After months of speculation about streaming music price increases, Apple Music becomes the first to raise its prices, although not as much as originally anticipated. The company announced that its price will go up $1 from $9.99 to $10.99 per month, and its Family Plan $2 to $16.99 per month. The big question now is […]
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TikTok has announced a new feature called StemDrop, which will provide users with the opportunity to remix a song and create their own version of the track. Since an artist’s music can be heard and used in new ways, it’s conceivably a new way for artists to increase their royalties from the platform. Get Your […]
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On my latest podcast episode: Rod Stewart music director and keyboardist Chuck Kentis talks about playing sessions in New York City, getting the gig with Rod, writing production and game music, cutting basics with a band, Eurorack synthesis, and much more. A look at the rumored Spotify Platinum tier with HIFI audio Overlooked mastering skills […]
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When I was a young musician, I lived in time where there were so many clubs that you could play 7 nights a week in a different club every night if you wanted to, plus get paid for it. If you can believe it, you could actually make a pretty decent living as a musician […]
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With so much music available for free on the ad-supported tiers of the various streaming services, you’d wonder why anyone would even bother trying to steal it. The same goes for music videos, since anyone can access just about anything on YouTube without paying a dime. But if you thought that nobody wants to do […]
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On my latest podcast episode: Musician’s social network Vampr co-founder and CEO Josh Simons talks about touring expenses, using unseen collaborators, representing artists for sync placements, learning from bad publishing deals, and much more.. The CD turns 40 years old, and it almost never happened Plugin developer Slate Digital gets acquired by Audiotonix Listen to […]
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Most of us are online these days for various reasons. Maybe it’s to engage with fans, maybe it’s to find a new audience, or maybe it’s just for personal enjoyment. The point it, we’re on it a lot more than we realize. It puts it all into perspective when we have some data points to […]
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Catalog. You hear that term tossed around a lot. For a record label, catalog means any release that is more than 18 months old, but for an artist it means anything that isn’t new. Artists by nature prefer to think about what they just finished, and many times don’t consider their old releases that important. […]
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On my latest podcast episode: Scoring mixer Justin LaRocca talks about making the transition from musician to engineer, the differences between engineering music and post production, the complexity of mixing Lord of the Rings, the many plugins in his mixing template, and much more., and much more. YouTube has a secret weapon to overtake Spotify […]
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No matter how powerful social media is today, a website is still one of the most important tools that an artist can have. The reason is that you control everything about it, while a social site can (and does) change look and design at will without you having a say in the matter. Of course, […]
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TikTok is getting as commercialized as any other social platform as it matures. When that happens, most of the early adopter creators whose content helped build the platform’s popularity get squeezed out. TikTok may be bucking that trend though, as some new data indicates that you can still go viral on the service far easier […]
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On my latest podcast episode: Crowd Surf’s Cassie Petrey on convincing a major label about the value of social media, motivating artists to post, how artists may compromise their brand on TikTok, getting artists to establish their brand, and much more. A look at the new bills before Congress for artists to get royalties from […]
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You can post all you want on a social platform, but it’s easy to get fooled into thinking those posts are getting more traction than they really are because you’re using the wrong data as a measuring stick. Worse, you may be misinterpreting the data and assume something other than reality. If TikTok is your […]
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The RIAA just issued its mid-year report, and as almost always, there are surprises. Perhaps the biggest is that vinyl sales continue to grow at a rapid rate. On the other had, streaming is showing signs of plateauing, news that must send shivers down label execs everywhere. Physical Sales Let’s get to the good news […]
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On my latest podcast episode: Grammy-nominated engineer Justin Cortelyou talks about personal studio dynamics, working with legendary producer Bob Ezrin, his hybrid mixing technique, the importance of a sonic signature, and much more. A look at the massive Soundcloud layoffs and what it may mean for artists Unusual effects pedal packages (hint: one comes in […]
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