MTT Open - Music Think Tank

iDream Studios executives, DJ Parker, Founder and Chief Visionary and Barrie Holley, Founder and CEO answer music industry questions about their new music recording model.

Thank you for being here today gentlemen. We are very interested in your new music recording model and hear that it is going to revolutionize the music industry as we know it and help independent artists build strong recording businesses.

1. The name iDream is interesting. How did you come up with that name?

Permalink |

Tuesday

Aug312010

August 31, 2010

new App takes Radiohead/NIN innovations a step further

Kurt Dahl |

My name is Kurt Dahl, I’m a drummer in Vancouver rock band One Bad Son. I invented something 2 years ago that is now a free iPhone App.

The App lets you the listener customize your own version of my band’s song ‘Rustbucket’, based on different pre-recorded parts of the song that we’ve done in studio. For example, do you want the regular or alternate lyrics in the verse? or more cowbell in the chorus? the live or regular bridge?

Permalink |

Tuesday

Aug312010

August 31, 2010

How NOT to Social Network

Derek Miller |

10 Comments

Myspace, as a medium for social networking, is useless. The signal to noise ratio has plummeted so low that there is essentially no point in trying to reach fans through MySpace. It’s all comment spam, automatic “friending” programs, and bots. Most myspace comment boards look like this:

music business | tagged

Business Strategy,

Networking,

Promotion,

marketing |

1 Reference

Permalink |

Tuesday

Aug312010

August 31, 2010

15 Awesome iPhone/iPad Apps for Music Lovers

Chris Taylor |

It should be no surprise that your iPhone/iPad is a great device for the music lover in us all, even beyond the iTunes/iPod capabilities that come standard. There are tons of apps available for a variety of music lovers. This is the list of the 15 must-have iPhone/iPad apps for music lovers to discover and listen to music, share the awesome music they love, and enjoy live music:

DISCOVERY

1. Last.FM

When it comes to preference based radio players, the two big names are Last.FM and Pandora. Last.FM uses the preferences of other users in the community who have similar tastes in music to recommend songs to you. You can like and dislike tracks all the while adding to the “preferences” that the app uses to suggest new music to you. One of the key differentiators for Last.FM is the unlimited number of skips. If you don’t like a song, skip it. Other apps limit you to a certain number of skips every hour which can be annoying when exploring new genres and artists.

1 Reference

Permalink |

Monday

Aug302010

August 30, 2010

10 LP's vs.10,000 mp3's

Ben Senterfit |

On a recent road trip, my wife and I were listening to music from an iPod I have stuffed with thousands of songs and discussing the devaluation of the song in recorded form.

Old School

I was recounting the days when my friend Javier worked at Bart’s CD Cellar and we would take our hard earned 50 bucks and camp out at the Cellar for hours, each come up with 10 albums, race home and spend the next 8 hours listening to our treasures, arguing over who fared better, and reveling in the sounds coming out of the speakers.

Permalink |

Monday

Aug302010

August 30, 2010

iDreamTM Studios and The Day Studio Music Rose Again

Angela Ursprung |

Since writing “The Happy Decline of the Music Industry” this summer, iDreamTM Studios, Inc, has been pleased to find many other music industry visionaries spreading the good word.

BJ Jansen writes in The New Artist Development Model: Growing your Brand from the Ground Up that there “is a [music industry] road map that begins in extreme complexity and ends in strong monetization like any other successful business.”

Jansen also argues in The Future Record Label Model = Brand Marketing Collective “that the new successful [music industry] models will revolve around collective brand marketing.”

Permalink |

Wednesday

Aug252010

August 25, 2010

Why the Music Industry needs a .MUSIC Official Website Domain Name: All Artists, Bands and Musicians are Music Brands in need of a Home

Constantine Roussos |

11 Comments

The shift of the music industry from a physical to a digital world has brought about a new meaning to the word “branding” for musicians. The biggest priority is branding themselves as a true music entity. The web has helped musicians, artists, bands, industry professionals and companies market themselves to new audiences. However, has the music community maximized their online presence? The underlying strategy is simple: create a brand and associate the brand with a home. In the physical world, we all have a place to call home, where we live, eat and sleep. The virtual world of the Internet is unfortunately a different case for most of the music community. There is no dedicated official website that you can call your own home. More importantly, there is no official website domain name that represents the music community. Time has come for all of us to brand ourselves on the web with a unique identifier and a place we can call home, the music industry standard for official music websites: .MUSIC

The Secret of Branding: Is your Story compelling enough?

The Business of Independent Music,

music promotion | tagged

.music,

domain,

site,

website

Permalink |

Wednesday

Aug252010

August 25, 2010

Copyrights, Publishing, And ASCAP....What's The Difference?

Nate Talbot |

2 Comments

I get asked a lot “I’m with BMI/ASCAP, aren’t they my publisher?” The simple answer to this is no. As Artist/songwriters, you need to know and have a basic understanding of copyrights, PRO’s (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), and publishing companies…..That is if you ever want to get paid for your work!

Let me explain. You write your hit song. You’re ready to press up some CD’s and get down to the local radio station so the world can hear your voice. Your time is NOW!!!!!! But WAIT!!!!!!!! There are a few things you need to do first….like protect your work. Under copyright laws, the second you write down your lyrics or record your song so others can hear it, you are protected under copyrights. End of story. BUT…..how do you prove that you did it first? That’s where the Library of Congress comes in. They keep track of who wrote what song, and when. However, in order for them to do this, they need to know when you have a new song. This is when you fill out the copyright form PA and/or SR. Once this is done, you are safe to play your music for the world.

5 References

Permalink |

Monday

Aug232010

August 23, 2010

The Credit System: A Possible Relief to the Corruption which has scarred the Industry

James Allen |

7 Comments

What happened to the entertainment industry? Well, simply put, it was piracy, but before that little Napster man reared his ugly head in, was the industry actually fair to its musicians and consumers?

The big four ran a cartel on the industry, preventing competition, charging far too much for albums, and ripping off their hard working musician clientele. Hypebot researched the traditional record deal to see which involved parties benefit. Of total revenue, 63% went to the record label, 24% to the distributors, while only the remaining 13% was awarded to the hard working artists. The 13% awarded to musicians must then be allocated to their respective managers, agents, attorneys, etc.

Signing a deal with a record company was once a status symbol. Musicians, signed with one of the big four record labels, could be sure to at least have their music heard. Now these labels are, in desperation, trying to reformat the traditional record deal into what is now known as the 360 Deal. It seems foolish to allow these companies to force musicians into unfair contracts; contracts compromised by unchecked industry power and control.

Permalink |

Friday

Aug202010

August 20, 2010

Unsigned Acts and Drawing Fans - Part 2

Professor Pooch |

The 2nd main reason it’s hard to draw new fans revolves around the word “Perception”. Perception includes, in part, the Artist’s perception or view of their “job”, and how it affects the potential fans perception of the “Unsigned Artists Scene”.

Now, let me say here, the problem of perception and the answers to this problem do not lie totally on the Artist’s shoulders, but also fall on the Artists’ Managers, Venues, Promoters and Fans, which I will also cover later and throughout…

It should be made clear here, that Artists should still care about attracting both the over 21 crowd as well as the younger potential fans. For everyone, even those over 21, there is still the need to discover something new and different, something “to do” that people will know will at least be a lot of fun; an escape.

Life in the Music Business,

Artist Development,

music business | tagged

artist developement,

managers,

music business,

music business advice,

professor pooch

Permalink |

Friday

Aug202010

August 20, 2010

4 Social Media Resources You May Not Know

Christina Duren |

1 Comment

We all spend so much time on the same sites that we sometimes never venture out to sites that are not on our day-to-day list, and we miss some really good nuggets of new information. I try to to make it my duty to check out some of the tech sites to see what’s new out there. This week I put together a small list of some awesome social media resources that may be new to you, that can help with streamlining your social media efforts

Facebook Username

Facebook Username allows you to now create a Vanity URL for your Facebook Fan Page that you can use instead of the long words/numbers URL that Facbook automatically churns out.

Just login to your Facebook account and click this URL http://www.facebook.com/username/ and it will take you to the page where you can create your facbook.com/(yourbandname)

Just makes it much easier to send a smaller URL to someone than a bulky longer one

music marketing,

music promotion | tagged

social media

Permalink |

Tuesday

Aug172010

August 17, 2010

Grooveshark’s privacy policy has a “soul” clause

Dante Cullari |

While reading through Grooveshark’s privacy policy the other day, you could say doing some “research,” I stumbled upon this phrase that seemed a little odd to me:

“This information may also be kept longer than 6 months by EMG if a user is found by EMG’s soul judgment to be suspect of carrying out illegal, unlawful, or dangerous actions with or in this service.“

Music Services | tagged

Funny Typos,

Grooveshark,

Permalink |

Monday

Aug162010

August 16, 2010

Why All Musicians Should Have A .com Website

Shaun Letang |

6 Comments

I’m sure by now you know how useful having an online presence is. Having a website can mean fans have a place to listen to your music and interact with each other. It’ll also give potential fans to hear what you’ve got to offer and buy your music.

One thing that’s surprised me though, is the amount of musicians that don’t have their own .com website. By a .com website, I mean a website where people will type in www.YourMusicianName.com and come across your page. But why is it important to have your own website? What’s wrong with having a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account?