To  continue the discussion about money and music, I might claim that economics plays a huge, huge role in various scenarios related to bands or artists playing live — not an artistic vision or otherwise something that has a basis in cultural changes. Those do happen, but it’s a rarity.

For example, the current surge of huge festivals with many artists playing during weekends. It’s all about the costs associated with dragging huge sets around the country. It’s cheaper to fly in the artists and place a big PA system to be used by everyone — at the same time charge extra for all the artists performing. To some degree this is good, the fans have a chance to see many bands and take part of a ‘happening.’ However, the main reason for all this are the huge costs today concerning transportation and other administrative overhead.

Ever wondered if your band or artist never shows up in your town, let’s say somewhere in Alaska? Or why the various band shows are aligned around the country? It’s all based on costs and estimated audience attendance, to maximize the profits. There are usually a lot of concerts here in USA in mid-west as it does not take long to drive between the venues, same on the east coast. While the distances in the west are longer so the costs go up and one needs to do a careful spreadsheet analysis to figure out the venue dates and places.

I personally think that the main reason the so called Super-DJs appeared on the venue circuit has to do with maximizing profits, both for the club owners, agents as well as the DJs. It’s not so expensive to send a DJ, nowadays with just a laptop and backup hard disk, to any place in the world, they do their 4+ hour job, their name as a headline guarantees that people show up and everyone is happy. There’s seldom any huge costs associated with the show as these events do not need pyrotechnical work, lights and so on, just electricity into the DJ booth.

Let me end this with a positive and interesting prediction. As the transport and other costs have become astronomical, there’s a market for local bands and artists. The audience wants something to relate to. At the same time it’s not so expensive to hire as a headliner local musicians and artists, as all that is needed is a short trip to the venue. Many bars nowadays also have decent PA systems so there’s no need to include such costs into the performance.

Anyway, for this to happen, the artists of course have to be good, so you can’t avoid the hard work of good songs, personality, connection with the fans and so forth. However, I actually thinks this will be now easier than during the last ten years where local talent had to compete with mid-range performers. One might even say that the middle-income bands are indeed squeezed in today’s market…

Anyway, one reason behind this post is to teach someone to look at the music world as an economist — a lot of unexplained scenarios will be revealed.

This is one of those chains of dependencies. I was listening to the Andy Partridge interview in Rundgren radio and he talked a little bit about his Ape record label. So I went to the label web site to check out the artists.

Then I did a cross-search on eMusic as I had a lot of tracks I could download so I took down the The Milk and Honey Band album. I must say, this is again one of those hidden gems, each song is excellent, good song writing, interesting songs, too.

By the way, I just finished the Dave Gregory interview on Todd Rundgren radio, David Gregory was the master guitar player in XTC. That interview was even more interesting.

Anyway, if you are intested in excellent song writing, check out The Milk and Honey Band.

MoneyIt actually started as a discussion in the car between me and my wife. I did various rough calculations in the head figuring out what the outcome is from various scenarios related to music and money. So here are similar thoughts, I fired up the MacOSX calculator to quickly calculate various scenarios.

Let’s say you are a bar band that plays four times a month, four people, and here in USA a typical payment from such gigs is between 300 and 400 dollars. So let’s say you get $100 each, or $400 a month, or roughly $4800 or let’s say $4000 a year in case you can’t get that many gigs. If you are really busy, it’s twice or $8000. Now, to be fair you need to register this as income or INS will get back to you later with a huge fee, so let’s say you pay 30% as tax from the $4000, or $2800 a year. Now, as you see, it’s hard to live with this income unless you don’t pay for rent, no health insurance and so on. If you have a family, it’s close to impossible to live with such sums. And I didn’t even take ino account expenses such as gear, gas/transportation and so on.

Let’s say you play in a band that could get gigs six times a month with venues where they ask $15 as entrance fee and could get let’s say 400 fans to show up. As a band this is already a nice situation, to have a public of 400 +/- 100 to show up each time. The venue generates $6000 for each event plus possible money from selling alcohol, but let’s say that they offset this with the costs of the place, hiring bartenders et rest. Of the  $6000, it might be that all kind of forces such as promoters et rest take $1000, still $5000 to split between each member. To exclude any other costs in a four-person band, let’s just assume that each one gets $1000 for the two-hour job. Not bad.

Now if you play 72 times a year, quite a lot, it is $72000 minus taxes, or $50000. One could live with that, as long as someone is frugal and don’t expect to drive the latest car or live in a big house. Still, it’s hard to justify costs as a family bread bringer with this income, doable, but tough.

If you get to the next bracket, play venues with +1000 people, more expensive tickets, it will get to a decent level, but few could reach to this place. I somethings think that reading Rolling Stones is the phone catalogue of such acts.

The thing that helps a lot in USA and Europe is that due to the geographic spread it is easy to create events across all weekends all-year-round, provided you have a very good agent, and of course if you are good to start with.

Now, looking at the recording business, let’s say you have a single that sells 4000 copies on iTunes/Emusic et rest, and this is a lot. Depending on your deal with the label you get everything from 25% of the profit up to close to %100 (you own the label.). So it’s everything between $1k and close to $4k. Not bad, but few could sell this amount of tracks, it depends on your background, catalogue, marketing and so forth. There’s definitely not that much money in selling records today.

You could get some licensing fees from licensed music, films et rest, or BMI/ASCAP licensing fees, again those are not that much unless you belong to the top-1000 artists such as Prince/Elton John/Beatles et rest.

What I’m trying to state is that someone could have an exclusive revenue stream from music, but it is a rare exception rather than the norm. In other words, if you are young and an aspiring musician, please do so but also put in place an alternate career wherefrom you could get revenue. If nothing else, you could purchase a nice guitar every second year or so.

I had to get a lapdesk as I have a hard time moving my right shoulder up due to the accident I had recently (it’s getting better.) Anyway, it’s a laptop desk that you could place either your laptop or your keyboard and mouse — as I do in my studio just now. So I could have everything within a short range from my lap when I’m working.

It’s great! I recommend it, you could sit back and type or do edits in Logic without the need to sit close to a table. If you have a laptop, it will cool down the laptop, as well as the laptop does not push into your knees as the bottom of lapdesk is padded.

Another audio technical secret that I think it’s worth talking about is mid-range. Those who control this spectrum will create a good sound.

This is a very good article from the Line 6 knowledge base talking about mid-range and why someone who ha put together good sounding guitar simulations back home might encounter that in a loud scenario those pre-programmed sounds no longer sound good.

To be brief, we humans based on evolutionary needs could hear more details in the 2kHz range. This is where the human voice is operating. The old loudness trick with Hi-Fi equipment in the seventies was to make a happy curve, emphasize the low and high end and cut out the mid-range, resulting in more details heard outside the 2kHz range, so that it sounded more full.

However, when you boost the volume the ear no longer follows this model, so suddenly you get a sensation of loud highs and wooden mid-range. This is why many guitar amps such as Line 6 sounds good in a bedroom environment — you can’t shred with 120dB volume, but when you take them up on stage they sound tiny and shill unless you have a different EQ provided for stage use.

Mid-range plays an important part in many cases. In the case of bass playing, I’ve seen bass amp setups where the low end is maxed to 11 as well as the treble but the mid-range is decreased. So the bass sound has this low air-moving property but no sound or melody. I usually just go in and do the opposite, take down high and low, and instead play with the mid-range settings to increase that level. If you key in a good sound using mid-range controls, you both get a strong bass signal and  the audience could even hear the bass lines. Amplifiers such as MarkBass have taken this to a scientific level — I still think the reason MarkBass sounds so nice is that they have a strong audio signal coming out on the mid-range levels.

Discussing about mastering, again I feel that any plug-ins that could enforce the mid-range dynamics without causing a wooden sound are great. You could achieve this with band-pass compressors. In my case I use VintageWarmer, with this plug-in I could increase the mid-range dynamics without it sounding too messy.

Anyway, I recommend experimenting with mid-range, if you control this area, in other words avoid the dullness but provide dynamics, your mixes and sound will be taken to a totally new level.

I think I will tell you a secret how to become a very successful musician in any combination of instruments, guitar, bass, drums and so on. I’m kind of surprised it is seldom mentioned. Usually the discussion is about technique, how many notes you could play every second, how many chords you know, how to apply music theory and so forth. However if you have this talent I guarantee you will be a very busy session or band musician.

It has to do with the fundamentals of modern music. Rhythm. Rock and roll and its derivatives, rhythm and blues up to hip-hop, techno, all the forms we enjoy today as modern music are based on rhythm. You might even argue that there’s something in our mental gene pools going back to the origins of dancing around a fire to someone playing primitive drums. So humans are in general inclined to enjoy rhythmic variations.

But there’s more to it. If all a musician needed was perfect sense of rhythm, then it would be easy. However, mechanical following of a rhythmic pattern is not organic. It’s very machine-like; even after years and years of perfect drum patterns using drum machines, most audiences are not that keen to listen to a robotic player.

However, if you start to really analyze and think about the tonality of a band, if there’s a strong driving factor the audience will get very excited. This is what I think the main drive behind arena bands, modern hard-guitar bands and so forth.

And what’s behind all this? It’s really the pulse of a band. I think of it as the pulse because if it is weak the band is weak. If it is strong, the band is strong.

Looking at this as a bass player, where I think the bass player usually provides a large part of the pulse of the band with the help of a drummer, you could think of the bass player providing the energy behind the song. Let’s say a simple 4-bar pattern of quarter-note bass lines: if those are weak and non-specific, it colorizes the whole band sound so the outcome is weak. If the bass player places a lot of emphasis to drive the band so it has a strong pulse, it makes a big difference.

You could think of this as a guitar player, keyboard player, even as a singer. If you take the effort to make the pulse strong, the whole band will be elevated on stage. It’s somewhat hard to describe this all without taking my bass or electric guitar and do an A/B example. Anyway, it has to do with the alertness of a musician. Those who know this will place a lot of work on each note — even with each song constantly thinking that the playing they will provide will elevate the energy level of the band. And the rest is history.

Just to point out this from another angle, many, including me think that Frank Zappa was really a percussionist and the reason he could provide such complex music to the general audience was that he could integrate the percussion/pulse elements even to very complex arrangements.

Anyway, each time I do a session as a musician I have this mantra in my head: pulse, pulse, pulse.

Feedback always appreciated.

Maybe this old video by Todd Rundgren explains how to make money on music today, or not:

Todd Rundgren - An Elpees Worth Of Tunes via Noolmusic.com

Meanwhile, if someone really wants to make a living or even a profit, touring is the way to generate money, not selling records.

However, there’s a really cool spin on actually even making money on records. Press 500 or so special CDs that you sell at concerts, before or after, for $5 or so. It should not be hard to sell them, especially if they have exclusive content such as concert recordings or otherwise rare or brand-new tracks. Add into it your signature or something similar and it’s an easy way to generate revenue. Anyway, I would do it if I would be on an extended tour. The audience loves exclusive stuff, CDs, T-shirts et rest.

I always felt and still feel that musicians and producers should spend equal amount listening to music than just working on their own productions. Even more, this consumption should be based on as broad scale of music as possible.

For example, someone producing techno and constantly listening to just techno, it easily leads to a situation where the same musical patterns move on and on inside the mind — instead of stretching out and trying out something totally different and inspiring, especially for the audience. In the electronic music world, this is one of my concerns, too much of the same just leads to even more production of same kind of music. I think death metal has entered this domain, as well as contemporary rap music, as well. Now, compare this with Snoop Dogg that is fond of country and western. Imagine if the Berlin techno heads would look into Eastern folk music….

Anyway, nowadays it’s not even a big commercial issue to expand your music collection on iPod. I’ve mentioned before that using eMusic is a good way to purchase totally different music. If you ever got interested in let’s say classical music from the 18:th century or jazz from New Orleans, this is the place.

Another excellent source that I’ve used recently is the Amazon MP3 offerings. I got John Coltraine’s My Favorite Things album for $o.99. That’s a no brainer concerning purchase. Amazon also releases each week a lot of free MP3 files, all you need to do is to visit their deal site and download from all kinds of musical directions.

Next, download it all into an iPod and set the iPod to shuffle mode so each track is something totally different. I used this when driving down to San Diego a month ago, it was 6+ hours of totally different tracks each moment.

Finally, if you really want to stretch out, check out the SugarMegs.org web site that has terabytes of all kinds of live recordings from bands going back to the seventies.

I got the Yamaha DD-65 electronic drum kit shipped to the door this morning, that was fun, an electronic drum kit and I have four broken rips and a broken shoulder from last Tuesday. Anyway, could not avoid testing it out a little bit.

A couple of months ago I attended a Sunday jam where a drummer brought one of these in. I really liked the drum sounds, going through the PA. Also, I got these for a really good online price so I could not resist.

I have multiple reasons to get this one. First, I really needed another input for percussion triggering concerning MIDI and built-in drum machines and loops. Even better, via MIDI I could drive Superior Drummer 2.0 so that the recorded sound will sound like recorded in a huge studio using very exotic and good drums.

Secondly, if I have band configurations practicing in my garage, I don’t mind it as long as the volume could be controlled. Drums are the worst case scenario, with electronic drums that’s under control.

Thirdly, it’s been a long time since I played drums and I never got to a level where I considered I could jump into any song and just play drums, so that should be corrected. My youngest son also wants to learn drumming so this is a good start. The system has lots of drum sets as well as songs, I could disable the drums and then learn along. Or hook it via aux in with music from a computer or an iPod.

These are not like Roland V-Drums, the kick and hi-hat buttons are flimsy and the hi-hat only has open/close midi messages. Otherwise, for the $220 I payed (including power supply) they are definitely worth the cost.

I will get a used share stand for placement. Who knows, when I feel better, I might take them to jams for either percussion or pure drum usage…

As I’m more home-bound just now and want to rest in order to get back to productivity speed, I’ve been in my bed and listening to podcasts, especially the 70+ Rundgren radio episodes — some might have figured out I’m a big Todd Rundgren fan. I heard Initiation on the Finnish radio and the next week figured out a way to do a field trip at my middle school to the nearest city to look at various other educational institutions. When we arrived at the city I sneaked out from the bus and found my way to a record store to purchase the Initiation album. As there were no ipods and walkmans at that time, I tried to memorize the tracks while I was working on the field driving a tractor, so that was one way to internalize tracks. I’m sure all this has influenced my music making, especially the big interest to make 30+ long songs.

Anyway, there’s always been all kinds of interesting stories what really happened during XTC’s Skylarking sessions, and Andy tells a lot of fun stories. Not only that, he talks about the music business today, about his Ape record label and much more. Not only that, he’s a funny chap.

So if you have a chance and interest, listen to this somewhat long (two hour) question and answer session. I have one link to Odeo, but based on the state of web links coming and going you might need to hunt down the Rundgren radio podcast sessions in future. I will actually try to listen to them all, as they have interviewed musicians that are working or have worked with Rundgren, and they all have fascinating and interesting stories and insights.

I think I mentioned it before, but podcasts is the future of radio, not FM or even digital/satellite FM. The reason is that the cost to set up a podcast is minimal, even the technologies needed are here, such as GarageBand. As anyone could start any themed podcast, no license needed, all that is required is someone who wants to do it. There’s always an  audience out there if the content is interesting.

I purchased Stephen Bennett’s book Logic Pro 8 Tips and Tricks  from the University of California San Diego bookstore that I visited a couple of weeks’s ago. It’s a cheap book and an easy buy, so I snatched it up and read it during the vacation.

Still reading it back and forth. What I like is that it’s like my collection of Logic bookmarks, techniques and tips that are not clearly described in the original documentation, such as how to set up an arpeggiator in the environment view.

This book also has lots of screen shots with references in the text so you could figure out how to do the same in the Logic environment. So for this price and the rest I recommend the book.

It happened Tuesday evening on my way home from work, just outside where I work in Cupertino, I collided with a car — still don’t know what really happened, it’s all blurry. I woke up looking at the roof of an ambulance.

Fortunately nothing really bad happened: a concussion, four broken ribs and a broken shoulder. I could type and do minor things, but the doctors told me to stay home for a while.

Staring at the ER roof a long night also made me think more about the little time we all have for each pass on this planet — and that I should focus music-wise on things that are really important and productive.

In my case it is getting back to producing bands and doing music that I think should be heard. So every bad event has a positive outcome.As it seems I don’t get tired typing and it does not hurt — actually expect a little bit more postings during the next 10 days or so.

Meanwhile, if you bike, wear a helmet and padded gloves and anything else that saves you if you hit a windshield and the road. If I didn’t do that, most likely I would look like a cyborg attached to a life-supporting device just now.

YouTube is an excellent source of music information. I know many musicians around here who practice covers using YouTube as a source of the original information.

Recently I’ve been researching PowerPop songs, the past and the current. Here is a playlist with 100 PowerPop tunes (there might be even more as I’m adding more and more entries along the way).

The only headache is that record labels force YouTube to remove entries from time to time — which is strange, who would like to spend a lot of time listening to 80kpbs audio streams, so some of those songs might disappear from time to time.

I’m especially impressed by what The Kinks did in the  sixties, me thinks Kinks and The Who were the ones that created PowerPop. But I had to start the playlist with Nazz track Open My Eyes, as it’s a combination of PowerPop and brit/psychedelic that I currently enjoy. Todd Rundgren, the actual song writer, actually played this song 2000 in San Francisco, here’s a YouTube Clip from that one.

There’s a reason behind it all, more later, working on covers and original songs related to PowerPop of all the things out there in the music universe.

I must say, as of last Friday I was up to my neck with the issue of blues. To explain, a lot of jam sessions around the Bay area are blues jams, of many reasons. One is that this seems to be a very blues-centric place, Silicon Valley of all places. Secondly, doing blues jams is a no-brainer for even less qualified musicians, standard shuffle in G and here we go.

Anyway, imagine going to such places for a while — as I’ve done — playing shuffles, walking line bass stuff, Texas shuffle, hearing over and over again the same cliche solos, there’s a limit to all that. One could read a newspaper and play standard blues at the same time.

Even worse, poor audience, they really don’t get much out from it, I would think. One of the basic rules for any musician is that when they go up on stage their job is to entertain the audience, not themselves or the musicians. Neither have ego-trips about solos and showing off, rather building something that the audience is enjoying.

Sadly, a lot of blues jams really don’t work that well, no wonder the places are usually empty, or if this starts, people leave the place.

Anyway, it came to a point where I thought that’s it, no more blues for me. Enter Rundgren and his Live in San Francisco 2000 DVD that arrived from Blockbuster a couple of days ago.

Todd Rundgren actually does in the middle of the show a medley of Mystified/Broke Down and Busted, very psychedelic blues indeed.

Anyway, what Todd did was to take blues and R&B tracks and actually make them very, very interesting and enjoyable for the public, it was quite a revelation for me. There’s nothing wrong with blues, it’s the presentation.

In other words, yes I will pack my guitar and show up at jams, but this time with a very creative bent and try to do something different out of those tracks that are jammed so the audience has fun. Worst case they throw me out from the place….

PS: This YouTube video has Mystified, the sound is not that good but the beginning dialogue by Todd is hilarious. Anyway,check out his presentation to the audience concerning blues.

Here’s another big benefit with Logic when doing collaborations with other song writers using the same package.

As Logic is so deep concerning the provided loops, plugins, sw synths, effects and so forth,  we are able to bounce the project back and forth while keeping everything intact.

This is a big plus. We could work on separate projects and then now and then sync the tracks together for a new collated version.

You could go very far with the built-in tools in Logic. Now there’s the option of freezing tracks in case you use synths and plug-ins the other part does not have, so that’s also doable.

Still, I’m always surprised how much you could get done with a default Logic Studio installation. It might even be good that the options are somewhat restricted so we could spend more time working on the song structure and melodies instead of tinkering with effects.