Entertainment News & Media

It this age of cyber technology and advanced collaboration, it is advantageous for savvy independent music companies and artists to start harnessing the power of file-sharing, social networking, and Online collaboration. I’m sorry to bust your bubble, but record companies simply aren’t checking for artists right now. They are too busy scurrying like roaches when lights come on, suing anyone they can prosecute for piracy, and trying to figure how they are going to continue to fuck artist out of millions of dollars using emerging technologies. This state of turmoil puts you my friend in a very powerful position. Believe me, no fan is his or her right state of mind is going to choose a record company over an artist-sorry Bad Boy Entertainment, but the days of the label overshadowing the artists are done. The fans are no dummies, they want to connect with the artists on a personal level and feel as if they are partners in the success of artists. In some aspects, the fans contributions, suggestions, taste, and opinions have a direct effect on the success or failure of an artist or band. For the life of me, I could never understand how an artist’s ego becomes so inflated that they begin to ignore, alienate, or disrespect the very folks that bought them the big house, sparkly jewelry, and fancy car.

Back when the cassette tape was still king, street vendors would bootleg every and any song that was being played on popular radio. Many complained that this was taking money out of the artist’s pockets and was the worst thing to happen to music since William Hung. I have personally witnessed an irrational rap star beat a street vendor halfway to death with his own box of cassettes because somewhere in his pea brain he justified his behavior by believing that the little bit of money the vendor was making from bootlegging was preventing him from ballin. Ha! What jackassary was this? What the rapper didn’t realize is that consumers would have bought the bootleg version of album would eventually grow tired of a poorly duplicated copy and eventually go out and buy the real deal. In addition, even if they didn’t buy his album, they would still become new fans that could potentially purchase concert tickets, t-shirts, and future albums, which are more powerful revenue streams.

In today’s music game, its all about diversification, how many revenue streams can you generate outside of selling music? Name one artist on the planet and I can guarantee that with enough web searches you could find his or her music on the Internet without ever making a purchase. Why fight the tide of progress and eventually drown, when you easily surf the waves to the shores of financial success.

The Internet is full of cool places to sell music such as iTunes, ReverbNation, CDBaby, and the like; however these places or saturated with tons of bigger named artists who actually have a marketing budget. Since you’re broke and disenfranchised you will take another route. Here is a thought, give your music away for free. Shit, who doesn’t like free? I guarantee the more of your music you give away the more people will buy it from you. By giving your fans and potential fans give-a-ways you earn their trusts and loyalty to your brand. With you, they know what to expect, and if your music is “hot” then expect to sell tons of it as a result of giving it way for free.

Still not sure? Check this out. In the 2010 article by Mike Masnick titled, The Future Of Music Business Models (And Those Who Are Already There), Mike explains how musician and experimentalist Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails made $750,000.00 dollars in less than two days by giving his music away on his website. Reznor offered fans a $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition album Package. He promoted it as a limited pressing of only 2500 units. This package included DVD videos, vinyl, photo images, and of course his album-you know one that he is giving away separately for free. Because Reznor built his relationship with his fans by providing them an opportunity to sample his music for free, he was able to turn consumers to customers by offering the music bundles that weren’t available any place else in the world.
Read the rest of this entry »

MIDI stands for Music Instrument Device Interface. It’s not the instrument itself but rather the protocol that makes connecting with and controlling other systems (electronic instrument and computers) possible. When people say they will get a midi this is what it means. Nowadays a lot of digital instruments have midi capability – one of them is your midi keyboard.

There are different types out there. One of them you typically see at WalMart and the like. They’re consumer portable keyboards. They have built in speakers and come with a preset number of sounds and instrument variations – along with the accompanying beats. They will even teach you which keys to press when you’re playing music.

Bigger than the consumer portables are the digital pianos. As the name suggests they have piano sized keyboards and play like regular pianos in terms of feel. They come with their own speakers and you typically have a selection of music and accompaniments built-in to the system.

But as an amateur or professional musician what you need to have is a midi keyboard controller. With them you are able to create, mix and edit your music creations all from one unit. The smaller versions typically won’t have speakers built in which means you would need to connect it to a system that does – typically your computer with a sound card.

The size that you get will depend on how you use it and other limiting factors. If you’re always on the road then perhaps lugging a big unit may not be the best thing for you. This is also true if you have limited space. Even if you want the big one if you don’t really have the space to put it in then there’s no point – this is especially true of those home based musicians whose only space is the gap between their computer and computer keyboard.
Read the rest of this entry »