Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
Your such a good guitarist I'm sort of baffled why you don't incorporate it with your ambient music. It seems to me that you have all the skills to put together a pretty good live show. I think you'd go over pretty well in a small coffee house type setting then sell your stuff after the shows. You can also do live streaming or just post live performance on youtube.
Your guitar, looping device, ipad , candles and flickering lights. Maybe add a Strymon El Capistan and a BigSky Reverb and you can be a one man ambient band.
Pick a fight with Taylor Swift.
Just don't grab her ass. She's touchy that way.
Thanks, I didn’t stop playing by choice. The nerve damage in my arms is pretty severe. I’m a pale shadow of the guitarist that I used to be. Honestly, I have difficulty playing the little bit I do when I teach. Public performance on guitar is completely out of the question. It’s the entire reason that I returned to composition though.
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But try to get a photo of the alleged tattoo ‘Loki was here.’
@waynerowand Interesting comments in this feature about the guy making more money from his band camp page that offers the music for free: https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/how-to-be-a-responsible-music-fan-in-the-age-of-streaming/
What was your act called?
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Yes, that was an informative read. Worth considering his conclusions, too. It’s one way to go about tackling, or rather bypassing as much as possible, the corporate robbery and blandification being foisted upon ‘consumers’ by the likes of Spotify and Apple. Indeed, it is a model with which they cannot compete on their own terms.
I am the worst marketer there is, 2 albums and a bunch of singles on many platforms and I think we've made about $30 total. I'm ok with that, I can't do social media. In fact, I did sound for a social media workshop 2 weeks ago and while interesting, I realized its not for me.
However, this made me think - I unsubscribed yesterday from a bunch of email lists and also unsubscribed from half of the podcasts in my podcast app- I can't hear any more internet sales pitches from "mixing gurus" telling me which plugins to not use anymore and bassists who play in their house telling me the one scale I need to know...a friend hired one of those bassists for some shows he did in the town in which that bassist is located, and when I saw my friend the other day, he told me that the guy didn't bother to look at any of the charts he had advanced him, then proceeded to fumble around for the entire gig. And this was the second time, he was hoping that the first one was just an anomoly.
I'm just going to continue to try to do good work doing sound, playing bass (although similar to you @waynerowand I am having physical difficulty now due to psoriatic arthritis that is really affecting my ability to play) and doing my job as a therapist, and that doing my best is enough. Hopefully people take notice. If not, then I know that I've tried to do my best work and that's enough for me.
@mrufino1 You sound at peace. I’m envious of that. Sorry to hear about the medical problems. I know it sucks.
I'm not at peace, wish I was! But I'm trying. I'm having a difficult time as a therapist right now, burning out on my current situation and a sound contracting job came along right as burnout was setting in, but not enough yet to leave, yet too much to stay full time! My ADHD doesn't help with peace either (I mean actual diagnosed ADHD).
But in the moments where I do experience peace I am realizing its by doing, but by watching youtube videos by a guy in his house giving me info but really trying to sell me "the mixing trick i'm doing wrong and don't even know it" for a price that ends in 7...and yes, Guy McPherson even started "trauma therapist 2.0," the subscription learning and support community online for new trauma therapists. His podcast then became less interesting than it had been to me. So it's not just in music.
I don't know.
Update:
@BradleyFS So I started with your suggestion concerning submithub. Uploaded a track yesterday. It’s picked up several bloggers and is charting @ #3 on the rising artist chart in the “other” category. Not sure exactly what it all means, but seems to be positive so far. I’ll leave updates as things develop.
Congrats Wayne. Don't forget all us little people when you make it big.
Where are you releasing your music? IMHO Bandcamp is the best spot since it automatically generates a mailing list for you and hits it whenever you make a new release. It's also the only contemporary music site making money instead of burning through investor bags.
There's so many articles about marketing music out there, but it does boil down to what would you rather do... make music or nerd out on marketing? Figure out that big picture question and set your expectations with it in mind.
With the marketing time you have, do some growth hacking (bunch of small, easy experiments to see what works) and then run with the best bang for your buck (but don't forget to try new things now and again too).
Medium has been a surprising driver for me (highest click throughs and highest ammount of time spent on page after click through), rather than posting about your music here or on other forums, why not write up some of your stories and link to your catalog?
Awesome, Congrats dude! Were you using premium or standard credits?
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Just followed your example for RTM track ‘Colour of Your Kiss’ and gambled $5. Last of the big time spenders.
Will report back if anything comes from this.
BTW, had to use Premium Credit as standard appeared not to be working. Also, could not change release date. Ho-hum.
Hi,
I’m going to do one of my “general advicing” post so...
First of all
You need a business canvas. Not for others, for yourself. Getting clear what’s your “value proposition” helps in how to build “structural costs” and “revenue flows”.
Also where to find “customers” (or fans) and “distribution channels” and what makes you “special” (or different) as “key habilities” etcetcetc
Then registering your music at somewhere like cdbaby can help.
https://www.cdbaby.com/
They also have a diy musician blog and lots of free guides.
https://es.members.cdbaby.com/musician-guides.aspx
Consider ALL the opinions you recieve and try to put them into the canvas or reject them ASAP. As example...
@Lady_App_titude pointed towards video backtracks.
It’s a good advice since youtube has Friendlymusic library agreement to backtrack video for youtubers and give you royalties everytime someone use one of your songs (jingles or ambient tunes) and it seems making some bucks happens often than we can imagine,
Cdbaby has integrated this and also spotify
Someone other pointed you to live gigs. I read about your health problem and this is your decision but (since this is a general advice post) you can consider not being so self exigent and simplify your acting to confortable zone. From live looping techniques to directly backing tracks or even allie with dj and just remix yourself!
People whi loves your music will pay for living experience of any kind (that includded livecast events on platforms like twitch or youtube too) so think how to fit that in your canvas (or reject it but take in mind you are cutting a revenue flow line)
Then...
Why not make a Patreon? There are lots of contents you can share and monetize from these “marketing pitches” to “look my new album artwork and vote”. Even talking about your problems and how you dare with them. Other user in your situation will follow you probably.
Also considering merchandising?
Cdbaby covers the cd/vinyl too but what about stickers, t-shirts and so. Not directly about your personal brand alone... anything related to your “value proposition” will help. Find alliances. Maybe one of your subscriptors can design something and you can share revenues... or make a price for the best 3 “cover art fan” and use the other two for limited editions or side B album...
Nowadays the best place for diy merchandising are fablabs. You have from vinyl cutters (for t-shirts) to laser cutters (for special packaging done in carton/wood) to plastic 3D printers for... lithograpy?
https://petapixel.com/2017/12/28/3d-printing-photo-lithophane/
But wait... we still didn’t talk about how to grow a fanbase...?
We did but it’s inside diy musician blog
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/musician-tips/long-tail-indie-music/
Source: https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6121578/tales-of-long-tails-death-greatly-exaggerated-guest
You will read pros/cons about long tail theory
but I strong believe (and know by youtuber friends and be involving in fablabbing technologies) it’s a matter of plan and work. People ranting over are lazy the most or directly short envisioned. Proof?
Take this kickstarter as example. They ask for near 60.000€, check how they did. Also check other tabletop role games. These were small projects by passionate people before kickstarter and 3D printing technologies became popular. Niche of the nichest transformed into best-seller. At last one good thing of global economy to the social pyramid’s base.
What about SEO?
Well if you aare going srious hire someone. As little effort great result movement set a “landing page for artist” and fill the social networks you wish. The most maybe the better but t depends on your channel strategy and costumer segments. Example:
https://onepagelove.com/tag/artist
Sumarizing.
so
So I can go further (or not, but I’m tired now) but in the end you need to start from the beggining
1. Look at that canvas and brainstorm over it.
2. Trace an strategic plan.
3. Start work on your content step by step and...
4. Release it to grow a fanbase.
5. Interact and make it bigger until your plan (avoid die by supersuccess or you will be slave of it)
6. Sell the content people buy, gift the content people don’t buy but enjoy. Sometimes expending money (or giving things free) is a good marketing action.
7. Enjoy your passion or learn about you need another revenue flow and let music as hobbie (or hire a manager).
Hope it makes sense to someone!
Peace.
DbbLbb.
Doubled
Okay, just got the following response from Submithub, where an individual rejected the song:
"Somewhat interesting off kilter with a blend of rock and some hiphop. Not sure of the spoken word style though, not sure of its aim"
Now, this pisses me off. Because it tells me nothing I didn’t know, only that the reviewer didn’t understand what he was listening to.
The site, while not a scam, would seem to be about paying Submithub to pass on details to people who are under no obligation to either listen, or open tracks up to the opinion of a wider audience. For all we know it could be a bot, generating pointless replies.
Ah well, it was only $5
What exactly did you pay $5 for @Zen210507 ?
Haven't tried this yet but read a few of their FAQs and it does say that you should expect a lot of rejections.
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Turns out I bought $6 for 5 Premium credits, as the standard freebie wasn’t working. Numeric dyslexia. To be fair, it did work later, when I returned to update.
Rejection, of any creative endeavour, is part of the process. We have no problem with anyone not liking our stuff. Some people will find it to their taste, others not.
However, the notion of paying Submithub to pass on details to people who in turn have no obligation to ask their own audience for views, strikes me as what Arthur Daley would call ‘a nice little earner.’ I don’t know what Submithub bloggers get as their part of the take, but let’s say the average is a couple of hundred listens a day to 20 seconds, it is probably worth thier while to send out boiler plate replies.
I would be very interested to hear from anyone here who has gained anything of value using Submithub. At the moment I’m unsure what it really is, behind the gloss of the website. For real or just fantasy?
I agree, it does sound a bit weighted towards blogs churning through 20 second listens. But then if there is a feedback scoring system then maybe it evens out? Or there is a method to find the more conscientious reviewers?
Be interested to hear whether you get any traction with your remaining credits and that you're not pissing in the wind unless you pay big bucks.
@BradleyFS I’m using the free standard credits.
@Zen210507 I received a ton of rejections, too.
@Dubbylabby Tons of advice there. Thank you! I’ll be reading it between classes today.
If anyone is interested, this is the track that I submitted. 26 minutes of ambient meets Górecki. Possible the most uncommercial track that I could choose.
https://waynerowand.bandcamp.com/track/orbits-reimagined
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Did you feel that these were from real people?
@Zen210507 I didn’t receive any type of feedback when the track was rejected. The notification just said I was rejected, so I can’t speak to that. I received really nice feedback when a blog accepted the track though.
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Oh, okay. Thanks for that, a good luck with your music.
Glad to be helpful.
Cheers!
Great thread. Just read through it.
Having spent much of my spare time in the last 40 years in various creative endeavours, while barely making a nickel from any of them, has been both frustrating and enlightening. I would have loved to make a living from being creative, but that didn’t happen, I took the working route, and can’t cry over that now. But now that I’m retired and have the time, I’ve got to once again seriously ask myself, WTF do I really want out of this? Well, I’d like to have zillions of people listen to my stuff and get fabulously wealthy from it. Which makes me laugh.
Because, I do not write anything remotely mainstream, either the guitar pieces, or the electronica pieces. And I have no consistency of style. I can’t turn out pieces once a week, my stuff tends to be too involved to do that; the people who regularly turn out instrumental guitar pieces every couple of weeks, I either have huge admiration for their work effort and talent, or they’re dull as hell. I don’t really want to spend a ton of time on self promotion, and the various sites that promise help in that regard are besieged by folks like us, and are in the biz of making money off us, not in actually getting our work out there.
Which makes me realize that I need to let go of the desire to be “successful”. My success is in composing/playing/recording things that I like, and growing, and getting it out to the few people who will actually give it a listen. The letting go part is a struggle; I think most of us here feel that way, that we spent the time, dammit, and we’re happy with what we did, why don’t more folks want to hear it?
Not that you should give up, Wayne, not at all. Sounds like you still want to fight the fight. But looking at everything in this thread, and everthing else that has been written on the process, it’s a long, hard, never ending, time and resource consuming fight. Which I guess it always has been. I just don’t have the energy or inclination to keep it up.