Some weeks, I can’t get enough Bob Lefsetz. Here are his thoughts on why CD sales are tanking, and what we should do about it:

4. Embrace The Indie Stores – They survive, they’re loyal. Boost them because that’s where acts develop. I think the CD is dying a quick death, but until it does, play with these guys, not Best Buy. Hell, Best Buy DEVALUED music. Do you buy a Lexus at 7-11? Do you buy Cartier at Costco? Why should someone think the act is worth anything if it’s whored out all over TV like some commercial product, and sold with no atmosphere at the big box retailer.

If he’s wrong, then 10 Simple Ways To Increase Sales at Amazon could come in handy:

Get involved in the discussion – many titles now include a beta feature called “Customer Discussions.” Be sure to find that link on your book’s page and monitor it so that you can answer any questions readers or potential readers may have. If there is no discussion started on your book – start one!

It’s targeted at book authors, but the advice applies to CD sales too. And it may be relevant: You may not realize it, but if you have a CD for sale through CD Baby, you should also be listed on Amazon.

Tags: promotion

Mixing always takes longer than you expect: We lose track of time when we’re enjoying ourselves. So allow for this, and give yourself lots of time to record and mix. For example, don’t put aside a single day and plan on recording and mixing four or five songs. Instead, set more realistic goals, and you’ll be happier with the result. One song, well recorded and evenly mixed, is an admirable achievement for a day’s work.

You can always revisit the song: Have you ever put off finishing a mix because you fear the result won’t sound as perfect as you imagine it? Some folks never manage to finish anything because of this quest for perfection. But sometimes, you just need to call a job done and move on. This is much easier to do when “done” can just as easily mean “to be polished and perfected later.”

Be honest with yourself: And most importantly, be honest about your abilities. Of course, you must stretch your limits to improve, but don’t hold yourself to unreal expectations. Your mix doesn’t sound radio-ready because you haven’t been at it as long as the major label mixers and producers. Skills like theirs, however, will come to you if you put in the time.

Take a break from the mix: There’s nothing like “fresh ears” to bring perspective to a mix. Thanks to habituation, you lose objectivity in your hearing, especially after the hundredth time listening to a song effectively on repeat. Taking breaks is especially important when you mix for a deadline. If time allows, spend a few days away from the track and listen to lots of other music. Reset your ears. But even if you only have a few hours before the deadline, it still helps to step away from the mix. Any change in your listening perspective will help you notice elements of the mix you’ve been unconsciously ignoring.

Previously: More Recording and Mixing Tips, The Big Page of Mix Tutorials

Tags: mixing, tips-digest

This interview with Chris Lord-Alge is short, but packed with tips on recording electric guitar and bass.

you’re going to get a better sound recording electric guitars on analog than digital. If you’re going digital, you may want to use a bit more compression than normal, maybe dial more low-end because digital is like a clear pane of glass. And it’s important to make sure the guitars have been set up well, that the intonations are in good shape so the players are not having a tuning nightmare.

Tags: bass-guitar, guitars, interviews, professional-engineers

Tags: humour, video

For indie artists and producers serious about marketing their music in the coming decade, Bob Lefsetz has another great rant about the impending collapse of the major labels:

unless you make mainstream pop or hip-hop music, WHY BOTHER WITH A MAJOR LABEL? They’re not interested in artist development. Hell, EMI won’t EXIST by time you put out your SECOND album, never mind your third or fourth. You want to get caught in that vortex?

It’s no secret that Lefsetz thinks the executives at the major labels dug their own collective grave. Most people who follow the industry probably feel the same way. So why did his rant grab my attention? One passage in particular:
(more…)

Tags: business, predictions

The Top Ten Tips for Sonic Excellence features an interview with mastering engineer Art Sayecki. Art offers advice, from a professional’s perspective, for indie artists looking to improve their own mixing and engineering skills:

Keep your mixes balanced and not too bright or too bassy. Shoot for soft highs and tight basses. Don’t try to get the CD-Quality sound at the mixing studio. Let professional mastering do the rest.

Tip #10, in particular, is a favorite of mine: Hire a mastering engineer to critique your mixes before you send them to be mastered:

Most artists understand that if you involve a great producer in your songwriting you may benefit from his/her input in terms of song structure, melody or lyrics. But they don’t understand that involving a mastering engineer in the mix may have a similar positive effect on the mix… When you get the initial mixes ready, run them by an experienced mastering engineer and ask for his/her input. In most cases it only takes one to two hours to go into details over every song on a CD. So you are looking at $75-150 for this service, but it can save you a ton of grief and money later on.

(Note: It’s a 4-part article. Here are part 2, part 3, and part 4.)

Tags: mastering, professional-engineers

Some quick recording links for a Friday night:

• What the Experts Say About Recording. 3 pros discuss some of their studio techniques.

  On recording vocals: “It’s a big mistake letting the singer record their own vocals. They’re not the best judge of their own voice. They’ll think they sound bad, when everyone else is saying, ‘That’s the take! That’s the take!’“

• How to avoid useless purchases when shopping for gear. I’m sure you’ve had experiences like this (for example, on every other visit to Long & McQuade …): “If your sales rep cannot give a clear, quick and concise reason why you need the gear in question, they may not know the product any better than you do, they may not believe in the product, or they may and just want to make a sale.“
• And finally, Perfect iTunes EQ settings doesn’t have much to do with home recording, but you might still find it useful for two reasons: 1) The breakdown of each frequency range and its purpose, and 2) the realization that you can work hard to balance the spectrum in your track, but sometimes your listeners are going to mess it up all on their own.

Cheers!

Tags: EQ, professional-engineers

Here’s a collection of web forum topics related to recording drums. Many of the tips apply to mixing, however, and you’ll find them useful even if you’re working with a drum machine or drum samples.

First, some drum recording suggestions from ProSound:

here are some of the few really useful things I can tell you:
Treat it like a drum kit. not like 6, or however many, individual sounds.
Use as few mics as you CAN.
Use only one type of mic pre on everything.
EQ when you have to, without hesitation. But don’t when you don’t have to.

Some tricks for recording hi hats quieter:

– Try different stick materials. Many find that maple sticks hit softer than hickory.
– Move the drum kit away from the walls.
– If the hats are mostly in the overheads, try a compressor with fast attack, rather than low-pass EQ, to reduce their level.

From Gearzlutz, thoughts on recording drums in a room with with low ceilings:

don’t put the mics over the drums… “overheads” are great when you have [minimum] twelve foot, ceilings… other than that I would suggest ‘underheads’… which are mics out in front of the kit roughly halfway between the ceiling and the floor in approximately an equilateral triangle to the snare… sometimes it works… other times the room sucks to bad to be used for any purpose what so ever… in which case, run a snake to another room and try that [or drop back and punt… whatever your instinct tells you to do is probably the right course of action].

And an older thread on capturing a bright, smooth cymbal sound:

I’ve had good results with slight compression (1:2 – 1:4) taking a 3-4db off. I filter out the low stuff and then add in some shelf (1-2 db) somewhere between 10-15k. The big thing, I think, is that the room has to have that sound.

Tags: drums

These two videos (15 minutes in total) are excerpted from a fascinating documentary about the recording studios in London during the 1960s, including Decca and Abbey Road.

Most of us take multi-track recording for granted. But as noted in the video, until the early 1960’s “musicians had to be note perfect” once the tape rolled. With only one track, there were no overdubs or punch-ins!

And imagine having to check with the Musician’s Union every time you wanted to record a guitar track in your bedroom?!! …

Tags: studios, video

Is the FCC’s Radio Payola Settlement Really a Watershed Moment for Independent Music?
While it’s nice lip service from the FCC to request that radio stations program playlists based on “merit,” the reality is that program directors have to make money. And they make money by playing what’s familiar. They’ll sacrifice some low-rated hours to make the FCC happy, but most of the local music shows on the radio are there to let creative staff scratch an itch

Charting the decline of the music biz
But perhaps a bigger reason, Bordowitz says, is the industry’s reaction to the new technology. In essence, that reaction was to ignore it when it was just a menacing cloud on the horizon and then attempt to squash it — rather than partner with it — when it arrived. “There are a lot of issues the record business ignored,” Bordowitz says. “When things are going well, it’s human nature to ignore any possible problems. And things were going very well in the early ’90s.”

Music Discovery Gets Social
Tim Westergren, chief strategy officer at another music site, Pandora, said that as an independent musician, he often felt left out by the major record companies. His site analyzes songs based on their musicological characteristics and helps users find songs that are similar to the ones they like, even if they’re from obscure bands. He said the site is encouraging users to buy more music. “People are starved for more independent music,” he said.

Lawmakers introduce a bill to amend the DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public’s right to fair use.

It’s no surprise that the RIAA doesn’t like the bill.
the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would “allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit,” it said in a statement. Advances such as digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protection, the RIAA said.

The DMCA, after all, gives the RIAA the power to sue students.
The association has sent three times more copyright complaints to universities this academic year than it did last year. The complaints ask the schools to take down unauthorized content being shared on their network.

And suing students at college is good, because it solves the problem of accidentally suing the parents who haven’t done anything wrong.

Tags: newsdigest