Alex De Rosso new album available in January 2013

DEFOX RECORDS & HEART OF STEEL RECORDS are excited to announce the record deal with guitarist and producer ALEX DE ROSSO.

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Using online video as a means of musical promotion

Video is quickly becoming very important when promoting goods or services and that means your band and music. Your music is an important service to humanity and is doubly important because it brings you an income. Youtube is of course still the most popular of the video hosting sites and you can use this site to promote yourself and your bands website.

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Joe Solo: Commonsense advice sprinkled with gems

The more emails and tips I get from this guy, the more his great advice sinks in - and I’m not a working/recording musician. It’s just damned good advice. A mix of “DOH! slap me up side the head” commonsense stuff that we need to be reminded of constantly - sprinkled with brilliant gems of creative advice. I heard him speak at a couple of different songwriter workshops and conferences within a 3-month time span, and then I signed up for his free email tips and video nuggets. It’s THAT good that I suggest y’all do the same at his website joesolo dot com. Did I mention that it’s FREE!!!!  End of public service announcement. :-)

How To Trademark and Copyright Your Music

A new artist thinks up a cool name for himself. The 1st thing he should search for is to make sure no other company/artist is using that name already & how he can legally be the only person to gain a profit from that name. It’s called a trademark. Anyone can get a trademark. Just go to US Patents & Trademarks Office online, uspto.gov. If no one has the name you want trademarked then you can apply there. The fee is about $325.

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5 Tips Toward Making XXL’s Freshmen Class

Consistency: As with any goal that you set, you have to be consistent and continually take action. Each XXL freshman has been consistent in their efforts. Big K.R.I.T first started generating a MySpace buzz in 2005, releasing his first mixtape at 18. Curren$y started off as one of the 504 Boyz on Master P’s No Limit Records, he later signed with Young Money where he released the track “Where Da the Cash At”. After pushbacks, he left and took control of his career. He released the popular mixtapes: Independence Day and Higher than 30,000 Feet, generating a buzz that landed him in the 2009 freshmen class.

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Hip-Hop and Social Media. Promotion vs Spam

This blogpost discusses social media spam and online music promotion through platforms such as Twitter and how to avoid being ignored online.

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How to produce a louder mix

We know the ‘loudness wars’ is a constantly hot topic in music production circles and one common belief is that a loud master is produced in the mastering stage. Certainly mastering can increase the perceived volume of a mix down. However there is often a limitation to how loud a mix can get before it starts to produce undesirable side effects such as distortion, loss of detail, loss of dynamics etc. I am occasionally asked how you can produce loud mixes and I would in the very first instance suggest mixing to sound good and not just loud. People should also consider the genre they are working in, the needs for a drum and bass/dubstep track are very different for a folk or ambient piece so be sensitive to the musical genre within which you are working. Also consider that software like iTune Soundcheck is also making “loudness” somewhat less relevant as it tries to even out perceived volumes of tracks in the playback domain.

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Is Indie Music Dead?

I hear all the time that music sales are dead and nobody pays for it anymore. Derek Sivers, of CD Baby fame, told me in an e-mail conversation that “the music business might end up kinda like the poetry business is today. That is: there are a few who are able to be full time poets, but nobody would get into poetry for the money.” If you had to ask me, though, I’d say there’s still hope as indie artists — we’re just not doing it right.

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From Payola to Blogola to Pandola?

Montgomery and Moe showed that it would be efficient for labels to pay for airplay (Montgomery & Moe, 2002). This is not surprising given the impact airplay can have on sales, at least in the old music industry (Dertouzos, 2008). However, direct undisclosed payments to influence radio programming (called Payola, a combination of pay and Victrola) are prohibited by law. Hence, labels developed strategies to circumvent the law by using independent promoters or naming payments “consultant fees”.

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How Gangnam Style showed us the Social Media value of a Viral Video - an Infographic case study

Safe to say there have been more than a handful of Gangnam Style case studies bouncing around over the past few months. Case studies looking at things like HOW and WHY the video went viral, WHO was behind this freakishly cult phenomena, and WHAT the contributing factors were in driving nearly a billion views.

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Top 9 Tax Tips for Musicians

I know that tax season is a few months away still, but there’s still no excuse that you shouldn’t be keeping track of your finances all year round. I’m going to go over a few things that will help not only make tax time easier, they’ll save your band money while you’re on the road or buying things related to the band.

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How to get your bass line and kick drum to work together

We all like great sounding bass, right ? We all agree on that, however a number of producers and engineers have some difficulty in getting the low end frequencies in an audio mix to sound just right. This is going to include your kick drum and your bass line. Getting these instruments to marry nicely can be hard work and these top tips will definitely help you improve the sound of your tracks low end.

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5 Things to Prepare Before Every Show

Most musicians have a knack for being prepared enough to get by, but not over prepared by any means. Most of the time nothing goes wrong and so you give your self a pat on the back for being ‘efficient’. I was one of those musicians for many years - until I saw a friends band work their arse off at a show, and reap a lot of benefit. Their secret? Preparation.

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The Secrets To Money and Merchandise in The Digital Age

The music industry is a mere shell of what it once was. The sudden influx of technology has altered the way the music industry itself and those associated with it conduct business. The old business model had artists chomping at the bit to get signed by a label. The downside for the artist was that once they signed that piece of paper they belonged to the label. It was up to the label to market, promote and most importantly fund the album. Funding the album entailed them paying for the studio time, hiring on extra musicians and hand picking the top engineers and producers for the project. This process wasn’t about flaunting money, it was about making money. The goal for all involved was to have the first product do well. The success or in some cases the failure would decide whether the artist and their label could continue their relationship and work on future projects.

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