General Music Chat

After somewhat of a lull while I was practicing/rehearsing a lot with 'Trilogy' last year, I've been back writing and recording more songs for my next album 'Love and War'.
14 songs tracked so far, just polishing up the mixes. 2 more songs to record, then I can start the final processes of mixing/mastering, designing the CD sleeve artwork, copyrighting, registering with BMI..... Lots of things to do when you do it all yourself.
I 'debuted' 3 of the new songs acoustically Tuesday night, you can see the 'Facebook live' video on my FB page (linked in my signature below). If you don't FB, your own loss, it's the way that most people interact on a daily basis these days. Data mining - what exactly are you worried about? (Hiding something? The FBI/CIA or Russia probably already know about it!)

If you don't FB, your own loss, it's the way that most people interact on a daily basis these days. Data mining - what exactly are you worried about? (Hiding something? The FBI/CIA or Russia probably already know about it!)

First--and foremost--good luck w/ the new CD. If I could write tunes and produce, maybe I could try something like that, but alas, I'm just an old geezer who plays the piano.

In your context, you're the advertiser; you have a CD you want to market. Fair enough--that's what adboo...er, fakebook was designed to do: market products to the masses. Under the guise of being a place for users to interact. Strikes me as a bit dishonest. You could pay them for data and target your efforts. Not that you would need to, but you could. That's the value to any biz.

I still won't use it and haven't felt any "loss" at all. I like my interactions in person, or in a site like this, where I don't need to swim through an endless stream of ads to get to the content or yak w/ others. Or provide personal data that can be tracked and used by unknown parties. But I'm an old geezer who didn't grow up as a data blip, glued to a dumb-phone--which I don't even own.

I was watching the NewsHour last night and it was a big issue. As it turns out, adboo...er, fakebook signed a consent decree back in 2011 stating they would take all necessary measures/precautions to protect user data, but as it turned out, they did nothing. There were key former employees who pointed that out, and who claimed adboo...er, fakebook knew about the risks and ignored them, in order to make the data easily available to any developer who might want it. Scary. They also bragged to advertisers that they could easily manipulate the user base to do whatever they wanted. Ouch! That's all great stuff for any biz (or other entity) that wants to market anything (product, candidate, CD, etc.), but not so good for the users. Like most folks in my age group, I don't like being manipulated. Maybe the younger generation doesn't mind.

We're already tracked more now than at any time in history. Use a cell phone? Your location is tracked. Use a credit or debit card? Your purchases are tracked. Ever use other credit? Ever decide to check your credit score online? Tracked and tracked. Banks have enormous stores of data, but at least there, you can easily opt out of releasing your data to 3rd parties. Not so w/ adboo...er, fakebook. By virtue of using the site, you agree to it. Read the TOU.

I'm not hiding anything, but I do have an aversion to anything--like, say, a nose or a flashlight--being stuck up my posterior. (Don't much care for prostate exams, either, but some things we gotta endure.) I doubt the Russians or the CIA care much about old geezers like me, but I'm not gonna wave a flag and draw their attention. I've had plenty of interaction w/ the FBI, but they paid for my knowledge; in the early days of the Cyber Crimes Unit, they wanted to learn the ways folks could avoid being tracked. Imagine that!

But I'm an old geezer, a dinosaur who isn't in tune w/ being a blip of data that can be easily manipulated. Which is why I avoid sites like adboo...er, fakebook. Now 'scuse me while I step down off'n this here soapbox... And if you ever post any of the new tunes here, let me know and I'll check it out. After all, this is a music forum.

Have you tried the Bandmix online mastering thing yet? It's actually pretty good. Saves me a lot of time in the process to just give them $5 for doing it.

I never put home demos up because it's not worth the trouble of mastering what was done on ancient gear ( suck compared to studio productions) but I've got a few songs that aren't in my "regular" genre hidden on my Bandmix profile for when I want someone to hear them.

Hello All,

I am new to the forum. I have been nominated to find a musician(s) for an event that we sponsor in September in Stecoah, NC at the Ironhorse Motorcycle Lodge. It is the Vintage Yamaha Motorcycle Rally (VYR 2018). A bunch of like minded old guys and gals who gahter to show off their old Yamahas. We need someone for a few hours on Saturday night, September 29th. this is our 7th year at Stecoah.

Anyone who is interested, please contact me at 770-841-4093 (cell) or [email protected]

Thanks, Mike

Bandmix offers mastering? Without knowing their credentials or methods, I wouldn't' give them money. Could be nothing more than an app like 'Landr', which CAN occasionally make a decent sound, but not always.
My music is so varied, that it'd be tough to find one mastering engineer who would do it all justice - at a price I could afford. And that's the key - if I break even with my expenses when I release an album, I consider myself lucky. If I have to pay someone $50 a song to master it, then I'll be in the hole forever.
I had volunteers to master my first 2 albums, good thing because I could barely mix at that point and didn't have a room that was treated acoustically for mixing, either (now I do). So I get all the 'tweaking' done in the mixing stage, then just use a little master bus limiting and compression to bring the volume up to -0.1dB, and I'm done. If there's an EQ issue with a mix, I'll go back to the original mix and fix it there, rather than in mastering.

DP - yeah, FB is always trying to suck 'marketing'/ad money from me - and I know some local people who have paid them for getting ads out to the 'target audience'. Was it successful? Not really. People don't click on the ads anywhere near enough to make it worthwhile. If you get 1 click out of 500 'targets', you're lucky. And that still doesn't mean the person is going to buy your music or come to a show.

Wow, I saw that about mastering from bandmix.
I used to have some amazing 500 hundred dollar programs. I could take a very poor recording and make it sound GOOD!

The biggest problem that many wannabe musicians just don't understand.

THE PERFORMANCE MUST BE GREAT!

Bandmix offers mastering? Without knowing their credentials or methods, I wouldn't' give them money. Could be nothing more than an app like 'Landr', which CAN occasionally make a decent sound, but not always..

I'm sure that's what it is....or they have some very fast chipmunks standing by, cause it happens pretty fast. For $5 it makes my home demos sound better. It's for my own enjoyment because I'd never release something I played all instruments on. I like to hire the best available to replace all the parts on my home demos, except vocals and maybe a few guitar parts. This basic mastering really does improve a home demo recording quite a bit, imo. And it's only $5, so....

Mastering an album for me is upwards from $700+ because it's too important not to hire the best.

This is coming from one of the MOST TALENTED MUSICIANS... Up here.

$5, yeah, its gotta be Landr software. There's also 'fiverr' website, where people offer their services for $5 and up - tons of 'mastering' people listed there (most with no more qualifications than any home studio guy).

Funny thing is first you can't fix bad tracks or bad playing. Second mastering is just meant to put a piece of music into an area where it will sound good on radio, a cd, or even at todays standards an I PHONE.

I think Ted was pointing this out.

However if the tracks or the song are not that good.... 5 dollars are not going to help.

Mike that was a good post.

One other thing that mastering is supposed to do is get all the tunes (on an album) 'near' the same overall volume and EQ levels, so they don't sound disparate as someone listens to the whole album (not that a lot of people do that these days, from what I can gather).

Excellent POINT.
In the old days scrambling for volume control was critical... Including MOM screaming "TURN THAT DOWN".

In the OLDER DAYS they did it with careful recording.

Excellent point!

Yep, my rule is: Personal demos get washed through a simple mastering software app just to even out the levels. Anything destined for public ears NEEDS pro mastering to put the music in it's best light. I think it is as important as the mix, the packaging, and the cover art. But I have been wrong before...

Ted, we added "Dead Sea" to our outreach music list and people like your tune!

That's not one of my favorite songs. Actually as well produced as it is... Not a strong song.
However Ted is amazing. Go watch some of his vids. Even in a small room he BRINGS THE BUILDING DOWN.

New nickname... AMAZING TED!

By the way, very wonderful to see you back. I love the vids you posted. Thanks for those CAJUN.

Ted, we added "Dead Sea" to our outreach music list and people like your tune!

really? Man, that's awesome. Makes my day, bro.



There's a lady here in Spartanburg who uses my version of Psalm 23 in her yoga class. Not a "christian" in the bunch...but a Hindu lady keeps requesting it.


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