john

hi Jon Welcome back. I had seen you were about. I don’t remember you playing an instrument, or at least you were not sharing music at that stage. Everything you did was firmly lyric oriented. That tells you how long ago it was! I’m glad to hear you are now a professional artist. You were always a good lyricist and helpful to fellow members. Cheers John

I just checked the stats. 3.6 Million views in a month. #38 top Music video on YouTube. Pretty impressive for an independent.

@McnaughtonPark @Peggy @buckoff This is the song I was talking about.

Hi Rolling this discussion over from a critique thread… starting with a quote on my post in response to a post about the rights and wrongs of writing simple songs for a young audience with poor attention span and broad appeal: and yet, there is increasing pressure from listeners crying out for substance. I don’t intend a branch discussion in this thread, though I do think it a very, very useful discussion… just not in great detail in MP’s thread. I might start a new thread elsewhere. Meanwhile, I would say that the listening habits of kids is less important than it once was. The active listening demographic has shifted over the years. Sure, for certain markets kids still dominate, but how kids listen has changed. It isn’t as simple as simple language, straightforward messaging, KISS. Kids are less genre defined, less genre restricted. They have broader listening habits than their forebears, with activity driven listening and activity driven diversity being much more important than it once was. The demographic has also changed regarding age. There are many more engaged listeners in older age groups than there once was, and older listers are also much more likely to buy versus stream. Subscriptions and playlists have also hugely transformed listening habits and the various delivery platforms continue to shape discovery. You get the points. I do agree with much of what you say for certain markets Ben, but tapping in to trends is more nuanced than it once was and access to more market niches is much better than it once was. Money is still there to be made however how you make it has considerably changed… and it too is more nuanced and is genre/age dependent. We have access to many more vehicles than we once did. We just need to be aware of them and build suitable ways to engage them. As you say, money is not the only reason and for many no reason at all. For many it is listener numbers on the surface but connection and engagement underneath…. ie reaching and connecting. What works for each target audience is pretty specific BUT as ever, you can follow trends or set trends or something in between. I posted a link the other day to a current viral video that speaks directly to the growing demand for more meat on the bone for songs. It’s a 9 minute piece all about mental health…. “Hi Ren”. A talented and challenging unsigned UK artist. A breath of fresh air. Point is, different labels and publishers and production companies look for different potential products… and they don’t necessarily cater for all demand either. New appetites and rediscovered old ones are found all the time. That’s a role independents have always explored and catered for. Far more trends have been created and developed by grass roots indie than have been manufactured by labels. True, labels are great at jumping on a bandwagon and the driving that bandwagon into the ground by aggressively pursuing “easy and predictable”, but the new ground is broken by the indies. I won’t drone on more other than to say, we each position ourselves towards our various audiences, intentionally or unintentionally. As a songwriter (less so an artist) we get to write cross genre and broad appeal right through to very niche. We cater accordingly. It still remains true that we can make a good living from 10k real fans (if money making is a goal) and you can make a decent living from considerably less. Much depends on the loyalty we build and how prolific we are. As a Songwriter that isn’t an artist we are one step away from the action. For me, writing for specific artists and their audiences is a very effective way ahead, but it isn’t your only option. If you write according to lowest common denominator ( most common, best liked etc) music is bang in the middle of the road, feels more restrictive and is often unchallenging and less original. Getting the balance right is a bit harder, I think. Crack on with the debate

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Oudeweg. Nice to meet you! I can appreciate that earning is not a main motivating factor, however going past a certain point, in size or growth rate, even reach, does require or at least hugely benefits from money. Music costs. Gear. Marketing. Space. Time. The decision then becomes if you don’t fund your music, or if you fund your music from your own pocket, or the amount you extend or amplify your capability, 0% to 100% of funding from elsewhere, such as income from fans, or sync rights. It’s choices and consequences. I mention this only because you mention money and it’s importance.

bonjour Madeleine! Bienvenue sur Songstuff! Hopefully we can help you move forward with some works in English. Do you write song lyrics too, or are you focused only on poetry? Do you ever perform your poems?

Hey Piyush, welcome to Songstuff! One of our site crew, Mahesh, is from Bangalore. So, what’s your jam?

Hey No problem at all. Forums are much more organised into collections of topic related discussion threads than other social media. It makes them much more effective for storing and retrieving information. Ha! You’re lucky I am into an origin of names (personal a place) and history! As an FYI, Gibson is a Scottish name, but doesn’t really have it’s own clan as such. Clans can be a little confusing. People often think that everyone had the same last name, but the reality was that in addition to people with the clan name, there could be people with quite a number of last names, families that owed their allegiance to a clan and clan chief. When there were family groups within a clan, each was known as a “sept” of the Clan. Ie Gibson of clan Buchanan. Gibson was a sept within 3 or so main clans. Buchanan and MacMillan are two of them (I played in a pipe band that wore one of the Buchanan tartans and my wife was born a McMillan. I also had ancestors who were Gibb and Gibson.). I have a feeling another clan they were involved with might be clan Campbell, but don’t quote me. Ulster is in Ireland, and there was a large Sept of clan Buchanan Gibson’s around Ulster. They were of course originally from Scotland :), but that is the Ulster connection. Clan Buchanan is an affiliation of about 50 different family septs. The Gibson Tartan is very similar to the Ancient Buchanan (the tartan I wore in that pipe band) and you could then legitimately wear the Gibson tartan and Buchanan tartans. The Gibson tartan is relatively new, though. As Ulster Gibson’s your ancestors would have been part of clan Buchanan, so they would have worn the Buchanan tartan. As a complete aside, the Bee Gees were originally from Scotland. Bee Gee… originally the Brothers Gibb, shortened and trendy-fied lol Back on your Scottish link, the Gaelic for Gibson is Mac Gibealláin or Mac Giolla-Bríghde, meaning 'son of Gilbert'. The first is a more literal translation. ok enough about all that lol. Music!

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Reid! Looking forward to hearing your music! btw,, I moved your reply into the Introduce Yourself board as a topic. You had replied to a specific thread that asked questions about your background… with a plain vanilla introduction (albeit from your spacecraft now orbiting earth!)…. We try to reply “on topic” to make threads “what they say on the tin”, which makes it much much easier to find what you are looking for both now and later. You are of course very welcome to reply to the topic you originally replied to, though we do expect you to be assimilated mwuahahaha, I mean… we do expect you to answer the questions asked. Thanks for your understanding.

Hi guys I could have posted this in a few places on our boards, but I think here is a great start. I found this video a few weeks ago, maybe a week after it was posted on YouTube by Ren. Ren is an unsigned indie from the U.K. He has a bunch of live performance vids and a few that capture live performance with multiple cameras to create a pretty polished finished result. I write a lot of message and issue based songs myself, at a time when it’s not been that popular. True, I haven’t really taken my songs out there for a loooong time, but I could see the pendulum of interest begin to swing back towards more meaty songs, going beyond relationships and 3 minute pop tracks. At least I hoped it was. So I am very pleased to see that at roughly 4 weeks after posting this song has received 2.4 million views. Enough about me, my interest etc. “Hi Ren” is a wonderfully powerful song. Unconventional. Challenging. Epic. So I wanted to share it, maybe help Ren get some listeners, maybe get it added to our YouTube channels @Peggy. I doth drone on…. wrap your beady eyes and ears around this and let me know what you think. If interested, I might try to get a hold of him to talk about his music.

Hi and a big welcome to Songstuff Matt. Looking forward to hearing your music.

Hey there Perry! Welcome to Songstuff! I feel your pain. I lost 3 years of recorded songs on a fried hard drive. That was bad enough.

Practice. Practice singing unaccompanied. Sing along with recordings. Singing live. Singing recorded. Lots of singing. Take care of your voice. Ear training. Proper breath control on tracks where the breathing points have been identified according to the vocal effort required. Learn how to sing with different microphones, trying to achieve different vocal sounds. @Glammerocity is right. Exaggerated mouth shapes takes a little practice to get the balance right but it really does help. Jagger is a great example. Only one headphone on your ear also helps. Pan fold back all to that headphone to give a mono mix, with nothing coming out the unused speaker. Do multiple takes. Use a comping plug in. Use a vocal timing and tuning plug in to tighten up harmonies. You can edit timing manually but it takes a long time by comparison to something like Revoice Pro or Ultra. Particularly useful for pop and alt pop productions.

Hey there TheeYNG, good to meet you! Welcome to Songstuff What’s your background, aims etc?

Hey Shipreck, good to meet you. Welcome to our community! What is your musical background?

Hi bayramjazz. Welcome to Songstuff! Who are your main influences?

Hey ArkoS, welcome to Songstuff!

Hi Nehzi, welcome to Songstuff! Good to meet you.

Hi and welcome to Songstuff prettyolbird!

Hi Ben Good to have you with us! Welcome to Songstuff!

I am glad you are seeing some progress Janice. It’s a good start!

Hey Nightclubbing, welcome to Songstuff! Who are your musical influences?

Giving you the answers might seem very easy for you, but you are asking people to do YOUR work for you. You are also asking people to help in a way that really doesn't help you. At all. So, to actually help you, instead of giving you exactly what you asked for, I'll say what needs to be said. At some point you have to do the heavy lifting. If anyone else does the heavy lifting for you, then you will get zero benefit from it. I am happy to help discuss your ideas and thoughts, but if you are expecting to have a brilliant thesis where others do the hard work of "thinking" for you, I really wouldn't be helping. I wouldn't be doing you a favour. The idea is simple. Make some observations. Have some questions. Answer them. To get started here I would suggest that YOU makes some observations, YOU come up with some questions and YOU answer the questions. We can then happily debate and fine tune what you have.

It sounds like your audio is perhaps mastered to too high a level before submission. Look for something around: Youtube -1.0 dBTP Peak -13 to -15 LUFS Loudness >9DR Dynamic Range If it's louder than -14 LUFS your music will get turned down. However, it will get turned up and could be limited (to make it louder without going above 0.0dB) if it's quieter than -14 LUFS. Overall, going for a more dynamic and punchy mix sounds much better than an over-compressed, distorted master. Once upon a time, the loudness war was being won by heavily compressed audio with a high perceived loudness. When online services started delivering a lot of older tracks with lower perceived loudness they didn't want large jumps in perceived loudness between tracks. The result is that streaming and download platforms now favour lighter compressed masters, with larger dynamic ranges. They want them compressed enough to get -14dbtp (true peak), with a fairly tight band on the perceived loudness -13 to -15 LUFS and larger dynamic ranges, producing punchier tracks that sound better. My point is, if you provide a heavily compressed track, that is normalised to too high a level, your upload then triggers the YouTube (Soundcloud/Spotify/Apple music etc) codec to compress the audio again resulting in a track with really poor dynamic range and distortion from over compression. Previously online service processing hard limited audio and normalised it to the desired level and converted the result to their desired output format (for example) So, ease off on your final mix compression, try and preserve more dynamic range, and avoid hard limiting. According to Spotify you should leave leaving at least -1dBTP headroom for music submissions, that way they are optimized for the lossy formats. Spotify also suggest that you leave -2dBTP of headroom for a loud track, because loud tracks are more likely to clip during transcoding. I am guessing this last guide you are breaking, and this is giving you the distortion. If you submit to Amazon, be aware NOT to master too quiet as they do turn mixes down, but they do not turn them up! More generally, -1dBTP works for all services... except for CD which is -0.1dBTP, and Amazon & Spotify Loud which work to a -2.0 dBTP. Loudness has a bit more variance, going from -16 LUFS to -8 LUFS. I think -13 LUFS to -15 LUFS is pretty good. A dynamic range of more than -9 is a good guide for all services. I hope this helps. Cheers John

Hi Gang What music related gear is on your Christmas wish list (including "gifts" you buy yourself!)? New hardware, software, instruments.... what is tempting, what is a solid buy? Cheers John