john

I like a bouzouki, but on balance I tend to prefer the tone of an octave mandola. I wonder if I could persuade someone to provide one of each to perform a comparison? Maybe an Irish instrument maker, I’m only over in Scotland! Maybe not. Lol I’ll keep my fingers crossed about a set of uilleann pipes, small highland A pipes and a set of Scottish border pipes for a similar comparison too! (Snowball’s chance in hell!) I have a mandolin, and I played the violin for many years (same tuning). I really should put an octave mandola or zouk on my buy list.

It took a long long time to build up!

I have to admit I am very similar. I use a pen and paper + my phone for recording vocal melody ideas through to interesting riffs. I will add that I also heavily use the notes app on my iPhone. I want to also start photographing my notes and scribbles and use AI or OCR to decipher and record my paper notes. I have no problem with ideas. If anything I have way too many to turn them all into songs. Similarly I have no problems with coming up with topics, perspectives and voices when I need to. I’ve played with ideas generators but find the suggestions to be too contrived and struggling to be relevant. I think they could be fun for challenges for challenge sake, but I don’t think I have turned any into a song I have actually added to my song tally. They are more like ideas to explore for fun and learning. Which is ok. I don’t think I expected them to be anything more. Where I start largely depends on the song I want to write. Pop songs usually start with an emotion, then support it with a basic beat and quickly move into melody supported by a bass line (especially if it is a funky piece!). Electronica can start from a nice synth sound, a sequence, a rhythm or a melody. Rock I start with riffs, melody and phrase ideas. Folk I start with a vocal rhythm quickly followed by words and melody. Modern acoustic is similar except I often start with an emotion and idea, before getting a vocal rhythm, words and melody. Piano or guitar heavy pieces i usually start from emotion and let y that guide all that I do. I usually centre around an emotion or emotional journey very quickly no matter where I start. The emotion helps me stay connected, it helps me retain the integrity of the piece (as I see it). It helps me weave the melodies, feel the rhythm, write words that mean something to me. I think it helps me make my songs feel authentic even if they are fictitious. More and more I enjoy writing as I record. It helps keep a song fresh. I have found it easiest to do this with electronica and chill out music, but it is beginning to feature across the board for me. It helps me to keep songs feeling fresh, raw, unfiltered, at least to my ear!

Hey there Floris! It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to the Songstuff Music Community. You’re a Songstuffer now

Hocus pocus! Oh to have a crystal ball. I guess the biggest things I would like to see is more stability in the industry for earnings mechanisms for songwriters and artists, however I expect what has been happening so far will continue… that is the assault on musicians and music related income. So, realistically, what is already possible for songwriters will become more established and a broader range of effective tools will be available. I think it will take a period of success to convince the largely cynical artistic community to get off their ass. Being fair, some very much are getting their feet dirty, which is great to see. I don’t see it being a tsunami any time soon, but it will continue to evolve. Putting on my Songstuff hat for a moment, I look forward to Songstuff playing a more active roll in educating and enabling. Things continue to evolve for the site too. I believe there is an artist based need for EPs/albums that is not served well by the “all songs being available on a single song basis”. Back in the day (here we go again!) artists had radio/single mixes, extended plays/ 12” singles, and album mixes… and they would be different enough to justify buying multiple versions of a song. For that to work artists need to be able to offer albums, and empowered to offer bundle offers to fans, where artists really can challenge what is offered to fans. Ok, they can already do a lot of this, but a lot of artists and labels will need to decide to offer single songs and collections where songs that are not singles are not available outside the collection. At some point we have to act in our own best interest! As for bundles, yes you can do these on your own websites, but then you have the nightmare of sales tax to contend with. Do-able but takes effort. Other than that, I’d like to see collection agencies better integrated with independent music, so that indies can more easily earn from traditional music industry income streams. Lastly, Spotify have just announced that they plan to stop payouts on any track that has less than 1000 plays in a year (while they still get ad income from those plays). YouTube effectively does similar by only allowing monetization when you have more than so many followers and so many plays. They too of course get the income from ads on those plays. I don’t think Spotify even has provision for a roll-over. Point is, for indies album tracks rarely go anywhere on Spotify. Truthful 99% of indies get zero out of putting almost all of their tracks on Spotify. Better to do something more fruitful with them. Of course the truth is also painful. To do well, realistically, you need a great marketing campaign to go along with great songs. Fail on either and you might as well drive blindly through unknown country roads with your windows down and your music turned up, for all the good it does you. Common strategies used by indies: Exposure model Build it and they will come (Aka my music is good enough to be discovered on it’s own) Hope and pray They don’t have the budget to crack the exposure model. Only way it works is with innovative marketing and upwards of 2 years hard work with as much budget as you can muster. Build it and they will come is a snowball’s chance in hell. It’s arrogant and lazy. Putting it all on the music is not a strategy. Hope is not a strategy either. There are a few ways besides the above that can work, but they take learning, patience and hard work. I’d like to see more artists prepared to work. Too many older artists are ignorant or misinformed or lazy or unrealistic or completely consumed by cynicism. Perhaps a combination of these. I used to think it was worth investing in changing their minds using knowledge, but people don’t like being told. People like to discover. So, if I could wave a wand and fix something, it would be to get artists to use realistic, achievable strategies now, instead of waiting to see younger artists blaze a trail. Cheers John

Somethings I like the way they were, some the way they are, most on how I think they could be. In the past much was limited by who you knew and how much money you had. That still plays an important role, particularly in mainstream music, but I think, the modern age only highlights the reality that musicians always were challenged in getting their music in front of listeners. It is much more obvious now. While the scale is ever increasing, we now have far greater spread of knowledge, incredible reach, tools and better access to detailed metrics than ever before. For a creative, detail oriented mind, tools just amplify what we can do applying our knowledge. Make sense?

Hey, Good stuff, welcome to SOngstuff! looking forward to hearing some more

The landscape has changed. radio still has a useful place, just much less useful than it once was. YouTube is the platform for discovery. Channel hosts and Reactioners are the new music champions and as such they can convey your music to millions. Ask Ren Gill about his new number one album in the UK, almost entirely made possible via reaction channels on YouTube. Unsigned. No management company… although I believe he does have some kind of relationship with an independent label towards the end of that campaign. My point is, there are new mechanisms to achieve the same ends. Everything is always moving. We shouldn’t be afraid of change. Change will happen, and you either roll with it or you don’t, but be aware, when you don’t roll with it, you might as well try to hold back the tide. Better to find out how the new shit works, and do that.

It just underlines the need to learn the basics of music marketing and a sustainable artist model. It’s not about getting famous, but just getting your music heard. Back in the day, you had to learn to get people to your gigs in order to even book at places that already had a reasonable audience more than once. They all wanted to know you could pull in more of a crowd. More to the point, if you didn’t learn the basics of that, you could be playing to a more or less empty room in a lot of venues. Many bands didn’t learn that, or thought that they should be treated like rock stars already. For years now the rule is: If you want to make music, and you want people to actually hear it, you need to do much more than just “make it available”. If you aren’t prepared to do more, you have to accept that it is unlikely to be heard. Simple.

Hey I plan a few stand alone singles, minimum of 2, followed by 2 EPs in preparation for a full album next year. I still love the album format! Recording starts towards the end of next week. Over the next week I am finishing a production of a song for Mahesh and doing a remix of the same Songs are all written, although I always leave the door open for any songs I write along the way. Cheers John

Why don’t you try doing covers of pre-cleared songs? Use a site like wearethehits.com. Register there, select a song from their million+ catalogue, record a video and upload and earn. You will run into issues everywhere if you are using samples taken from recordings without consent. Although YouTube have rules to protect their site, they also protect sites like Songstuff (who embed their content) and the person posting. Companies still sue private individuals for infringement, especially if they have assets (car, house etc). Add to that, even if you are not sued, your music can be removed from the internet very easily. Point is, why have all the hassle of creating recordings that are infringing song or recording copyrights? It isn’t worth the hassle.

I don’t know him but not everyone who runs or establishes a business completely lacks compassion, or and interest in connecting with others. True, there are plenty that are focused on money alone, but not all. I always thought Derek Sivers was quite human, and has always been quite responsive to communications. Maybe he has changed? I haven’t heard anything to indicate that.

Hi I recently bought the upgrade for Revoice Pro 4 to 5 hoping for something near what the tool promised. Unfortunately it seems a bit buggy. The saved session state gets a bit muddled, the interface is a bit clunky, it isn’t intuitive and now…. I can’t use it to do its core function without crashing. It’s damn frustrating. Honestly, for some types of music, like pop, it can potentially save a lot of time creating closely synced, flawless harmonies. Hopefully there is a quick fix. I’ve contacted their support and with any luck, I will hear back soon. Does anyone have a more positive experience? A similar experience? Right now I am just disappointed Cheers John

Hi Greg This post explains it all. Basically, the previous board didn’t really show the songs off very well. It was just like any other board, so we changed it. We told members in the community newsletter and within several posts on the boards themselves. Members with songs in the old Showcase didn’t have to meet any standard in terms of image or text etc. which didn’t make for a very appealing showcase. All members can submit older songs to be included in the new area, just follow the guidelines and submit what is requested. Cheers John

Hey Gang All my very best wishes to you and yours for 2024! whatever your 2023, I hope your 2024 is your best year yet. Any interesting New Year resolutions? Cheers John

Hey Gang What are your plans for your music in 2024? An album? An EP or two? Singles? Videos? Build a career? Play some gigs? Go on tour? Lay it on me. Cheers John

I wouldn’t post anything sub par there. In other words no tracks in progress, no demos. Not if you are serious about building a following. Mostly I see this being done by people feeling under pressure to post without having a clear idea of what to post. Often they feel they must be posting music, and out of desperation post tracks in progress. Weirdly they simultaneously don’t promote their back catalog. At all! It’s ok to post works in progress and demos here, simply because most end listeners don’t hang out on songwriter and recording sites. You don’t really compromise your music here, where as on X etc you are brandishing your material in the face of end listeners. There’s actually a long list of reasons, but I don’t have time today to go into them all! Lol

You can lose detail on going high to low bit depths and sample rates, because the detail is there to be lost. You cannot add detail going low to high bit depths and sample rates, because the detail does not exist. You might be able to approximate pseudo detail, but not the actual signal detail. At a minimum if it overly affects track and effect numbers, record at 48kHz, because of it’s prevalence in video and film.

Your topic wasn’t in the right place so I moved it here and hopefully you will get a response.

Awesome! Videos too, or just audio?

Hi Dhritiman, Welcome to Songstuff! What sort of music are you writing/recording/releasing?

Good job. Have you tried it with a drum track?

That is sad to hear. It sounds like she was the cause of a lot of anguish, but what (songwriting/artist-wise) did she inspire in you, in your music, etc?

Targeting real listeners and genuine fans on social media is so important. For most of us, musicians are not your natural audience. That’s why relying on Follow for Follow (F4F) Is Killing Your Music. Exchanging likes, targeting other musicians might see your follower count quickly grow but pretty soon your engagement stats will completely tank. Musicians chasing easy likes and followers might temporarily make you feel a little better, but it is much, much more likely to be a nail in your musical coffin. You will eventually realise that they are “pretend fans”. In their eyes, for most, you are an asset for their music, not the other way around. Other than a very small core of people who might genuinely be supportive, most are not. For the pretend fans, your posts about your music eventually become unwelcome internet noise. They don’t engage with your posts, give social platforms the impression your content is dull, uninteresting…. Ie social platforms are being told, over and over again that your content sucks. You need to connect with people who actually want to read your posts, want to listen to your music because… now here comes a radical idea… they actually like your music. Chasing anything else just sees your feed blocked with stuff that doesn’t help you meet your goal of finding genuine listeners, sees you eventually spamming everyone you meet for a shrinking percentage of actually interested people. Have a personal account where you connect with family, friends and you follow people whose content you genuinely find interesting. Have an artist account where you grow your reach to real, potential listeners. Grow engagement with them and encourage them to listen to your music. Put things in place that genuinely help you to build your fanbase. You might find this blog post useful: There is a very small window when it might, arguably, help you in the early days. Yet that is for a few days in the beginning, nothing more. The sooner you move from targeting false audiences the better. That means quickly identifying the genuine fans and taking them somewhere you use just for talking to your listeners. Cheers John

"Follow for follow" (often abbreviated as "F4F") is a tactic where individuals agree to follow each other on social media platforms with the hope of boosting their follower counts. It is often used, to the point of being highly damaging, by artists in the independent music scene. Without realising it, they are killing their own music. Let me explain. While this strategy may seem tempting, especially for emerging artists looking to build a presence, it comes with a variety of drawbacks. Here's a deeper look into the pitfalls of this approach and its interactions with social media algorithms: 1. Inauthentic Audience Growth: One of the major drawbacks of "follow for follow" is that it doesn't lead to a genuinely interested audience. An artist's followers should ideally be people who appreciate and engage with their content. People who actually like their music. With F4F, the followers gained are usually more interested in increasing their own numbers rather than genuinely supporting the artist's work. They rarely, if ever, interact with the artist’s posts never mind listen to their music. 2. Low Engagement Rates: Social media algorithms prioritize content based on engagement. If a high percentage of your followers interact with your posts (like, comment, share, etc.), the platform sees your content as valuable and will show it to more people. However, followers gained through F4F schemes are often not engaged, which can decrease the overall engagement rate and reduce the reach of the artist's posts. 3. Algorithms Can Penalize You: Platforms like Instagram are always evolving their algorithms to promote authentic engagement and combat tactics that attempt to game the system. Engaging in F4F can be detected by these platforms, and there's a risk of having your content deprioritized or, in severe cases, having your account suspended or shadow banned. 4. Dilutes Your Brand: For artists, a consistent brand image and a clear message to their audience is crucial. When an artist's follower list is cluttered with random accounts from F4F exchanges, it can dilute the clarity of their target audience, making marketing efforts less effective. 5. Time-Consuming with Little Return: Engaging in F4F exchanges is time-consuming. Rather than spending time creating content or engaging authentically with potential fans, artists end up chasing hollow numbers that offer little real value. 6. Unwanted Content in Feed: By following a multitude of accounts without genuine interest, an artist's feed can become cluttered with unrelated and uninteresting posts. This can make it more difficult to engage with content from followers the artist truly values. 7. Unsustainable Growth: While F4F might offer a temporary boost in follower numbers, it's not a sustainable strategy for long-term growth. Many users involved in such schemes may unfollow after a short period, leading to fluctuating follower counts. Interaction with Social Media Algorithms Social media platforms use complex algorithms to determine what content gets displayed to users. These algorithms often consider user engagement as a significant factor. When an account has a high percentage of inactive or unengaged followers, as is often the case with F4F schemes, the algorithm interprets this as the account producing low-quality content. As a result, the platform may show the artist's content to fewer users, including genuine followers, leading to even lower engagement. Find Listeners, Build Fans Instead, invest your time in reaching listeners, and building your fanbase from your listeners. This means actively reaching beyond your friends and family. Sure, find potential fans among your friends and family, but by far the majority will be supporting you because they like you. Liking you and truly liking your music are not the same thing. Fans are made from people who like your music. These are the people you are struggling to reach. Grow your reach, yes, but the quality of that reach is massively important. Don’t find followers. Find listeners. In conclusion, while the temptation of quick follower growth might make "follow for follow" schemes seem appealing, they can ultimately hinder an artist's genuine connection with an audience and potentially limit their reach on social media platforms. Building a genuine and engaged following takes time, but the results are far more rewarding and sustainable.