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T-Racks 3 – Master the Possibilities of your Music

Published on March 4, 2009 in Article and Resources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Spotted on: My harddrive.

T Racks 3 Screenshot

T Racks 3 Screenshot

One of the most important, yet often overlooked, elements of a professional recording is mastering. Mastering isn’t a part of mixing, it is the final stage before audio is duplicated, where the fidelity (punch, clarity and volume) are added to the track. Mastering is one of the separators between demo and pro recordings, and high quality mastering can literally separate a hit from just another song. IK Multimedia’s latest installment of the T-Racks Mastering Suite takes the art of digital mastering to a whole new level, bringing advanced signal processing and fidelity to the masses.. With T-Racks 3, anyone can get music mastered at the level of a professional mastering lab.

I’ve been a T-Racks user for years, and I recently had the opportunity to work with the new T-Racks 3 software. I thought T-Racks 3 was going to be a rehashed version of software I loved. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. The interactivity, new plug ins, and sound quality blew my mind. I expected to see a familiar piece of software, with 4 signal processors popping up on the screen. When I opened the program and saw the 12 configurable slots for the signal chain, my first thought was “is this for real?” This didn’t even look like the program I have used for years. Once I started testing the program out on a final mix, I found it to be easy and fun to use. Within two hours I had three distinct masters to choose from, and each of them sounded sonically equal to almost any major label release I have heard.

T-Racks 3 is available for both Mac and Windows, and the plug ins can be loaded into almost any audio program as well as used as standalone software. The program is beautiful and the plug ins look real (and gorgeous). All the modules can be turned on and off individually (allowing you to actually hear the difference each plug-in makes to your master), and the 12 slots are configurable in a variety of ways. There is even a bypass button that lets you compare your original (plug in free) mix with the mastered version.

As if all that isn’t enough, the five new processors (available in the Deluxe version) are recreations of some of the most powerful and well-known studio equipment in history, including limiters, compressors, and equalizers. T-Racks brings the quality, equipment, and results of some of the finest mastering studios on the planet into your home studio, and the program clocks in at under $400. If you want your tracks to sound professionally mastered, and have the highest professional fidelity, then T-Racks 3 may be the best choice for your home studio.

Top 10 Indie Music Marketing Tools

Published on January 2, 2009 in Article, Blog and Resources. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

syndicated from Hypebot:

Top 10 Indie Music Marketing Tools

Every week brings the launch of another online service to connect musicians and fans. Beyond spending endless hours on MySpace and Facebook, what are the best affordable online tools to communicate with fans and monetize the relationship? Here are our picks in no particular order:

1. BANDZOOGLE – It all starts with a great web site and these guys give you the tools to build one quickly. If your site doesn’t do everything Bandzoogle does, ask your designer why or switch.

Sonicbids_logo 2. SONICBIDS – Easily and affordable. Create a robust emailable electronic press kit (EPK) with bio, photos, mp3′s, videos and more.

3. CD BABY – The granddaddy of D.I.Y. music empowerment. Sell your CD’s and downloads in a large community that supports indie music.

Nimbitlogosquare_2 4. NIMBIT- A one stop shop to help you sell CD’s, DVD’s, downloads, merch. and e-tickets with very fair commissions. Plus great tools to spread the word.

5. GYDGET - Everybody’s got widgets, but these guys get it right by enabling you to grab your info, music, and video and spread it across the net. Free.

Reverbnation_logo 6. REVERBNATION – Communicate with fans, build a street team, get widgets and Facebook apps, sell stuff. Tools do do it all and most of them free.

7. TUNECORE - Affordable flat rate digital distribution to all the major download sites worldwide with no strings attached.

8. TUBEMOGUL – You made a great video for a $23.57 budget. Now what do you do with it? Simultaneously upload to 18 sites including all the biggies then track performance. Basic service is free. (Bonus: A list of viral video sites.)

9. ARTISTDATA – Update tour dates on your website, MySace, Pure Volume, Last.fm, Jambase, Pollstar, Sonicbids and more all at once plus submit tour dates to local media.

10. MOZES, BAND TXT ALERTS (tie) You could use Twitter to communicate with fans, but not everyone wants an account. Every cell can accept text messages. Mozes is free (carrier rates apply) and robust, but pays for itself with ads that could upset some. Band TXT Alerts costs a little, but takes a way the ads.

bluhammock’s Jaylaan Shares “What Is Working?”

Published on December 18, 2008 in Article and Blog. 0 Comments Tags: .

Syndicated from hypebot:

bluhammock’s Jaylaan Shares “What Is Working?”

In conjunction with US. independent music trade group A2IM (American Association Of Independent Music), we’re asking indie professionals: In this fractured media landscape, what is working? What outlets and tools are helping your artists build an audience?

In this third installment Jaylaan Ahmad-Llewellyn, the founder of indie label bluhammock music (KaiserCartel, Cary Brothers, Swati, Val Emmich and more) responds:

“I think that this is an interesting question because it begs the question of what do you consider ‘working.’ There is building an audience that buys music, an audience that attends shows, and simply building awareness that you even exist as an artist…

click here to read more…

City Skies November ’08 in Oakhurst, Atlanta.

Published on November 19, 2008 in Article and Blog. 0 Comments Tags: .

Syndicated from:
The Secret Life blog

video of the city skies performance by rich & josh! whee!

above – Richard Devine & Johnny Blaze

Yours truly, threv, joined Jeremy Dickens (www.offnominal.com) and Secret Life bandmate Tricil (John Jacobus) at Kavarna in Oakhurst this past Saturday for the City Skies festival.

Hosted by the ever-smiling Jim Combs (jimcombs.com), it featured artists such as Richard Devine and Josh Kay (from Atlanta and Phoenecia), Collaboration with Sounds (from South Carolina), Don Hassler (from Atlanta), and Bribing The Buddha (from Atlanta).

Kavarna is an awesome little coffee/wine/sandwich shop in Oakhurst, which is a lot cooler IMO than Decatur, but whatever. Perfect little setup for a stage full of modular synths, a LEMUR, Tenori-On, Moogs, and macs-a-plenty.

We got there just as Collaboration with Sounds performed some noisy ditties w/her Moog Rogue & Macbook.

After she performed, Don Hassler tweaked a synthhead’s dream – an EMS Synthi A & Buchla Modular.

Closing out the night was Richard Devine & Josh Kay (of Schematic & Phoenecia) who jammed on a box of modular gear for about 1.25 hours. They projected Rich’s Reaktor patches on screen as Josh tweaked their modulars (heh, that’s what she said). Rich futzed around w/his JazzMutant Lemur, which was hooked up to Reaktor, as well as his Tenori-On.

most of the music of the night was self-similar, but you won’t hear us complaining. shit was dope, and overall an awesome night for live electronic music played by humans.


above: Rich & Josh’s modular setup

above: Don Hassler’s Synthi A & Buchla

above: Collaboration with Sounds

all images thanks to Jim Combs (www.myspace.com/cityskiesfestival)

How Collective Idiocy Left the Record Companies in Bits

Published on March 26, 2008 in Article and Blog. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Spotted On: The Guardian

“When the history of our digital times comes to be written, one of the questions that will puzzle historians is why the record companies missed the significance of the internet.”

What a great thought (and a very catchy headline). Here is a summary of the article, with some commentary.

Since World War II, the record industry had a total monopoly on the recording, packaging, and distribution of music. They controlled the careers or artists, the way the music was disseminated, and dictated terms to music retailers. When the CD came around in the early 1980′s, and as the article says “recording studios converted the sounds made by musicians into bitstreams – long sequences of ones and zeroes – while, at the consumer end, CD players converted those bits back into high-fidelity sound.”

The sales model for this era was to create the plastic disks and packaging, ship them distribution houses, and then off to retailers. While this model proved to be profitable, the overhead costs were astronomical, with up to 50% of the retail price of a CD eaten up by production costs.

The internet was poised to change all of this for major labels. It presented the opportunity to drop production costs to the floor, while expanding profits. But the internet was ignored at first, and then it was treated as a realm for legal prosecution. Even bands chimed in, complaining about the evils of the internet. This practice got so widespread that the RIAA began prosecuting teenagers and single moms. And as the industry resisted the internet, CD sales bottomed out.

To put it simply, the major labels did not want to let go of CDs in the face of an evolving marketplace. Rather than adapt to the climate, they attempted to maintain the status quo. The writer of the article states “The obvious hypothesis – that the senior executives of all the record companies were idiots – has always seemed implausible to me. Or it did until I read the recent interview in Wired magazine with Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group.”

Because CDs were so profitable, the music industry turned a blind eye to what was next, and settled into a short sighted approoch rather than looking at the big picture.

Bottom Line: The record industry can turn itself around virtually overnight by embracing and adapting to technology. Welcome to the Future.