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Invicta{HOG}, M.D. posted:I have a friend whose dad was lead writer/singer in a 1960s band that enjoyed a modicum of success and has a following among some critics. Before he died recently, he made a home album which had been mixed and mastered. His son and widow have access to the music and were wanting to get it out there for his fans and were wondering what the best way to do it. He was thinking about uploading it to Apple Music and letting the critics (including one who interviewed him before his death) know via e-mail. Is there a better way to do it? I don't think that making money is an issue at all but would be interested in any financial aspects I might not know about. Also, is there any way to link it somehow to the former band's music? You can set up a CDBaby account and get it uploaded to all of the major digital distribution platforms very easily. It costs something on the order of $30 if I recall correctly, and is something you can do in an afternoon. Having it actually show up on the platforms sometimes takes a week or so, but the nice thing is that you don't have to sign 40 different contracts to get it available everywhere.
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Oct 15, 2017 23:12
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Trig Discipline posted:You can set up a CDBaby account and get it uploaded to all of the major digital distribution platforms very easily. It costs something on the order of $30 if I recall correctly, and is something you can do in an afternoon. Having it actually show up on the platforms sometimes takes a week or so, but the nice thing is that you don't have to sign 40 different contracts to get it available everywhere. Whoa, whoa, hold up... You're telling me that I could make an album, sign up with CDBaby, pay a nominal fee, and then my album is eventually on music streaming services? Does this cover stuff like ASCAP/SOCAN etc?
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Oct 16, 2017 00:49
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Whoa, whoa, hold up... You're telling me that I could make an album, sign up with CDBaby, pay a nominal fee, and then my album is eventually on music streaming services? IDK about ASCAP stuff, but the answer to the rest of your question is yes. It's probably not going to make you rich, but it's great to have it out there. Streaming in particular pays jack poo poo (literally a fraction of a cent per stream), but I'm not relying on my music for an income anyway so it's just nice to know that people out there are listening.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:06
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Here's a list of all the services I've been paid from through CDBaby. I think they only list the ones that have actually had at least one purchase/stream, so my music is probably on other services as well; it's just that nobody's bought anything through those.quote:Apple iTunes
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Oct 16, 2017 01:12
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Ah, and the answer to the question about ASCAP is also yes. CDBaby will register your stuff with all of the publishing organizations for you. CDBaby takes a 15% commission for that. https://members.cdbaby.com/song-registration.aspx I've never been paid for that stuff, but I don't know whether that's because I never actually signed up for it or whether there's just been no income. e: OH, you have to upgrade to CD Baby pro for publishing stuff. I haven't done that, because it's $49 per album.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:16
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There's also been buzz about Distrokid. Same sort of deal, $20 a year subscription and they upload all your stuff to a bunch of services. No idea whether it's better or worse though.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:03
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Yeah I don't know anything about alternative services. CDBaby has been around forfuckingever and I've been on it almost since the beginning. I'm too lazy to consider switching now.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:52
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This is great help, thanks!
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Oct 17, 2017 11:37
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TheQuietWilds posted:Can anybody come up with a great song to mashup with careless whisper? I'm in a group that's playing a one-off show and want to include CW as a joke but it doesn't warrant playing it for the whole song. Key is Dm, tempo in the 75-ish BPM range. Go for the saxophone double-play and do Baker Street. JamesKPolk posted:Don't touch the master fader. Potentially dumb question, sometimes mastering engineers send me instructions that say "turn everything down to give me some headroom BUT DON'T JUST TURN DOWN THE MASTER FADER." What the heck are they talking about? What difference does it make?
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Oct 26, 2017 05:09
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Drink-Mix Man posted:
If your individual tracks are clipping they will sound awful and mastering can't fix that. You can have every single track distorted to gently caress with digital clipping and if you drop your master far enough you'll still sit at the right overall volume. It's basically protecting people from themselves.
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Oct 26, 2017 10:20
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Go for the saxophone double-play and do Baker Street. If you look at the meter for an individual track, it can be hitting all sorts of red, but if you bring down the volume on the master fader, the master meter will look "ok" or in the green. What is actually happening is the individual track is clipping and distorting the sound, and you are just "masking" the mistake by adjusting the master fader, instead of actually addressing the root problem.
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Oct 26, 2017 17:00
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All this is true for analogue and perhaps early standalone digital mixers. The mixer inside every current DAW uses floating point math and you can only cause the master to actually clip. The individual channels can go into the red on the meters, but won't ever clip. If you've got no processors on the master bus, lowering the master fader in that situation is identical to lowering all the other channel's faders. Mathematically. You can however make plugins used on individual channels distort if they are made to do so and/or don't use floating point math internally and a traditional approach to gain staging comes back onto the picture as best practice. A mastering engineer obviously can't know what kind of lovely setup you're using and telling people not to touch the master fader is safe advice for all situations. Also, the point might not be to get the levels lower in absolute numbers, but to get you to back off on that maximizer/limiter on the master bus that you're pushing way too hard. In which case lowering all faders will produce that result as a side effect, where lowering the master fader won't.
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Oct 26, 2017 18:09
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Shao821 posted:Echoing others, yea, getting signed requires that you have a brand the label can capitalize on or they think they can develop a brand out of you. More likely than not its the former. This is very helpful, thank you. One last question though - I had read somewhere online that if you distribute your music independently on public channels, it's bad form to send that same music to labels as "demos". Is that actually true? I thought it kind of made sense, because they could say "we like it, but it's already been released so we can't profit from it".
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Oct 31, 2017 00:42
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Is there a singing thread that has the kind of info for beginners that something like the guitar thread has? I looked over the first few pages and couldn't see one. I can't sing worth a drat and I'd like to learn, but a quick google search for lessons has only found places in my area that cater to either groups of small children or to musical theater people, and I am neither.
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Nov 8, 2017 12:08
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I was supposed to write one but then like the month of October happened.  We used to have a singing thread but it got archived like 2 years ago. Long and short of it is though, that teaching singing is very individual and it’s easiest to do it over the Internet when you’re willing to record yourself singing something so you can get some specific feedback. Or if you’re not to that point, at least describe your general level - sounds like you’ve never done it before? Do you know anything about music, like playing an instrument?
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Nov 8, 2017 16:11
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Another option you could look into is taking Skype lessons, if you have decent internet and a passable mic.
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Nov 8, 2017 17:02
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Hawkgirl posted:I was supposed to write one but then like the month of October happened. I'm still 100% down to help with this in any way I can
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Nov 8, 2017 17:42
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Jazz Marimba posted:I'm still 100% down to help with this in any way I can Awesome, I will pm you or otherwise bug you soon-ish 
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Nov 8, 2017 20:56
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Thanks everyone. Hawkgirl posted:We used to have a singing thread but it got archived like 2 years ago. Long and short of it is though, that teaching singing is very individual and it’s easiest to do it over the Internet when you’re willing to record yourself singing something so you can get some specific feedback. Or if you’re not to that point, at least describe your general level - sounds like you’ve never done it before? Do you know anything about music, like playing an instrument? I'm a pretty good bassist and an average guitarist, still improving on both though. I can't sight read sheet music very well, but I can figure it out - the rhythm stuff is second nature, I'm just slow at naming the notes in my head, if that makes sense. I'm almost entirely self-taught on both instruments (yeah, not ideal), but I can record either and accompany myself, or play one while someone else plays the other. I can compose (fairly simple) songs with one or two guitar tracks and a bass track, play them, and have it come out amateurish but not terrible. I"m not aiming to be a pro with any of this stuff, and singing would be secondary to the instruments I play, but I'd like to be able to do backup ooohs and aaaahs with some of the people I sometimes jam with and to sing in tune to the rock, blues, and punk that I like to play, purely for my own enjoyment. Right now, I don't understand how to match my voice to the pitch of a given note. I don't know if taking lessons is even worth doing at that point, that's kinda why I'm asking. If there's an app or PC software that can teach me to do that, I can probably learn to sing as well as I want to just by practicing and being terrible until I get better. I feel that currently I'm in the same situation as someone who wants to learn guitar but doesn't understand how to fret a note or pick a string - I imagine that "match your voice to a given pitch" is the first step, and I'm not even sure how to do that. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Nov 8, 2017 |
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Nov 8, 2017 23:05
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Yeah, interesting. I think if I were you I’d tool around with matching pitches using your guitar. You’ll have to experiment a bit and find your easy vocal range (might go quicker to sing a note, then find it on your guitar than vice versa). If that feels like a struggle, post about what you think is throwing you off and I might be able to help you narrow it down.
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Nov 9, 2017 01:20
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So I should try to sing as low and as high as I comfortably can, match those notes on an instrument, then try to slowly hit each note in between and speed up as I get better (same as learning a new scale on the instrument, kinda)? I guess that'll annoy the hell out of my wife, but I'll give it a shot.
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Nov 9, 2017 01:31
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I'm stockpiling a lot of electronic tracks I think are pretty good and that I want to get "out" there but I don't really have the money/ability to professionally master all of them. What do other recording artists do in this situation? Do you have certain favored techniques for self-finishing on a budget? Do you just not over-think it and do the best you can with the skills you have to get it in peoples' ears?
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Nov 9, 2017 01:47
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AlphaDog posted:So I should try to sing as low and as high as I comfortably can, match those notes on an instrument, then try to slowly hit each note in between and speed up as I get better (same as learning a new scale on the instrument, kinda)? I guess that'll annoy the hell out of my wife, but I'll give it a shot. Kind of? Wind instruments (like your voice) start off pretty differently than string instruments. First off, don’t explore to the ends of your range yet, that will just give you bad habits for you to fix later. Sing something you think is in the middle of your range, maybe explore a few notes above and below that. Second, learning scales as a vocalist is a pain in the rear end and not very useful, so I wouldn’t recommend that. More useful is to practice singing long, sustained notes without a change in pitch or tone quality. If you can’t tell if you’re doing it well, try recording yourself and I bet you’ll pick up your flaws right away. I’m genuinely sorry I’m not being more helpful. I usually record myself doing some vocal demos of what I’m suggesting, but gently caress my life right now basically. I’m nowhere near a computer and I don’t know where the gently caress my vocal mic is anyway.
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Nov 9, 2017 02:14
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Nah that's cool, you've been heaps more helpful than the usual "I just sing, it's not hard". I've got a vst tuner, a midi keyboard, and a mic, so I've put those together and I'm playing a note, trying to match it, and seeing how far off I am with the tuner. Constantly about half a step off, but 20 minutes made a difference. My speaking voice is kinda deep, and I seem to be able to hit notes from around g2 to d4 without feeling any strain, so I'm gonna start with the middle of that range and work slowly outwards.
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Nov 9, 2017 03:22
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm stockpiling a lot of electronic tracks I think are pretty good and that I want to get "out" there but I don't really have the money/ability to professionally master all of them. What do other recording artists do in this situation? Do you have certain favored techniques for self-finishing on a budget? Do you just not over-think it and do the best you can with the skills you have to get it in peoples' ears? Ozone Elements might be a good place to start. It's preset based so it's not super flexible, but it's relatively cheap and sounds good. The preset-based nature of it can be a good thing too, particularly for a newbie; you have a limited ability to gently caress it up horribly. The MSRP is $129 but you can get it for considerably cheaper if you look around.
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Nov 9, 2017 11:25
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Trig Discipline posted:Ozone Elements might be a good place to start. It's preset based so it's not super flexible, but it's relatively cheap and sounds good. The preset-based nature of it can be a good thing too, particularly for a newbie; you have a limited ability to gently caress it up horribly. The MSRP is $129 but you can get it for considerably cheaper if you look around. Even on the most half-assed superior drummer+one track of guitar and one of bass with no processing done (besides Amplitube for amp sims) demos/riff tapes I've done, putting Ozone on the master suddenly makes everything sound infinitely better, 'CD Mastering' is my go to preset. I'll normally have my master peaking at -6ish db and make up the rest on Ozone once I put it on there. It is the only plugin I have that causes noticeable latency when recording (audio or midi) but its normally the last thing to go on, I try to get my levels/mix sounding reasonable and then put on Ozone rather than trying to mix into it. NonzeroCircle fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 10, 2017 |
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Nov 10, 2017 19:12
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Ozone is heavy as gently caress, but that's because it does a lot. Freeze / bounce everything to audio and then do your Ozone fooling just to save CPU stress.
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Nov 13, 2017 20:02
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Sound ( ) advice. Its weird, I used to freeze and flatten all the time when I used Ableton, since switching to Cubase I rarely do now, but I've got a bit better and separating the writing and mixing stages so Ozone's latency when recording is a non-issue for me as it doesn't go on til the parts are done and its just levels adjustments.
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Nov 13, 2017 20:53
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LargeHadron posted:This is very helpful, thank you. One last question though - I had read somewhere online that if you distribute your music independently on public channels, it's bad form to send that same music to labels as "demos". Is that actually true? I thought it kind of made sense, because they could say "we like it, but it's already been released so we can't profit from it". I've been told by my projects' producers that you need to shop your unreleased content to labels. I don't have any experience with getting signed so that's the extent of what I've been working with.
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Nov 14, 2017 03:49
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Thanks for the tip on Ozone Elements! As luck would have it it's on Black Friday sale for $29 on iZotope's site along with RX Elements and Neutron. Scooping it up. https://www.izotope.com/en/store/deals.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrd_Ao5nQ1wIVjMVkCh2nFwbIEAAYASAAEgLnoPD_BwE
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Nov 21, 2017 18:32
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AlphaDog posted:Is there a singing thread that has the kind of info for beginners that something like the guitar thread has? I looked over the first few pages and couldn't see one. I can't sing worth a drat and I'd like to learn, but a quick google search for lessons has only found places in my area that cater to either groups of small children or to musical theater people, and I am neither. I made this thread! Check it out!!
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Nov 21, 2017 21:44
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On YouTube, I clicked a video in the sidebar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYSiaUmr17o) and the first 13 seconds of music struck me. The cacophonous, orchestra-warm-up stuff, not the building drums. I knew I heard the music before and after a few minutes it came to me. I first heard it in this Bright Eyes song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIRTw609o8) at :32 seconds in, behind the talking. The credits for the first video don't mention the song, the only thing that seems relevant is "Licensed via Audio Network". I'm just wondering how this happened. Is this clip of music popular for some reason? Does this mean the music was licensed? What exactly is "Audio Network"? Is it possible the clip was sampled by one of the other music credits? Is the music a default soundscape in a DAW? This is a bizarre connection to me. I'm curious about what music business took place here.
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Nov 28, 2017 15:44
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ProperCoochie posted:On YouTube, I clicked a video in the sidebar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYSiaUmr17o) and the first 13 seconds of music struck me. The cacophonous, orchestra-warm-up stuff, not the building drums. I knew I heard the music before and after a few minutes it came to me. I first heard it in this Bright Eyes song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIRTw609o8) at :32 seconds in, behind the talking. The credits for the first video don't mention the song, the only thing that seems relevant is "Licensed via Audio Network". It's a stock sound of an orchestra tuning up.
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Nov 28, 2017 18:05
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edit: ignore me
Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Dec 15, 2017 |
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Nov 28, 2017 18:12
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That Bright Eyes one don't sound the same anyway - sounds more scored with all the spooky descending bits, doesn't have the perky high bits
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Nov 28, 2017 23:23
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I put out an album in 2015 that nobody listened to because I knew nothing about promotion and barely even tried. Would it be idiotic to send it to bloggers, reviewers, radio stations and the like at this juncture, given that it's no longer a new release?
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Dec 15, 2017 19:29
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Is it a really good album? If so, give it a shot. Don’t expect big returns until you start releasing and promoting your music more often. Is it not a really good album? If so, take the best parts and repackage it as an EP or remove the worst parts and add in better songs.
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Dec 15, 2017 19:51
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There's a musical composition app for iOS/iPad etc. called Suggester. You plug in the key/mode your song is in, and it automatically generates a sheet of chord breakdowns, suggestions for replacements/reharmonizations, chord progressions, etc. It's extremely handy but my iPad gave up the ghost a few months ago and I emailed the guy who wrote the app about a PC/Android version and he has no intentions of making one. Does anybody know any apps for PC/Android that also do this, even if it's in a limited capacity? I've been searching high and wide on the Internet but it's difficult to narrow down the search topic.
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Dec 20, 2017 17:52
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Chord! for android might be what you're looking for, but it's pretty guitar centric. It has some harmonization settings where it will find scales and suggested chords to go with whatever progression or scale you input.
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Dec 20, 2017 18:54
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Any recommendations on where to start learning Ableton? Which online courses are good?
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Jan 10, 2018 15:08
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