Auratone’s Alex Jacobsen On This Week’s Inner Circle Podcast
The little Auratone sound cube monitors were once found in just about every studio in the world, but they just about fell off the map after the passing of company founder Jack Wilson. Today Jack’s grandson Alex Jacobsen has relaunched Auratone, and he’s my guest on this week’s podcast. Alex has a great story about […]
Continue readingThe Different Sources Of Publishing Royalties
Regardless of the era, the songwriter and publisher have made money, and continue to make money in three primary ways: 1. Mechanical royalties are paid whenever a song is digitally downloaded, a song is streamed from an on-demand service, or a physical CD or vinyl record is sold. 2. A performance royalty is paid whenever […]
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Twitter Invests In SoundCloud, But Why?
Twitter has made an investment in SoundCloud for a reported $70 million and if you’ve been following the story between the companies, you have to ask yourself “Why now?†About two years ago Twitter almost acquired SoundCloud before walking away at the last minute, and an acquisition certainly would have made a lot more sense […]
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The Music Industry Continues To Whiff On Each Giant Opportunity
Artists, labels and music services alike continue to lament the fact that not enough free streaming subscribers are converting to the paid tier, yet the possible incentive to get those free tier customers to upgrade is being ignored by the different players along the product pipeline. Superstar albums continue to be released without the industry […]
Continue readingSongwriter Martin Page On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast
This week I’m lucky to have my compadre from the AudioNowcast on my Inner Circle Podcast, songwriter Martin Page. Martin’s had much success over the years writing with everyone from Earth, Wind and Fire, to Bernie Taupin, to Hal David, to Robbie Robertson, to Robbie Williams, and he’s also co-written a couple of world-wide #1 […]
Continue readingBig Tax Break Coming For Recording In New York
Everybody likes to save money and saving money on taxes is no exception. That’s why numerous states (like North Carolina and Louisiana) and countries (like Canada) have issued their own versions of a tax break to entertainment companies to lure production to their locations in recent years. Now New York is getting into the act, […]
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Get Ready For The Amazon Streaming Music Disruption
With the battle over streaming music leadership raging on between Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, there’s one major company that’s been lying silently in the weeds waiting for the right time to pounce on an industry increasingly ripe for the picking. Don’t look now, but it may be Amazon that may soon be the one […]
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What If Google Had Bought Michael Jackson’s Half Of Sony/ATV?
Word came out over the weekend that Google was a clandestine bidder for Michael Jackson’s half of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and the news had the music business wiping its collective brow in relief. Had that purchase happened, we might be looking at a very different industry landscape today. To recap, last March a buy-sell clause […]
Continue readingMastering Engineer Ian Shepherd On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast
If you take notice I have a lot of mastering engineer’s on my Inner Circle Podcast, and that’s because they’re pretty overlooked, usually keep a low profile, and what they do is generally misunderstood. That said, as you’ve probably heard by now if you listen to the show a lot, they all have great stories […]
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7 Social Media Marketing Secrets No One Tells You
Social media marketing is the lifeblood of artists and bands everywhere since, except for live performances, that’s where your audience is. The problem is that it’s easy to fall for a number of misconceptions about what it can do for you, but that soon becomes very apparent after you’ve spent some time actually doing the work […]
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The Music Industry’s Big Data Problem
One of the hopes that digital music brought was for a faster and more accurate way for everyone in the food chain to get paid. That sounds good on paper, but unfortunately hasn’t quite panned out the way anyone in the industry expected. While it’s true that it’s easy to count online sales and downloads in the digital […]
Continue readingElectronic Dance Music Still Has Room For Growth Despite Predictions
It wasn’t that long ago when it looked like electronic dance music, or EDM, might be the savior of the music business, thanks to an impressive growth rate of 54% over the course of just three years. With overall CD and download sales slowing down, and streaming paid subscribers not increasing as fast as the […]
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The Seamy Side Of The Music Business Circa 1980
I just returned from speaking at Nimbus School of Recording and Media in Vancouver (one of the best recording schools anywhere – thanks Mike, Rob and Brandon), and one of the questions that I received from the students was if the music business is more difficult now than it was in the past. Actually, getting into […]
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5 Tips For Increasing YouTube Engagement
Even though Facebook is catching up, YouTube engagement is still a primary concern for every artist. Information is power, and some brand new data about viewership on YouTube help to maximize its usefulness as a promotional tool. For instance, video length is one of the biggest deciding factors for engagement. Videos under one minute are […]
Continue readingMaking Sense of Streaming Income
In Part 3 on my series on streaming music royalties, we try to make sense of streaming income as we look at why it varies so much and why the sales parameters we set in the days of vinyl and CDs no longer apply in the digital age. Once again, this is an excerpt from […]
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