john

Hey Imagine for a second, your musical hero stands in front of you. You have all your tracks on your phone/mp3 player/cd player. They are waiting for you to select a track just for them. They only have time to listen to one track. They stand with their hand out, waiting for you to pass your device over, ready to play. You have perhaps 30 seconds to say something while you hand over your device. What do you say to them? Please post a link to the track! Cheers John

We’ve added another 10 songs to the Rock It! playlist on Songstuff’s Spotify account. Songs featured on this playlist are drawn from a mix of independent artists. Some are members of the Songstuff community for Independent Music and some are not members. Either way, we aim to bring you damn good music from across the rock spectrum. Jump into this awesome selection of artists and their songs. Josephine – Rod Kreiger @RodKreiger Coming For You – Black Cat Bone @BlackCatBone3 Walk With Me – Airport Impressions @Air_Impressions Black Mirror – The Carbons @TheCarbonsMusic ESCAPALISATION – Groznyj @Groznyj_GZNY Take It No More – Ben Poole @benpoolemusic According To You – Orianthi @Orianthi Unexpected Journey – Tycho Mono @Tychomono #Hero – Visual Cliff #VisualCliff Genesis – Finn Arild Aasheim #FinnArildAasheim #playlist #rockplaylist #NewMusic @Songstuff @Musomox1 Help Us To Support Independent Music If you would like us to consider an independent artist to be included on the Rock It! Playlist, or other Songstuff playlist, please contact Songstuff member John, Peggy or Michan. Meanwhile please follow Songstuff on Spotify. About Musomox Musomox, a.k.a. Songstuff staff member John, is a songwriter, producer, performer author and artist.

Yep Steve said his op went well. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery!

Enjoy, yes, absolutely, but also "connect and react to". Most of the music I listen to over and over is music that really means something to me. It does something to me. It's uplifting or soothes my soul etc. Some does make me think. The first time I heard "Times they are a changin'" and other songs for example I definitely thought about their meaning and my own thoughts on that subject, and yes there was an emotional connection. For those songs I didn't feel lectured to. It was more like listening to someone else talking about how they felt. Yet again I go back to if the message is in the song, it is a very different experience.

Oh and I can honestly say that if all the people who said they love this place, it’s not like other communities, they just wish it was busier... if they just stuck around a bit longer, then this would be a very busy site with even more great people

I certainly don’t want you to feel vulnerable, but I completely appreciate artists don’t get to talk of such things very often, so, no problem. Other than running Songstuff for 20 years, I’ve been in and around the music industry in one capacity or another all my life. I can honestly say at this point that I am quietly proud of all the people who have been helped by Songstuff over the years. An average of about 70k - 100k people each month, peak was about 250k. Of course, directly I interact with very few each month by comparison! I have an honours degree in Electronics with Music, where I learned about designing and using analogue and digital music hardware and about software and firmware design for Music. During the degree we also studied composition, production, legal, music and other business fundamentals, marketing etc. It was a good grounding. I should say before I went to Uni I had worked in a recording studio complex where I got the bug for music tech and production. I also got to meet and work with some awesome musicians, artists, engineers and producers and interact with managers, label A&R and execs. I started playing my first instrument aged 4, started performing at maybe 8 or 9, writing about 11-12. Although I have been an artist I haven’t been remotely interested in personal fame since my teens. I value my privacy too much. As a teen/early twenties I had a manager etc, which was pretty useful for learning and making some connections etc. Up until that point professionally I had been a performer or audio engineer. Hmm I think also I had done some session work. My manager had been in a 70’s/80’s folk-rock band where self-reliance was key, even when you were signed. It was fairly common for up and coming music professionals to turn their hand to many roles. You gain experience and you paid your bills. I’ve worked so many roles it’s ridiculous. Audio Engineer (studio & live), Producer, Production Assistant, Stage Crew (audio and lighting), Promoter, Manager, Music Marketer (pre and post internet), session musician, songwriter, artist... though admittedly some areas I have much more experience than others and at different levels. So, just for example, in music marketing I did have training, formal and informal, and have worked professionally, almost all of that experience was still within independent music, this includes running campaigns. Like most artists I also have load of semi-pro and amateur experience everything from designing and planning campaigns to being a street team member. I am lucky enough to have had good friends in radio, tv, video production, journalism, a&r, members of charting bands and more. That has helped me fill in gaps in my knowledge and experience. I also have a stack of experience in running websites, digital marketing including digital music marketing etc. I have a bad habit of putting other people’s music ahead of my own, with my own sat on a shelf while I either work on Songstuff or help other artists set up their infrastructure, but that goes back to my lack of interest in fame. As a teen I had had a small taste and really didn’t enjoy it. I love performing, hate celebrity! Lol These days I help people, unpaid. If I take an interest and offer suggestions or advice, I try to explain it because generally I will not be doing the work. I have been focused on putting together the course work and tools for Songstuff. There’s more but really any suggestions I make will feel sensible to you or not. I tend to avoid name dropping, even though in marketing Songstuff or myself it would often be an advantage. I prefer people to look at the quality of information I give and weigh that up. By all means be critical, ask questions, challenge suggestions, test them out and make sure they will work for you... but I would suggest you did that with anyone, no matter who they are and whether you pay for info or not. I am sure you already satisfy yourself about the quality of advice you get from people and learn to basically trust their suggestions or not. I am not suggesting that you should do anything different with my comments. Asking questions simply helps me in trying to be constructive, to help me to be useful to both you and other people who might follow the convo. I love it when others come up with what they do differently. Music marketing is like shifting sands. There is always new tools and new techniques to learn. I don’t mean to be intrusive or pushy. I am just passionate about making music and trying to help people. It’s why I started Songstuff and why Songstuff is still here today. Ask other members and I am sure they will tell you, I’m not known for short posts As for right now, I’m not pitching for you to buy anything, just explaining that we are addressing the issue you raised (the boards being quieter) with our change in approach. The comments I made were just a “by the way”, assuming suggestions would be welcome, but it’s no big deal From your background and activities Songstuff would seem to be a good fit for you and you a good fit for Songstuff! Awesome I look forward to getting to know you and I truly hope we can help you in whatever way we can. I can honestly say I feel like that towards all members, with the exception of spammers lol

There are a number of contributing factors: Input Gain Had it been a mic input then “pad” buttons should also be set according to what your mic delivers EQ, Compressor and Limiter Before you go using these treatments, you first have to work out what is going on. I suspect that it is a few peaks reaching that -4dB value. Scan the waveform to find those peaks and zoom in to eyeball the wave. When you find where the peak occurs, try selecting some of the wave that doesn’t include the peak. Now scan to find the new peak within the selection.

Thanks Joel! Thanks for sticking with us. Change was necessary and I don't regret it. Not one bit.

It sounds like you have a healthy perspective in place or developing, which is excellent. I don't want it to feel like I was being difficult, but they are useful questions for me to ask to better understand where you are in your journey and help me to pinpoint what I would consider to be potential issues and/or blindspots. Awesome you are beginning to make videos. There's a load to explore there Out of interest what type of videos (production, performance, lyric etc)? Have you tried livestreams (either for performance or fan engagement interactions)? When you say self-released, I am assuming you mean posting on social media etc "here's my song" type posts as distribution and promotion or are you self-releasing through CD Baby / DistroKid etc? Hopefully having this discussion (and others like it) will be of benefit to to you. The ability to have such dsicussions is a big advantage over social media. Loosely, social media is a great first filter on your audience, a method for reaching fans. Forums are much better for interacting with other artists and people involved in the creative process. Of course you can find artists and musicians on social media and fans on forums, I just mean that each environment is more ideally suited to talking with different groups of people. Awesome! Such posts, articles and challenges are intended to be thought provoking, hopefully to help artists to consider their goals, their activities and their options as they move forward. While there are common components to operating as an effective independent artist, the ideal set up will vary from one artist to another. It's always a journey, an evolution, but without the infrastructure and experience of a label it is a longer journey, much less certain. My hope is our activity within this community (and no doubt elsewhere) helps artists to fill that void and that we help to give them knowledge and support to move forward with a higher degree of certainty. I also hope that we help them to establish a strong base of connections with ourselves and other artists who will become collaborators at various points in the process of releasing music and building a fanbase, from writing, recording and producing a song through to branding, marketing and promotion activities. i'm glad you joined too! It hasn't always been this quiet, but it has also been quieter than it is now. Generally speaking, forum activity levels do go up and down. In part, our active member base has changed over time, and social trends have changed a lot too. Initially our active members were more producers and music makers. Then our main member base shifted firstly from producers to songwriters, then lyricists, and now gradually towards artists. In truth there is plenty of useful information and resources for all of these groups. On top of these changes, our own active members have changed due to the members themselves. Just like artists, communities evolve. In order to move forward in a better way sometimes communities need to step back, change and then step forwards. That is exactly what we have been doing. Unfortunately that often has a temporary cost in activity. Especially when the speed of progress is more limited for volunteer and free communities. For Songstuff, our level of change has been pretty big and the number of active members dropped significantly. We are almost finished in creating tools and assets for stepping forward, and we are moving onwards and just beginning our rebuilding of activity. That said, I hope that you and others will still see the value of being active here, and that you will stay active and will see activity levels grow. It's like a snowball rolling down a hill. Activity grows activity, gathering momentum. As increasing numbers see the value to them of being active on Songstuff, activity levels will suddenly begin to take off. In other words, if you value what we offer, your activity will help us to grow overall activity. Big time. Songstuff has always been a free community. It is a double edged sword. People can easily take it for granted, thinking it will just be there, and they don't realise the personal cost of not being personally active is that the community can die (with a less dedicated staff!). Luckily, we are stubborn, steadfast in our support of independent music. The growth of Songstuff rises and falls, in part limited by available budgets. Lack of budgets has acted as a choke, stopping the community from growing beyond a certain point. As a result we needed to make some big changes to help our community to grow in a way that it can fund itself, paying for better servers as activity levels grow. So, in addition to the large amount of free information and resources that Songstuff already provides, we have been putting in place subscription courses and paid products to augment what we offer. What we offer for free will remain for free, and indeed we will keep adding to it, but we hope to remove that choke point through our own fund raising. It must be said, from the experience of many forum communities, subscribers build active communities. People want their money's worth! Subscriber, or not, we hope you guys will help us to grow our community while we help you to grow as artists. Sorry for the long answer to a simple observation, but I felt it deserved a candid explanation

Hey Haim, welcome to Songstuff! Good to have you with us. I might be a little biased, but I think forums are more focused, and they help better with building skills, whereas social media s all about pursuing likes and shares. Each has their place. So I have questions for you... You release 1 song a month because of the high demand of the Internet.... How many fans do you have? Do you release videos or just audio? Do your fans demand brand new songs every month?

@mahesh, everyone’s a comedian lol Musicians are like everybody. They have an opinion. The trouble is, some use their celebrity to then lecture others. For me, that is the issue. By all means express opinions via song, but it becomes something else when they are public speaking. Don’t get me wrong. If they are on a chat show and asked a direct question? A simple answer works. But there is a huge difference between expression opinion within an art piece of any kind, and ramming it down your throat from a lectern. One demands skill and nuance. The other only needs a soapbox. There I think is the root of the problem. The difference between being known as an artist, and relying upon celebrity as an excuse for whatever behaviour. Artists can of course support campaigns etc, but the minute they err into being an active advocate is where the problems start. If they want to highlight issues, do it artistically through their music.

Those were exactly the same type of links with different text displaying. The issue is the kind of file being linked to provided as a raw file. It’s a common way to distribute viruses and Trojan ware. I found an online metadata viewer: https://www.metadata2go.com if you upload there it should give you any metadata which hopefully will hold the music details. Failing that, do you have a note of any of the lyrics?

I removed the links (good catch Lemonstar, thanks!) if it is an mp4, the song details should be embedded in the ID tags. I am not endorsing them, but a brief Google search for “view mp4 ID tag info” gave several options including: https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Well, yes. It’s a largely self-inflicted change. Once upon a time musicians provided social commentary. They were part of the mechanism for the conscience of society. Somewhere along the road too many musicians increasingly fell in love with dreams of stardom, and chasing fame became an all consuming role. Songs stopped being about something of substance, preferring to be about vain issues, good times, the pursuit of happiness. Musicians became focused on personal gain, and the bigger labels ruled the roost, persuading musicians to accept less and less in return, to the extent that musicians were paying to play in every way. They also persuaded musicians to avoid serious topics and not to say anything controversial. A section of musicians took hold of the idea that music should be given away for free. For whatever reason they set a benchmark that music wasn’t worth anything. Unlike any other skill, even musicians were finding music had to be given away for free. People want music, they just want to have it for free. It’s hardly surprising. If musicians don’t put any value on music, how can we expect others to place value on it? If musicians don’t value their skills or their time, how can others? If we have no sense of self-worth, is it a surprise that we can be treated as worthless? Musicians now? They are limited entertainers with nothing of consequence to say. Pretty sad really.

ahhhh! Strings 2 is good, the BBC is a step above. The BBC but threw me!

They have free and paid packages, including bbc symphony. I thought you had one of their paid packages.

Which package? I love them but they aren’t cheap!

Hi Anaezia You might find this topic, and the topic it links to at the beginning of the post, useful to help you to navigate: If you have any questions about Songstuff or our community etc, please don’t hesitate to ask Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the boards! Cheers John

Hi and welcome Carolyne:)

I think everyone can improve, but improve is very different from “become amazing”. I think you are right. In a one to one situation a teacher can work out your motivation: learning because it is fun, learning to become awesome. They can assess you and tell you if realistically can reach your goal etc. However, online it’s often a mass appeal, big pitch about ultimate goals achievement, getting rich, being awesome etc and it isn’t fair. Part of being a teacher is trying to give pupils a realistic expectation of improvement, after all it is demanding of time and money.

Also: Use the “unread content” Quick link just below the top menu on a computer or tablet. on all platforms go to the “Activity” menu options. There you will find links for “All Activity” since your last visit and “Content I Started” and more options under “My Activity Streams”. As Peggy says there are a lot options for finding your content on your profile page. Lastly there is of course the search functionality which is pretty effective. Just click on the magnifying glass in the header to get started.

lol Sounds like a cache issue, probably javascript related. I'm glad it is all sorted.

Thanks for all the great and thorough feedback guys. Cody exactly what doesn't work in Firefox? I am using Firefox to type this So, does delete show but not work sometimes, or just not show sometimes? Can you link me to a topic where you don't see delete or delete doesn't work

Hey Gang The community forum has just had a major update with a bunch of new and improved features. It has required a re-build of our community theme, so in the short term some things might be a little clunky. For example some colors might be a bit off, or text hard to read. If you find a broken feature, or text too hard to read, please let me know and I will add it to the list of features to be fixed. Meanwhile, thank you for your patience! Cheers John

Hey Tierry Great to meet you! I’d be interested in hearing what you are doing and using to build your fanbase and your brand. Check out the music marketing critique and music marketing challenge boards. Cheers John