Soundcloud is a fairly new service that i’ve been a member of since beta testing. It “lets you move music fast & easy. The platform takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending & distributing music for artists, record labels & other music professionals”. For me i thought it would a nice way of sharing mixes and tracks as the player’s really nice, and getting feedback as the (customisable) player allows comments.
I bought the pro lite account, which allows me to upload a fair amount of tracks each month, so next stop is uploading own tracks and getting some feedback.
There’s a free account open to all, which limits the amount of uploads, users you can follow, and sets that are shown. Seems like a great service but this year will tell.
Today i also got invited to a website/service i’ve been after for quite a while, (but interestingly especially this week!)
The site is called soundcloud, and it was recommended by my friend at EMI, who uses it to send his new lovely breaks goodness.
The service allows users to quickly and easily send files to each other,and has an intelligent web 2.0 interface and a nice round feel to it all.
The site looks perfect for getting my unfinished stuff out there, and (hopefully) get the tracks and ideas moving forward with comments and collaboration from people with more honed production skills that I.
I also wanted somewhere to host my dj mixes, but i think this may infringe on the copyright a bit too closely, so maybe i should find something else for that.
Either way I cant wait to use it, and there’s about a week until it launches properly.
First was one at the dss, to inform them of my course details, and business plan development, and then after a little work on that, i worked through a tutorial on how to make an amen style break (something i wanted to do for so long now again from an old music making article from computer music. (Save as and view from desktop for bigger picture)
In the afternoon i then went to Jibbering to meet our designer for Mr Elephant. We went through the site plan i had been working on last night, and he made notes to go forth with the implementation of the website design. Then it was onto the prince, to meet Diane, to secure the first venue for our next event, and then back to jibbering for 4pm, to meet the ever inspiring Andrew Dubber. and a lucky encounter with blog extraordinaire Pete Ashton. Both gave some great tips, the main one being that i can pretty much do what i want for both sites on a customized wordpress. Which is great news, as i do have to sacrifice somethings having wordpress embedded into my joomla site. Dubber also pointed me in the direction of some useful links, (shared below), and suitably encouraging about the plans for the Mr Elephant site.Get your stats for your website http://www.google.com/analytics/
Mind Map on your computer – http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Get suitably paid for your website – http://newmusicstrategies.com/2007/11/13/ignore-this-its-just-an-ad/
After that it was back to home, and onto a meeting at Anne Marie’s to discuss the project x narrative. We quickly agreed that it should be a mix of both events so far, with the intention of getting the moods of the audience down on paper (with big coloured pens of course) by the end of the night. Rich Batsford has blogged about it here, and there’s the next meeting next monday.
After a while away from the blog, i thought i’d drop a quick update, and share a few things i’ve found most useful
A few days after our last Project X event, we were straight onto organising the next one with a very interesting feedback meeting at the anchor. Rich Batsford blogs about it here, and for those that missed the event, here’s a collective round upSince then i have been concentrating on the forthcoming Mr Elephant plans ready for a meeting with Aart and Dubber next week. The third mixtape, entitled Mr Elephant’s Falling In Love came together really quickly, and I redid a section of the second mixtape, inspired mainly by some feedback from Ant, and to make sure it levelled with the amazingly high standard of the cd covers designed by our very own Aart Tanner. I’ve really enjoyed putting the mixtapes together with music that isn’t the latest or biggest breaks. Aside from learning about some of my favourite artists through Last.Fm, and playing and sharing the music i love with people i like, it feels pretty satisfying on a creative level, to be telling a story, with music i like, without the added focus of mixing, or making people dance.
The other thing i been doing, largely due to having the whole house (and more importantly the kitchen!) to myself for a weekend, is making noise on my guitar. After 4/5 hours work on Mr Elephant a day, i relaxed with some food, a glass or 2 of red, and did a few searches for things i been wondering about for ages, namely singing, guitar and songwriting. Thanks to the magic of the internet, i now have a better understanding of the basics of singing, the importance of song structure, a first lesson in guitar technique (that video above), and (very importantly for me) how to restring my guitar without breaking strings! (though i did bust the one i’d already put on in the attempt to “correct it”!)
These are all just simple searches, and the songwriting tips were from this (rather christian, but surprisingly useful) website
Inspired to write a song after 3 glasses of red, I came up with a nice little ditty on my guitar, and then with song structure, and rhyming structure in mind, i sat down to write the lyrics. Normally the point to skin up, but after almost 3 weeks of giving that up, i decided to look elsewhere for inspiration..So, i went for a ride on my bike…. 5 minutes later, i had a few characters for a story, and 30 minutes later, i had somthing that resembled a pretty decent song As i bust my string on the restringing tutorial afterwards i can’t work on it anymore, but this is definitly an improvement on any previous attempts, and hopefully will be something worth posting soon.
After a couple more youtube tutorials, i watched an amazing gig on http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/ of Jeff Buckley afterwards. A real emotional and inspired performance, and reaffirmed just how easy it is to find inspiration, and great music stuff on the net these days. (Here it is for anyone who wants to watch it.)
Who needs a t.v when you want something inspiring eh?
Spent the evening in the studio today recording two members of the mighty Mama Matrix...Not the zapperesque, balkan gypsy jazz music you might imagine, but a few childrens songs such as “snail slither slowly”
Mama Matrix are defintly one of my favourite bands in Birmingham, and Daz and Anne the ever charming couple, so it was a nice excuse to spend a few hours recording some songs for (Anne and Pyn’s) current “How does your garden grow” kids/schools workshop project, of which i should also be producing their publicity, along with the cd.
Afterwards i felt a little wiped out, as been feeling a bit under the weather last couple of days, but there was still time to learn a blues scale, and a reggae/ska technique from mr daz, of which i can pass on to any budding guitarists..(well the reggae technique anyhow)
“To achieve the “un tchick” sound use the palm of the hand to mute the strings, on the down stroke”
Nice one Daz For more guitar lessons, contact him, via their myspace (or check out their new recordings/see em at Shambhala etc;)
The show is always eclectic & put together with a lot of flow, so check the tracklistings to get the vibes of various shows. Your comments and feedback are always welcome so feel free to comment if you get chance to check the show.
Night Times Breaks Reviewer
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In the afternoon i then went to 
As i bust my string on the restringing tutorial afterwards i can’t work on it anymore, but this is definitly an improvement on any previous attempts, and hopefully will be something worth posting soon.
