nail’s latest release, Ghosts, MIT’s OpenCourseware and much of Flickr’s content is CC licensed.

One benefit of using Creative Commons is that it increases your chances for exposure on the Internet because people can legally distribute it. If your market is particularly ethical or committed, you might even be able to earn some money by requesting donations. ala NIN.

The creative commons license wizard will help you select what license is best for your work and your application. Some places to distribute your CC content include the Internet Archive and Deviant Art. Or, you can create a Torrent. You can also post it anywhere you can include a quick blurb about the license.

Creative Commons isn’t for every project, but it has substantially increased the ease at which people can share and collaborate with material online. I’m all for that.

Beat-Block: Why We Get It And How To Overcome It

I’m sure we've all experienced it at one time or another, and I believe everyone who pursues creative endeavors experiences creative blocks regularly, whether that be weekly, monthly, or daily.

Now for me, I experience some form of ‘beat block’ at least once a week, sometimes once every two weeks if I’m already on a roll. In general I make around 10 – 20 beats every week, and no matter what eventually I will reach a point where I am (seemingly) out of ideas.

When I used to get creative blocks it would stress me out. Because I pride myself highly on being able to create music, and I consider myself a very creative person, when those ‘creative’ juices that bring me joy stop working, it’s a bit of a drainer to say the least. In the past I would sometimes try ‘force’ the music out of me (which doesn't really work, at least for me), or I'd listen to a bunch of music trying to force my brain to come up with the next genius track idea.

This didn’t seem to work either.

After a while I realised that my tactics for getting rid of these creative blocks didn’t seem to be working, and i’d have to try a different approach. I started looking into what was causing my lack of creativeness, by studying my mindset both in ‘creative mode’ and in my creative ‘slumps’, and trying to figure out what was the difference between the two.


Lets Get Into Causes Of Beat Block

Inspiration is psychological. It’s a mindset. No matter what you’re creating, physical, intellectual, musical, whatever, it comes from that thing between your ears. Now any form of art is highly creative, and relies heavily on ‘inspiration’. This means that no matter how much you try to logicalize your music, your ability to create is really going to depend on how ‘inspired’ you are at that particular time. It depends on your mindset and what you’re thinking when you’re looking for that perfect melody or chords progression to fit those drums.

So that being said, why can we be super-inspired one day, then the next it seems we have ZERO ideas. I’ve broken down some of the reasons i’ve identified when i’ve lost my inspiration, as well as ways i’ve tried to fix them.

First of all, look at your REASON for making music.

I’ve noticed a lot of the times when I seem to be lacking in ideas, it’s because the reason i’m sitting down to produce a track is far different from the reason that I’m making a track when i’m feeling inspired.

Specifically, when i’m feeling inspired i’m making music purely for the love and passion of creating. I want to make music because i’m in the moment, and i’m loving music at that particular point in time.

However, when i’m experiencing a ‘beat block’ ive noticed my focus to be considerably different. I might be making a track for money reasons. I might be making a track to reach a self-set beat-quota, which is putting pressure on me to create. Because of how largely I define myself as a creative musician, I put unecessary pressure on myself to create, and on top of that, create GREAT music. This puts me in a position where i’ll be comparing my music to others, or to my previous work, instead of just creating for enjoyment, which is what I should be doing.

So, i’ve found that everytime beat block occurs, i’m creating music for the wrong reasons. Music should be enjoyable, fun, and should be made from passion. Once we as musicians lose site of that and start making music for the wrong reasons, the inspiration stops coming.

So now that we’ve identified the REASON for beat block, how do we get rid of it?

Firstly, remember that you’re making music for enjoyment first! Even if you’re making a beat to ultimately sell for money, the cash should still be a secondary motivator.

The primary reason for producing music should be because you love it! Sometimes just reminding yourself of that fact will help take the pressure off yourself, and help you just enjoy the process.

Next, I like to listen to music that I haven’t heard before. This might mean exploring new artists and genres, and new styles of music that is unfamiliar to me. This often helps me with ideas that I may not of previously thought of.

You could also try listening back to your favourite albums. Albums that you love. This can help push you back into the mindset of ‘enjoying’ music, rather than focusing yourself to create or pushing your mind for ideas.

Note: Another great ‘inspiration generator’ are youtube videos. Watching videos of other inspiring musicians has helped me numerous times. Ryan Leslie is one of my favourites.

Another thing I like to do is try ‘practicing’ my music.

This means taking the focus off finishing an entire beat, and just focusing on ‘practicing’ and improvingspecific elements of my music.

For example I might create drum loops and practice creating more intricate patterns, improve my mixing skills and learn new plugins, practice my piano chords and progressions, pretty much anything related to my music production.

However the main point of this excersise is not only to improve your music, but to take the ‘pressure’ off of finishing a beat or track. A lot of the times I start off practicing I end up finishing a beat anyways, but I see that as a bonus.

Lastly, if nothings working and you’re still not getting any ideas, just stop. Focus on other things in your life. Go play some Xbox, or watch some The Office reruns (one of my favorite shows). Wait until you get the urge to create again (and trust me, it will come) until you decide to bang out a few more beats!

I hope that helped any of you who are going through beat blocks right now! As musicians these creative blocks will come up regularly, but the main thing is to remember that they always pass. If you just follow this article you should be able to get over them. The main idea is to take the pressure off yourself and gain sight of why you make music in the first place!

If any of you have your own techniques/ideas on battling beat block, i’d love to hear! Leave a comment below.

Picking a Place to Live (and Record)

This post focuses on things to look for when you want to live and record in the same space.

Not too many of us producer types actually have the benefit of a dedicated studio space, working in rented rooms, in rehearsal spaces, or *gasp* where we live. But what are some of the things that we can look out for in living spaces that make for great recording spaces?

Some things that make for exceptional living/recording spaces are:
Isolation from neighbors. A truly make-or-break quality, this can mean either distance or really solid walls. Concrete or brick is usually best for isolation – even better is if there are some air gaps or rubber in between. Similarly, floated ceilings and/or floors help reduce bass transmission, mechanical reverberation, and footstep noises.

• Tall ceilings help reduce ‘boxiness’ and add to a robust bass response.
• Non-parallel walls. If you can find a space that is somewhat irregular, it helps to cut down on reflections and standing waves.
• Closets. Closets are great for isolating amps or for getting a dry sound. I use my walk-in closet as a vocal booth because the 13 foot ceiling, clothes, and boxes make for a really dry but non-boxy sound.
• Separate rooms with line-of-sight to each other. Rooms with windows can make great control room / live room setups.
• Ductwork can be useful for running cables cleanly from room to room (as long as it doesn’t get toohot in there).
• No water problems. The worst thing you can have in a studio is water damage. Look out for signs of past water damage.
• Quiet utilities. Radiators are way quieter than forced air, for instance.
• Outlets and isolated, capable circuits. Amps can blow wimpy electrical systems and poorly isolated circuits can introduce annoying noise into your gear.
• Security features such as deadbolts or alarm systems. Not having a land-level window helps.

These are just some thoughts based on my experiences with some of the great and not so great spaces in which I have lived and tracked. Leave your own experiences in the comments!

Mixing with Headphones: Avoiding Disaster

Talk to most engineers about mixing with headphones and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: “don’t”. That’s generally pretty good advice. You have to be really careful with headphones as they will “lie” to you about many aspects of your music. Sometimes, though, it can’t be helped. Maybe you’re on the road, maybe you can’t get into a studio, maybe you’re just making a rough mix for someone. If you absolutely must mix with headphones, here are some tips to help avoid the biggest mistakes people make.


Keep It Dry

Headphones don’t contribute much acoustic information to the sound you’re hearing because they’re so close to your ears. Everything sounds very close. You’ll be tempted to make things sound deeper, wider, and more lush than you should with headphones because of the flatness of the soundstage. The best advice is to keep it dry because you have no frame of reference. A dry mix is far more likely to sound good on speakers when mixed with headphones than one with a lot of delay and reverb. Otherwise you’ll run the risk of a washed out sound devoid of impact when you add the acoustics of an actual listening environment and distance from speakers.

Keep It Simple

Fancy effects such as flanging, phasing, and their ilk will sound very different with speakers because their positioning will contribute natural phase shifts. If you start messing with phase in your headphone mix you have no way of knowing what will happen when you add speaker distance into the equation. Again, play it safe and keep things simple.

Use the Whole Stereo Image

While this is true when mixing with speakers, it’s especially true with headphones. Headphones are two points of sound which typically generate three major lobes: left, center, and right. These lobes will be loudest and things will sound especially huge when panned into these positions. Remember that you have all the space in-between those lobes to use and that headphones will probably sound most impressive with things panned hard. Be aware of that and avoid the temptation to make everything live there.

Lean On Your Mastering Engineer

You are going to master this material, right? When in doubt, cut and boost less. Compress less. Headphones will seldom have flat frequency responses and generally have very different transient response than speakers. For one thing their drivers are generally smaller and lighter, meaning transients will snap more aggressively. Do yourself a favor and be conservative with EQ and compression. Any equalization will introduce phase shifts and will degrade the inherent quality of the source material. If you EQ too far the mastering engineer will have to EQ the other way, doubling the detrimental impact. It’s best if you don’t compress the stereo bus at all. A good mastering engineer will be able to turn a solid mix into a great mix if you give them room to do their work. Their familiarity with their monitors and room will help compensate for your lack of monitors and room in the mixing process.

Use Multiple References

The same rules that apply to mixing with speakers apply to headphones: the more references you have the better. In addition to your standard headphones (I use Sony MDR-7506) check on something very different (like I cross reference on Etymotic ER-4P canalphones). Don’t forget consumer-grade headphones like plain white iPod earbuds! If it sounds great on all of these, you’re more likely to have a solid mix.

If there’s any way you can mix on real studio monitors, do it. Otherwise follow these tips and you just might be able to pull of a slammin’ mix with your headphones.

Producers: How To Find Music Submission Opportunities On Twitter!

Have you ever wanted to know how to find people to send your music to on Twitter? Look no further. Through the power of the most powerful search engine in the world, aka Google, you can easily find the latest and greatest music submission opportunities on Twitter. Keep reading for the details…

First thing first, you need to understand a few simple Google search tricks that will help you refine your results…

#1 Searching within a specific site

This first tip will allow you to choose a particular site (in this case Twitter) and receive search results ONLY from that site. In order to do this you must type “site:” then the domain you want to search immediately after it…

#2 Phrase search

The next step is to add a “phrase search” to your search. When you add quotes to a group of words in Google, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. So in our case, we can add phrases like “send beats”, “send tracks”, “your best beats”, etc. Think of phrases nobody would use, unless they wanted some music…

#3 Refining your search with the *wildcard

This last step is very useful for broadening your search results. When you place a * in your search phrase, Google trades the star as a placeholder for any unknown term or terms and finds the best matches for them. So if you search for “send * beats”, you will get results like “send me beats”, “send your best beats”, “send more beats”, etc…

#4 Getting the most recent search results

This final tip will help you get the most up to date results. AFTER you search, you can click on “More search tools” , on the left side of the search results. This will open up options to show results which have popped up over the last 24 hours, week, month, year, or whichever time period you want to search through.

The power of Google Search

With these tips you are well on your way to finding the latest submission opportunities. The thing that is great about this, is that Google automatically sifts the results in order of importance. So pages that are links to higher profile (aka more famous) Twitter accounts usually come up first. On the opposite spectrum, artists such as “Lil Baby D” and “Juggalo Strangla”, will be towards the end of the results. Google can be a great ally for your e-grind. Try thinking outside of the box and maybe you can find some more opportunities outside of twitter… hmmmm……..

15 Ways You Can Instantly Improve Your Music

You want to take your music production to the NEXT level? Well I've put together a list of things you can and SHOULD do to improve the quality of your music NOW.

1.) Listen to more music.

Obvious? I don’t mean listen to the same music you’ve been listening to every other day. I mean find and source NEW music. The sound click charts don’t count. Listen to music and genres you wouldn’t normally listen to. Listen to music from the past.

Find the music that inspired the artists you love, and hear their influences. Delve into a broader range of tunes. Even if you don’t make that kind of music, widening your ‘musical peripheral vision’ will definitely have an influence on the music that you create. Remember to treat it as an art, and like all art inspiration is key. Be inspired by music you haven’t heard before.

I try to make it a goal of mine to search out new music and new genres that I haven’t heard before, rather that stick to the same artists. You may have to wade through some bad music in the process, but trust me the widened knowledge you gain will be worth it.

2.) Focused practice

More specifically, practice specific areas of your production. Take a few hours to improve your drum programming, with no intention of creating a full track. Spend some time exploring different EQ settings or mixing techniques you haven’t tried, or going through those plugins you have but never use.

A lot of people make beats regularly, but don’t improve (Or improve at a high rate) because they’re stuck in the same patterns over and over. Focus on improving specific areas of your production, whether it be drums, mixing, chord progressions, percussion, sound selection, sound creation, arrangement, and the list goes on… There’s always specific areas that need improvement, identify some of yours and get to work, NOW.

3.) Experiment

This means stop using those same tired drums, that same chord progression you used in the last 5 beats, the same sounds, etc. Act as if this is your first beat ever, and you’re trying new things. Try to step out of the self-imposed rules you’ve developed for your music, and push the boundaries a little.

This doesn’t mean go crazy and make everything sound spastic, but it does mean intentionally trying things you haven’t tried before, and making an effort to go outside the patterns that you usually follow.

4.) Learn synthesis (sound creation)

Stop relying on presets and learn how to create your own sounds! So what if you found a preset Danja or B. Cox used. If you truly want to be great you have to do things that other people aren’t willing to, and that includes learning how to craft your own sounds.

Once you get into it it’s not as hard as it looks, and having the ability to make your own sounds is great. In the long run it will save you the time of going through your presets looking for that ‘specific’ sound you hear in your head. This way you can just make it yourself.

5.) Learn your tools

This means stop looking for the next best thing. With the influx of technology advancing as fast as it does, it’s easy to get lost in all the options, and constantly be looking for the next ‘tool, gear or piece of software’ to bring your production to the next level. Now obviously as producers we rely heavily on technology, and I’m not saying that it’s not important to have good gear or software, but choose your tools carefully and stick with them, to get the most out of them.

If you keep looking for the next DAW, the next best VST or whatever, you’re only going to skim the surface on everything you use. Take the time to learn and master your tools, before you go looking for something better.

6.) Make your music for the right reasons

Don’t start producing as a way to make money. Do it for love and passion of creating. Just because you downloaded a copy of FL Studio doesn’t mean you’ll be making Timbaland money within a year. If your focus becomes money and not creating art then your craft will suffer.

That doesn’t mean DON’T make money off your craft if you can, but always remember that you’re doing this because you love it first, not because of money.

7.) Collaborate

Collab, collab, collab. Find rappers, singers, other producers, friends, WHOEVER to collaborate with.Collaboration inspires creativity. I guarantee you you’ll come up with ideas you never would of thought of by yourself by working with other creatives.

Other creative minds will see things from different perspectives, and in turn will open you up to new ideas. It might be a melody or chord progression, or even a whole new genre that you never would of tried. The greatest music was made through collaborative efforts. Think Quincy and Michael.

8.) Embrace critique

These days, critique of music or different opinions is quick to be labelled ‘hate’. If you really are committed to improving your craft, you will be open to critique and feedback. This doesn’t mean ‘YO LISTEN TO MY BEATZ THERE DOPE’.

This means seek out people to TELL you where your music is lacking. Stop looking for an ego boost and try find people who will tell you where you need to improve. Stay humble, and stay learning.

9.) Layer your drums

A lot of people say this, but even more people don’t do it. Layering your drums is a great way to give those sounds extra punch. For your kicks, find a ‘primary’ sound, this will be the main ‘hit’ or ‘punch’ for your kick and will provide the main lower end.

After that find a few more kicks to layer, with more mid-low punch to give your kicks that extra crispness. Also layering percussion sounds like such as toms, congo’s etc with your kicks can be used with great effect. Another tip, if you layer two kicks and they don’t seem to be hitting together right, pitching the ‘secondary’ kick up or down a few semitones until you find the sweet spot can often fix the problem.

Once you’ve done this a few times you’ll develop a sense on how to pitch your drums right to get them hitting well with each other.

10.) Learn an instrument

Piano helps a LOT, but it could be guitar, drums, the triangle, whatever. Learning an instrument will greatly improve your knowledge of writing and creating music. I was lucky enough to of been learning piano since a young age, and I can tell you having that skill has improved my production more than I can say.

You don’t have to be the next Mozart, but learn your chords and scales at the very minimum. The extra effort you put in now will be worth it when you’re improving crazy melodies on the fly, and coming up with chord progressions with ease.

Even if you don’t want to get lessons with the internet now, there are tonnes of way you can teach yourself, just do a you tube search or a Google search.

11.) Save your drum sounds

Easy, but not everyone does it. Up until a few months ago, I didn’t. If you’ve just layered and EQ and made yourself an amazing kick or snare, don’t just leave it in the current project. Export it as a .WAV so you can re-use it in future projects. Or so you can use it and layer it with more sounds to create even crazier drums.

The possibilities are endless. And eventually you’ll have a bank of custom made, EQ’d and layered drum sounds that you can access with ease.

12.) Studio monitors

Invest in some studio monitors! If you don’t have some already, you’ll be able to hear the difference straight away. You’ll hear things in your tracks that you didn’t notice before, flaws, EQ clashes etc. Most desktop speakers are designed to make music appear better than it actually is.

This is great if you’re a general listener, but if you’re someone who is creating music you want to be able to hear every detail, every flaw, and hear the music exactly how it sounds. Studio monitors will allow you to pick out errors in your mixing and fix them.

13.) Beat battles

A great way to push you to improve is by joining beat battles. This not only puts your music in the public eye and gives you valuable criticism and feedback, but the act of competing will push you to become more creative and put more effort into your tracks, because you know they’ll be going in the public view.

14.) Organize your drum sounds

This is one I’m guilty of not really doing, but I know I should. Organizing your drum sounds will improve your efficiency and workflow. There’s nothing worse than having a great idea and having to search through hundreds of drums to find the ones you’re looking for. Organize your drum sounds so when that great spark of inspiration hits you, you can lay it down STRAIGHT away. Who knows if the inspiration will still be there once you’ve spent half an hour looking for the perfect drum sounds.

15.) Share this blog post

Well this may not help your music, but it will help me! If this article was useful to you it would be much appreciated it you’d hit one of the ‘share’ buttons below!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. If you need anything clarified feel free to leave a comment and ask! And feel free to add any more personal tips you have of your own, I’d love to hear them.

Do I Need to Trademark My Label Name

If your record label is a registered business, then your label name is your "trade name". Trade names are not officially protected under copyright law, so technically speaking, someone could start a record label using the same name. That might sound a little scary, but most record labels will not meet the requirements for qualifying for a trademark. A trademark is a branding of a service or product that you can prove to be unique from what other companies are offering. There is very little room to do that as a record label.

Just because you probably won't be able to trademark your record label name doesn't mean that there aren't things you can do to keep your label branding strong. Get an internet domain name that matches (as closely as possible) your label name. Have a label logo and a distinct set of catalogue numbers. If you are an indie label, always promote your label along with your new releases. Make building your label identity a priority in case someone else does come along and think up the same name. The more established you are, the less likely someone is to run with the idea of ripping off your name. It may sound counter-intuitive - after all, your established label name may open some doors - but the jig would be up almost instantly. Anyone serious about establishing their own business will realize that they are much better off building their own label brand.

Music Business Etiquette. Oh Yeah, That Matters!

Think music industry etiquette doesn't matter? Think again. There may be some things about the music business that make it less uptight than other industries, but word of mouth is a large part of what makes the business tick - and when an industry runs on word of mouth, how you treat the people you encounter counts. Now, I'm not saying that you need to bring a host(ess) gift to your next business meeting, but there are a few things you can do to avoid becoming THAT guy / girl. Here are a few music industry etiquette tips to help you stay on the right side of your fellow music biz types.

1. BCC Is Your Friend

When you send an email to a group of people, use the BCC (blind carbon copy) field. If you don't, everyone who is copied on your email list can grab the email addresses of everyone else - and not everyone is going to be cool with that. Using BCC says, hey, I appreciate having this line of contact for you, and I respect your right to decide who does and doesn't have this address. This is true of both industry email lists and fan email lists.

Of course, accidents happen. If you accidentally CC rather than BCC your email list, apologize. It still might not make you the most popular kid for a little while, but at least you have acknowledged that you understand that you have compromised the privacy of the people on your list.

2. Use Follow-Up Sense

You're waiting for some feedback on your song/business prop/etc. And you're waiting. And you're waiting. And it's just not coming.

Frustrating? Oh, absolutely. But there is a line between following up territory and restraining order territory. Don't cross it. Unless the entire world will collapse if you don't get an answer on something by 6 PM, if you're calling or emailing multiple times per day, you're probably going overboard. Likewise, don't track down home numbers, etc, and try to catch people out that way. If you make multiple follow-ups, a simple, "I know you're busy, but..." and a "please let me know if you need more info" make gentle reminders that you're waiting for news. Stay polite, annoying as it may be.

3. State Your Business

The first time you make contact with someone, give yourself a proper introduction. Don't assume they know who you are, and don't do things like (one of my personal faves) send an email that simply says something like, "let's work!"

Of course, don't start at birth, either -. "Hi, I'm so and so from such and such" plus a few details and maybe a website link work fine. Then, explain why you're reaching out, be it booking a show, soliciting advice or just because you like what they're doing and wanted to open a line of communicaton. If you're hoping to meet up or have a phone call to discuss something, say so and suggest a few times. Be clear and concise - you're more likely to get a response if people can actually understand what you're after.

4. Keep Your Appointments (And Buy The Coffee)

If you make an appointment with someone, keep it or reschedule it. Bonus points for being on time or calling if you are going to be late. It is just good manners, period. Plus, not showing up for a meeting makes you look irresponsible, unreliable and scatty.

Likewise, if you request a meeting with someone to ask for advice or pitch something to them, consider springing for their coffee/drink/meal if at all possible. It is a gracious thank-you for their time. Of course, money can get pretty tight in the music industry, but if you can do it - go for it.

5. Put It In The Vault

The music industry is a very small place. You may have the goods on a lot of music business deals gone wrong, not to mention the personal goods on what so and so did on tour or why so and so got booted from the band. Tempting as it may be to blab - zip it. This is doubly true of your own deals gone wrong. You may feel incredibly slighted by your band break-up or management collapse, but take the high road when pressed for details.

Two good reasons to button your lips? Well, one: gossip is a two way street - you probably have a few stories of your own you'd appreciate someone keeping close. Two: being a big mouth says, "if our working relationship doesn't work out, I will violate your trust, too." Doesn't exactly instill confidence.

6. Take Your Lumps

Not everyone is going to like everything you do. Whether their displeasure is expressed by declining to work with you or in review form for all to see, don't even think of sending an outraged email or getting them on the phone to confront them. Yes, maybe they DON'T get what you're doing, maybe they're the only ones to have ever complained - just let it ride. You can't bully someone into liking your music. There is no accounting for who likes what, and you can't predict it or change it. If there are "fair enough" points in a bad review, take them. Otherwise, your time is much better spent focusing on the people who are into what you're doing and making peace with the fact that there is no such thing as unanimous in the music biz.

7. Respect the Free Stuff

Free stuff, like guest list spots or promos, don't just fall from the sky. They may be free to you, but someone is paying for them. Getting to go to shows for free or getting free music are great perks of working in music, but try not to send your favorite band into bankruptcy by treating your 25 closest friends to a free night out at their show. Be reasonable when requesting guest list spots and other free things.

8. Thank You

Did someone take the time to respond to your request for advice, give you a recommendation or introduction or help you in some other way? For goodness sake, thank them.

Happy 30th Birthday MIDI

Did you know that it was 30 years ago that MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was born. You could say one of the first types of open source applications that revolutionised how music was made and paved the way to modern music production, sampling and the whole dance music scene.

The idea behind midi and the reason for its success was that it would be a universal standard and allow any device to speak to another thus allowing keyboards and modules form companies who would otherwise be in direct competition to each other.

No longer did everything have to played live but could instead be sequenced and played back. Early home computers such as Atari and Commodore supported MIDI and very soon were not only used in huge recording studios but also gave rise to the now common home studio setup.

How to be a RockStar In Twitter

Let me start this post by saying that I am not personally a Twitter rockstar(not yet!); however, I am friends with a lot of people who are, and I’ve been studying their tweeting style for a long time, and I feel like I have a good idea about how a person can develop into a Twitter  rockstar .

Let me also say that you don’t have to have a ton of followers to be a Twitter  rockstar. Since people typically want to follow the  rockstars, they, by default, usually have a lot of followers, but there are always exceptions. Always!

Usually on this type of post, someone will leave me a comment that says, “There are no rules on Twitter, who are you to give everyone rules?” – Let me address this now. It’s true; there are no rules on Twitter. If there ever was a rule, it would probably be to just be yourself. That is the best rule I can think of. These aren’t rules, this is just me sharing my experiences and what I’ve observed from being on Twitter almost everyday for a year, nothing more. 

7 Tips for Becoming a Twitter Rockstar

Have the Basics Covered

Twitter badasses always have their basics covered, no question about it. That means an avatar with their picture (which they don’t change very often), a nice Twitter background and a strong bio with their real name listed in the name field. You won’t find a true Twitter badass that doesn’t have these things done.

Tweet Consistently

Twitter  rockstars tweet consistently, for sure. We all get busy, on days when you don’t much time, just send a tweet to say hello to your followers or send a quick RT. To be a Twitter  rockstar, you have to be committed to Twitter and your followers.

Tweet Interesting and Relevant Content

If you want to become a Twitter  rockstar, you have to tweet great content. Unless you want to take the time to always find that content on your own, you must start filtering your tweets. This is how you filter Tweets: Install Tweetdeck, Seesmic or any one of several Twitter clients and create a column specifically for those peeps that tweet great content so that you won’t miss their tweets. By doing this, in addition to finding your own content to tweet, you will always have great content that you can RT at your fingertips.

It’s All About The Relationships You Build

Twitter  rockstars all understand that it isn’t about how many people follow you, it’s about how you interact with the ones that do. It’s important to be personal and get to know your followers. If you don’t do this, people will not view you as a real person. For example, @GuyKawasaki has over 200,000 followers, but to me, he is a robot (I mean, is he a real person?). He rarely interacts with anyone, and as a result, a lot of people don’t consider him a real part of the Twitter community.

Show Twitter Acts of Kindness

True Twitter  rockstars understand very well that their power is in their kindness. They go out of their way to perform Twitter random acts of kindness, and everyone loves them for it. They are truly what makes Twitter the warm and fuzzy place that it is for so many of us. If you would like to see a list of common Twitter acts of kindness, click here.

Think for Yourself and Be Confident (in a humble kind of way)

Twitter  rockstars are not pressured by anyone else, they think for themselves and they are humble. They don’t get caught up in negativity, they don’t get talked into RT’ing posts that they don’t want to send out and they always think about the value they are providing to their followers. This all shows in the quality of their tweets. This is veryimportant.

Find a Niche

This is not essential for becoming a Twitter  rockstar, although many Twitter  rockstars do find a niche and work it. For example, @AskAaronLee is known for tweeting the best Twitter articles, @krystynchong is known for the music she tweets, @Minervity tweets geeky and design stuff and @kim is known for her #artwalk tweets. Do you have a niche?

There are a lot of Twitter  rockstars in the Twitterverse. I could not list them all here; however, if you are just starting to filter your tweets, and if you need a place to start with good content, here is a short list of peeps to follow who definitely fit this description:

@Alyssa_Milano

@AskAaronLee

@bkmacdaddy

@cheth

@dudeman718

@fjfonseca

@Flipbooks

@iamkhayyam

@Jason_Pollock

@kim

@krystynchong

@mayhemstudios

@Minervity

@mistygirlph

@ShellyKramer

@TrendTracker

@zaibatsu

Those Free Beat Downloads Could Hurt You

Those free beats could be bad!

Many artists now will just download a free beat. They don’t bother leasing it or obtaining any rights.

I’m going to give you three reasons why that is a bad idea:

1.It sounds tacky when you rap over a tag.

2.Everyone is going to have the same beat. 

(Thousands of people download the same beat you're downloading)

3.You can get sued it you are using the beat for profit.

You will never get where you want to be if you have that “free” mindset.

Start investing in your career. 

The serious artist's will quickly set themselves apart from the non serious artist's. (I get it we are in a recession, but if you want it bad enough you will make a way.) I’m speaking as an artist who is also a producer.  I’m not telling you anything that I don’t do. I have to copyright beats and license them with A.S.C.A.P. myself. So I know how hard it is but I still find a way!

Your hottest songs will probably be on the beats you purchased anyway. Why’s that you may ask? Because you invested your money into a beat and you don’t want to waste your money. I know I don’t like to waste money I’m conservative.

Thanks for reading please share and check back for more. I’m doing my best to bring you advice, tips, and resources to help you become successful without a major record label.

Brand Yourself

Branding is a great form of selling yourself to a market you are trying to break into im going to leave some information for you to review to help you in your journey.

100 PERSONAL BRANDING TACTICS USING SOCIAL MEDIA
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/100-personal-branding-tactics-using-soci...

Get personal branding video advice and tips from William atPersonal Branding TV
http://www.williamarruda.com/

Personal Branding - What Color is Your Brand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDohoPavchc

Personal Branding Lessons | Brand-Yourself.com Blog
http://blog.brand-yourself.com/personal-brand/how-to-personal-brand...

Personal Brand Examples From Oprah, Woods & Richard Branson | Brand-Yourself.com Blog
http://blog.brand-yourself.com/personal-brand/personal-brand-interv...

BRANDING | The Branding Agency : Los Angeles, California : Denver, Colorado : Chicago, Illinois
http://www.thebrandingagency.com

Music Marketing Check-List 101 – Green Buzz Agency Blog Post | ImaginePR
http://imaginepr.net/2010/09/13/music-marketing-check-list-101-gree...

Ultimate List of Top 29 Tools for Competitive Intelligence | Lakeshore Branding
http://www.lakeshorebranding.com/company/blog/ultimate-list-of-top-...

You the Brand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6FqxxYABvU&feature=related

Branding Yourself Effectively
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsCZ6cdZ1_Q&feature=related

Branding yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEJvpo5X9r4

Start to use these tools and watch the outcome it will amaze you!!!

Rob Clark Jr.

TEKNODROME or ThRob UGLY

Building Your Own Routine

“I wouldn’t be an artist if I lived by a routine,” my best friend would say to me every time I would give him advice about creating a routine for his music and personal life. A routine he would say, is just so boring. There is no denying that most routines are often boring and lack excitement, however, nothing builds consistent growth like a great routine. 

To build a great routine, you need to focus in on areas of your life that a routine best serves. Not every part of your life needs to be on a routine, but certainly there are areas that a routine can make a huge difference in. Lets say you’re a musician looking to have a successful career, having a routine for consistent growth in your music’s awareness and also production quality just makes sense.

So building a proper routine for growing those two area could go something like this; first figure out how much time each day or week you can dedicate to a routine. So lets say you figured out that you can spend the first 2 hours after work each day for 5 days a week. That could be one hour for music production (songwriting, band practice, music theory - etc) and the other hour you could use to build the awareness up for your music (social media, newsletter work, press, finding opportunities - etc).

With your new plan of action, it’s now time to start the hard work, actually following through and sticking with your new routine. Obviously, this is where most routines fail. However, if you just think about the progress your new routine will cause, that should be enough motivation to keep you going.

Focused time and practice will cause positive growth almost 100% of the time. That’s the power and rewards of having a great routine and sticking with it.

Bass Guitar Chords And Tips For Bassists

Bass tablature, or bass tabs, is probably one of the easiest ways to figure out your favorite bass licks. A lot of times, the bass guitar tends to get buried in the mix of a song, or in older recordings, the lower frequencies are especially harder to hear due to the recording technology at the time, so bass tabs can be a great way to quickly get your fingers walking up and down that neck. I will always recommend learning standard notation too, mainly because it can be applied to almost any instrument, but it is a bit more time consuming to learn, which doesn’t go over well when you’re a beginner and just want to start rocking.

When I first started playing bass 4 years ago, I really had no knowledge of music theory or notation. I knew I had to learn it, but I really was dying to be able to play some of my favorite songs right then and there. I purchased a few books on theory and notation, but I also picked up a Rage Against the Machine bass tab book. That one really got me going fast. Granted, bass tabs, and all tablature in general, don’t indicate certain helpful things, such as the duration of the notes, but only after a few minutes of listening and tinkering around, I was playing the song “Killing in the Name”. I’ve been hooked on bass tabs ever since. It wasn’t until years later that I dusted off those books I originally bought and finally learned standard notation. I’m glad I know it now, but I rarely use it unless I’m officially charting music.

Eventually, I reached a point, like most well-practiced musicians do, where I didn’t need bass tabs, sheet music, etc, anymore. I can now just listen to the song, and pick up exactly what is being played with minimal problems. However, I’m not a musical genius by any means, and there are still times when I’ll hear a bass fill, or interesting, “notey” bass line that is quite tricky. If I can’t figure it out by ear, you should bet that I’m going to look up the bass tab, and not the sheet music.

I guess the point is that unless you are planning on being a studio musician, composer, or something like that, you really don’t need to know standard notation. Bass tabs, and all tablature are easier to read, and can help get you to a pretty high skill level. However from my experience, once I fully learned theory and notation, things really opened up for me, and I felt good about being a well-rounded musician. There will always be a special place in my heart for bass tabs though! Here is a list of some great bass tab sites (no need for bass tab books anymore, right?)

Other Resources:
www.bigbasstabs.com
www.basstabarchive.com
www.basscrawler.org