DIY
09.28.07DIY - Do It Yourself
As Indie artists we wear many hats, not always because we want to, more often out of necessity. I know I can't afford web services or marketing, and my day to day life pretty much dictates whatever's going to get done be done from home.
So I'm sharing some of the stuff I use in my home studio, how I try to grow by learning and what I'm starting to do for self-promotion, hoping any of it's of use to others.
DIY Resources
DIY Resources
Of all the different resources I've either tried or bought into, SongU.com continues to provide the greatest return on investment. I'm actually just beginning my 2nd time through some very fundamental self-paced and instructor led courses, and I participate in at least one feedback session per month. Feedback sessions are critique sessions by industry professionals with varied writing, production, and publishing backgrounds and experience. The evaluation services at SongU are great, too, very reasonably priced with well structured coaching elements.
I just "audited" a great on-line seminar by Craig Bickhardt about writing songs artists want to sing. A real eye opener for writers targetting commercial markets.
This is part of the beauty of SongU.com, you take the courses when you can. Each instructor led session is recorded, and transcripts are available within a day or so. The site is one of the most efficiently built and maintained I've used for any type of service.
Check out some of the other resources I use via links posted on the right side of this page.
Home Studio
Home Studio
I've always tinkered with sound gear, mostly on the live side of the fence. In the last few years, again in very large part to course work at SongU.com and the teachings of Fett (Azalea Studios, Nashville) I've built a small, fairly efficient, home studio. I quickly learned you don't need to spend big $$$ to make a decent recording. I'm still not nearly as efficient at tracking and mixing as I want to be, so like writing and musicianship, I just keep plugging away.
Key elements I put money into are mics, and even at that, I didn't spend a bunch of money. I use a Marshall MXL V69 tube condensor (Mogami Edition) and an AKG C1000S. I'm still using an MBox, but hope to replace those preapms early next year.
Though my reference monitors are on the low end side, I built speaker stands and set the boxes on a couple of inches of foam, which signinficantly improves the output, especially on the bottom end.
Another piece of helpful, yet inexpensive gear I recently added is a headphone mixer/amp to enable multiple headsets and mixes. My primary headphones are Audio-Technica ATH-M40fs.
Software-wise it's ProTools LE 7.3.x and Ableton Live Lite 6.0.7. I plan to bump to a full blown version of Live next year (or the just released LE version) and hopefully get more into instrumental scenes for Film/TV. For drum loops it's Drums on Demand, real recorded drums, quite versatile, hands down killer sound.
Marketing
Marketing
Here's an area I've gleaned bunches from my friend Brian Hartzog, as well as (of course) SongU.com. My catalog is getting deeper, and it's time to stick my neck out a little further into some different markets. Much of the feedback I get points me toward Film/TV, but I'm not giving up on the potentail for radio cuts.
I participated in an on-line seminar on SongU by
Michele Vice-Maslin, a songwriter out of LA, who shared several key points on the pitching/publishing procees. This includes putting up a "store front" to advertise who you are and what you're music is about, something I've not spent much time doing, at least not very effectively.
This site (v2.0) is a significant step in branding my artistry and setting direction beyond the gigs I'm doint next month. There's nothing easy about this process, not sure I'll ever really understand why I keep at it day in and day out.
Learning enough HTML and CSS to creep along with development is often tedious and frustrating, but the fruit I'm reaping is a more disciplined approach to defining and sharing who I am as an artist.