Pearl Jam

Image by: Libertinus Yomango

“Connect With Your Fans!”

If you regularly visit any music industry blogs you likely read this all the time. It’s important advice, but there’s another step that’s just as important: helping the people in your fan base connect to each other.

Once you start to have any sort of success, you won’t be able to create meaningful relationships with each fan. There simply isn’t enough time in the day. Connecting them to each other, however is the next best thing: it uses your music and personality as a foundation for meaningful relationships, which further enhances the meaning of your music amongst your fan base.

This is not a new concept. In fact, major label bands have been doing this rather effectively for years.

When to Start
You should start connecting with your fans the second that you release your first song, but you may want to wait until your following has grown large enough to constitute a community before you really focus on bringing people together.

Fan Clubs
A fan club is an exclusive membership that can create a great sense of community among your fan base if properly maintained. It should not only give fans access to the artist and free goodies, but it should also be an opportunity to connect fans with one another. People who buy into exclusive clubs are already part of your group of super fans. Help establish connections by holding meet-ups, not just at shows, but during touring downtime as well.

For example, the Dave Matthews Band not only gives fan club members access to direct presales, exclusive music and chances to meet the band, but they’ve also created a members-only message board to help super fans connect with each other.

Image by: Björn West

Through the process of keeping things exclusive, the DMB can be sure that their hardcore fans have their very own place to congregate.

Forums
A healthy message board is yet another avenue for dedicated fans to gather and discuss the latest news. Your own branded forums give fans a place to get together and debate lyrics, album releases, and more. Not to mention that it constantly drives more traffic back to your website.

Unlike the DMB’s members-only forum, the benefit of an open forum is that anyone can lurk and explore the community before signing up. Many casual fans can be eventually converted into super fans if they end up engaging on the message boards in any kind of consistent basis.

Other super fans are your greatest influencers for bringing even more people into your fan community. Handpick your most reliable fans to moderate the boards and keep the peace. And make sure to visit the boards yourself, answering questions from fans, and announcing big news from time to time.

One major label act that does this fairly well is the band Billy Talent. Members of the group will post without warning, answering a fan’s question, or giving updates on their next release. By making personal connections with fans and giving them a place to come together, the band is able to build a stronger fan-base as a result.

Collaboration

Have dedicated fans get involved in different aspects of your career. You can have them vote on merch they’d like to see manufactured and sold on the next tour, or even help you promote and book gigs in towns you don’t usually stop at.

Why not open source your shows and allow fans to come together and create their own DVD?

Trent Reznor used this concept to great success when he “leaked” 400 gigabytes of concert footage to his fan-base. The end result was a concert DVD, made by the fans themselves, that rivals any professionally produced concert film. It proved to be both a great way to connect with some super fans, and gave every other fan (casual or not) the opportunity to enjoy the end result.

Social Networks

Social networks usually contain a mix of hardcore fans, casual ones, and the occasional hater, making them great places for sharing updates, yet slightly more difficult to connect with your fan-base. But don’t let that stop you.

A social network can still be a great place to introduce individual fans to the rest of the fan-base. To connect fans, have them email their info and a picture to you with details about their forum name, favourite song, album, show etc. Pick a new person every few days and feature them on your network. Besides being thrilled that they’ve been selected, this is also a great way for fans to get to know each other, and perhaps even recognize each other at shows.

In the late ’90s, before social networks existed, Green Day was already doing this on their website. Every month a new fan would be named “Idiot of the Month” and their picture would be featured on the site.

If you have the means, try to own your social network.

The San Francisco Symphony went the route of creating their own social network in an effort to connect with their fan-base, and more importantly, give people a place to congregate and connect with each other. Besides seeing updates and videos from the musicians, the fans can also create their own posts, upload photos, and connect with other registered members.

By creating spaces where your most dedicated fans can congregate, it is easier to get them involved in different aspects of your career. You can have them vote on merch they’d like to see manufactured and sold on the next tour, or even help you promote and book gigs in towns you don’t usually stop at.

Connecting your fans together is a great way to forge lasting relationships between people who already have common interests… your music.

How do you help connect and grow your fan base?

__________

Mike Venti is a musician and creator of the Wayward Musician blog, which provides ideas and advice for atypical artists. You can connect with Mike on Twitter.

As more and more artists try to go it alone in this do-it-yourself music era, they are taking advantage of web apps that let them create and share their tracks in ways they never could before.

The app gallery at SoundCloud—the popular outlet for musicians to share their work directly with fans, other artists and industry folks—is filled with hundreds of apps for artists on multiple platforms: mobile phones, tablets, desktops and browsers.

For Henrick Lenberg, vice president of partner integrations at SoundCloud, there is an egalitarianism to all of this. The apps on SoundCloud are geared toward both professional musicians, and what he calls “casual music makers”—those who, say, just make music with their iPhones.

“This area is definitely going to be huge,” he said. “The social elements of the web will play a key role for both serious artists and casual music makers, and we will help both groups.”

Regardless of what group you fall into, we’ve sifted through the riff raff and compiled a list of the five most useful apps available in the gallery. Lenberg declined to give exact numbers regarding the most downloaded apps, but here are some favorites.

Music X-Ray
Music X-Ray began an integration last week with the launch of a new SoundCloud app. The app is a “brand new ecosystem for A and R” that seeks to connect artists with industry professionals, said Mike McCready, the company’s CEO. When users link their SoundCloud accounts to the app, software analyzes the music and matches it with an industry contact—a producer, music supervisor, publisher, etc.—who might be interested in using it.

If the contact decides not to use your music, the site promises written feedback from the professional within a month and a half. Membership is free, but Music X-Ray charges a transaction fee, and some professionals charge submission fees on top of that, which brings the total to to on average.

Another way artists can use the app is to begin a mentoring, back and forth relationship with some of the more well-known, Grammy-winning industry professionals—who are not seeking song selections. In those cases, artists are paying for the feedback and the submission fee is much higher.

KORG iMS-20
This iPad app, available for , is a recreation of an actual Korg synth that allows users to produce tracks on the tablet. It works with SoundCloud in a particularly innovative way, said Lenberg. Users can share their music and browse other artists’ tracks on SoundCloud, but this app’s real gem is a feature that lets users share entire project files. That means users can collaborate on tracks, all from within the app.

“More and more apps are moving in the direction of deeper social integration where creation, sharing and collaboration happen within them,” said Lenberg. “I think it’s super exciting to see how music making is developing into a large-scale social process, beyond producing tracks with your friends.”

Scup
Short for SoundCloud Uploader, Scup allows users to import several songs onto their SoundCloud pages all at once. The idea came from the SoundCloud staff itself, after artists had been complaining about the difficulty of uploading entire albums at once.

That batch uploading function is the only purpose for the app, said developer Dorian Roy, who wanted to keep it as simple as possible. But there is a useful “copy to tracks” button on the right of the window that allows users to apply the same text to every track, saving some time.

BerkleeMusic
We all know we could always practice our scales a little more. With the BerkleeMusic app, musicians can work on those fundamentals as well as get instruction in sound engineering or music business management from the respected music school.

The free video samples—exclusive to SoundCloud members—are worth checking out, and users can connect their SoundCloud accounts to their Berklee accounts, making class music projects instantly available to your followers.

But slackers be warned: this web app is an actual 12-week curriculum—complete with instruction and feedback from professors and, of course, homework.

TakesQuestions
Musicians are supposed to make noise, right? This app allows you direct correspondence with fans. But instead of reading a question then writing back with a reply, TakesQuestions lets fans record their query, then lets you answer with your own voice—letting you practice interview skills for when MTV comes knocking.

Users set up their own page and are given a URL. The interface is clean and inviting. A fan records a question for you, and within moments, it’s on your SoundCloud page, awaiting your reply.

There is even an option of synching it with your Twitter account, so an automatic tweet is sent whenever you are asked or respond to a question. The process of responding to a question is not as intuitive as it could be. You need to make sure the subject lines of both the question and answer match, and it would be nice if that step was automatic. Still, it’s a good way to interact with fans, and the voice-to-voice contact is a nice personal touch.

Holcombe Waller, right, with band, in Loft 1011 at the Ace Hotel.

In the past couple of years, hotels have started to more fully embrace the role of music presenter: series like the Renaissance Hotel’s RLife Live and venues like the Maritime Hotel’s Hiro Ballroom offer guests access to big-name artists, while almost any hotel with a restaurant or a large-ish lobby offers exposure opportunities to the right kind of artist.

Recently, the chamber folk artist and composer Holcombe Waller has been showcasing his music in hotels in an even more exciting way: the bed-in.

The basic idea of a bed-in is simple: during the day, an artist takes over a suite, plays a short, stripped down set to a small guest list, and spends time before and afterward meeting and greeting fans, all for free.

Waller first debuted the bed-in idea at SXSW, a week so choked up with concerts and showcases and musical events that it can be unbearable. Attendees like The New York Times’ Ben Sisario and The Los Angeles Times’s Ann Powers welcomed the intimacy of the experience, and since then, Waller and his tour-mates have held bed-ins at a string of locations across the west coast.

The first east coast bed-in happened last week at New York’s Ace Hotel, and it illustrated the idea’s appeal. In an Ace “loft,” a high-ceilinged cross between a suite and a large room, Waller and his bandmates took advantage of both the small gathering and the fine acoustics. Waller has said that he dislikes solo acoustic performances, and luckily for the audience, the mini-set he turned in last Thursday reflected that. In the company of a violinist, a violist, and a cellist, Waller imbued four of his better-known songs – including “Hardliners”, “Troubled Times” and “Risk of Change” – with warmth, delicacy and dynamic range that are hard to come by in a larger, darker venue; the string and vocal harmonies in “Hardliners” bloomed from thin and sweet to full and warm, and the chorus of voices behind Waller’s on “Risk of Change” thrilled.

The ample sunlight and informal seating also gave Waller the chance to connect with everybody in the room. Instead of trying to make out certain faces and sweat it out under house lights, Waller got to make eye contact with anyone he wanted. It was a nice continuation of the catching up he got to do before the set, when he spoke to everybody that he could. He even, for a brief moment, got his guests drinks.

About two thirds of the way through the show, Waller reminded everybody that he and his tour mates would be playing at Mercury Lounge that night. And the crowd of about 30, which had been utterly rapt from the beginning, heard every word.

It may take some convincing to recreate Waller’s bed-ins at another hotel, and with another artist. But watching and listening to them Thursday afternoon, it seemed like something that would be worth the effort.

Mention South by Southwest to any band, and they will know exactly what you are talking about. Mention North by Northeast (a.k.a. NXNE), however, and you might get some puzzled looks.

But for a young band, if I had to pick between SXSW and NXNE, there is no doubt in my mind that I would skip the hoopla of Austin and head to Toronto.

Taking place in late June in Toronto, Canada, NXNE hosts just over 600 bands in four days in 30-plus venues. This year, the lineup included some well-known indie acts like Deerhoof, The Pharcyde, Handsome Furs, Horse Feathers, Art Brut, and Royal Bangs, as well as plenty of younger, smaller, but still talented bands from the States and Canada. NXNE also has attracts of attendees from music organizations; The Agency Group, Brooklyn Vegan, BMI, KCRW, Windish Agency, Rhapsody, Vice and more all had a presence this year.

So why does Toronto trump Austin? For a young band, trying to rise above the crowd at SXSW is nearly impossible. Not only are there over 2,000 bands playing in Austin for the official showcases, but there are thousands of others that go to Texas just to play parties and underground shows. NXNE is about a third of the size of SXSW, so getting face time with industry professionals is easier. Setting up meetings is not nearly as difficult as it is at other festivals, and grabbing the attention of panelists after they speak is much less of a hassle.

Even the extra shows that surround the festival are more manageable than those at SXSW. To top it off, it seems that NXNE does a much better job of showcasing young bands and putting them in front of industry reps. At SXSW, I had to be at a reputable label showcase to bump in to professionals. At NXNE, it seemed like I couldn’t turn a corner without meeting another label rep or publicist.

Beyond the festival itself, Toronto has a fantastic music scene. While crossing the border and dealing with taxes and visas can be a pain, once you get that down, I would highly recommend that every indie band add Toronto to its touring route. Some of the city’s more well known venues, including Sneaky Dee’s, The Garrison, Dakota Tavern, Hideout, Horseshoe Tavern, and Rivoli, draw significant crowds and Canadian press attention.

If you do decide to head up here on tour, you’ll want to make sure your gigs are well-attended. There are plenty of promoters in Toronto, but two local companies that really stood out to me were Audio Blood, a local promotions company that also manages some bands, and Live in Bellwoods, which films live band performances in a city park called Trinity Bellwoods. Both were major contributors to NXNE’s success – Audio Blood’s showcases were great, and every show they recommended to me was fantastic; the all-acoustic shows that Live in Bellwoods organized during the afternoons drew a few hundred people each day – and if you need some promotions help, those are the guys you need to hit up.

Are you ready to come up for NXNE next year? If so, start planning now!

Pyramid Studios in New York

[The following guest post is by Denise Barbarita, a freelance recording engineer and artist based in New York.]

If you’re an independent musician thinking about how you’re going to make your next recording, odds are you’ve heard something like this:

“Musicians can take the bull by the horns and go totally rogue.

“Studios are so ‘90s! Just buy a DAW, plug and play and make your own record on your own time. Or use your iPad or iPhone! Why not? Everyone?s doing it!

“No need to hire expensive engineers or ?ght with self-obsessed producers! Big studios are just going to gouge you anyway. All you need is a couple microphones, a couple microphone pre-amps, a recording book or some Youtube tutorials, maybe even subscribe to a bunch of recording magazines! It?s easy! Anyone can do it!”

Kind of. With patience and practice, some can. However, there are some who are pulling their hair out a few months later, trying to ?gure out why things don?t sound like the records they own and love, feeling so overwhelmed they ?nd themselves curled up in the fetal position, twitching in front of their laptops.

Home studios are great for laying down demos or experimenting with different parts or arrangements. That’s why every musician has some kind of home recording software and a computer.

But be honest with yourself. Are you someone who loves technology? Do you get all hot and bothered when you read a review of the latest gadget?

If you are technologically savvy, you may find that it’s great fun to learn about recording, mixing, and how to really use a DAW. Each of those things has its own learning curve, and the processes can become a huge time-consuming headache.

Be truthful. What kind of person are you? Do you want to do EVERYTHING yourself, or would you prefer to concentrate on the performance and songwriting aspects only?

But planning to work with a team takes work too. How do you find the right studio? How do you find the right engineer or producer? What are you even looking for?

Going into a studio gets you more than expertise. Great studios are great because of what’s inside them.

Acoustics
A real studio will have at least one “live room,” or a room big enough to accommodate an entire band and its gear. But the size isn’t everything. The acoustics are what make live rooms so important. For example, LIC’s Spin Studio’s “A” room is spacious and live. Drums are a just a thing of beauty in there! It also has 2 booths, which makes recording larger ensembles super easy.

Doing vocals at home can be a recipe for frustration. Car horns, airplanes flying overhead, toilets flushing, and of course, neighbors banging on your ceiling if you are working late at night. You can’t have all of that in your perfect vocal take!

Studios like Spin have a “B” room, specifically designed for overdubs. Another great room for overdubs is A Bloody Good Record. Both studios have a great microphone collection and great outboard gear to choose from for any style of music. Speaking of gear…

Gear
A lot of studio owners are gear heads. Todd Hemleb, the owner of Pyramid Studios, is no exception, and he has filled his place with all kinds of unbelievable analog treasures: It truly is a labor of love. The console at Pyramid is a vintage API. There’s not another one on the east coast. I can’t even tell you how wonderful it sounds! It’s pure unadulterated analog goodness. There are no amount of “in the box” plug-ins that will get your recording even close.

He has ProTools and an Otari MTR 90 2” tape machine. He’s also got all sorts of goodies like Echoplexes, a rack full of Neve 1073 micpreamps/EQ’s, an AKG box Spring reverb and even a Cooper Time Cube (!).

Some of this stuff exists in plug-in form, but having someone around who really knows the nuances of the room and how to use the equipment makes a huge difference on your recordings.

Not many basement studios have a Yamaha C6

Instruments
The sound of an acoustic piano is still one of the finest things in music. But what if you don’t own one? Are you just going to settle for your keyboard? Pyramid and Spin both have magnificent pianos. Spin’s Yamaha C6 grand is probably my favorite in the city. It’s rich and creamy on its own, but its true greatness lies in its ability to sit in a mix perfectly without needing a touch of EQ. Pyramid’s 1923 Baldwin Baby grand is perfect for rock, jazz and indie rock.

Pyramid also has a lovely vintage Hammond organ and Leslie speaker. Plugging a guitar into the speaker is unlike anything on this planet. Sure, there are plug-ins that emulate the sound of a Leslie cabinet but they pale in comparison to the real deal.

A Bloody Good Record not only has 2 good-sized booths, but Mark Law, the owner, has handpicked a nice selection of guitars, basses, and amps to choose from during a session there.

In addition to gear, a great studio should have great personnel.

It seems like everyone is an engineer or a producer these days, and finding the right engineer or the right producer can feel like a daunting task. In addition to asking around and doing some googling, ask prospective engineers and producers for a “reel” and find out what their personal involvement was for each music clip. Was the engineer the tracking or mix engineer (or the assistant)? Did this person produce the record, or was there another producer? Do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask questions! Remember that as an engineer, my job is to make YOUR life easy, not the other way around. YOU are the client, and as recording professionals, WE are providing a service, not doing you a favor. If your engineer is talking to you like a child during your first meeting, chances are that won’t change.

At the end of the day, what you want is an affordable, comfortable space with a person who has a vested interest in helping you to make the best record you can make. If there is a specific person you want to work with, go over your needs and the engineer/producer will help you to find the best studio for your budget. Many freelance engineers work at many studios, and you may wind up working at three or four different places.

Happy recording!

[Editor's Note: The following post is the second in veteran composer, studio musician, consultant and writer Eric Jensen's multi-part series about library music. Previous entries can be found here]

The licensing opportunities for library music continue to expand as do the catalogs and business models. With up-front fees shrinking, how do you increase your chance of high-profile placements that will earn you residuals and additional writing commissions?

What sells best has always been a mix of traditional, contemporary, and an understanding of your audience.

Think Like a Director
Directors are storytellers. Their focus is the arc of the story, whether it is a commercial or a feature film. The most important thing you can do is to understand the emotional and energetic effect they are looking to achieve with music. Their sometimes-odd descriptions and requests often say much more about the grand vision than explicit musical direction.The more adept you become at channeling directors and producers, the more effective your tracks will be.

Keep Tracks Consistent
Film and television underscore follows the shifting emotional arc of a scene. Generally, library cues have to stay in one mood to be useful. Any modulations and stylistic shifts should be designed for easy editing.

At the end of the day, library music is background music. Make sure to avoid any elements that would fight against (or distract from) dialog. Melodies are often legato, or absent all together.

Metadata is Key
Speaking of track descriptions, explicit descriptions are very important to getting your tracks heard. Often producers will only listen for a few seconds, so the intro and the description are the hooks. Keep it simple and visually evocative. For example:

“Mysterious, brooding string textures with occasional accents.”

“Propulsive speed-sports theme. Grungy rock groove with brass punctuation.”

“Poignant acoustic guitar builds to triumphant orchestral climax.”

Edits and Alternate Mixes
Your full track may sell a producer, but it’s rare that a full track will be used in a film or television episode. Usually, the :60, :30, or :15, often a background mix, will be licensed instead. Be sure to provide as many different mixes and edits as possible. At the very least, create full and background mixes for all the key timings. Create stems, (mixes of isolated elements in the track), when there are distinctive layers. “Rhythm only” or ”pads only” mixes are often key sellers.

Use Live Musicians!
Live players add enormous value to library music tracks. If you are an arranger or producer with access to great live musicians use them whenever possible. As good as samples are today there is no substitute for a real orchestra, or a killer live band.

Traditional Music Styles
Strong, classic tracks can have a long shelf life. These include genres like, Action/Drama, Cinematic/Orchestral, Comedy, Human Interest, Themes/News, Motivational, and Sports. Libraries may also need collections of specific styles like bluegrass, solo piano, jazz, etc. If you are interested in working for a particular company, familiarize yourself with their catalog and look for gaps that could be filled with your musical strengths.

Contemporary Styles, Timeless Brands
Clients are often looking for a concrete musical style (“I want something that sounds like pre-Beggar’s Banquet Stones”). Providing these sounds is one of the prime niches library music fills,

In the above example, the client is looking for something reminiscent of a specific artist’s work. At other times, libraries get requests tfor music that sounds like current pop, or hit TV shows. If contemporary styles are your strength, transcribe and analyze the production techniques of TV themes and hip commercials to stay on top of these trends.

Sound-A-Likes
Writing music that’s reminiscent of big hits can be lucrative, but there are risks associated with it. There are generally two reasons why a producer wants a track that sounds like another piece of music:

1. They are trying to evoke a particular period with a musical style.

2. They really want a specific track but don’t have the budget to license it.

That first scenario is totally fine. A scene about ‘60s London might use a cue that was evocative of the British Invasion sound, and creating these kinds of tracks can be a lot of fun.

But if an uneducated listener would confuse your track with the one you are modeling, you may be getting into hot water. If that is what a producer wants, I tell them ”No” and try to find another solution for them. Often, a gentle education on copyright helps. If you are creating a work-for-hire for a library, discuss the boundaries with them.

Do What You Do Best
Writing library music tends to appeal to composers with broad palettes and diverse musical tastes. Nevertheless, focusing on what you do best will create the strongest tracks and increase the likelihood of successful placements. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Make your music stand out.

[Editor's Note: The following post is by Ryan Sweeney, who's currently recovering from a week up at NXNE with his artists]

My last article touched on the use of third party e-mail marketing systems like Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. These sites allow bands to track which e-mail subscribers open e-mails, click on their links, and forward content to other contacts.

Many e-mail marketing sites rate your subscribers based on this activity. For example, I use Mail Chimp, which gives all of my e-mail subscribers a ranking of 1 through 5, with 1 being the least active and 5 being the most active.

Different sites have different criteria for rating fans, and it is very important to understand what those ratings can mean. How you interact with a group of 1s should differ from how you interact with a group of 3s, which should differ from how you interact with a group of 5s. Below I outline what the ratings mean to me when I am dealing with the e-mail lists of the bands I manage.

1 Star Fan
This is someone who has never opened an e-mail from you or has not opened an e-mail in a year or so. Maybe they had 1 PBR too many that night and don’t even remember your band, or maybe they felt sorry for you and signed up just to be nice. Whatever the case, they are dead weight, and it is probably best to just say goodbye to them.

But wait a second: e-mail addresses are really valuable, right? Isn’t it better to keep them on?

Not exactly. Except in very specific circumstances, it is always better to have a smaller e-mail list with active fans than a large e-mail list with tons of inactive fans.

If Band A has an e-mail list of 5,000 fans, but 2,500 of those them are considered 1 Star Fans, that is far less useful than Band B’s list of 2,500, which contains only 200 1 Star Fans. Because 1 Star Fans are essentially inactive, you could say that Band B has a list that is 92% active. A 92% activity rate is a great statistic to mention to agents, publicists, and labels when you are pitching your band. It also means you’re more likely to deliver (or over-deliver) on the gigs you book.

Because 1 Star Fans are more trouble than they’re worth, you should give your e-mail subscribers at least a 6 month window to show that they don’t fit into this category. If you’re really patient, you can even give them a year.

2 Star Fans
These folks don’t help too much, but they are still nice to keep around. A 2 Star Fan is someone who might open 10% of the e-mails you send. They usually don’t click on links in the e-mails or forward your e-mails along to their friends.

These fans might come to shows, but they might not. They might buy your new record, or they might not. In other words, they aren’t extremely dedicated fans, but nonetheless they still enjoy your music.

3 Star Fans
These are the fans that pay attention to what your band is doing. More than likely, numerous 3 Star Fans will be at your show the next time you come to their city. These guys check out the e-mails when you send them. They might not open every one, but a good majority will be opened and they will click on links in your e-mails every now and then.

A 3 Star Fan is someone who could eventually become a 4 Star Fan or even a 5 Star Fan. It is always a good idea to send this group extra goodies like free tracks, videos, and so on. These fans will make up a majority of your fan base. They won’t follow your every move, but they do enjoy what you are doing and for the most part pay attention to it.

4 Star Fans
These are the people that love everything you do. They open almost all your e-mails, click on links, watch all the videos and download your music. They pass your music along to friends every now and then too. They are almost always at your shows.

These guys will participate in contests when you run them, and they will vote for your band if you need them to. When running certain campaigns (especially something requiring extensive participation), a band should pay special attention to this group.

A 4 Star Fan can tolerate more e-mails per month than a 2 or 3 Star Fan. You might be able to send them 2 e-mails every month instead of 1. But be careful, don’t take advantage of this group too much. Just like a 3 Star can become a 4, the opposite can happen.

5 Star Fans
This group will do almost anything for your band. They are the “super fans.” They open every e-mail, watch every video, buy all your records and merchandise, and will even hang posters if you ask them to.

5 Star Fans can bring your band to another level. They are eager to spread the word of your band and get their friends to come to your shows. Be sure to reward this group heavily with everything you can. It is a good idea to give these fans exclusive offers that you don’t give other fans. This will keep them interested and working hard.

Check out the rest of Ryan’s articles about band e-mail lists.

D.C. “folk-core” band Dreamscapes Project has given some thought to this question

“So what do you sound like?”

Almost every new artist will get asked this question at some point, and yet it is something that many artists resist thinking about. Those same artists will say things like “We do our own thing!” or “We don’t sound like anyone else,” or “We don’t want to be categorized.”

However, defining your sound is not about pigeon-holing or limiting your artistic freedom. As a new artist, identifying your genre and peer musicians is an important step in defining your brand. Identifying what you sound like as an artist immediately identifies your target market and creates a foundation for your marketing strategy: which platforms you should be targeting, which fan bases you should reach out to, and which media outlets you should contact during your PR campaign.

These connections also make you more discoverable. Including these comparisons in your marketing materials will increase your search engine optimization (you’ll start appearing in searches for the artists and genre you are associating yourself with), and it will help potential fans figure you out straight away. Like it or not, we live in an ADD culture where the average attention-span online is approximately 3 seconds. Defining your brand in familiar terms will help people imagine your music.

Here are a number of things to think about while you craft your answers to this question:

Associate Yourself With the Right Artists
This should be a mix of big and small artists. If all you do is identify yourself with bands that are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (“we’re like the Beatles meets Stevie Wonder!”) then people are just going to walk away from that thinking, “And you aren’t as good as either of those bands.” But if you find some artists that are closer to your level, it will give you more opportunities to build on.

For example, you could pick a band you’ve toured with, or a newer artist who is still building a name for themselves. Find out what artists are being hailed as the “Next Big Thing” by music bloggers. Journalists are going to be interested in writing about other artists like them. Utilize sites like The Hype Machine or Shuffler FM to see who is being buzzed about. Remember to remain realistic and true to yourself when doing this.

Create Your Own Genre
…as long as it can be easily explained. The folk-rock quintet The Dreamscapes Project (pictured above) defines its cello-infused music as “folk-core.” It’s a term that gives the reader enough of an idea of what it might mean to seem familiar, but its newness also invites people to listen in. Fans love to discover something new but at the same time they need to instantly understand it.

Plus, the beauty of creating your own genre is that you can lump anybody you want into it. You know who else is folk-core? The Kinks. Do you need their permission to call them this? No.

Compare and Contrast
The aforementioned Dreamscapes Project describes its music as fusing “the theatrical bent of Arcade Fire and The Decemberists with the distinct vocals of the Dave Matthews Band.” This instantly conjures up an image of their musical offering.

Be sure to limit these kinds of comparisons to two or three. A band that’s like Orange Juice AND Peter Gabriel AND Dirty Projectors AND Feelings-era David Byrne isn’t going to make sense to anybody. Don’t over-complicate things.

Ask a Journalist and/or a Loyal Fan
One of the reason artists struggle with the “sounds like…” question is they’re too close. It can be hard for them to step back and be objective. This is why it’s good to ask someone else what they think. It could be a journalist, a friend or a loyal fan. See what they say about you and quote them.

Also a media quote describing you as “the new Radiohead” is more credible than describing yourself as the new Radiohead. Take the lead from others.

Remember, knowing who you sound like is a blessing,

Jem Bahaijoub is the founder of imaginePR, a music marketing and PR agency based in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Welcome to version 2.0 of our series Behind the Blogs, in which we interview the bloggers and thinkers who are following the music business changes that affect us all.

Youth is one of the biggest, loudest, most powerful engines of the music industry. Kids buy the most music, go to the most shows, and as We Are The Kids reminds us, they also dream of entering the music industry one day.

Created by Natalie Dickson, We Are The Kids is part message board, part job posting forum, and part blog for the high school kids and “young adults” who are looking to get jobs in the music industry. And when we say jobs, we mean jobs – WATK readers work on street teams, volunteer at festivals, photograph bands, and generally do all the background stuff that powers artist careers.

We spoke with Dickson via e-mail about why she started the site, what she gets out of it, and how she views the industry, and here’s what happened.

First, some background: What is your deal? You’re still in college, are you involved in music at all at school?
I actually just graduated from high school last week. While I was in high school, I stayed as involved as possible by working as a representative for The Syndicate, establishing We Are The Kids, and more recently, coordinating the Vans Warped Tour Street Team. This summer, I will be continuing to work at Brighton Music Hall in Allston (I have been employed since March 2011) as a box office assistant manager. On top of my regular job at BMH, I will be working on new ideas and endeavors with We Are The Kids, and strength training four days a week with my trainer. This September, I will be a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston Massachusetts. I will also be rowing on their women’s varsity team—hence the summer training.

You decided to start WATK after volunteering on some Warped Tour dates. How did working on that tour shape your desire to be in the music business?
Before going to the Warped Tour last summer, I knew music was something I was passionate about, and interested in pursuing. Having such an intimate experience at Warped with individuals actually working in the industry confirmed my interest. Before last summer, I had always gone to Warped Tour for only one day each summer. Last summer, I was fortunate enough to attend four dates consecutively. Being out there for a longer period of time exposed me to the realities of what the tour is really like behind the scenes. The knowledge I obtained during that time heightened my interests even more, and inspired me to start something new.

What aspects of the tour really spoke to you? The community?
I really liked the people I met on the tour. Everyone was so willing to answer my questions and give me advice. I also envied the lifestyle of the people on the tour. I admire what they do and how much dedication and passion they have for their work. Besides the people, I just enjoy the environment in general. Before I volunteered, I used to go every year as a fan, and I absolutely loved it.

Dickson's rough idea for a WATK logo.

Your site’s only been in existence for a few months, but in that time you’ve attracted a really nice range of people – kids involved in booking, promotions, photography, merch. How do you and your partners communicate and learn from one another? How helpful has the WATK community been to you?
I strive to make WATK as interactive between followers and viewers as possible. One of the best ways to learn is to communicate and ask questions. My partners and followers are able to submit whatever they want to the page, and it will be published for the rest of the community to see. That aspect of the site makes it easy to spark discussions where people will submit their different opinions to be posted. Also, WATK has a forum with a bunch of different music related topics. To be honest, I do not like the current forum on the site, and it is something I have wanted to upgrade for a while. I have a few ideas to make the site more interactive for the future, so hopefully I’ll see those ideas put into action soon.

I really like the Young Adults to Watch This Summer feature you guys have going. Do you vet those at all? Or do you just let any member of your community post?
The majority of the young adults being featured are people I know personally. I thought, there are a bunch of young adults who are working really hard, and deserve recognition…why not feature them? When I emailed those initial individuals, I asked them to recommend other young adults they knew who deserved to be featured as well. That way, I wasn’t limiting the feature to just my acquaintances.

Right now there’s a debate on WATK about the merits of a music business degree! What’s it like to have a debate on your site?
It’s awesome! I love it. Usually one person will post something, and then once a few people start getting in on the conversation, I get swarmed with messages in my inbox. I try to post a bunch of them at once, even though I hate clogging people’s dashboards for those who access my site through Tumblr. The debates are a unique way for my followers to communicate with each other through WATK.

Industry veterans are always curious about how younger folks consume music. Do you buy music? Stream it? Do you even know what a CD is?
Ha! I’m not that young! Yes, I actually prefer to buy CDs if possible. Nowadays, it’s tough to go out to the record store and buy every single CD. If I really love an artist and want to support them, I’ll definitely buy a tangible CD. I used to buy a lot of albums off iTunes, but my mom recently cut off my account, so I stopped doing that. I also illegally download a lot of my music. (I hope nobody is going to arrest me now!) HOWEVER, if I illegally download an album that I end up truly loving and wanting to support, I will always go back and purchase an album at a record store or show.

Do you have any aspirations to make this site a little more visible to bands out there? I could see it being a valuable place for bands to maybe try and find interns or people looking for added opportunities.
Definitely! Right now, I am figuring out where I am going to invest for the future of the site. Once I develop my platform, the possibilities for bands, and an extended partners section will be increased. For now, keep checking back for new goodies and projects!

A sample diagram of how to place bass traps.

As stated in the previous articles in this series, soundproofing your home studio can be an expensive, time-consuming proposition. Luckily, treating the acoustics of your home studio is quite the opposite. Believe it or not, it’s not that expensive and can be done in a matter of hours if you have the building blocks on hand.

Acoustic treatment of your room consists of three main components: acoustic panels, bass traps and diffusers. Let’s look at each.

Acoustic Panels
Acoustic panels are the major way that reflections are kept from bouncing around the room. If your walls are hard (meaning there’s no absorption), these reflections are going to cause certain frequencies to cancel themselves out as they bounce around, causing those unwelcome dips and peaks in the room response as well as an uneven reverb decay time.

You can think of an acoustic panel as a very large picture frame that has sound-absorbing material inside instead of a picture. Although you could permanently attach the sound absorbing material to the wall (like most commercial studios do), using sound panels allows you to move them as needed, and even take them with you if you move.

Acoustic panels are easy and inexpensive to make, and we’ll cover just how to do that in a future installment of this series, but they’re also available pre-made from a variety of companies like Ready Acoustics, GIK Acoustics, Real Traps, ATS Acoustics, MSR and many more.

Bass Traps
Most control rooms use what’s known as a “bass trap” to control at least some of the low frequency energy in the room. In most rooms, the main problem at low frequencies is due to one or more deep nulls or peaks in the range, anywhere from 40 to 200Hz. Bass traps reduce the depth of the nulls and attenuate the boomy sounding peaks, and the overall response of the room is flatter as a result. Even though your brain intuitively thinks that you lose low end by attenuating it, the room will actually sound tighter and more predictable, with less change in the response when you move away from the sweet spot.

Bass traps work best in corners because bass tends to collect there, but they can also work well spaced off the front and rear walls. Since bass is omnidirectional, the traps don’t have to be paired or symmetrically placed. The most effective ones extend from floor to ceiling. If that can’t happen, the next most effective method is to just treat the 8 individual corners of the room. Believe it or not, the smaller the room, the more bass traps you will need.

As with acoustic panels, pre-made bass traps are made by a number of manufacturers like the ones mentioned above.

A 3D diffusor

Diffusors
A diffusor scatters sound to reduce the direct reflections from the speakers back to the listener. There are two types of diffusors: 2D and 3D. A 2D diffusor scatters the reflections in the same single plane that they were received, while a 3D diffusor scatters it in random directions at random times. If made well, the 3D diffusor is better at scattering the reflections, but more difficult to build so it’s more expensive.

Diffusors can be used anywhere in the room that doesn’t have acoustic panels. Many large commercial studios use a diffusor on the rear wall, but this is controversial; there are as many designers who believe that the rear wall should be non-reflective as there are those who believe it should be diffuse.

In small rooms where the rear wall is less than six feet from the listening position, you’re likely to have more success trying to absorb the sound with deep traps than you are diffusing it. A bookshelf filled with books is a great natural diffuser (and adds some absorption as well), but shelves randomly filled with objects, or small angle wood blocks can work too. Companies like RPG, Real Traps and MSR also make both off-the-shelf and custom diffusors as well.

With any of these acoustic components, you don’t need to spend a fortune to achieve tangible results. That said, it isn’t easy to predict in advance just how much of an improvement there will be for any given approach (even for the pros studio designers), so some experimentation is required.

In Part 4, we’ll discover the single most important concept that ultimately governs the sound of your room and how your acoustic treatment will be used.

You can find out a lot more about how to build a home studio effectively and inexpensively by consulting The Studio Builder’s Handbook. You can read some excerpts from the book on my website.
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You can find more music marketing tips at my Music 3.0 music industry blog. For music and production, check out my Big Picture production blog. To read some additional book excerpts as well as some from my other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.