Kaiser Cartel recently stopped by the studio to record a few songs, discuss album funding with Pledge Music, and tell us a bit about the production elements of their forthcoming album. Join @tanacea and @KaiserCartel in this spazzcast as they discuss the ever-evolving music industry.

Oh… I almost forgot… the infamous Daniel of Daniel Records is also mentioned as they expose the carefully guarded secrets of his unique role as one of the founding owners of this budding indie label.

Support Kaiser Cartel’s new album by clicking here.
Big thank you/photo credit @graemepitman
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In this Spazzcast listen to @RachelPearl, @tanacea, and @TrevaBloomquist discuss aspects of touring for independent artists. Subscribe to the podcast to listen and join the conversation.

This session was all about automation. There are tons of pan, EQ, volume, and aux buss automation to create the spacial variations heard in the remix. The opening sequence was created by automating three frequencies in a four band EQ thereby making a filter effect. This filter transitions into a loop that has a buss automation that fades up quickly at the end of the loop which sends the Ahhhs to a mono delay. The mono delay is tempo synched to the session and then pan automated to create the stereo sweeping Ahhh stutters. I hope you enjoy the remix. Please leave a comment below.

01 Two Weeks (Remix)
Buy the original track here.

Software:
Pro Tools 8
Reason 4
Virtual Instruments:
Hybrid
Boom
NN19
Malstrom synth
Thor
Dr. Rex

Tanacea is The Music Spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.
Original Grizzly Bear Photo Taken by Tom Hines.
Original Picture of me taken by Graeme Pitman

Some bands only play cover tunes, others record them, and still others play, record, and remix them! I recently finished producing a band know as The Ineloquent who did exactly that. They wrote a new arrangement of a popular theme song and thereby created a remix.

The greatest advantage of creating this type of remix for the indie artist can be boiled down to one thing – exposure. Record a cover version (and preferably a remix (a version with your own flair added) of a popular tune and publish it in places that are highly indexible by search engines.

Here is a link to the download.
Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire Theme Song

Tanacea is The Music Spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

While listening to this track you will not only hear the cherished pop and fuzz that only comes from vinyl, but you will also hear, especially at the end, a horrible buzz generated from compute/recorder noise. Please listen through the buzz as I was a total recording nOOb at the time of this remix. I did the remix using Stevie Wonder’s Past Time Paradise and a Jungle Break album I picked up while living and DJing in Germany. I have no idea who did the breakbeat, as I no longer have the vinyl. I hope you enjoy.


Past Time Paradise

Tanacea is The Music Spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

One of my favorite forms of music expression exists as a mashup. Also know as the remix, music mashups allow one creative expression to be interpreted and then merged with another.
Three examples of my favorite remixes are:

Bob Marley: Dreams of Freedom: Ambient Translations of Bob Marley in Dub
The Cure: Mixed Up
Jaydiohead: The Encore

What I love most about these particular albums is the cross genre appeal and creative exploration. All three albums leave their original genre to be merged with another, thereby opening previously released music to a whole new market of listeners and diving into new forms of expression. This is great for the musician, especially indie artist, as it broaden their fan/listener base.

While mixing and mastering Andy Zipf’s Cowards Choir, I fell in love with the track Should Have Told You. I kept hearing a remix that had to be made or it would have burned in me for the rest of my life every time I heard the song. Using Pro Tools and Reason, I went to work.

The song is written with an AABAB form, which I was careful not to build too aggressivly. In order to accomplish this, I only used subtle variation in the A section of the song which allowed his story to take precedence over the remix. Because Andy’s poetry and voice commands the attention of the listener, this particular remix also required that I leave the whole of the vocal track in tact. My goal for this remix was not to change the core message, but to add the piece of expression the song led me every time I heard it.

Below you will find both the original mix and the remix my soul demanded.
02 Should Have Told You
01 Should Have Told You – Tanacea Remix

Tanacea is The Music Spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

Enjoy this track titled Pummel from Doby’s latest album 22. Pummel

You can download the full album here.
Photo by Graeme Pitman.
Tanacea is The Music Spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

Session Production Elements:
This session is affectionately called Melody First because I built the beat/rhythm section around the melody. I started with a bright piano patch using the NN-19 sampler and filled it out with an NN-XT synth patch. I enjoyed the way the two instruments interact with each other as they swap carrying the melody. This interaction between the two parts help to create interest in a rather simple melody.

The Beat itself was programmed using the two ReDrum machines. One ReDrum has a few percussion hits only in it. While the other carries the core beat. Instead of just programming the drums using the ReDrum step pattern sequencer, I actually performed them using trigger pads. This adds life to the performance giving it a more authentic drum feel, by recording the actual velocity changes in the performance.

The bass was done using the Malstrom synth with quite a bit of grit added to it to give some edge that cuts the mix. I also recorded a mod wheel automation that opens the bass up at the end of phrases.

Finally, I am opening the loop with a pickup beat that uses two SubTractors to create some interesting texture. These effects are bussed to a delay to give them a huge sound and massive sustain.

Melody First

Download the .wav and Reason 4 file here.

Tanacea is the music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

Melody First by Tanacea is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license are encouraged and are easily accessible by contacting @tanacea.

Session Production Elements:
In this session I open the track using the Redrum drum machine to lay the core beat, the Malstrom synth for my bass, the NN-XT sampler with a clarinet sample loaded up in it, and a Dr. Rex acoustic guitar sample that I panned all over the place to create interest and depth. The clarinet sample is bussed to the Scream 4 processor to add some gritty texture. The breakdown at bar seven/eight was created by combining the use of the Dr. Rex filter and a solo automation on the mixer. Finally I layered a second rhythm track with the second Dr. Rex loop player to fill out the beat and add life to the track.

Automation Discovery

Download the .wav and Reason 4 file here.

Tanacea is the music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

Automation Discovery by Tanacea is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license are encouraged and are easily accessible by contacting @tanacea.

Most every band and DJ who provide their own PA for gigs have their favorite active (or “powered”) speaker. In my job, I talk to nearly a hundred musicians a day, so it’s a pretty regular thing to hear people brag on their Mackies, JBLs and other house cabinets.

A few months ago, I had the unique experience of getting to hear most of the world’s best-selling boxes lined up and compared. I expected to be listening for fine nuances – clearer high end here, less breakup at high volumes in the mids there. But no. The winner was so obvious, so far and above the hands-down superior, so ridiculously better, it actually made me wonder how the other companies were going to stay in the active speaker business.

The best of the bunch was the K-series by QSC. Yes, QSC – the amplifier people. I’d never heard anybody bragging on their QSC speakers before. But now that the K-Series has been released, I expect to be hearing that – a LOT. Because in truth, I was BLOWN AWAY. So stunned was I, that the same day I replaced my own band’s JBLs with QSCs. And from the very next gig, I began to regularly get compliments from musicians, sound guys, and audience members about the stunning quality of our sound.

The QSC K-Series is a product line of three speakers and a subwoofer: the K-8, K-10, K-12, and K-Sub. Each of the speaker boxes feature either a single 8″, 10″, or 12″ driver, along with a 1.75″ compression driver (or “tweeter”). And there’s none of the traditional “the speaker gets better as you move up the line.” Every one of them uses the same quality speakers, and each has the same 1,000-watt Class D digital power amp.

The subwoofer is also a thousand watts, powering two 12″ speakers. Now, before you think that twelve inches isn’t enough to thump people in the chest, let me tell you I gig out with this sub every weekend, and it’ll easily cave in the ribcages of everyone on the club dance floor!

In fact, the whole product line defies everything you think you know about PA speakers. Last night, my band played a club that had it’s own “killer” PA. After giving it a listen, I informed the management we’d be loading in our own. Just two K-12′s and one K-Sub. The staff must have thought I was insane.

It took two of us to get each of the ridicuously heavy passive speaker boxes off of their stands. But at just 41 lbs, the K-12′s went up easily with no assistance. Sure, they didn’t look as impressive as the beasts that’d been up there previously, but I also hadn’t plugged them in yet. Once the system was hooked up, all doubt clearly left the room. With the QSCs each turned up less than halfway, we were rocking the place with 107 dB of the best sound that room’s ever heard.

I don’t know all the engineering secrets of how QSC has built small lightweight boxes to sound like monster cabinets, but part of the wizardry is in the extensive DSP inside them. This signal processing ensures that there is even frequency coverage across the entire dispersion angle (translation: when you walk across the dance floor, you don’t hear any EQ change, an annoying trait that every other speaker cabinet has). It also makes constant adjustments to give a flat power response so you don’t think, “Wow, this is a really bassy box,” or “Listen to that high end.” It just sounds RIGHT.

These speakers have TRS, XLR, and RCA connections, and basic mixing abilities. They’re perfect pieces to base a new PA on, since they can be modularly expanded through daisy-chaining. The 10′s and 12′s can even be used as floor monitors. With a six-year warranty, they’re dependable as well as transportable.

If you’re looking for active PA speakers, it really would be foolish to consider anything on the market besides the K-Series by QSC.

Ron Daniel is a professional musician (23 years), holds a degree in electronics engineering, and is currently a Sales Engineer for Sweetwater Sound. You can contact him or get daily gear specials @rondaniel.

In this Spazzcast listeners will hear about preamps, EQs, and Compression.

Listen to Lu and Tanacea discuss some of the gear (pres, comps, and EQs) they use when recording. From budget to high-end gear, @Lu and @tanacea discuss gear features, recording technique relating to acoustic guitar, and more in this Spazzcast.

In this Spazzcast listeners will discover practical approaches to recording the acoustic guitar.

Ever wonder how your pick selection will change your recorded sound? How about a one inch movement of your microphone to change the thickness of your tone? @Lu and @tanacea discuss these elements and more in this spazzcast. Additional topics include guitar and string selection, microphone types, placement, and techniques.

Create incentive for fans to visit your merch table. Bob spent a lot of time preparing his merch. He shopped around for a great buy on T-shirts. He decided to go with a download card instead of buying CD’s since his first full length album is not yet complete (a wise decision in my opinion). At some point, every new indie artist just has to make the initial merch investment. The initial investment seems totally overwhelming, but the return is great. Bob made this investment and he did it wisely. The Ts turned out great and the Download card was beautiful – Bob was ready to go!

I know of at least one indie band, The Ineloquent, who, after opening their first show ever for a national act, sold over $1,000 in merch! They didn’t accomplish this by giving a sales pitch between every song, but they gave incentive for fans to stop by their table. They did two simple things from stage:

1. They invited fans to stop by and meet them. They genuinely wanted to talk to the fans.
2. They also offered something to every fan who stopped by to say hi – a free sticker.

Unfortunately, while Bob was on stage, not only did he fail to mention that he would be at his table after the show because he was interested in meeting everyone, but he didn’t even mention that he had merch at all! It would have been wise for Bob to have told the audience that he had a free something for anyone who sopped by to say hello, be it a download card, sticker, or a cool pin. All he had to do was crate incentive for fans to visit.

Since a friend had set up the download service for free, the card cost him cents. In Bob’s particular case, giving the download away would have given incentive for fans to visit his merch table. Once the fans arrived, Bob could have requested fans to join his mailing list, promoted his music by giving it away, and make a few bucks in T-shirt sales.

In a single sentence: Create incentive for fans to visit your merch table.

Tanacea is the music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

In this Spazzcast listeners will discover a new approach to funding their next music project.

Indie rocker Andy Zipf, who “believes that music isn’t something that’s meant to be encapsulated, homogenized and programmed into a commercially viable product,” describes how his business model raised $45k to produce The Long Tail with industry veteran James Barber (Ryan Adams, Hole, Guns N Roses), through a series of fund raising concerts, house shows and investor parties.

“Music transcends commercialism and is meant to be experienced live.” -Andy Zipf

Please download this track from Andy’s The Long tail for your music library. Easier to Crumble

Tanacea is a music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

Many musicians create a twitter account and give up on it rather quickly. Nielsen reports a 60% twitter quitter rate within the first month of using the service.  Another study, by Rapleaf, shows that 65% of tweets originate from the web interface (as opposed to from mobile phones or desktop applications). Musicians only using the web interface probably contributes to them giving up so quickly – Twitters web interface is a clunky user experience.  I was absolutely in the dark when I first started tweeting, which was exclusively from the web or by texting, until I discovered the wonders of the third party twitter app. If you want to understand how to harness the power of twitter, do not go to the web site, but download a third party app.

The Twittervers is a big place, and there are many third party apps available. Simply Google Twitter app or Twitter widget and you will have your pick at any number of possibilities.  To spare you the headache of having to figure out what apps to use, below are a few suggestions. I have no specific reason for suggesting these apps, except that I have found them to work quite well at enriching the Twitter experience. If you have thoughts on better options please share below.

Desktop: TweetDeck was the application that completely changed the Twitter experience for me. It is written in Adobe Air so you may have to install that first as part of the install process. The app works with all major operating systems and is actively developed. For a nice tutorial on how to use TweetDeck, view this link. The best part about tweet deck is that it allows you to update not only twitter, but multiple social sites at the same time, including facebook and myspace.

Mobile: You can keep in touch with your fans who follow you on Twitter while on the road from your hand held device. I have found my mobile Twitter app very helpful when making updates and sending pics, etc while on the move. Most touring musicians I know are using either an iPhone or a BlackBerry and there are very good twitter apps for both of these devices.

• iPhone: The mobile version of TweetDeck.
• Blackberry does not have as many options, but I have found great success with UberTwitter. This app is still in beta, but it has proven to be quite stable. If you would prefer a non-beta app you can always try out the less feature rich TwitterBerry

Mashable has a list of 21 desktop apps if you are interested in reading up on a few more.

Tanacea is the music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.

1. I tweet regularly, I’m not really sure what-the-heck I’m doing but I do it anyways because I’m “supposed” to. I have a modest following but haven’t really seen real results for all my efforts.
2. I tried it for exactly 3 days and didn’t get it at all and gave up.
3. I’m a proud hold-out and won’t even attempt to sign up for another retarded gimmick till I’m certain it isn’t going to harm my reputation for rejecting the trends and plowing a new and better road for the generations to come…and even then, I’d rather my manager take care of that for me.

No matter where you fall, there is no denying the numbers. Twitter is a powerful tool in well-trained hands, a tool to make money.

Consider the following guidelines as you exploit the real benefits of this social phenomenon (no matter how annoying you may find it):

1. Open a dialogue with your fans. Don’t just tell people what you are doing, ask questions. Surprisingly, people love to jump in and help, especially if they are a fan of yours. They will claw at each other to be the first to give you advice at the chance that you will remember their name! This creates loyalty and a sense of ownership in your fans that is priceless and not easily shattered. Consider asking them what they think about your next song idea, video, or where to play next. Ask them what type of project they would like for you to do next. My friend @AndyZipf does a great job of  asking his fans what they want with simple opinion polls and encourages interaction by asking simple questions like “What book should I read next?”.
2. Keep your posts interesting. Nobody want to hear that you ate corn flakes again for breakfast unless it’s, somehow, incredibly interesting. Give me something to laugh about or look at. Use a third party service like twitpic to send a picture of what was so amazing about your cornflakes. Give us a sneak peak of your upcoming album cover or a post to an almost-finished track. All these things will keep the fans coming back and wanting more.
3. Make your posts useful. Announce important events such as a new tour or a cause that you support, but make sure you provide a link back to your own web sit where fans can get more details on that information. I often see bands announce a new show but they don’t link back to their official web site tour schedule. By not doing this you might be missing out on a T-shirt sale.
4. Promote other bands or artists. Your fans love your music and they want to know what inspires your music. Doing this lets them into your mind a bit more and you are providing useful information (point 3) by suggesting music they might like. Additionally, you will make friends with other artists who in turn may support your music on Twitter.
5. Don’t be to “markety.” But don’t neglect the chance to sell them your music and merch either. Don’t beg them to “Buy our new album” too often or distastefully. If you want to sell the music, link to somewhere I can hear it AND buy it. Compel me to check it out by posting a series of funny pictures, or videos of locations where we should listen to your music. This site has thousands of public domain (free to use for whatever you wish) videos that you could overdub with your songs to create an entertaining piece that your fans will enjoy and pass on (viral marketing). These look interesting: controler ses emotions, merry_melodies_fresh_hare, Shake Hands With Danger.

There it is, five simple things you might want to consider before your next tweet.

Please comment any opinions, tips, or advice you may have from your experiences with Twitter.

Tanacea is a music spazz and you can follow him @tanacea.