DIYmeans Do It Yourself. You. Yes, you. Stop Procrastinating. Sure, you can wait five years while you save up your money for that perfect, dream system or you can buy something affordable, learn how to use it and get to work. You can upgrade later. You can learn as you go. Remember, people would much rather listen to the music you make than the music you talk about making.
The point, and I can't emphasize this too strongly, is to start.
Real musicians make music; they don't spend all their
time building recording studios.
And to quote the old cliché: A journey of
a thousand miles starts with a single step. I know it's scary and
hard to get started, but if you start with something small and manageable, soon
you'll have the confidence to move on to grander and more glorious schemes.
You will make mistakes. At least once, you will buy the wrong item of equipment.
You will occasionally waste your time trying to install or use system you don't
completely understand. Equipment will break down. All will not go smoothly all
the time. Calm down and start again tomorrow.
Recording your project: If you're a novice to the
amazing world of recording, you might consider trying a 4-track cassette recorder.
While they don't have the best sound reproduction capability, these systems are
relatively inexpensive, portable and easy to use, so they're a good choice if
you want to learn about the mechanics of recording or try out some production
ideas in preparation for recording on a "real" system. Entire CD's have been made
on 4-track recorders, so if your instrumentation is fairly basic (i.e., you're
not doing sixteen vocal overdubs), this could be all you need. Even if you eventually
outgrow it, you can still use it as a scratchpad for writing or fleshing out incomplete
ideas.
And remember, it's easier to learn something by doing it than talking about
doing it. Get a small system, start recording and you'll start learning recording
techniques, how to plan recording sessions, and how to listen (and hear.)
Another point to realize is that you're not going to learn everything about
recording in a single day. Some of the articles I've referenced below are quite
complicated, but eventually, it will all make sense. In the meantime, don't
sweat it if you don't understand something, just keep moving on with what you
DO understand. Before you know it, you'll surprise yourself with what you've
absorbed.
Dragon Fiedler's Fourtrack
FAQ covers a lot of ground but if it's too advanced for you right now, it's
part of the HomeRecording.com web site,
that features FAQs and forums for people just getting started in four track
recording. While you're there, check out the Home
Recording Webring. And here's the article that will walk you through setting
up your intitial system: A
$300 4track Cassette Setup
Shane Faber's Beginner's Recording
Handbook contains an overview of basic sound, recording, mixing and MIDI
fundamentals, and The Recording
Website which has a lot of articles, including tips on micing and signal
processing, an equipment maintenance guide, and sound clips of guitar effects.
Alt.music.4-track is one of the better music technology newsgroups, with a
core group of friendly, knowledgeable people (although the name says 4-track,
most of the people involved are using more advanced systems such as ADAT or
computer multitracking.) Start reading it now; you'll learn something
everyday and by the time you start upgrading your system you'll know what questions
to ask.
You can also try the The Mixmasters egroup: "Mixmasters is a group of people who exchange audio
tapes and files, technical hints, and occasionally emotional support for the
sole purpose of helping improve each others' home recording and mixing skills
and production values."
Analog tape systems:Analog systems use magnetic tape
to record your music, usually reel-to-reel systems. I started out recording on
a four track cassette recorder, but after a few years I traded it in for a more
powerful eight track reel-to-reel machine. For most of my Voices
CD, I used a Fostex A-8 multitrack analog
tape recorder. This is quaintly obsolete equipment but you can still find them,
about $400 used. The A-8 records eight tracks on 1/4 inch tape (cheap at 50 cents
a minute.) It runs at 15 inches per second with built in noise reduction. Sadly,
after years of use, mine's finally gone on to that Great Studio In The Sky.
You can also get great deals on used 1/2 inch and one inch analog recorders,
which will give you eight or sixteen tracks of recording, depending on the machine.
(You might even be able to find a reasonably priced two inch machine, which
gives you 32 tracks.) The tape is not cheap, but there's a faction in the music
world that swears by "that warm, analog sound" and refuses to use anything else.
They're fairly easy to set up and operate, sort of like tinkertoys, sort of
like a really big home stereo system.
If you buy an analog or digital multitrack recorder, you'll need a mixing board
to go with it. If you have the space for a large mixing board, extra channels
are extremely handy to have; you can use separate channels for recording and
playing back tracks instead of having the two functions share the same channel.
Or use an extra channel to control reverb or delay levels. You'll find uses
for as many channels as you have on your board, so buy as many as you can afford.
Used recorders and mixers tend to be in fairly good condition because they
typically stay safe and sound in a studio rather then experiencing the perils
of going on the road. If you buy a used recorder, remember that the most expensive
parts to replace are the recording and playback heads, so you'll want to have
them checked by an independent appraiser before you buy. And if you're thinking
about replacing the heads on your analog recorder, check with JRFMagnetics
about relapping the old heads before you go out and buy a new set.
Digital Systems are another option is which you record
on some kind of digital media (digital tape, minidisk or a hard drive) rather
than on magnetic tape. If you're in the market for new recording equipment today,
you'll probably be steered here.
If you don't already have a fast computer with a large hard drive, a minidisk
multitrack system is probably the most affordable way to get into digital recording.
You can think of these as the digital version of 4-track cassette recorders.
These typically have a mixing board build right into the machine, so add a microphone
and you have everything you need to start recording.
Going digital eliminates tape hiss, eliminates sound degradation when copying
individual tracks (or entire tapes) and give you the ability to edit individual
tracks inside a digital editor, which gives you control over the smallest detail
on a recorded track. On the minus side, digital recording can sound cold and
unflattering compared to analog tape recording if you're not careful. For an
overview of digital recording systems, see The Midi Guy's Digital
Audio Questions.
Hard disk recording uses your PC's soundcard and hard
drive, running software such as N-track
(my favorite), CoolEditPro, Protools
or Cakewalk Pro Audio. These are digital
multi-track recorders for Windows that allows you to record and mix both audio
and midi tracks. On the plus side, again, you can edit the tiniest detail and
move tracks forward and backward in time. On the minus side, you can grow old
while you indulge in all the diddling around and editing you'll want to do.
How do you learn how to use digital recorders and editors? Download a demo
copy, install it and start using it. I can't emphasize this enough -- the way
to learn how to record on your computer is to start recording on your computer.
Start with a small "test" project -- record from a dinky microphone that's plugged
into your existing dinky soundcard. Once you start understanding the process,
you'll understand what equipment you want to upgrade and learn how you want
to set up your ideal system.
Be forewarned: If you use your computer as a recorder or mixer, you're going
to need a lot of hard drive space; 10 Mb per minute (PER TRACK) for audio data.
You're also going to need a way to archive that data off of your hard drive
once you're done with it, by using a zip drive or CDR (compact disk recorder)
or CDRW (rewriteable CDR). I use a CDR for storage and archiving, because I
already have a CDR unit for mastering and the blank CD's are fairly inexpensive.
Also, you'll need a sound card with full duplex capabilities. Expensive is
not always better: PCSound
Card Technical Benchmarks has extensive comparisons of many popular sound
cards.
Every computer system is different, and it's not always easy to get your system
up and running. Your best bet for troubleshooting problems is to subscribe to
a newgroup like Alt.music.4-track or something similar. You'll be able to find
someone who's had a similar problem who can give you advice.
This is the system I have now, since my old Fostex recorder died. New gear
I'm using includes: a GadgetLabs Wave/4 soundcard (this company's since gone
out of business), an Aztech SC128 soundcard (this company's also gone out of
business, too!), N-track recording
software, AudioMulch looping software
and Jazz sequencing software, as well
as my old Fostex mixing board and outboard effects. I love the flexibility of
this software. I love not having to rewind tape. I love having total control
over every track. I can do things (editing, looping) that I could never do before,
and the music I'm writing and recording now could not be made on a tape system.
But digital recording at this level (on a shoestring) is not for the faint
of heart. I've rebuilt my computer a number of times after crashes. And I've
learned the true meaning of backing up my data. Want to hear the results? Check
out the songs from Sylvatica on my listening
page.
And again, digital recording can sound cold and sterile if you don't make a
conscious effort to "warm up" your mixes. I typically mess around with EQ levels
and add a little delay to fatten things up. N-track includes free or low cost
directX plugins (software modules that work under other software programs, but
not by themselves) for EQ, compression, "warmth" and delay that could replace
or augment your outboard studio effects -- a nice advantage if you're just getting
started. A web search will turn up many shareware plugins, as will a visit to
Hitsquad. And if you're truly serious
about recording, a good tube preamp can work wonders on warming up your sound.
A good starting point for digital recording on your PC is About.com's home recording page, which contains a plethora of articles and
discussions on every aspect of recording.
If you're just getting started in hard disk recording, you may want a lot
more info. If you search for "home recording" on Amazon.com, you'll find books
for all skill levels.
You'll probably need at least one good microphone. I've always used Shure SM-58's
for both live work and studio recording. They're good (not the best, but good)
and they're indestructible. To find out more about microphones, try Harmony
Central's Microphone
FAQ and Audio Technica's Brief
Guide to Microphones.
The Mixing process consists of combining the individually
recorded tracks to two (stereo) tracks that sound perfect.
Some of the songs on Voices were mixed to DAT tape at Carl Landa's
old studio in Saratoga, NY; I brought my Fostex A-8 in and we hooked it up to
his mixing board and mixed the songs using his studio equipment. Other songs
were mixed to my hard drive using a 16 bit sound card and CoolEdit,
a shareware sound editor for Windows that supports a variety of file formats.
A digital sound editor lets you listen to the stereo wav file, adjust the volume,
fade in, fade out, filter portions of the file to remove noise or change the
EQ, and add effects such as echo or delay.
Not sure if it's a good mix? Listen back on a variety of systems; in your car,
on a boombox, on both high end and cheap systems. Ask people what they like
best and what they dislike the most about the song. Their answers may surprise
you; that snare drum effect that you think is so new and hip may sound dinky
and annoying to a listener with a more distant perspective. And a song that
sounds great on your tiny little computer speakers may sound weak when you play
it on a more powerful system. The goal here usually is to find a mix that sounds
good on most systems. There's an art to this, obviously.
But keep in mind that people listen to MUSIC, not production. Nobody threw
out their Billie Holiday records just because cleaner and clearer 24-track recording
became widespread. All the endless diddling you do to make your recording sound
bright and larger-than-life is great, but the writing and performance of your
music is MUCH more important than glossy production.
And most people don't listen to music on expensive, state-of-the-art equipment;
they listen on a boombox at the beach or in their car, so they can't even hear
the results of all your painstaking labors! I'm not suggesting good production
isn't important, but you need to keep it in perspective. Concentrate on writing
good material and capturing a good performance and everything else will follow.
See The Amateur Recording Workshop's Mixing
Clinic, Jay Kahr's Mixing
Tips for Vocals, SonicState's Tweak
of the Week.
Also, Ram Samudrala's DiY
Guide For Making music features great tips on putting together a studio and
the process of recording.
Then you write the wav files to an audio CD using a compact disk recorder (CDR).
These typically come bundled with software to do this; I used the Adaptec
Easy-CD Pro 95 that came bundled with my Sony CD writer. Later I upgraded to
their EZ CD Creator, which I've been happy with.
If you're unsure of what you're doing here, you might want to go to a mastering
studio for this step and watch (and hear) what they do. This is, after all,
your "last chance" to make any changes to how the music sounds. But if you do
rent a studio for this, make sure they have experience mastering CD's (and not
just as a recording studio) and ask to hear the CD's that they've mastered.
You don't want to pay someone to learn CD mastering.
The last step is to listen very, very closely to the resulting audio CD to
make sure nothing weird has crept in. I went through this process about ten
times, because sure enough, I kept finding weird clicks, bumps, hiss and dog
sneezes.
DRT Mastering and Digital
Domain have extensive articles on the art and science of mastering.
For further reference, Andy McFadden's
CD-Recordable FAQ has more information than you probably want to know, but
it'll answer any questions you come up with.
Electronic Musician Magazine has been
around so long it seems like an old friend. Over the years I've learned a lot
from them. If you go to your local newsstand, you'll find other magazines (the
titles seems to change every few months) on home recording and computer based
recording.
MusicBooksPlus will ship orders worldwide.
Free catalog, 800-265-8481.
HarmonyCentral is a huge musician's
resource, includes news, forums, buying guides, equipment reviews, an equipment
auction, classified ads and links to everywhere. Check out their Production
and Engineering Tip Of The Day and Music
Business Tip Of The Day. Not sure what "equalization" is? Clueless
about "flanging?" Try Harmony Central's page
Explaining Effects.
Whatever equipment or recording topic you're interested in, there's probably
a forum of some kind for it. Try searching Usenet
or eGroups.
As another very general rule of thumb, for used equipment I usually expect
to pay 1/2 of what the item (or something technologically equivalent) would
sell for new, at today's prices. If you need help figuring out a fair price
for a piece of used equipment, the Used
Gear Price List is a compiliation of current asking prices that may help
you gauge what kind of deal you're getting. You can also search the completed
sales on Ebay or search Harmony
Central.
For new equipment, try searching Bottom
Dollar or use the New
Gear PriceList. Also, be sure to check the prices at Mars
Music and Musician's Friend before
you buy, although having an ongoing relationship with a local music store can
be worth much, much more than the difference in price you'll pay.
After a while, though, you'll get tired of burning those CDR's (especially
the ones that have a write error when they're 99% done.) The cheapest place
to get your CDs pressed is a CD pressing plant. Some of the companies in the
ads you see in the back of music magazines are pressing plants, but most are
not. If a company doesn't press CDs themselves, they have to ship them to someone
who does, and they mark up the price and charge you for the shipping. If you
deal directly with the pressing plant, your price will be lower, sometimes A
LOT lower.
On the other hand, you typically (but not always) have to send the pressing
plant the films to make your CD insert, tray card and label and if you don't
know a graphic artist locally who can help you with this, you might be happier
going with one of the "whole project" companies -- a company that caters to
independent musicians and can prepare the layout for your artwork as part of
their charges.
There are a lot of steps involved in preparing the artwork and the CD for manufacturing.
SHOP AROUND. I've seen prices for the same services vary by 300%. It's boring,
it's complicated, but it's going to cost you money if you don't understand what's
involved at every step of the process. Don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions
and don't be pressured to decide immediately. Get between five and ten quotes.
Spending four hours working on this will probably save you a few hundred dollars.
Barcode or no barcode? A barcode, either printed on the traycard or a spine
label is required in order to sell your CD at large outlets such as Amazon,
Borders and Barnes and Noble. But getting your own barcode is expensive ($350
last time I checked; you get them from the
Uniform Code Council), an alternative is to sign up to sell your CD with
Ampcast or CD
Baby. Since they're "distributing" your CD, they can legally sell you a
bar code for a small fee.
For out-of-the ordinary packaging, Oasis
cardboard cd covers. Not cheap, but very sharp.
If you're past the point of burning CDRs but not ready to press 500 CDs yourself,
here's a few places that will burn and ship CDs on demand:
Promoting your project: It always comes as a bit of
a shock to realize that once you've finished your recording project, your work
has only just begun. If you want anyone to ever hear it, you're going to have
to do some old fashioned self-promotion.
The first step is to make up a media kit. This is a package that includes your
CD, a black and white photo (usually of you), a cover letter, a musical biography
and copies of any media coverage you've already received.
The cover letter is just a note that states why you're sending the package
("I have just released my new CD that I hope you'll be interested in reviewing.
If you need more info, please let me know.") Other information you could include:
where is the CD available for purchase? Do you have additional photos available
for download on your website? Do you have a performance schedule in conjunction
with the CD release? Do you have any special guests musicians on the CD?
The bio should contain a concise description of your music, any notable musical
achievements, and contact information (name, address, phone numbers, email,
website).
Put it in a folder. Make it look nice. Check your spelling. Put your name and
address on everything: every sheet of paper and every photo.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, borrow or buy a book on public
relations or promotion. Or find a successful musician and ask him or her if
you can take a look at their media kit. Or ask your local music writer to rescue
a few packages from the recyling bin for you. It's not as difficult as it sounds.
Let me guess...suddenly, you're completely paralyzed at the thought of starting
your media kit, aren't you? Yes, it's hard to describe and write about your
own music and your own musical career. But I'll let you in on a little secret;
Promoting your music is more important than the quality of the music itself,
in terms of gaining fans and making sales. People will listen to mediocre music
if it looks even halfway interesting, but nobody listens to music they don't
know about.
A good approach here if you're just starting out is to just tell the truth.
"We've only been together six months, but the music just poured out of us."
"It took us five years to develop our music to the point where we were comfortable
releasing it." "I'm learned a lot about my artistic processes in making this
first CD. I can't wait to get started on my next one." What was the Big Lesson
that you learned? What advice would you give someone else just starting to record
their first CD? What was interesting or enjoyable about your recording experience?
If you don't have a long musical resume, just write up a few paragraphs that
are as honest as if you were writing to your best friend, describing your thoughts
about the CD.
And please don't try to imitate that record company type of hype (come on,
you know what I mean...."The hottest sound this year! Award-winning! Breaking
sales records!) in the hope it will make you look professional. It's lame and
unimaginative when record companies do it and it doesn't fool anyone; it also
lame and unimaginative when you do it and it really doesn't fool anyone. Stay
real.
A really, really important part of your media kit, and of promoting your music
in general, is the ability to describe your music in just a few words. You'll
need a few phrases in different sizes and they'll become your slogans. I use
"organic, ethereal ambient" or "dark, ethereal ambient" or "Brian Eno using
Enya's vocal samples" or "layers of lush vocals evolve into ethereal soundscapes."
I've used all of these phrases at least a hundred times in press releases, correspondence
and on web sites. Yes, this is another difficult one -- you have to think up
the best few words that describe your music perfectly, but the sooner you do
it, the easier it is for people to understand your music and what you're trying
to do. (And don't try that lazy "the music speaks for itself" crap. It doesn't
speak for itself unless it gets listened to, and if you don't make it sound
at least halfway exciting, nobody's going to listen to it.)
The next step is to send your media kit to everybody you can think of. Everybody.
Don't be stingy here. Send it to magazines to generate more reviews and/or feature
stories. Send it to radio stations to get airplay. Send it to venues to book
performance dates. You can start in your home town and spread out from there.
Every time you get another writeup in a magazine or another radio station adds
one of your songs, add it to your media kit.
Probably all your local college radio stations and even some of the commercial
stations have a "local music" hour. Send them a CD! Call them up!
When you get your CD's made, order some without shrinkwrap to send out with
your media promotion packages, especially the ones you send to radio. Your CD
has a better chance of being heard if the recipient doesn't have to open it
(yes, it IS kind of sad.) It's also helpful to use a felt tip pen to circle
the the titles of two or three songs you think they'll like best.
Here's some more places (or leads on places) to help you promote your music:
Starting an email mailing list is a way to keep
in touch with people who have expressed interest in your work. You can collect
email addresses at gigs or through your web site. eGroups
has free (well, advertiser supported) mailing list services where you can start
and manage new mailing lists, subscribe to existing mailing lists and view archives
of old list messages.
But this is IMPORTANT: don't send spam! Don't send unsolicited email messages,
or add someone to your mailing list without his or her express permission. At
best, it makes your look clueless and annoys the very people you're trying to
impress. At worst, it may get you kicked off your ISP. And I really hate it
when people add me to their mailing list just because I replied to a message
or question they sent me.
Also, make sure you find the email mailing lists and newsgroups that pertain
to your style of music and keep people posted on your NOTABLE news (if you post
too often, people will just stop reading your posts. Keep it newsworthy.)
Making cassette sampler tapes or CDs of your music is another relatively inexpensive
way to promote your music. Get a short run of cassettes or CDR's made with a
representative sampling of your music and hand out a tape to anyone who's interested,
especially people who don't have web access.
One way around this is to super-compress the wav files so that they're smaller
and download more quickly. MP3 files are wav files that have been compressed
to the MPEG3 standard. They're close to wav files in fidelity ("near CD quality"
is the term usually used.) CDex is a freeware
program that will compress the files. Winamp
is a shareware program that plays the compressed files. MP3's are very popular
right now, but there's a big debate right now among musicians as to whether
offering MP3's to the public is a valuable promotion tool or simply giving your
music away. I've sold a lot of CD's on MP3.com, so I think of them as a great
way to let people hear your music. And they pay royalties based on the number
of downloads you have.
How to publicize your Mp3 hosting site? I think the best way to publicize your
site is the same way you publicize your main website: through postings on mailing
lists and newsgroups that pertain to your style of music, by getting played
on radio stations, by getting reviewed in magazines, by finding the people who
want to find your music and letting them know where you are.
I get a lot of email asking to trade downloads or participate in pyramid schemes
(download just three songs and receive 20,000 downloads tomorrow!!) No one that
I know who has been successful on Mp3.com has gotten that way by such "get rich
quick" schemes. Besides, wouldn't you rather that people actually listen to
your music rather than just download it? Are you a musician or an Amway salesperson?
Another way to allow people to listen to your music is to create RealAudio
samples of your songs, which you can make using RealAudio's free encoder software.
RealAudio files are relatively small; what's more, you usually don't have to
wait for the entire file to download before you can hear the music; you listen
to them as they download. Early RealAudio samples tended to sound tinny (like
a transistor radio) but the latest generation (G2) sounds better, although not
as good as MP3 files.
Once you've made the RealAudio versions of your songs, you have three choices:
Want to know more? The Fez Guys site
contains reprints of their EQ Magazine column on internet audio.
Freesite lists places to get a free
web sites, email, guestbooks, mailing lists and other tools.
CyberEye Web SitePromotions:
has web site promotions advice, tips on meta tags and ways to tune up your site.
Some web page design tips:
My new favorite search engine submission tool: SelfPromotion.com
They also offer a boatload of web page promotion tips. If you use their services
often (which you should) you should also give them a donation.
What web sites do YOU go to in order to find music like yours? There are sites
dedicated to all musical genres, from gothic to goa to gamelon orchestras. Find
the ones dedicated to your style of music. Get a link on those pages or webrings.
Here's some examples of sites I've sought out:
Some people don't want to use a credit card to buy items on the web; others
refuse to shop any other way. If you want to start accepting payment via credit
card on your website, I recommend Paypal.com as a first step. It's very easy,
widespread and I've used it for years with no problems. You need a credit card
to sign up, and its not available worldwide, but its reach is growing rapidly.
A slightly more professional way to go is CCNow.com.
They allow you to process orders using a credit card, but the actual credit
card transaction occurs on their secure server. This sounds complicated, but
the sale transaction itself is very easy for your customers. They charge a 9%
commission on sales. An alternative is CDStreet,
who charge a slightly higher commission.
An alternative is to let someone else stock your CD and deal with shipping
it out when someone buys it. I concentrate on stores that specialize in my style
of music, like Projekt, Zero
Music, Backroads Music, Rioux's
Records as well as Amazon.
Bulletin Boards:
Miscellaneous stuff: Music licensing organizations: BMI, ASCAP,
SESAC.
The Semantic Rhyming
Dictionary
Bell Labs' Multilingual Text-to-Speech
Systems
Altavista's
language translation pages.
Wordsmyth Dictionary Thesaurus
Music composition software: Koan, Stomper,
Musinum, AudioMulch,
AutoComposer,
TaalWizard, Sounder.
And here's some places that will keep you informed about more as they come out:
Music For New Media: felixbopp@aol.com
(subject: Subscription Newsletter); Hitsquad,
Musicians Tech Central
PAIA Electronics has electronic parts and
kits you can build, including a theremin kit.
Stewart-MacDonald stocks parts, kits
and guides for constructing or repairing guitars.
Symphony for
Dot Matrix Printers
Charles Haymes: Fantasy Worlds
For those moments when you just can't bear to make a decision: The
I Ching Page.
Mastering prepares your perfectly mixed recording
for mass reproduction. For Voices, it meant putting the songs (still
as wav files, using CoolEdit) in the proper order and listening to them as a group,
rather than as individual entities, and then adjusting volumes, tweaking EQ and
adjusting the space between the songs. The point is to come up with a cohesive
sounding sequence of songs that flow naturally into one another, eliminating any
jarring transistions between songs (unless, of course, that's the effect you want.)
Other recording resources: Hitsquad
bills itself as the largest music shareware site on the net. They have a gazillion
demos, shareware and freeware programs free for the downloading.
Buying equipment: If you buy used equipment at your
local music store or mail order from a music chain, it typically comes with a
short warranty period (be sure to ask about this.) Daddy's
Junky Music Store will send you a free catalog of their used equipment stock,
which typically (but not always) comes with a short warranty. You can also try
Digibid.com Ubid.com,
Ebay and Musichotbid.com,
although getting a good deal is becoming rarer and rarer every day. Be very care
that you understand what condition the equipment is in and whether it is being
sold with a warranty or not. My rule about this: never buy equipment from someone
you don't know. This rule has worked very well for me. You may be more adventuresome.
Getting your CD made: More and more musicians who
are just starting to record their material are going the CDR route, at least at
first. Rather than immediately pressing up 1000 copies of their CD at a pressing
plant, they burn CDR's as they need them. This allows you to sell CD's at live
shows, to get radio airplay, and to sell CD's from your webpage, all without a
large initial outlay of cash.
Some more promotional ideas: Keep an eye out for people
putting together compilation CDs -- a free or inexpensive way to garner some publicity.
Getting your music on the web: Perhaps the easiest
way is to just put wav files on your web site and let people download them. The
big problem with this is the sheer size of wav files: 10 Mb per minute. Even if
you just offer a short snippet of a song, a lot of people won't want to wait minutes
to download the file.
MP3.com
Ampcast pays 6 cents per download.
Estrogen Music
Fairtunes
Wholala (Japan)
Besonic (Germany)
Musicbuilder
JavaMusic
Trax In Space
PeopleSound
Unsigned-bands.com
Garageband.com
FranceMp3.com (France)
Epitonic
Tucows
Lycos
rollingstone.com
listen.com
eatsleepmusic.com
Soundsky (Korea)
Avant Noise
A lot of sites sponsor song samples or even entire web pages for musicians, sometimes
for a small fee. Sometimes they're a little confused about their general mission,
however. You'll want to avoid web pages that are more geared to sell services
to you, or other musicians, than marketing you and your products to music fans.
If the page doesn't make you want to listen to any of the songs already there,
it's probably not going to convince others to listen to YOUR songs.
Once you've got your page together, take look at "Your
band's website sucks" and see if the shoe fits.
If you've never made a web page before, you'll want to start with a HTML editor,
such as Page Spinner, Claris Home Page, Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe PageMill.
Using these is similar to using a word processing program but they let you format
and publish web pages, including graphics, sound and video.<
Want to learn more? Webmonkey, webmonkey,
webmonkey.
Publicizing Your Page: When you're looking for something on the web, how do you
find it? Personally, I usually use a search engine. Some of these will eventually
find and index your page on their own, but it's in your own best interest to submit
your page yourself. The
URL Submission Pages Of Search Engines is a real time saver -- a page with
links to the actual submission pages for major search engines.
Wind
and Wire's review of Sylvatica
Ampersand Etcetera's
review of Sylvatica
Review of
Sylvatica in Jianda Johnson's CyberMuse Column 8/23/00
Ben Kettlewell's
review in Alternate Music Press
AmbiEntrance's
review of Sylvatica
Splendid's
review of Sylvatica
Sylvatica reviewed by Phosphor
for Electroage
Sylvatica reviewed by Recycle Your
Ears
Sylvatica
reviewed by Backroads Music
New York Nightlife
review of Sylvatica
Eclectic
Earwigs Review of Sylvatica by John Patterson
Aural-Innovations
Review of Sylvatica by Jerry Kranitz
Selling your CD on the web: You can sell CD's by putting
an address on your website and having people send you a check. Make sure you spell
out how much you're selling the CD for and a price for shipping, including shipping
outside of your country.
ElectronicBBoard.com
MP3.com
Electronic Artists' Bulletin Board
Musika
Pink Noises
Copyright law can be confusing. The
United States Copyright Office has easy-to-read instructions on displaying
your copyright notice and how to file copyright forms.
©1997-2002 Sara Ayers
http://www.saraayers.com/mlinks.htm
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