Pro Music Recording

@EconSM: Musicians Can’t Rely On Social Networks Alone For Making Money | paidContent.org: “”

Technology Review: Yahoo in early talks with major labels over possible MP3-based music service: “MP3-based music service”

‘Rock Band,’ ‘Guitar Hero’ drive digital song sales | Tech News on ZDNet: ”

In the two months since MTV Networks and Harmonix released the music-based video game Rock Band, players have purchased and downloaded more than 2.5 million additional songs made available after the game’s initial distribution.
Activision, meanwhile, said it has sold more than 5 million new songs via download for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock since it began adding downloadable content in early November.
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(Via ‘Rock Band,’ ‘Guitar Hero’ drive digital song sales | Tech News on ZDNet.)

The brains behind: Eyebrowy: “Animation site eyebrowy.com is often hailed as the ‘South Park for the music scene’. We talk to Colm Russel, one half of the team that gave us ‘The Bloke Out Of Keane’

Continues…

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(Via The brains behind: Eyebrowy.)

MTV: ‘Rock Band’ sells 2.5 million songs: “Searching for new sources of revenue, music industry watches with interest as players of the video game download lots of music. It looks like MTV’s Rock Band video game is the new jukebox hero. Players of the rock music simulator have downloaded more than 2.5 million songs…”

(Via MTV: ‘Rock Band’ sells 2.5 million songs.)

Its that time of year again.
If your not there Electronic Musician has terrific coverage.

Introducing Blue Comet Cafe: The Premiere Virtual Music Venue: “Introducing Blue Comet Cafe: The Premiere Virtual Music Venue

New virtual showcase venue offers exposure opportunities for emerging musicians and singer-songwriters.

Los Angeles, CA (Billboard Publicity Wire) January 17, 2008 — Thanks to the advances of technology and streaming video online, Blue Comet Cafe takes elements of what radio used to do, breaking new artists, and combines that with a social networking environment and a global reach that only the Internet can provide.

Blue Comet Café is a virtual showcase club for on-the-verge touring and recording artists. Videotaped live, the Blue Comet’s ‘Main Stage’ artists play the best traditional venues in the country with new songs and interview segments rotated on a regular basis.

”When you think of the best concerts you’ve ever seen, a lot of times it involves an artist who is just finding their audience, performing in a relatively small club for a few hundred people. Everyone wishes they had seen Bruce Springsteen at The Main Point in Philadelphia or Elton John at the Troubadour in Los Angeles or Norah Jones at The Bitter End in New York City when they were just starting out. The fact is you have to be at the right place at the right time and if you live in a smaller market, you’re probably out of luck. That’s no longer true thanks to Blue Comet Café,’ states co-founder Tom Crosthwaite.

In mid-February, Blue Comet Café will introduce their unique social networking capabilities where visitors, musicians, singer-songwriters, bands and fans will create their own profile pages, upload photos, bios, audio files and video clips. They will make friends, create groups and forums, and interact with like minded artists and fans worldwide.

This week’s featured artist is Nashville based Billy Patrick, who is part singer-songwriter, part one-man-band and part street musician. Anyway you look at it, he’s a whole lot of music, and his performance captured at Blue Comet Café is nothing short of spectacular!

There are future plans to periodically produce shoots where Blue Comet Cafe will videotape several artists for presentation on the Main Stage. The next shoot is tentatively planned for Los Angeles with Boston, Nashville, Austin and Toronto on the list of cities to visit.”

(Via Introducing Blue Comet Cafe: The Premiere Virtual Music Venue.)

saul follow-up and facts

saul follow-up and facts: “

It’s a strange time to be an artist in the recording business. It’s pretty easy to see what NOT to do these days, but less obvious to know what’s right. As I find myself free from the bloated bureaucracy of major labels, finally able to do whatever I want… well, what is that? What is the ‘right’ way to release records, treat your music and your audience with respect and attempt to make a living as well? I have a number of musician friends who are either in a similar situation or feel they soon will be, and it’s a real source of anxiety and uncertainty.
I’d like to share my experience releasing Saul Williams’ ‘The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust’ and what I’ve learned from the process. Perhaps by revealing of all our data – our ‘dirty laundry’ – we can contribute to a better solution.

A quick history: Saul makes a great record that I produce. We can’t find the right home at a major label. We decide to release it ourselves, digitally. Saul does not have limitless financial resources so we shop around for a company that can fulfill our needs. We choose Musicane because they are competent and are willing to adapt to what we want. The results are here: niggytardust.com

We offer the entire record free (as in totally free to the visitor – we pay bandwidth costs) as 192 MP3s, or for $5 you can choose higher fidelity versions and feel good about supporting the artist directly. We offer all major CCs and PayPal as payment options.
Here’s what I was thinking: Fans are interested in music as soon as it’s available (that’s a good thing, remember) and usually that’s a leak from the label’s manufacturing plants. Offering the record digitally as its first appearance in the marketplace eliminates that problem. I thought if you offered the whole record free at reasonable quality – no strings attached – and offered a hassle free way to show support that clearly goes straight to the artists who made it at an unquestionably low price people would ‘do the right thing’. I know, I know…
Well, now I DO know and you will too.

Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

Of those paying,

3220 chose 192kbps MP3
19,764 chose 320kbps MP3
5338 chose FLAC

Keep in mind not one cent was spent on marketing this record. The only marketing was Saul and myself talking as loudly as we could to anybody that would listen.
If 33,897 people went out and bought Saul’s last record 3 years ago (when more people bought CDs) and over 150K – five times as many – sought out this new record, that’s great – right?
I have to assume the people knowing about this project must either be primarily Saul or NIN fans, as there was very little media coverage outside our direct influence. If that assumption is correct – that most of the people that chose to download Saul’s record came from his or my own fan-base – is it good news that less than one in five feel it was worth $5? I’m not sure what I was expecting but that percentage – primarily from fans – seems disheartening.
Add to that: we spent too much (correction, I spent too much) making the record utilizing an A-list team and studio, Musicane fees, an old publishing deal, sample clearance fees, paying to give the record away (bandwidth costs), and nobody’s getting rich off this project.

But…
Saul’s music is in more peoples’ iPods than ever before and people are interested in him. He’ll be touring throughout the year and we will continue to get the word out however we can.

So – if you’re an artist looking to utilize this method of distribution, make of these figures what you will and hopefully this info is enlightening.

Best,
TR

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(Via nine inch nails.)

Some things are universal…

Zzzzzzzz: ”

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(Via nine inch nails.)

This link takes you to a hilarious picture… its worth the trip…

For those of you who didn’t get Rock Band this Christmas: “(Thanks to Duncan Rawlinson for the spot.)
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(Via The Long Tail.)