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www.originaudioelectronics.com
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www.brokenwindowrecords.com

www.originaudioelectronics.com
www.euphonicsound.com
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www.originaudioelectronics.com
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Three Essential Studio Manifesto Concepts

1. The Long Tail

2. 1,000 True Fans

3. The Eight Generative Values Better Than Free

The Long Tail

"The potential aggregate size of the many small markets, may someday rival that of the existing large markets" - Chris Anderson

By selling less of more. By selling millions of different niche products. This is the Long Tail theory in a nutshell.

HMV sells a lot of mainstream music at their retail locations. These mainstream titles are what make up the "Head of the Demand Curve." At the head a massive amount of revenue is generated from a relatively small number of titles. After the Head - the Long Tail. Which is made up of all the non-mainstream niche titles. In the Long Tail a massive amount of revenue is generated from fewer sales of more titles.

There are millions of indie bands in the long tail.

HMV doesn't have the physical space to stock the CDs of every indie band in North America. But an online retailer is not limited by physical warehouse space. The theory of the Long Tail is that the sum of all the revenue generated from sales of the Long Tail niche products is greater than the sum of all the sales of mainstream products at the head of the demand curve.

How people can discover long tail music

Whether its iTunes or Amazon, Last FM, Pandora, Mufin, or many of the others - the new way to discover music is through the recommendation engines built into those platforms. These are the pieces of software]]> Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:01:29 -0800 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/1043993 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/1028827

By James Pew

I am writing this note in response to the noise being generated on New Music Strategies. Specifically, two of Andrews Dubber's posts dealing with the intellectual property issue that affects the music industry, and all industries that produce intellectual property.]]> Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:21:11 -0800 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/1028827 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/1018039

By James Pew

Personal Web Presence linking to Band Web Presence

An artist should have a personal web presence or personal brand - and a band presence.

Your personal presence expresses things through facebook and Twitter for example. And your band has a website with a blog that links to a myspace page and facebook fan pages etc.

Separate personal and band web presences, can be made stronger by interconnecting with each other. This mixes friends with fans and increases the opportunities for viral circulation.

Much of the online marketing for our business, is done through my personal presence online.]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:25:58 -0800 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/1018039 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/982476 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:13:31 -0800 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/982476 http://virb.com/euphonicsound/posts/text/975373

By James Pew

The spectrum of guerrilla production quality runs from inspired and brilliant, to almost funny if it wasn't so annoying to listen too. What can the indie artist do to ensure they are getting the good stuff? And what does the indie producer need to ensure they are giving the good stuff? How does Ed Wood fit into this picture?

In the realm of traditional professional music production, technical protocol terms like Stand by, and Cue, along with technical musical terms like rubato, ostinato, and staccato are common. These terms, along with many others, have been used by the biggest, and the smallest, production institutions since the beginning. They offer evidence that traditional production employed method, technique, and protocol. These institutional production methods, developed through extensive experience, resulted in consistently high production value. Engineers were experts of complicated sound recording and reinforcing systems. Study and discipline was involved, and someone eager enough to work in the music production business had few choices but the institutional option. Compare that to the present: Music production can be accomplished with a computer and various other affordable devices that empower absolutely anyone with a few extra pesos and the interest to open up a production business. Don't get me wrong - I prefer the empowerment of people to the monopoly of an institution - but indies must aim high when it comes to the production value of their recordings - that is, if they want their music to have an audience. This often means employing some of the doctrines of the institutional era - specifically the ones that deal with methods of sound engineering. Of course rules can often be broken, but in the absence of an inspired idea to employ a specific engineering technique - default to traditional protocols and common practices. If you don't know them - learn them. The following links are recording forums found on Harmony Central.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forumdisplay.php?f=57

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Our current culture is about making things cheap, fast, and easy to use - providing instant gratification of our every whim. If that whim happens to be "record my brother's band on my computer" - then it is pretty easy to make that happen, and as long as the brothers band is aware that the engineer is not an experienced professional, but a curious adventurer, then it's all good. Perhaps the brothers band themselves are curious adventurers... in which case the results may be surprising and interesting. Most indie recording artists would prefer to make a recording on a fair and affordable budget with a talented indie producer, than a free or low budget recording with a curious adventuring novice - or maybe even the audio version of the archetypical Ed Wood. Decide for yourself what's best for you.

Remember that if you are a "recording artist" it is in your best interest to learn as much as you can about the music production process. Whether you decide to setup a home studio or work with a studio, a little background and studio etiquette can help you get the most out of every recording session you do. Please leave a comment and share any experiences you may have had with studio or Guerrilla style production.

Guerrilla Production - The Empowerment Of The Indie Producer, And The Decline Of Method by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Technorati Tags: acapella.harmony-central.com, creative commons, ed wood, guerilla production, harmony central, home recording, indie production, music, Music Culture, Music Production, production business, production value, recording, recording artist, recording studio, sound engineering, studio manifesto, technorati

By James Pew

Living under a rock with a windless sail...So many indies are doing just that. Sadly, I share the blame.

"The Net is the very best thing that has ever happened to everybody but superstars". - Bob Lefsetz

It is becoming clearer all the time that music's future home is the Internet. Social Networking and this weird web 2.0 concept have elevated our entire musical culture to something different, and dare I say...cool! Just when you thought that modern music, so often misunderstood or regarded as uncool, was stagnant - we now are standing at the brink of passing cool entirely, and moving to something quite possibly - Way Beyond Cool!

I've already talked about the revolution of indie music production and a few of its problems - that was much easier for me having so many emotions regarding production value and the loudness issue. But because I spend so much time in the studio, I was in serious need of crawling out from under that rock, and taking a closer look at the social networking movement, and the so-called new paradigm of the music business. I meet a lot of indies still living under self-made rocks.

I'm convinced there has never been a better time for independent artists. The general public is hungry for quality musical content, and there seems to be an endless amount of hard working talented people making great music. Musical activity is massive.

Our studio regularly works with amazing local talent. This month we had blues guitarist Darran Poole of 2008 Juno Awarding winning band Fat Head and internationally acclaimed trumpeter Brownman, in the studio. Darran played guitar and fiddle on the upcoming full-length release of the Gary Kendall Band. An inspiring and treasured figure of Toronto's vibrant blues scene, Gary Kendall is a seven-time Maple Blues bass player of the year award recipient, and Juno nominee with the legendary Down Child Blues Band. Other local greats appearing on Gary's release include Suzie Vinnick, and a handful of past and present Down Child alumni. It's also worth mentioning that this years' winner of the Maple Blues new talent award, the Douglas Watson Rhythm & Blues Revue, are currently tracking at Euphonic Sound. Other roots genres are just as alive with zillions of indie roots muso's possessing loads of talent. Then of course, we have popular forms like rock and country and urban. We see overwhelming amounts of indie talent in these genres as well. Music is alive and well - and in a steady state of growth. Mainstream circles will try to convince you otherwise - but to most of us indie music participants, and many fans as well, the mainstream is not on our radar.

Most Indies I work with are making great sounding records, delivering exceptional live performances, and seem to be making good use of internet tools on the promotion/networking side. However, many are making mistakes. When a self-producing and self-managing indie artist makes a decision, we have to respect that they know whats best for them. As much as we give advice and try to influence important decisions, the final direction is up to the artist. So here is a list of the top seven most common mistakes indie artists make.

1. Ineffective use of web networking/promotion tools.

Inadequate use and understanding of social networking and various other web promotional resources is the biggest factor affecting the success of many indie music careers. I've spent some time on the following blogs, check them out and add to the discussion. If you know of any others, please let us know. Knowledge is power.

http://www.musicthinktank.com/
http://newmusicstrategies.com/
http://www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/index.html
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

2. Mastering

An understanding of mastering is the one thing that eludes many indie recording artists. Because they don't understand it, they often come to the conclusion that it must not be important enough to worry about. In some cases, an unmastered mix may sound so great that you think - "man, its done, it's perfect". If this sounds like you, I really think your making a mistake! Don't take my word for it check out this article.

http://www.datamusicata.com

http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/forum-41.html.

3. Poorly Executed Production

Production value refers to live shows and audio recordings. Sometimes a client will blow into the studio like a tornado, give you some files to upload, lay down a few tracks, ask for everything dumped back on a USB key, and blow back out the door. I never meet or speak with the other engineers involved, and the client rarely has any knowledge of the file formats or the state of the audio footage they bring with them. I hear a lot of bad sound engineering in many situations. I actually had a hip hop artist blame me for bad mastering once, even though the beat he provided to rap on came fully mastered with brutal amounts of audio limiting and compression. He recorded his vocal at our studio but there was little we could do - except redesign the beat, which he didn't want to do. He chose to have us re-master the beat with his newly added vocal. So we did it. Then, predictably, people started telling him that it sounded bad. It did sound bad. So he blamed me. I gave him all his footage and suggested he try another studio. Long story short, the other studio told him the same thing I did. He called me back and apologized and I'm pretty sure we'll be working together again. At least I hope so 'cause that kid had skill. The point is if you are an indie recording artist with little knowledge of how to attain quality production value, you need a producer or some sort of knowledgeable music director to help you through the process. The same goes for live performances - an understanding of what you, the performer, need to do to ensure things are sounding good is key. Live performance production value includes everything from how well rehearsed the band is - to what state your instruments are in - to the live sound engineer who mixes your show.

4. Intonation and General State of Instruments

Stringed instruments need to be "setup" by an expert. They need intonation often, several times a year if you play a lot. When you skip this step in preparation for a recording or live show it is likely your guitar or bass will not be in tune throughout the positions on the neck. It goes without saying that your recording/show will be better if your instrument is in tune. Electronics on instruments and amplifiers often need servicing - If a guitar has a loose output jack, it will short out. If an instrument or amplifier is not electronically grounded, it will give you 60-cycle hum (undesirable electronic noise).

5. Preproduction

Here's an article that discusses preproduction. Not a good idea to skip this stuff.

http://www.venetowest.com/musing/prepro.html

6. Taking wind from sail

Showing your work to your fans before its completed will exhaust the wind from the sail of the fully completed work. First impressions are critical. If you are more than just the songwriter of the music; if you are the performer and featured artist, having quality recordings of the material you publish is helpful. Hold back the demos until you get around to giving them the production value they deserve. Releasing your entire cannon of material all at once can also rapidly exhaust your winds of momentum once the buzz you generate from initial release dies down. Especially if your catalogue is a variety of demo experiments and half- hearted attempts at recording. Leave your audience wanting more, make them wait a little and pay them back for their patience by delivering something extraordinary.

7. Cynicism

The following points are true:

-Being an indie artist is unbelievably difficult.
-Saying that life is unfair is among the largest of understatements.
-When it comes to being an indie artist, there are countless injustices you must constantly endure.
-There are forces at work causing damage to the culture of music.
-We live in a jungle and our only chance of survival is sticking together.

However, by supporting other artists, you support the local and/or global community you exist in. By support, I'm referring to more than just buying a show ticket or a CD - positive vibes and encouragement is necessary to keep people energized about music. If you are in a state of perpetual cynicism about the unfair aspects of the music industry, you are not helping yourself or anyone around you. Focus on what you can do - what is within your means, and take control of your destiny. Make it happen. Do not except NO for an answer. Themes of pain and suffering are deeply rooted in music - the correlation is easily seen. Maybe artists are supposed to suffer a little - but maybe in modern times, the suffering can be managed a little and tragic endings can be avoided. The music industry is US. It's what WE say it is. And it's what WE make of it. There are recent developments (topics discussed on this blog) that are changing the music industry - I echo Bob Lefsetz's sentiment by saying that the Internet IS the best thing ever to happen for indie artists. There is much to be optimistic about. The tide has turned.

The Top 7 Mistakes That Indies Make by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Technorati Tags: bob lefsetz, brownman, creative commons, darran poole, douglas watson rhythm and blues revue, down child blues band, fat head, gary kendall, independent artists, indie, indie artists, internet, Intonation, Intonation and General State of Instruments, juno awards, lefsetz.com, loudness wars, maple blues, music, Music Culture, Music Production, Music Promotion, music think tank, musicthinktank.com, new music strategies, newmusicstrategies.com, Poorly Executed Production, promotion tools, suzzie vinnick, technorati, the loudness issue, the top 7 mistakes, toronto blues society, web 2.0, web networking, web networking/promotion tools, www.bob-baker.com

This is my first post in a series of articles so I'd like to start at the beginning of the end. I'm talking about the "mix". This is the last step in the audio recording and production sequence (aside from mastering) and it can really make or break the project. Mixing is a very subjective art form and there are very few rules. No two engineers will mix a project in exactly the same way. They might both come up with great mixes but they would be different, with each one reflecting the individual's taste, personality, experience and methods. A good analogy would be to imagine Van Gogh and Monet painting the same landscape...they both see the same thing but the paintings would invariably be unique and probably quite different

There are only 6 basic elements in a mix:

• Levels (volume of individual tracks and how they balance in reference to each other)

• Imaging (panning left through right in a stereo mix and also perceived distance, front to back through use of reverb)

• Spectral content (EQ of individual tracks, groups, and entire mix)

• Compression (from gentle, transparent compression to heavy limiting for effect)

• Effects (a huge pallet of FX choices are available from subtle "sweeteners" to all out mangling or transforming effects)

• Editing - Corrective (includes noise reduction, pitch correction, trimming tops and tails and correcting performance issues i.e. timing) - Arrangement (includes re-arranging the flow of the song i.e. doubling the length of a chorus or deleting a section all together)

I find it psychologically easier to mix a project that I was not involved with in the tracking stage. I like being able to come to the table with a fresh set of ears, never having heard the tracks before and therefore having nothing invested in them. You can imagine that it's a lot easier to cut a part that you feel doesn't work, but if you were the tracking engineer and you spent a lot of time recording that part chances are you wouldn't cut it so easily.

Let's Begin

I'm not really going to talk a lot about equipment and gear...mostly just techniques that will apply whether you stay in the box or not. But I have to mention the one piece of equipment that is absolutely crucial to achieving a good mix- the loudspeaker monitors.

Without accurate and trustworthy monitors, you will never, ever create a good mix. Period. Even with a good monitor system, you should listen to them a lot so that you become familiar with their response. Also, it's a good idea to listen to your mixes on a variety of speakers at a variety of volumes. At the studio that I do most of my work, we have a pair of Meyers HD-1 speakers and also a pair of Genelec 1031a. These are not exactly cheap; each pair sells for over $5,000, but since I started mixing on these the quality of my work has gone way up. I will frequently switch between the two because the response in the midrange is different. If anything is really out of whack I'll catch it on one or the other pair. I also have a pair of Yorkville YSM-1 speakers in my home set-up that I have become very familiar with. I even like to listen on my crappy little computer speakers (without a subwoofer) because bands put there mixes on myspace and people are going to hear it like that. A typical mix session ends with me burning a CD of the day's work and listening to the mix in my car on the way home. My car stereo is the yardstick that I use to measure every mix. It is the system that I am most familiar with and if it sounds good to me there then I know it's good.

It's important for me to be in the right mood or mindset when I start the mix. To quote Greta Garbo "I vant to be alone" ...meaning that I don't like to have the client in the room hyping me up on the kind of effects they want on the guitar or whatever. I want my ears to tell me everything, not somebody else, at least not right off the bat.

Usually, the first thing I do is to just throw up all of the faders to get a rough mix. I keep everything centre panned, with no eq or effects, only fader levels. At this point all I am looking for is to hear is what's on the track. I listen for things that "bend my ear" i.e. noise problems such as pops, clicks, high noise floor, single coil hum from electric guitar etc.

At the same time as I work on cleaning track problems I'm also getting familiar with the tune, and I listen for performance issues. For example, I might find that the bass guitar performance is not as tight with the drums as it should be. In the case of timing issues, I like to arrange the offending track (our poorly played bass) so that it sits in between the kick and snare tracks on my DAW. This way I can easily see where a bass note is ahead of or behind a kick or snare by just looking at the waveforms. If I have to move every note of a performance I will. You have to be careful though; you could end up with a lifeless, mechanical sounding performance. Sometimes slight timing variations are not performance problems, but a performance "style". Think about John Bonham, usually he played just a little behind the beat, giving a real solid, authoritative feel.... or exactly the opposite would be a drummer like Stewart Copeland who's style was usually slightly ahead of the beat, pushing the band and creating a kind of hyped, frenetic feel. Would I go in and start editing performances with musicians like that? Not likely!

Now that I have things cleaned up I like to work on imaging. If it's a pop tune, the general convention is to leave the kick, bass and lead vocal panned straight up the middle, but as I said earlier, there are very few rules (just listen to the Beatles). What I try to achieve with panning is to give each instrument it's own space. When you listen to the mix with everything panned in the middle (mono) you notice that sounds tend to mask other sounds that share similar frequency characteristics. So, before I even think about reaching for EQ, I'll try to find a nice space for the track by simply panning.

Imaging for a Drum Kit

I like to think of a drum kit as one instrument as a whole.
Have you ever heard a drum mix where the toms are panned to the extreme left and right?

To me, this sounds very un-natural. Here's how I like to set up drum pans so that the image is natural. If there is a stereo overhead or room track then solo the stereo track and listen to where the drums are. You won't hear Tom 1 way over on the right but somewhat closer to centre. Simply match the pan of the tom tracks to where they appear to be in the soloed overhead tracks. This way the imaging stays natural and believable and the panning of the individual tracks won't conflict with the imaging in the overheads or room tracks. I might deviate from this by panning the floor tom closer to centre than it appears in the overheads.... why? Because usually the floor tom is used to give the deepest and biggest punch and the closer you pan to the middle the bigger and punchier it will feel.

Most drum kit recordings are done with multiple microphones, with one mic on each drum. While this gives the mix engineer good control of mix balance, it also introduces phase problems. Just think about what happens when the snare drum is hit, the sound reaches the snare mic first, the next closest mic second and so on all the way to the furthest mic. When you bring all the mics up in a mix the slight timing differences and resulting phase problems manifest themselves. So to counter this problem, simply time align each track to match with the snare mic.... so the furthest mic track from the kit (usually the room mic) would have to be moved back in time in the DAW until the transient matches the snare mic. Then repeat this whole process with all of the other mics. If there is a stereo mic setup (i.e. overheads) then be sure to align them as a pair.... don't separate them from each other.

In my next post we'll dive into the real nuts and bolts of tone shaping, including EQ and what I consider to be a black art - compression.

Stay tuned!

Freddy Gabrsek

Approaching A Mix by Freddy Gabrsek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Technorati Tags: 6 basic elements in a mix, basic elements, beatles, compression, creative common, drum kit, editing, equalizer, Freddy Gabrsek, genelec, genelec 1031a, imaging, in a mix, john bonham, levels, loudspeaker monitors, meyers, meyers hd-1, mix, music, music produdcion, myspace, noise floor, sound engineer, spectral content, stewart copeland, yorkville, yorkville ysm-1

Download Time Bomb wav files

Bill C-61 is a big disappointment for Canadians. Every artist and content creator should be aware of the implications of the U.S. inspired Bill C-61. Read more on the fallout at the Michael Geist Blog. Fair Copyright for Canada is protesting Bill C-61 on Face Book. And Appropriation Art has a message I support. And check out 51st State, an online comic that illustrates the events leading to the governments release of Bill C-61.

The sources above provide comprehensive material on the issues surrounding Bill C-61. I encourage you to become a part of that discussion. However, the topic of this post is The New Copyright, and my goal is to show the other side. The side most relevant to independent artists and content creators.

The New Copyright

A movement from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved"

By James Pew

If you followed some of the links from my last post - specifically the ones leading to Bob Baker and New Music Strategies - you may agree that, as an independent artist, it is in your best interest to produce much creative content. And not just music alone. Blogs, Photos, Videos, Songs, Ring Tones, Podcasts, etc., are some of the things that make up the full compliment of your creative offerings.

Putting a Creative Commons license on your work allows you to define its state of copyright, specifically, if some, all, or no rights are reserved. The choice is up to you...the creator. Studio Manifesto blog posts have a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, allowing anyone to copy the work, alter it, add to it, and redistribute it - as long as the author is attributed for the work, it is republished/distributed with the original Creative Commons license, and that money is not part of the equation. If I later decide to assemble my writings into another form, and publish them for profit, I am free to do so. And the people who obtained these writings from our blog are free to continue their use of the material in compliance with the CC license. Once you give a creative work a CC license, it sticks.

Creative Commons offers a variety of licenses, and it costs you nothing to acquire one.

A Creative Commons license may increase viral circulation, if many people copy and redistribute your work. More so if people are permitted to remix or make their own derivative works. In co-ordination with an effective PR campaign, consider which CC license works best for you when the goal is generating attention and awareness of your brand/band, through viral social media channels.

Intended to plant seeds of expanded use and distribution, CC licenses, if used intelligently, could become an integral component of the promotion of your creative offerings.

Remember, you do not need to give away your entire catalog of music, or other creative works. But offering a few key pieces of your repertoire under a Creative Commons License, provides an incentive, or at least removes some barriers, for potential fans, or other relevant content creators, to check you out.

CC Is Not A Replacement For Traditional Copyright.

The internationally accepted standard of the WIPO states that copyright protection is automatic once a creative work is completed in tangible form. Creative Commons is designed to work alongside Copyright. As the holder of a CC license you give up some of the exclusive rights (you decide which ones) of traditional copyright, to encourage greater use and/or distribution of your creative works.

Here are a few examples of websites offering musical works published under CC and CC+ licenses.

magnatune
beatpick
rifflet
ccmixter

The New Copyright by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Technorati Tags: andrew dubber, attribution, beatpick, bob baker, ccmixter, copyright, creative commons, derivative, first euphonic podcast, frankie, magnatune, music, music think tank, myspace, new copyright, new music strategies, podcast, podcasting, radical trust, remix, rifflet, time bomb