A few weeks ago, Kevin English of eleetmusic got me in to the closed beta of Rock Band Network, which provides the necessary tools to get your songs into the game. When it launches, the RBN Store will sell those songs through the game’s interface, with 30% of the purchase price going back to the artist. Now that the beta is public, you may be eager to dive in, but let me warn you -- it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be! Authoring your first song requires a deep skill set and 60-80 hours of focused effort.

You’ll need to have:

• Multitrack sessions of your song, including a dry vocal
• A computer running Windows
• An Xbox 360 with at least a 20 GB hard drive
• Rock Band 2

You’ll most likely need to buy:

• A premium Creators Club membership ($99/year or $49 for four months)
• A Gold subscription to Xbox LIVE ($49.99/year)
• Reaper Digital Audio Workstation software ($60 discounted license after a 30 day trial)

You’ll need to be able to:

• Prepare stems from your original recordings
• Learn a new DAW plus custom scripts
• Play the game proficiently on all instruments at all difficulty levels (good luck if you can’t sing!)
• Transcribe a vocal performance to MIDI, differentiating between vowels and consonants by viewing the waveform
• Play the drums (to program the right hand/left hand animations correctly)
• Connect your Xbox 360 to your computer

In addition to all that, you’ll be expected to test and review other members’ songs. It’s a network after all!

Believe it or not, I’m not trying to discourage you. I just want to save you the frustration of hitting a brick wall after investing your time and money. If the process seems overwhelming, you can always hire someone else to do it. The most widely promoted service so far is Tunecore’s, which charges $999. Keep in mind that the quality of the final product can vary considerably. One service might spend hours on lighting and camera work, while another might use the defaults generated by the compiler.  Authoring is both an art and a science.

Here are a couple videos of my song as it stands today, just after submitting it for playtest. I’ll post an update once the song makes it through the system. The first video shows the whole band in autoplay mode on expert difficulty, and the second just the vocals, so you can better appreciate the camera and lighting work (and the fact that Trent Reznor is singing my song!).

More info on the authoring process here.

Rock Band Network for Dummies? is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

I love ReverbNation. I could write a dozen articles on the various tools they provide for artists. For now I’ll focus on one I just tried for the first time: Street Team Missions.

Whenever a fan subscribes to your mailing list, they’re given the option to join your street team. You create missions to direct your team’s promotional efforts on your behalf, and they compete against each other for rewards of your choosing. ReverbNation manages the whole thing automatically by measuring plays, widget clicks, banner impressions, and mailing list signups.

Sound too good to be true? I thought so at first, so I joined several other artists’ missions to get a closer look. I wasn’t exactly blown away. Participation was limited to a handful of fans, even on teams with 1000+ members. My enthusiasm waned, and I put the idea on the back burner.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I was selected to participate in a Windows 7 promotion hosted by ReverbNation, called Playlist 7. Microsoft posts 50 songs for free download each week, and the seven most downloaded artists win $507! Easy enough, right? But there’s a catch: before anyone can download your song, they have to “become a fan of Windows” through Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace. Few consider this a badge of honor.

While I’m actually quite fond of Windows 7, I’m an even bigger fan of $507, so I quickly drafted a campaign to get out the vote. My street team had grown to 215 members (out of 1055 on my mailing list), so it was about time I gave them something to do. I emailed ReverbNation for advice on how to set up the mission, and followed their directions.

First I created this banner (“help a friend win money” seemed a stronger pitch than “download music from bands you’ve never heard of”):

I uploaded the banner to my profile and embedded the RN-provided link to my song. Finally, I created a custom mission to promote the banner, determining the winner by the highest number of clickthroughs. Here are the results (click to enlarge):

Not impressive. Of the 202 clicks generated, I’d guess maybe 50 resulted in downloads, factoring in the “become a fan” disincentive and the assortment of problems people had getting the site to work. Fortunately, that was enough to do the trick. In the end, 19 downloads made the difference between winning and losing (full results are here). We made the top 7, coming in 4th place with 297 downloads, and winning the $507.

If Rob and Ken hadn’t been in such a tight battle for the top spot on the leaderboard, the mission could’ve been a total bust. Their efforts accounted for over three-quarters of the total activity. Only 11 people even signed up for the mission, and two of them apparently didn’t even post the banner.

Still, I’ve got to hand it to ReverbNation. The automatically generated emails they send out to street team members are ugly, but beyond that I can’t think of anything they could do to improve the feature. If I wanted more participation, I could’ve offered a bigger reward, or perhaps counterintuitively, no reward.

Armed with 20/20 hindsight, I present my step-by-step guide to launching your own street team mission:

1. Recruit. First, email your entire mailing list. Explain what a street team does and ask them to sign up. Provide step-by-step instructions for doing so.
2. Choose reward(s). To discourage gaming, I suggest you come up with something that your fans will value, but wouldn’t fetch a large sum on eBay. Knowing that many of my street team members are musicians themselves, I offered the choice of a collection of Color Theory rarities OR mastering their next release (full details are here).
3. Get commitments. After a few days have passed, email your street team. Start by describing the reward(s), then explain exactly what you’ll ask them to do. Insist that anyone willing to participate let you know by replying to the email.
4. Make the call. Does the response justify the mission? If not, email back your potential participants to tell them you won’t be moving forward at this time. If your fans aren’t eager to recommend you to friends and family, maybe your music isn’t where it needs to be just yet.
5. Launch the mission. Uncheck the box marked “Notify Street Teamers of New Mission when it becomes Active” to prevent ReverbNation from automatically emailing your street team. Instead, create your own personalized email to the team asking everyone to join the mission. Provide step-by-step instructions for doing so. Email your committed participants individually to thank them in advance for their help.
6. Recruit again. Email your entire mailing list with a full description of the mission and reward(s). Provide step-by-step instructions for joining the street team and mission. Invite them to email you with any questions.
7. Monitor and support. Update the mission with suggestions and encouraging comments, every step of the way. Make sure the members at the top of your leaderboard are playing fair and promoting you in appropriate places.
8. Say thank you. When the mission ends, email your entire mailing list to thank the street team for their help. Congratulate the winners, mention the rewards, and yet again provide step-by-step instructions for signing up for the street team.

Let me know how it goes!

My first ReverbNation street team mission is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

Full details are here, but to cut to the chase:

Would you please download my track? (it’s free)

http://www.reverbnation.com/playlist7?artist_id=334871

If time permits, I’d like to write about my first ReverbNation street team mission after the voting ends on Monday at 11:00 a.m. EST.

UPDATE 1/11/10: We won! I’m still planning to write about the street team this week.

Help me win $507! is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

I love running on New Year’s Day, if only for the change of scenery. There are dozens of new runners on the beach path, most of whom I only get to see for a week or two. Their new running shoes, still glaringly white and chemical-scented, will soon vanish into the recesses of their closets. Resolutions tend not to stick, so I don’t make any. Sure, sickness or injury or plain old laziness might keep me indoors for a few days at a stretch, but I’ll be back. I’m a runner.

I’m also a strong advocate for science, but I’m not going to cite all the relevant studies on goal setting here. It’s been pretty well established that those who set goals are more likely to achieve them than those who don’t. On the other hand, those who announce their plans are less motivated to accomplish them. 2009 turned out to be a great year for me. It also happened to be the first year that I didn’t make any resolutions or set any goals – not even secret ones.

Living in California, I’ve learned not to complain about the weather to people outside the state. God forbid I mention the temperature in a status update! If I do slip up, my friends east of the Mississippi remind me that they live in igloos and count themselves lucky if the sun comes out at all. Similarly, I’ve learned not to mention my weight, because I’ve always been skinny, at least by American standards. At the risk of sounding like a Hollywood starlet, I bring it up here to illustrate my point.

While losing weight has never been an obsession for me, I’ve always been health-conscious. After many years of hovering 2-5 pounds above my goal, I decided to let it go. This year, with nothing in particular nudging me, I started tracking calories. I found out the “healthy” garlic tofu with broccoli and brown rice I’d been having for lunch has over 1300 calories (so much for not sounding like a starlet). I made better choices, upped my mileage, and dropped 19 pounds in six months. If I had made a resolution to reach a target weight, I never would’ve aimed that low.

Much to my wife’s chagrin, we don’t maintain a household budget. Our income is too unpredictable. Will she get a bonus this year despite the recession? Will her company’s stock go up or down? Will I be hired to mix a band’s new album, or just master it? Will there be a sequel to the video game I’m doing AV work on? There are too many variables beyond our control, so last year I decided against setting targets of any sort. Though our overall financial picture is still sketchy for the same reasons as everyone else, 2009 was the best year yet for my studio business.

It was also a great year for Color Theory, my musical alter-ego, again due to events beyond my control. I won big in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, won smaller at OurStage, and was nominated for Best Electronic in the 2009 OC Music Awards. I had several song placements on MTV shows after the music director found me on thesixtyone. Like I could’ve planned to be so lucky!

I’ll take motivation and direction over goals any day. Why impose targets and rules for something I supposedly want to do? There is humility and a sense of freedom in accepting that most of what happens to us is beyond our control. Not to get all Zen on you, but I’m letting go of what should be and embracing what is. Mixing and mastering other peoples’ music may keep me busy for weeks at a stretch, but I’ll find time to make my own. I’m a musician.

The power of no goals is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

I promote to establish and nurture a genuine relationship with my fans. I measure my success by the number of subscribers to my mailing list. Notice I said mailing list, not Twitter followers or MySpace “friends.” I’m talking about the people who grant me permission through a double opt-in process to email them directly on a regular and consistent basis. Right now there are just over a thousand, but there are plenty more out there who might love my music if they heard it. So how do we reach those potential fans?

In the pre-Web 2.0 days, you’d court a label, or if you were really adventurous, you’d hire a PR firm yourself. The PR firm would leverage their relationships with press and radio, which in turn maintain relationships with their audiences. That left you three degrees removed from your potential fans, the vast majority of whom you’d never hear from. Today, social networking allows us to cut out the middlemen and establish those relationships directly. Let’s dispel a couple of myths:

1. It’s all about exposure. My bullshit detector goes off whenever I hear the word “exposure.” It’s nebulous and generally worthless. I’ve spent a lot of time and money courting press and radio, resulting in bucketloads of “exposure” but few sales or follow-up contacts. While “you never know” who might be listening or reading, chances are good that nothing will come of it. The best promotions are targeted to as specific an audience as possible.
2. You need to impress the gatekeepers. No, you really don’t. You’re better off letting them come to you. Bloggers, DJs, music supervisors, labels, and the rest of the industry want to discover you for themselves. Grow your fanbase and the rest will follow. I know that may seem counterintuitive, but one small leap of faith could save you years of rejection and frustration. It is my sincere belief that lasting success comes from the bottom up.

While your goals may be different from mine, they probably involve more fans and more money. You already communicate with your fans and sell your music online, perhaps exclusively. It’s difficult and in some cases impossible to convert an offline fan into an online one, so why waste your energy? Promote where the action is: online.

Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting Dave Matthews stop touring and start blogging instead (he should do both). While you may consider your live show or your latest album to be the best promotion of all, performing and making records is what musicians do. For the purposes of this discussion, the term “promotion” refers to the many non-musical efforts you make to raise awareness of your music.

You might feel like you need to promote both offline and online to “cover your bases,” but there are an infinite number of bases to cover! You’ll never run out of things to do online: your web site, blog, podcast, remix competition, iPhone app, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr,  iMixes, thesixtyone, Jango, Stereofame, Last.fm, OurStage, Pandora, Amazon, iLike, Podsafe Network, ccMixter, Blip.fm, Music Xray, Bandcamp, and a hundred others.

Of course, you don’t want to spread yourself too thin. There’s no point in setting up profiles you aren’t going to maintain. A web presence is not enough – you have to actively promote. You’ll need to come up with your own promo combo platter and make it part of your regular diet. I’m busy recording a new album, so my bare bones routine consists of regular updates to my mailing list, blog, Facebook, and Twitter, plus a daily check-in at thesixtyone.

The case for online-only promotion is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

Musicians might be interested to read why I switched to Ableton Live.

Why I switched to Ableton Live is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

If I had $5,000 to spend on music promotion, I certainly wouldn’t waste it on any of the following:

Ads. It’s easy to get “dazzled by the numbers” when given the opportunity to reach thousands of people. We think, “If only 1% of those people bought the album, I’d double my investment!” Don’t let the math fool you. Unless there is a compelling reason to respond to your ad, nobody will. That goes for print ads, banner ads, and Google Adwords. One exception is letting your already massive fanbase know about a new release or tour.

Press. Words don’t sell music. Music sells music. Few people bother to read reviews, features, or interviews with bands they aren’t familiar with. Even fewer take the next step and search for the music. A feature in a music blog is much more effective, because readers are one click away from hearing or even downloading your song. Sure, a four-star review in Rolling Stone has its uses, but it ain’t gonna happen. While good press usually doesn’t have an explicit price tag attached, you’re often expected to purchase an ad.

Radio promotion. I’ve spent over $10,000 on radio promotion, with negligible results. A European campaign that got my songs in regular rotation on over 40 commercial stations in Italy and France, plus a highly targeted US campaign that got me on the CMJ Charts, earned me a combined total of zero royalties and zero sales. I’ve had a lot more luck with Jango, at a fraction of the cost. Before you invest in a radio campaign, ask yourself 1) who are you trying to reach, and 2) what exactly do you want them to do?

Nobody has ever contacted me or bought a CD as a result of seeing my ad, reading about me in the press, or hearing me on the radio. From a promotional standpoint, it may as well have never happened.

Compilation CDs. When I was getting started in the mid-90’s, landing a spot on a compilation CDs was a big deal. Back then, just having a CD was a sign of success. Today, anyone can burn their own. The compilation CD has been supplanted by the playlist. You’re better off uploading an iMix to the iTunes Store and calling it a day. Under no circumstances should you pay to be on one of those compilation CDs “A&R companies” shotgun to their database of industry contacts. They go straight into the trash. Even if it doesn’t cost you anything, think twice about letting include your song on their compilation. You’ll be competing for sales of that track on iTunes.

Promo CDs. Thinking about pressing an extra 500 CDs to give away as promos? I wouldn’t. Believe me, if the 3,000 CDs in my garage had any promotional value, I’d give them away in a heartbeat. Shotgunning promos to DJs, music supervisors, A&R departments, and your favorite bands undercuts your own sales. Within a month, you’ll see a dozen copies going for $0.99 on Amazon. No joke.

Song Contests. This year I had the incredible luck of being named a Grand Prize Winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Despite sending out press releases and doing everything else I could think of to snowball the win into something bigger, it didn’t do much from a promotional standpoint. Still, I received over $8,500 in cash and gear, and it was gratifying to be recognized by my peers. My recommendation is, only enter a song contest for the prizes.

So what would I spent that theoretical $5,000 on? I’ll have to get back to you on that one, because I honestly don’t know. I promote to establish and nurture a genuine relationship with my fans. While money can buy you “exposure,” it can’t buy you love. I’ll expand on my reasoning next time as I make the case for online-only promotion.

Money can’t buy you love is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

Taxi is an independent A&R company, connecting musicians with labels, publishers, and music supervisors. On the 1st and 15th of every month, they provide a list of industry opportunities for members to submit songs to. Screeners forward the most suitable material for each listing to the person who requested it. I’ve been a member since 1997.

Recently, two of my songs were featured on a large cable network, and I signed an exclusive publishing deal. All thanks to Taxi? Nope. The music supervisor found me on thesixtyone and I connected with the publisher through Sonicbids.

Over the course of twelve years and 100+ forwarded submissions, with $3525 spent on membership and submission fees alone, I haven’t made a single deal through Taxi. In fact, I haven’t received so much as a phone call or e-mail from an interested party (cue the crickets).

The obvious counterargument is that my music simply sucks. Perhaps it does, but it still managed to get forwarded many, many times. They thought it was good enough.

In the course of promoting my new album, I asked a handful of publishers and music supervisors about Taxi. Their impressions were lukewarm to negative. Two described it as “worthless.” They had both used the service and felt that the quality of submissions was lacking. The overall consensus among those I spoke with was that Taxi is for amateurs.

Before I go any further, let me emphatically state that Taxi is not a scam. Michael Laskow and his team work tirelessly on behalf of their members. I’ve seen it firsthand at the conventions. They are good people running an honest business, and this article is not meant to disparage them or the company in any way. Their track record is impressive, and they deliver what they promise. They can get your songs into the decision-maker’s hands, but they don’t make the decision.

I suspect that many of you are in the same boat as I am. You want to pursue every possible opportunity for the songs you’ve already recorded, but you aren’t willing to record new material targeted at a specific listing, or even rewrite or re-record a song to make it a better fit. You simply want to get as much mileage as you can out of what you’ve already got. If that’s the case, maybe Taxi isn’t for you.

You might consider joining Taxi if:

1. You want to sign with a label. If you’re young and attractive with a radio-friendly sound, a large following, verifiable sales, and touring experience, Taxi might be able to hook you up with a label. But with all that going for you, do you need one?
2. You write songs solely to pitch to other artists. Taxi provides opportunities you won’t find on other “tip sheets,” and they seem particularly well-connected in the country music industry.
3. You want to earn a living through film and TV placements. If you’re disciplined enough to write cues to spec, day in and day out, and treat it as a job, you can make a lot of money after a few years. Check out their video series on the topic. You’ll want to sign up for Taxi’s Dispatch service to receive daily last-minute requests from music supervisors.
4. You want to get better. The cost of membership might be justified purely as an educational expense. The conventions, called Road Rallies in keeping with the automotive theme, are top notch. Song critiques are a mixed bag. I’ve had the same song get 9’s and 10’s on one critique, and 5’s and 6’s on another. That’s the subjective nature of music. I don’t take any particular criticism seriously until I see it more than once.

If you’re thinking about signing up, be sure to check the listings first to make sure the industry wants what you’ve got.

12 years with Taxi is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

A few months ago, I announced I was cutting back on blogging to record a new Color Theory album. Instead, I was hired to mix three others (Exhibition by Die Brücke, The Deadliest Fairy Tales by Rain Rain, and a yet-to-be-named album for 907Britt). Since I’ve been living and breathing mixing since June, I thought I’d give my ears a rest and share my thoughts on spectral management.

Spectral management sounds like something you’d hire a firm to do, but it simply means finding a place for each instrument in the frequency spectrum. In my last mixing article, I described how to tighten the low end of the mix using a frequency analyzer. When the competing rumble and mud is removed, you’re left with tight and punchy bass. The same philosophy applies to the rest of the mix.

Taking the concept to its logical extreme, you could carve out a discrete frequency range for each instrument using sharp low and high cut filters, like so:

While it looks good on paper, it’s a bit heavy handed in practice. It might sound okay when all the instruments are in, but removing any piece of the puzzle leaves a noticeable hole. Forget about soloing anything, because every track sounds terrible in isolation. That’s because most instruments have energy spread across the entire spectrum. Focusing on a narrow band removes the fundamental frequencies below it and the overtones above it, altering the timbre of the instrument to the point where it becomes hard to tell a violin from a trumpet.

Instead, I try to emphasize each instrument’s basic character. I’ll bring out the 80 Hz thump of the kick, emphasize the 300 Hz meat in the guitars, find a sweet spot in the 1-2 KHz range on the snare, add some 3 KHz presence to the vocal (more on that below), and maybe a dash of 15 KHz sizzle to the overheads. My simplified spectral map looks like this:

The only non-bass instrument I make room for is the vocal. I set it off from the rest of the mix using complimentary EQ. Typically I’ll use the Neve 1081 on my UAD-2 Quad to boost the vocal a couple dB at 3.3 KHz, and dig a hole out of competing instruments at the same frequency by the same amount at the same Q. The boost and cut are mirror images of each other.

digging the hole

The bass and drums usually don’t compete with the vocal, but I always dig the hole out of a guitar, pad, or piano. Backing vocals are a tough call. Sometimes I’ll dig the hole to differentiate them from the lead, and other times I’ll give them the boost to allow them to be heard in a dense mix. Don’t forget the reverb returns! Digging the hole out of the vocal reverb gives the vocals added clarity and immediacy, even after turning up the send to compensate for the loss in level.

Lead and solo instruments that play when the vocal isn’t in also get the boost. I emphasize whatever is at center stage at any given moment.

Sometimes I’ll use complimentary EQ on a second instrument (usually piano or guitar), but going beyond that yields diminishing returns and transforms the musical journey into a science project. At some point you just have to turn the knobs until it sounds good.

For a more detailed technical discussion of spectral management, check out this article by audio legend Dave Moulton.

Spectral management is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.

Arron Clague is a member of the indie electro band Eight to Infinity, whose music I’ve had the pleasure of mastering many times. He was kind enough to share his thoughts on the band’s shiny new iPhone app below. -Brian

App downloads: 278
Songs listened to: 920

InfinityHome has been live for four days now. The iPhone application, based on a framework developed by Mobile Roadie, consolidates news data from our RSS feed at eighttoinfinity.com, streaming music from Amazon, and our Twitter feed.  It also provides a simple fan wall. The app ties everything together for us, giving us yet another channel for interaction, traction, and building a community around Eight to Infinity.

To be honest, it’s an expensive experiment. We’ve received great feedback from listeners at Jango, iLike, and Last.fm, but we have no idea how committed they are as fans. It’s safe to assume that anyone who downloads and continues to use an application has a higher affinity for what we are doing with our music.

In a lot of ways it’s a flawed experiment. How many of our potential fans even have an iPhone? Though Mobile Roadie may develop a Blackberry framework in the future, for the moment we can only address a small percentage of potential fans. But looking at things the other way round, how many of the millions of iPhone users can we convert to Eight to Infinity fans?

For a $400 dollar punt, we decided to proceed and see where we went. Our motivation was not necessarily to increase sales, or to earn revenue from the app, which we made available for free download. The goal was to increase awareness of our music, join up all the island communities across the web, and solve the fragmentation across Last.fm, Jango, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest.

Another motivation is that we are now being tracked by services such as RockDex and Music Xray. They measure how active our community is. When we do licensing deals, music supervisors can now see that we are managing and growing our community in an active way. For example, go to the audio page of our site and open up the tabs on our Music Xray. You can see how well we are doing across a large range of services. Why would anyone invest in a band that doesn’t invest any effort into promoting themselves?

And so the experiment begins.

I haven’t done anything new marketing-wise beyond announcing the app’s availability where I would commonly post news about track releases. I suppose I could have gone to traditional press and blogs and made it a “news” event, although I suspect that this would only lead to resentment of the band, in return for exposure which is never going to result in sales. Nothing pisses people off more than a little alternative band running around trying to get in the newspaper with some scam. All of sudden everyone knows who you are, but everyone hates you! (see Raygun viral video)

What is surprising are the numbers, which are higher than the response we normally get from track release postings – despite the fact that only a small percentage of our fanbase has an iPhones or iPod Touch. So either people who were on the fence about Eight to Infinity downloaded it, which is great, or the app has some life outside our normal marketing sphere. For example, I was surprised to learn that many web sites syndicate the App Store feed and republish the content for their own ends (advertising revenue).

One thing is for certain: Apps can go where mp3’s can’t.

In that sense, the app is successful. But in terms of direct sales, it’s a bust with only 38 individual track downloads so far. To be fair, we only have the back catalogue album Aether on there. I think things will be different when we have something new to promote. Along with renewed community focus, the app should allow us to leverage new releases with a higher impact than we’ve achieved in the past.

You can download InfinityHome from the iTunes App Store here.

The band iPhone app is a post from: Passive Promotion - "Set it and forget it" music promotion Copyright 2009 Brian Hazard. All Rights Reserved.