john

Oh, and many artists and publishers have agreements with YouTube, with tracks pre-cleared for cover versions on YouTube only... ie the track is not cleared for release on other platforms and not for commercial use at all. If you want that you need to go to the publisher and ask them. As for samples they are not pre-cleared (as far as I am aware). ie there is no license waiting.. you have to negotiate something. This might as well be before release, because if you build awesome track around something and they then say “No”, you are screwed.

Hey SongSabom, welcome to the Songstuff family! Great to have you with us. I look forward to some interesting posts. Where in the UK are you based?

Even if they have approached you, you need the deal in writing, breaking down the terms of use. For example, it might be free for you to have as an informal release, but not a commercial release. You might have to use it as is, but not be allowed to edit it. You might be allowed to do a commercial release in the UK but not in the USA. Point is, get a copyright statement that tells you what you can use, when you can use it, where you can use it, how you can use it etc... It's a different aspect of copyright you have with samples than compositions, but the same fundamentals apply. Someone owns it, and if you use it you may have restrictions, you may have to pay for a license and in both cases you have to declare it and give accreditation. Splice is, however, a production library, that is 100% royalty free and cleared for commercial use. So you don't need to get approval, though you should look at the terms of use to see if accreditation is still required.

Hey Saudade, welcome to the Songstuff family

Hey John, welcome to the Songstuff family. It’s good to have you with us. What do you hope to get from being here? What are your music/writing based goals?

Hey Anna, Welcome to the Songstuff family!

Hey Benny! It’s good to have you here. Welcome to the Songstuff family!

Followed

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Andrea! Good to have you with us

Hi Kevin! Welcome to the Songstuff family! Where in Scotland are you?

Hi Lukaslord There’s a lack of feedback here because we have specific critique boards, which have rules about participation... including the number of posts you need to have made before you can post your work for review, and the obligation you have to critique the work of others. Members see you post for critique/review here, they just think you are trying to get around those rules. I recommend you post an introduction post to the introduction board, and interact with members. Those 10 posts required to allow you to post lyrics to the critique board will pass in no time at all. Cheers John

Hey RJ, welcome to the Songstuff family! Good to have you with us. Nice to hear a Jeff Buckley cover. Nice tone you have dude. A few good licks too, especially in your low-mid range.

A big welcome to the Songstuff family Steven! Dive right in

Awesome Randy! Many thanks

Hey YB Pretty good all in, though I the piano is too outfront... where the vocals should be. It makes it feel unnecessarily unconfident... which is underlined by the lack of your head through the performance. You might have chopped off your head for some other reason, but that ishow it comes over to a noob to your music. At least this noob. lol And really, musically there is no reason to hide away. I had a listen to the next song and see the presentation is very similar. Your performances are pretty tight but the mixes aren't quite hitting it yet... though very close. Thanks for posting up, I look forward to hearing some more! Cheers John

Hey YBM, Welcome to the Songstuff family! What's your background? It sounds like you enjoy the recording process?

Hey Eclectic Welcome to the Songstuff family! Good to have you with us. Thanks for taking part in the challenge. Please feel free to comment on the works other members post too. The more we talk about the challenge works, the more useful the challenges will be. I can sometimes be very busy, so I don't always get as much time as I would like to be giving detailed critiques but I will try and post some feedback to you over the next day or so. Cheers John

The forums (the bit where members have accounts) has been https only for 2 years. It was both http and https for 4-5 years before that, with any sensitive areas https only. Now the whole forums subdomain is https only. If you look in the bottom right of every forums page you can see the GoDaddy secure site seal, which only appears if the security certificate is valid. In any browser I have used to test it (safari, IE, Chrome, Edge and a few others) the url bar also displays that it is https secure with a valid certificate. The www site has no public accounts and so there was little urgency in making it https. That said it is still planned to make it https in the near future.

hi and welcome to the Songstuff family Davooo!

Hi Gang Would you be willing to write a testimonial, aimed at possible members and new members, that outlines your experience on Songstuff: of the site generally; of the community and how it has been of benefit to you? Testimonials are a great way of introducing people to the community. It helps to set an expectation, and that in turn helps with everything from motivating people to post to guiding them on the best way they interact with other members. It would mean a lot to site staff and myself if you would consider this. Giving a testimonial we can use on Songstuff and on our soical media portals etc. can reach out well beyond Songstuff to bring like minded people here. For a simple text based testimonial, just reply here. If you would be willing to contribute a video testimonial, we can add it to our Songstuff Channel on YouTube. Many thanks! Cheers John PS As always, please share Songstuff articles and topics to help bring writers, musicians and bands here. PPS perhaps you would consider saying something nice about Songstuff on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc? #songstuffrocks

Try to avoid imitating someone else’s work. You didn’t get to hear all the iterations their work went through, plus you are combining a learning exercise with a creative task. Sure you can learn from being creative but when you are stalling (like an engine stalling) it is good to get clarity of purpose. So for example, when I was getting up to speed with current pop production there are a few things to consider: I don’t have their gear What I hear now, they were doing 3 - 9 months ago at least Often they create tracks with a team of writers, producers and engineers, each with a load of experience I still don’t have their gear I realised that to learn, I don’t need to do whole tracks. I just needed to identify the new or unique bit, the thing that drew me to it. I could then just do that bit, learn the technique (whether it was synthesis, effects, editing technique or performance). That allowed me to learn faster, to go through a lot of songs, a lot of producers, engineers, writers etc. Pretty soon you are caught up with where they were 3 - 9 months ago. Then you start creating stuff based off of your new knowledge, you start anticipating trends, being ahead of trends. At some point you are creating stuff at the same time time they are producing similar on trend stuff... ie you are now ahead of the listener’s market and level with the creator market. Eventually comes a point where your music is ahead of where they are.... and it all comes from doing focused learning exercises. In other words, save emulating the songs you hear for learning exercises, just doing the new, unique attractive bits. Much like the draft writing exercise, it is liberating. When you are creating new, original songs, create your songs, not a pale imitation... I say pale because you already idealise the song whose style/sound/perspective you are being influenced by... matching up to that is an almost impossible task. You are asking yourself to be as fresh as the idea was when you first heard it, even though that can never be. How can you remotely hope to be happy with that? It is an old idea as soon as you hear it. Sure, hearing the original can still feel fresh and inspiring, but never as much as those first hearings. It is one of the reasons that it is very rare for a cover song to be as good as, never mind better than, the original. So, learn about style, technique etc as best you can within those focused tasks, and focus on creating new, original track using your unique perspective and combination of skills, which no one else has. No one.

This is a call for submissions for the inclusion of tracks in a compilation album. The compilation is as a fundraiser for Songstuff. The idea is simple. If your track is selected to be included, any funds made directly from compilation sales will go towards funding our community. Submission of your tracks is on that understanding. We would also need your permission to use tracks to promote the compilation, permission to edit for that purpose and to master so that all the tracks sit well together. You can find out more here: http://www.songstuff.com/compilation-1-call-for-submissions/ Many thanks to Songstuff member @Steve Mueske for suggesting the idea, and for offering to manage the submission process and mastering the album! Legend! If you have any questions, please post them in reply to this topic:

Some to get started: Didgeridoo can evoke dry and arid, but also ancient and spiritual Wood percussion, tribal crickets, summer owl hoots, autumn nights gentle wood fire, coal fire, evening/night time whistling wind, cold distant singing (open air) summer

Röde NT2 for me. A great vocal mic, but then there are a lot of good budget vocal microphones now.

Hi Mason Welcome to the Songstuff family. Good to have you with us! I look forward to you trying some things out. I also recommend helping other artists with their ideas and experiments, both as simple critique and formal collaborations. Getting used to pitching in with analysis and ideas also helps you to improve analysis and ideas regarding your own work. In fact often the lack of attachment when contributing to a project with zero tie in helps to free you up. Your ideas become more creative, your different perspective helps your observation and analysis... so definitely worth doing a lot of. Cheers John