Music & Marketing: URBANIZED!

Okay, so our headline isn’t entirely truth-based. But, it’s no pipe dream, either. The reality is that new online music business models are changing the way artists sell their music and interact with fans. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and individual blogs are facilitating this in a big way.

Consumer buying patterns are changing, from those who have moved away from CDs and albums to picking up singles on iTunes, to those who circumvent the entire system altogether and buy directly from the artists.

Cutting out the Middleman

It started back in March of 2008, when industrial giant and former MTV-favorite Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails decided to offer the complete first volume of their latest album completely free for consumers to share (the album in its entirety was made available on the band’s website for a whopping $5 download). Not to be outdone, Radiohead then stepped up with their digital release of In Rainbows, allowing fans to pay whatever they felt like and download the record from their website.

But not every artist has the luxury of brand-like name recognition that Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and their ilk enjoy. That’s why digital music shops like iTunes and CD Baby remain the go-to source for most music lovers. Yet it’s tough for indie artists to get the kind of promotion and attention their mainstream counterparts enjoy.

Digital Sales by the Numbers

The best selling digital song of all-time, so far, is the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”. The track earned this title in April of this year after knocking out the previous record holder, Flo Rida, with 5,561,000 million downloads. The Peas are, of course, a household name now, and enjoyed huge success before breaking the download record.

But what about indie artists, like Gagnez, a Los Angeles-based poet, speaker, hip hop artist and producer? His popular “La Da Da Da” track has accumulated over 50,000 YouTube views – but not entirely on its own. Thanks in part to a social media-made connection with YouTube-famous Israeli video maker Lilach Chen (whose videos of her talented fingers have racked up over 12,000,000 views), the track is featured in a quirky and fun video called “Fingers Breakdance 5”. The song also features Gina Rene, another artist with a strong social media presence.

It’s this kind of exposure and creative teaming up that’s going to give traditional music sales models and marketing a run for their money as artists take matters into their own hands. New ground is being forged when it comes to sharing and promoting creative material, and soon it won’t be any surprise to read a headline like “Gagnez Surpasses 20 Million Download Mark”, and find that he did it all with the support of social media self-promotion, fans, and creative collaboration. And isn’t that what it should all be about?

full article: http://bit.ly/9YQ2Gi

I loved this video and I wanted to make sure everyone else has had the chance to check it out! Support real music!

Whether you’re running a website, or a blog, you need to know about the most effective advertising methods. Advertising methods can make or break your website. Some methods are extremely expensive, while others are far more cost effective. In general, the cost of the advertisement does not dictate how effective the advertising is.

Pop Up Advertising

Some of the most expensive ads that you can purchase are pop-up ads. Not only are they expensive, but visitors also find them downright annoying. In fact, almost all people today have some form of pop-up blocker which prevents them from seeing these ads in the first place. This expensive marketing method is one you can easily live without. Don’t forget that fly ads are similar to pop-ups can do little more than provide a description and chase visitors to your site away.

Pod Casting

Podcasts are a very slick sophisticated Internet advertising method. However, since more and more people are utilizing them, they can be a very effective if somewhat expensive advertising method. It’s important to remember that podcasts are similar in nature to a television broadcast. In general, they will be worth the money that you spend for them.

Search Engine Advertising

Paid search engine advertising means that you pay the search engine a fixed amount that allows your URL to be included in the first page of top results. If you are considering purchasing these rights through Google or Yahoo search, it may be worth the investment. However, if you using lesser-known search engines or those that are not as heavily utilized as Google and Yahoo, it may not be worth your investment.

Blogging

One of the least expensive advertising methods is blogging. Sign up for a blogging account, which is oftentimes free, post to your blog on a regular basis, and utilize social bookmarking tools to drive traffic. Not only is this method inexpensive, but it almost always will result in additional traffic.

Small search engines

Another inexpensive advertising method is to submit your site to smaller search engines. Because the small search engines smaller, they tend to accept URLs more readily. This means that your site will not get overlooked by the giants that could dwarf your site on Yahoo and Google.



Text Links

Text links can be extremely effective, and in general they are free. You can contact other blog owners and ask for them to list you in their blogroll. You can easily as reciprocate and the end result is you’ve not only gained a back link, you’ve also effectively advertised on another site.

Summary

There are several ways that you can advertise your website inexpensively. Today, there is no reason to spend thousands of dollars marketing your site. Social networking sites such as Twitter or Redgage, other blogs, smaller search engines, and myriad other tools are available to you.

Written by Gary Ewer, author of six e-books for songwriters.
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MIDI stands for “Musical Instrument Digital Interface.” Many of you use MIDI to create instrumentations for your songs, and it’s a fantastic way to have synthesized versions of instruments literally at your fingertips. In short, MIDI is a way of controlling electronic instruments (usually synthesizers), and allowing those instruments to produce many different kinds of musical timbres. Used well, MIDI can make it sound as if you hired a full symphonic orchestra for your recording. Used poorly, MIDI can make your song sound cheap and amateur!

Whether you use MIDI simply to add a backing guitar, bass and drums, or use it to create a full orchestra, there are some basic problems that can arise. Here are some common problems and some solutions to help you solve them:

PROBLEM 1: In the MIDI orchestration, the instrument is being asked to play in a way that can’t be achieved by a real instrument.

THE SOLUTION: listen to a recording of the real instrument, or talk to a player of the real one. For example, if you are having your MIDI violin play pizzicato (i.e., plucking the string), remember that there is a physical limitation to how fast a violinist can repeat that action of plucking a string. This varies from player to player, but try not to exceed four notes per second.Going faster than this starts to make your MIDI violin sound fake.

PROBLEM 2: If the sound samples being used have not been properly panned, the orchestra can sound haphazard and disorganized.

THE SOLUTION: Look at pictures of real orchestras and (if necessary) pan your MIDI instruments so that it imitates their position on a real stage.



PROBLEM 3: You can just tell that the instrument is MIDI, and it sounds “electronic” more than real.

THE SOLUTION: If all the notes are coming out at the same volume, this will tend to make the instrument sound phony. There are many possible solutions, but try this as a general approach:

1.solo one of the tracks, and set a basic volume for that track (MIDI controller 7).
2.Then develop a general shape for the line by varying the velocity for each note, so that it sounds as natural as possible.
3.Then go to your Expression Controller (usually controller 11) and create a natural swell and diminishing for certain notes. (Good use of controller 11 is a major secret for good MIDI orchestration.) This will make your music “breathe,” and it will sound more as if a real person is playing. Keep in mind that a lot of the latest orchestral samples make use of the mod wheel to create some of the realism we are talking about here.

PROBLEM 4: The orchestration sounds uninteresting.

THE SOLUTION: Too often, MIDI orchestrators will double and triple instruments in a bid to create more volume. But the problem is that doubling and tripling the instruments on a part robs the various instruments of their own unique sound. If you want something to sound louder, increase the velocity and/or the track volume before simply doubling and tripling. For example, if you create a melody, and then always have it played by flutes, oboes, clarinets, and violins, the resulting sound is just thick, and you’ve robbed those instruments of the beautiful qualities they have individually. There are times when you will want the power of doubling and tripling, but use it sparingly.
That should get you started. There is so much that could be said about MIDI orchestration, and it’s impossible to deal with it all here. But if you want some good preliminary advice, here it is: Get familiar with a REAL orchestra before you start working with a MIDI one!

www.diddyblog.com from Diddy Blog on Vimeo.

Diddyblog is touted on the rapper's own Twitter page as "the most positive inspirational BLOG in the WORLD!!!" and the trailer shows a montage of historical figures who fit that description: from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X to Barack Obama and Muhammad Ali. Backing the footage is audio of motivational quotes by Diddy, Will Smith and George Clooney -- perhaps the most puzzling part of the clip is the inspirational soundbite about "destiny" that comes from Clooney's 2009 comedy, "Men Who Stare at Goats."



While many of the faces that fill the screen were -- and still are, no doubt -- influential, one question remains: how exactly do Diddy and his blog fit into all of this? Sure, the hip-hop mogul has always had a taste for the theatrical and ambitious, but it is possible to take a good thing too far. We'll reserve full judgment until the official launch, but all we can say for now is that this better be one hell of a blog.

from billboard.com