StudioPros

This is a pretty amazing time in the music industry. Sure, you might be hearing a lot about how the business is suffering, records aren’t selling, and all sorts of other stories of doom and gloom. But what you may not be hearing about is how exciting it is for independent artists at the moment.

Yes, big record companies are suffering at the hands of the Internet and file sharing. But there’s something else going on that you may also have noticed… Artists are finding success in unorthodox ways. Look at Justin Bieber: you may not like his music, but he’s nothing short of a sensation at the moment. And how did he start out? With a YouTube video. Soulja Boy got a number one hit song, and his career was launched by Myspace.

And they’re not the only ones, either. Lots of musicians are going from unknowns to having international followings because of social networking, viral videos, and other modern ways of reaching fans. Remember when OK Go came out with their “treadmill video?” Suddenly they became a household name. And if it weren’t for the wonders of the world wide web, these artists may never have gotten their big break!

But what does this mean for you?

It means that you could be the next overnight Internet success story. Thanks to modern technology, just about anyone has the chance of making it these days. But there is still one key aspect that you must have, and that’s a professional quality, radio-ready recording. Because if you get half a million views on YouTube but don’t have a recording that radio stations can play along with their usual playlists, they won’t play it.

In today’s music business, record companies demand that artists have done most of the work already—they have a fan base, and they have a recording that’s ready to go. The less investment necessary for them, the better.

So the solution is simple:
1. Write an incredible song that will be worthy of a million YouTube hits.
2. Record a radio-ready version of it that will be ready to hand to radio stations after your overnight success.

We want you to have that professional recording, so we’ve got our own state-of-the-art technology to get it to you fast. Click here to start a production today so you can be ready for success tomorrow.

Technology can be a great tool. It can help you come up with your next masterpiece, and it can give you the means of recording your latest creation.  And I don’t know about you, but it sure does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I buy a shiny new piece of gear for my home studio.

That is, until I plug it in.  You see, technology is something of a double-edged sword.  Even though buying new gear is really fun, it also means you have to invest a ton of time into learning how to use it well. That’s why the fuzzy feeling starts fading as soon as my new piece of gear is out of the box.  I’m faced with the daunting task of the dreaded musical equipment learning curve, something I may have time to get the hang of, but rarely have the time to master.

And there’s the real kicker–even when you get used to using new gear, it still takes a lot of time, experience, trial and error to be able to use it to its maximum potential the way a top professional would. While it would certainly be nice to get to that point eventually, I don’t want to sacrifice the quality of the recording I’m doing now to work towards the goal of great recordings later.

It’s because of this that technology, while seemingly freeing initially, can really put unnecessary limits on your song’s production and ruin your creative process!  Talk about a catch-22… Every minute you spend figuring out how to maximize your gear’s potential is taken away from time you could have spent composing, creating, and expanding your artistic horizons.

There is, of course, the obvious solution to this dilemma: put your music in the hands of a professional who already knows what they’re doing with today’s best technology.  But that sure sounds easier said than done–it’s not like you can just hand your stuff over to a Grammy-nominated engineer who will mix and master it to radio broadcast standards without forking over your life savings, right?

(more…)

Did you ever wonder if your song has what it takes to win a songwriting competition?

There are many contests out there to choose from, including the International Songwriting Competition and the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Boasting celebrity judges and thousands of dollars worth in prizes, winning one of these competitions could not only help you financially, but it could potentially bring great exposure to your music.

I used to think I should just send my songs to every competition possible, cross my fingers and hope you win one. But with typical entry fees around $30 per song and hundreds, maybe even thousands of other songs competing for the same prize, I realized that any songwriter would want to do everything they can to make sure their song is the best it can be–and that it can hold up to the stiff competition!

So the first question is this: what do the judges look for when deciding which songs are the best? The good news is, most good contests will publicly list the criteria they judge your song’s merit on. The bad news is, these categories can be vague and don’t give too many hints as to what makes one song better than another. I decided to come up with a few pointers to get you started in the right direction.

(more…)