Tips In Buying A Used Steinway Piano

By admin on November 28, 2011

Everyone knows that there are significant costs and risks in purchasing a used Steinway Piano, but not everyone knows how to approach these risks. This short article is designed to help the novice along the way. First, determine what you need before you begin to investigate. Countless hours can be saved by first knowing clearly how large, what style, what age, what price range you need before you start browsing. After all, why look at Steinway B pianos if they are above your price range, or too large for the room you will be placing it in? Or if your house if modern in appearance, perhaps the Victorian, ice-cream leg style would be seriously out of place compared to a sleek, semi-gloss finish of a beautiful ebony. Second, understand who you will be purchasing from. A dealer or Steinway Gallery may have a few pianos to look at, but your selection will be limiting and the price you pay for their knowledge will be quite high. An online catalog, such as that found in Piano Mart or American-Steinway.com will offer a much greater range of pianos for one to consider, and the knowledge and the reputation of the owners in the piano business gives them as much creditability as any Steinway Gallery.  Read more...

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Tips on Selling Digital Music

By admin on October 4, 2011

In an era where digital music is frequently pirated and distributed freely around the internet, it might seem highly difficult to discover new methods of selling your tunes. Sure, there is always going to be listeners who download albums illegally, but allowing it to ruin your day or marketing strategy isn’t going to help anyone. Finding true success within the digital market is by no means easy, but never impossible if you have a decent product and the right plan.

Right off the bat, you must ask yourself what about the music influences people to purchase it, and drop their hard earned cash on one of your creations. Obviously, writing material which is inspired and enjoyable is the first step, but even this might not be completely enough. Listeners need to love the music so much it’s impossible to resist, and something they can’t help but share with friends and family, hoping it will evoke a similar positive reaction.

Creating a deep, diverse selection of music is another critical step in making some cash off your tunes. Perhaps if some people aren’t interested in one album, there’s another with a slightly different style which will pique their interest. Building an impressive discography allows potential fans to experience multiple sounds and ideas, and with enough of them, they are bound to discover something they can jam to. Once someone purchases a few songs, they’ll become inclined to download more, becoming thirsty for another taste of your music.  Read more...

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Online Artist Management: Music Website And Blog Marketing Tips

By admin on August 31, 2011

This is just a follow up from Kurb promotion talking specific stuff for musicians websites and blogs when you’re dealing with music business and Online Artist Management. If you’re looking for music marketing services or free regular advice visit kurb’s music marketing, management, and blog! Here’s some tips on developing your artist blog or music website- posts spaced months apart make the site look dead and inactive, we need to get the posting frequency up so fans see that the band has an active presence and the website is worth coming back to or recommending. Our key outcomes for visitors that is: sign ups, sales, and social networks, free downloads must be prominent. Often I will include these prompts at the head of each post so visitors are always made aware of particular propositions we are pushing,

Having a lot of written content on your site is essential if you’re going to bring in Google traffic, so we need to produce written content. Usually when I’m doing content and branding work for Online Artist Management we aim for 1 post each week on the blog then we collate these 4 posts with any other content available to make up our monthly email mail out. I’ve been doing my blog for 2 years now but it averages 200 hits a day and I am never short of leads, when you can get that kind of traction you should be able to pick up fans without even the benefit of other more aggressive But I’ve written 300 posts in that time so that’s the kind of commitment you’re looking at, but from my perspective it’s worth it because I never have to look for “fans” now, there’s always someone ready to pay me for what I do.  Read more...

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Recording Studio Setup – Top 5 Tips For Garage Bands

By admin on February 19, 2011

Music Studio

Recording studio setup is the icing on the cake when you have a band. Starting your own band is a real thrill. However, an even greater thrill is when you have finally written enough songs to record your own music and are able to send it out to prospective music industry executives.

You want the sound quality to be perfect, so you can really showcase the music and what your band is about to industry A&R representatives. It is they who will ultimately pass on your golden ticket to a recording deal. Your bands demo has to be perfect but what if you do not have the money to record in a fancy studio, though? Not to worry, you can create your own recording studio setup, at home, and receive just as great a result.

First, you need to use a room with the correct acoustics. This is likely to take some work and experimentation but getting this right within your recording studio setup is of fundamental importance. Play something through your mixing speakers. If you can hear very loud music outside of the studio, you may want to consider using headphones when recording as a courtesy to others in the building.

Next, remember to trust your ears. If within your recording studio setup something sounds dissonant to you then it will be magnified through a microphone. Remember to tune all instruments correctly before recording so they will be sounding prime for the recording. Also, you may need to purchase new drum heads or a new set of strings in advance of the recording session to enhance the quality of the sound.  Read more...

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Tips on getting your music recording studio ready

By admin on February 15, 2011

Music Studio

As a sound engineer for the last 10 years in both the San Diego, CA and Salt Lake City, UT recording studio markets, I have worked with a wide variety of musicians and recording artists. Some artists are incredible performers, some are great song writers. Some are both, and some are neither. Some of the best bands to work with are those that are the most prepared when it comes to being ready to go into the studio and are (almost in second nature) ready to lay down their best work.

When talking with a top microphone designer from Neumann Microphones, he stated that a good recording is made up of 3 things: 1 – A good performance, 2 – A good engineer, 3 -good equipment. Wghile these three principles are listed in order of importance, these three things are not equally weighted. With the individual performance being the most weighted part of making a good recording, that is the element that what we will focus on in this article.

Whether time at a studio is spent recording, or whether the time is spent “practicing” your parts, studio time costs the same. To be efficient with your studio time come to the studio with your songs ready to be tracked. What does that mean? That means know your parts – know your music. I once recorded a band who’s first time in the studio, when the rhythm guitar player started to play his part, the band said, “what is he playing?” The guitar player responded, “What I always play”. The rest of the band had no idea what the guy was playing! The band had not taken the time to even know the parts of the song they were playing. It quickly became apparent that the band was more interested in the idea of recording, not with recording correctly.  Read more...

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