It's OK to cram: college creatives take on 'The 72 Hour Project'

WASHINGTON, DC (March 5, 2012) — Most college students will agree that in the long run, an all-nighter is not the best idea. But it was the perfect idea for the more than 25 young music makers who gathered in a small College Park, Md., radio station one January weekend. The assignment? Create an original, 10-track music project in 72 hours.

The 72 Hour Project is a barrier-breaking experience orchestrated by Kevin L. Alexander, a DMV-based mixing engineer and entrepreneur. A beautifully chaotic collective of egos and art, the project comprises artists, songwriters, producers and musicians and places them in rare circumstances – creating an album from scratch in one weekend.

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Binaural recording vs binaural beats – what's the difference?

The word “binaural” is garnering a lot of interest these days. By definition, it literally just means “having or relating to two ears.” Human beings (along with many other animals) experience all sound binaurally.

But confusingly, “binaural” can be applied to a few very different things – most applicably, binaural recording (aka binaural audio), and binaural beats (aka binaural brainwaves).

To help get everyone on the same page, here’s a quick rundown and some audio demos about the differences between binaural recording and binaural beats/brainwaves…

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Introducing StudioVox

We’d like to introduce you to StudioVox – The professional social network for creative professionals – and invite all Music Think Tank raders to join our private beta. 

StudioVox (www.studiovox.com) is built from the ground up for creative professionals. It’s not just another profile site. It’s the only social community that encompasses creatives, agencies, industry and fans on a single platform. 

StudioVox offers unlimited music, image and file uploads, so you can express your creativity without restriction.

Here’s our intro video - turn up the volume, set it to full screen and enjoy! 

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Kickstarter vs. NEA: Paths to Indie Funding

Have an album you’re ready to record and release? A film you want to produce and screen at festivals? How are you going to pay for it?

Talking Points Memo (TPM) reported this week that Kickstarter, the popular crowdsourcing platform, will likely distribute more funds to creators this year than the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). As amazing as that sounds, and in some ways is, these two organizations are “apples and oranges,” with different missions and modes of operation.

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Freedom Through Self-Reliance

To think that nothing is original anymore is to disregard the individual’s genuine emotion, brought upon by his or her unique circumstance, that which fueled the need to create art and invent technologies. It also leads to people overlooking future innovators, while extravagantly idolizing past innovators. I see this happening all the time on Facebook. Listeners post music and videos of “the greats” from the past, as if the high point in music had already come and gone. And listeners who post new music for their Facebook friends to see are faced with a social network full of musical cynics and skeptics.

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When Your Moonlighting Artist Gets Famous

As luck would have it Whitney Houston sang on three of my demo tapes. Now what?

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True Entertainer OR Master of Smoke and Mirrors from BRASH! - A Music Marketing Blog

I have tuned into various award shows, concerts, and talk show performances displayed by artists. The performances that I love the most are when artists show their TRUE self whether it’s the dance skills amazing or just a microphone and a piano expressing their inner selves with. However, some artists take advantage of high technology, background dancers, and major effects using it to mask their lack of talent. As a devoted entertainment fan, it’s easy to tell the difference.

In this industry artists are charged with the task of entertaining. With that in mind, some feel that pulling out all stops to perform a good show along with creating a massive buzz for the media to cover is the way to go.

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Single driver loudspeakers and their role in mixing music

There was once a time when any credible mixing studio would not be seen without a pair of Yamaha NS-10 monitors. They are the black speakers with the white cones and are well recognized even by lay persons, in fact many people still swear by using them today. However another very common but less well known loudspeaker was the Auratone 5C. This speaker was very unassuming, a 5 inch single circular driver in a small wooden box. The goal of this speaker was to allow an audio engineer to have a focus on the critical mid range frequencies of an audio mix.

Almost all instruments and voices have mid range components and it is a frequency range which can easily get cluttered and such a speaker as the Auratone 5C allowed the engineer to reference the mid range without the ambiguities of multi driver loudspeakers. This type of speaker also approximated the reproduction characteristics of television sets, small radio receivers and other small devices from which sound would be reproduced.

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Fan Engagement Gets Revealing

Fans are often eager to be the first to know and tell their friends that a favorite band is coming to town. Social media facilitates a certain amount of this organically, but how about harnessing the excitement of a tour launch to amplify the results? For the launch of their co- headlining “This World Is Ours Tour,” Escape the Fate and Attack Attack!‘s management team at The Collective built a custom Facebook app that used fans’ engagement to actually reveal the dates.

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Take The Bit Rate Hearing/Audibility Test

I put together a little test to see how audible the differences between various bit rates are. It’s not the pinnacle of excellence in scientific methodology but it’ll tell us enough and makes good use of the tools the average person might have. If you’re interested in taking the test, it and everything you need to know about it are here.

The more responses I get, the better so please participate. If you post your response here, please post it on my site as well so I can tally it easily.

They didn’t know (From BRASH! - A Music Marketing Blog)

“They didn’t know how to market me….”

“They didn’t know what to do with me….”

How many times have we heard GREAT artists say this?! Well as for me, I’ve heard it more times than I care to hear anymore. It is important for an artist to be surrounded by the right team that is willing to teams go that extra mile to  push quality artists to the mainstream.  Just because an artist does not fit into a specific mold does not mean that their career has to suffer and miss out on a promising chance. With that being said, artists must be receptive of constructive criticism and understand that they have a team of professionals who are experienced and knowledgeable in their craft.

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Rexly Wants You to Press Play and Hear Something New

Rexly is a highly personalized social music service that uses data from your personal listening habits and your “super trust” network to deliver fast and relevant digital recommendations. Rexly strives to rock musical worlds by collecting the most meaningful data and applying the most powerful recommendation techniques, in an environment that respects privacy and reveres individuality.

Earlier this week, I was able to speak with Co-Founder Joel Resnicow as he was returning from the SF MusicTech Summit. Joel is a serious data geek with plans of making Rexly the Walmart of digital media.

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App for Musicians to create Setlists

Gigster - Setlists at your fingertips

With this great iPhone-App you can:

Create, play and share setlists for gigs and shows as a band, individual artist, manager or fan.

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So Now Spotify is The Enemy?

We are in a day where the choice is yours. No one is obligated in using particular services or products. Believe it or not I own no Apple products. I was given a 4gb iPod shuffle as a gift one year. I lost it about a month or two later. I went out, bought an 8gb memory card, loaded up my blackberry with music and never looked back. Sure the commercials and other marketing campaigns for Apple looked and continues to be great, but at the end of the day I have a choice. I say this to say, I don’t understand why artists & music industry personnel continue to lash out at Spotify. As I tweeted earlier today, if a download is .99, how much do you expect to get from a stream? That’s not Spotify’s fault. They didn’t create streaming, they just created a great model to capitalize off it.

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