Pro Soul Alliance is a unique, artist focused
independent record label for the 21st century.
We’re a team of professionals of varying skills ready to help you develop your career. We consult with the top leaders and futurists in the new music business to assist you effectively release your music the way music lovers want to get it, build a growing audience, and earn income, making sure you keep the rights to your music, and save money on expenses. And best of all, we don’t take any of your profits!
Pro Soul is music business, done better.
Here’s a short video to help explain more about what is happening and what we do:
We've done a lousy job at blogging or updating our site lately...
This is partly due to some staff changes and our work with pioneering new strategies for our new and existing artists, but primarily, it's because of a number of large developments that Pro Soul Alliance hasn't shared much about... until now!
After doing some work in China over the last few years, Pro Soul has been working on setting up a world class studio in Beijing over the last year. This is not only a massive undertaking, but a very challenging one in China, as the standards, resources, and experience in this area are still quite limited.
We are excited to announce that after many months of design, construction, development and adjustment, Pro Soul Studios Beijing is now completed and we have begun using it already!
Here's a photo of the control room:
Here's the recording booth. It's professionally built to completely isolated from outside sound, and is large enough to fit a full live band:
Since the studio is in a renovated traditional Chinese courtyard building, we were determined to keep the feeling that was originally there, which was quite a challenge acoustically as there is a lot of glass including a glass roof! But whatever wasn't perfected in design, we were able to compensate with sophisticated hardware/software system that corrects anomalies and imperfections in the room for my monitors.
This has allowed us to create what we feel is one of the most unique studios in China if not the world!
Everyone who has visited say this new studio is not only unique, but inspiring, both Chinese and foreign artists, so we are very pleased. Take a look:
outside, front entrance:
inside before construction:
studio entrance door:
stylish and comfortable, rear of control room:
Recording booth:
Producer, founder of Pro Soul Alliance, Jarome Matthew:
All the equipment has been imported into China for the best possible quality, no fakes or imitations! Just the real thing, Apple, Neve, JoeMeek, Neumann, AKG, Sennheiser, RME, Mackie, Alesis, Tannoy with Mogami cabling and Neutrik connectors all the way! This is driven by Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic with Waves, Audio Ease, Spectrasonics, Native Instruments, East West software to name a few.
Many of these are recent additions to Producer Jarome Matthew's existing range of classic analog and cutting edge digital equipment, making this new studio in Beijing the most powerful, highest quality studio he has worked with in 20 years as a music producer, composer and audio engineer.
We've put a huge amount of time, trouble and great expense to make this one of the best, top quality music and sound design studios in Beijing.
It wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of many wonderful friends and clients in China, you know who you are, Thank you so much!
More exciting news and developments for Pro Soul Alliance in 2012, keep an eye on us!
Though users in Europe have been reaping the benefits of Spotify since 2008, music lovers in the United States got their first taste for the first time a few days ago, when it officially became available in the U.S..
Created in Sweden, At first glance, Spotify must appear like yet another overtyped streaming music service, but upon further investigation users will find that it could very well be the future of the music industry.
It's not that Spotify is unique, it just blends some of the best features of several competing streaming media services. Like Google Music, it uploads music you own to a cloud library, and like Qrocity allows you to stream full albums and songs from a database of millions of songs to a wide range of devices. Like Amazon Cloud Player, you can even access it from a wide variety of devices, including your PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone. But most important of all, it's like Pandora in that it's free, subsidized by ads.
Basically, it's the ultimate way to get, discover, and listen to music.
The foundation of the service is the computer software player, an iTunes like portal that is attractive, powerful and flexible. The interface feels good, presenting songs in an organized list, with a side bar that displays your library and playlists, playback controls and artwork.
When you first start the software, all you'll encounter is the music you already have localized on your computer, but there is a much larger cloud library that you can explore...
Unlike digital marketplaces like iTunes or Zune, however, Spotify doesn't present the cloud database as a storefront, but relies on search, an listing of most popular songs and albums, and social interaction amongst users for new music discovery.
The Top Lists present 100 of the most popular songs and albums on the service, which can be filtered by locale (U.S., U.K., Spain, etc.), and a New Releases panel shows off the newest additions.
But what really drives the service is social interaction and search. Spotify integrates with Facebook, which allows users to find friends who use the service, and share public playlists with each other. It also allows users to copy direct links to their custom playlists, which can be shared publicly (to users who sign up for Spotify)
Browsing custom playlists from friends is a great way to find out their tastes, but using the search tool to dig into the larger database is the best way to expand your library.
Spotify has built a library of over 15 million songs, with 10,000 new tracks added every day. Currently the site's foremost publishing partners include Sony Music, Universal, EMI, Warner Music, and many others.
In searching for music on Spotify, we've found most or all of the tracks we've been looking for, with only a few limited instances where we couldn't.
The biggest names in music? They're there too. Most have their entire catalog available.
Adding songs to your personal library is as simple as dragging them to a playlist, and there's no limit.
Once you've built a large library, you can take it on the go using the Spotify mobile app for iPhone, iPod touch, Android smartphones and tablets, Windows Phone 7, and WebOS.
Of the various versions of the app we tried, all had surprisingly speedy high-fidelity playback, even over 3G. Browsing music using the mobile UI was also pretty intuitive, though obviously browsing thousands of songs is preferable on your desktop or laptop.
The one catch, however, is that only users who pay a monthly subscription fee will be able to stream their complete music library on their mobile device. While the app will allow free users to browse the Spotify library, only premium users will be allowed to play tracks, and flag songs to be cached for offline playback.
The fee for unhindered access is actually pretty reasonable, however, at $9.99 a month, which grants you unlimited offline mode playback on both your PC or your mobile device, as well as higher audio quality and the ability to remove ads.
Of course, nobody likes paying monthly subscription fees, but the beautify of Spotify is that the core service of unlimited access to the larger streaming library is free, so if you decide you don't want or need a premium account, you don't lose any tracks you've organized. For six months, the free version of the service will offer unlimited playback, but after that it will limit users to 10 hours of playback and only 5 plays per song each month.
For those who don't care about mobile access and offline functionality, but loathe ads and want unlimited access, there's a separate option called Spotify Unlimited that costs $4.99 a month and eliminates ads.
If you're cheap like us, however, you'll want to stick with the ad-subsidized version. The ads really aren't that bad. Over the span of two hours, music playback is usually interrupted around twice, and the ads are less than a minute. They were actually not annoying at all. The audio ads either advertised functions of Spotify or played a sample of a song available.
There were also banner ads built into the player, but we hardly noticed them.
What does all this mean for the music business and the future of music?
If you used Spotify, we think you would know the answer, basically it fulfills the need of the music lover that has existed ever since the release of a $18.99 CD with one good song on it. It's quite simply, the legal solution to music piracy.
Music fans want their music when they want it where they want it without restrictions and limitations, or a hard drive of files that gets filled up and won't fit on your phone iPod...
And best of all, the music creators all get paid!
If your a music fan, get on Spotify now (let us know if you can't because you don't have an invite, or your in a different country, we can help...)
if your a music creator, contact us if you want help getting your music on Spotify.
Recently we posted some statistics for social networking in China that showed some staggering numbers demanding musicians not overlook the potential of these resources.
Let's look at some of the top sites used in China for social networking.
China's Twitter equivalent, Sina got smart after the first 2 Twitter knock offs got shut down and automatically censors 'micro blogs'. It has now outdone Twitter only 6 momths after launching with over a million users.
Youku.com is China’s leading Internet video website with 30 million unique viewers a day, and 200 million a month according to Nielsen and iResearch. (That's right, per day!)
Striving to be more than just a Chinese youtube clone, Youku also features professionally produced content. Check out Pro Soul artist Elika Mahony on youku.
30 million unique viewers a
day, and 200 million a month according to Nielsen and iResearch
The largest Internet service portal is Tencent, with 1 billion accounts (485 million active users). In 2009, its revenues surpassed $1.5 billion, 90% of which came from digital goods and games and 10% from ads. Tencent is the most important Internet company in China and the third largest in world, after Google and Microsoft. Tencent’s social network Qzone has 310 million users. Their IM service, QQ, has 50 million concurrent users. China’s answer to Facebook, Renren has 200 million users, 55 million of whom are mobile. Another popular social network, Kaixin001 has 75 million users. The numbers are overwhelming for some marketers - a scale that is hard to imagine.
Another interesting statistic is that 40% of Chinese Web users are creators, compared with 21% of Americans, this is far too great of a market to ignore, marketers and corporations are finding creative ways to circumvent any restrictions when it comes to music marketing.
According to Forbes' Russell Flannery ~ China Wealth, Aug. 10 2010 article Hard Pickin’ Into China’s Growing Music Industry, Mr. Flannery acknowledges that "China is a growing yet difficult market for the music industry." He references Abigail Washburn a 30-year-old Nashville folk singer and banjo player, who's toured with Steve Martin’s bluegrass band and enjoyed successful albums and tours on her own. With some success in the US, the artist now calls China home, and has felt the music industry in China to be welcoming but challenging at times. But she says that "In some ways, it feels like Beijing and Shanghai are ahead of the States, because they’ve actually skipped over CDs and record labels. They just do direct to consumer sales (artist to fans), which is where it needs to go in the U.S."
Flannery's interview with Abigail Washburn, supports the 176 million Chinese connecting via social networking system (SNS) with their “real” friends and online networks is where consumers talk about products, services and music.
These interactive online message boards are the heart of social media in China, representing a vibrant online market.
In future, Pro Soul plan on exploring more about how these social networking resources can be used effectively for promoting music virally, a significantly different approach to how it is done in the west.
We also plan to look at the part mobile phones play in this, a huge part of social culture in Asia.
Adrian was born and raised in Lagos, Nigera but later moved to Canada by himself to explore a new life.
Adrian discovered his love for music at an early age when singing with his high school choir, playing the drums and flute alongside. Influenced early by Euro pop/Rock bands like U2, Robbie Williams, All saints and Jamiroquai, he often tried to experiment by mixing these sounds and tweaking the lyrics. Over the years his taste of music has evolved to become an electronic, synth pop style, with a Neo Soul flavor. Although he gave music a break for about 5 years to focus on college, he managed to practice the art of song writing.
Shortly after leaving Winnipeg and relocating to Vancouver, Canada he met with Producer Pierre Armstrong and penned a number of songs for an EP project.
Adrian’s songs have been influenced by his life and experiences during his travels. The resulting EP set to be released soon, is an ecletic mix ranging from upbeat electronic dance tracks, to laidback, emotional pop songs. The debut track ‘Crazy world’ is a cross over from contemporary pop with a dance feel.
Welcome to Pro Soul Adrian!
We look forward to assisting you connect with new fans that will appreciate your music.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter may not work, but that doesn’t mean that social networking isn't huge in China!
According to Sam Flemming of See i See, China's first social media blog, “Everything that happens in the West is happening on steroids in China.” Chinese social networking statistics show:
384 million Internet users in China, 75% of whom are under 34
221 million bloggers,
222 million creators of online video,
272 million instant messaging users,
265 million online gamers
321 million users who download music
These numbers ring true and gave us a sense of the magnitude of social networking in China, clear proofs of Sam Flemming's statement that “Everything that happens in the West is happening on steroids in China.”
The key is how to use these amazing new markets effectively for music? You can bet Pro Soul is researching this and will report our findings.
In our Part 2 post about social networking and the music business in China, we'll look at some specific sites, and what it's like doing business in China with music.
"There are plenty of millionaires who would pay millions to hang a Van Gogh painting on the wall, but hardly one that would have ever had the crazy nut over for dinner. I feel like the big companies are like that with musicians. They’ll say, "We love music! It’s all about the music!" — but if a musician shows up at the door, they call security.
The disconnect between the music, as a final product, and the musician, as a person going through an ongoing creative process is the most broken aspect of the music business..."
- Derek Sivers, founder of CDbaby.com, largest independent retailer of CD's
We talk about Twitter a lot in relation to artists and promoting music. That's because Twitter is still the top resource for getting awareness for your music next to Facebook and Youtube.
We've had great results for our artists who are using Twitter effectively, increased sales, followers who share the artists music with their friends and their followers, artists getting hired to perform on other artists albums around the world, and more fans, web traffic and general awareness about the artists' music.
But as we've been observing artists Tweeting habits, we've seen that like many Twitter users, many of you are just literally tweeting 'what your doing' at the moment, or doing blatant self advertising...
However this is not an effective way to really use Twitter. It's not enough to make your tweets cut through the noise of the heavily updating marketers, and millions of other Twitter users out there...
Instead of "get my new music here" "I ate something I shouldn't have", or "sick of work, this job sucks". or "when is it going to get hotter?", Try things like, "I just came up with a new melody for a folk pop tune", or "just tried out a new guitar I'm thinking of getting" or, "rehearsing for my next show where I'll be playing some new songs about...." or even, "what do you think a fair consequence would be for this oil spill?"
Be interesting! You all lead interesting lives and do highly intriguing things every day! Tweet about them! People want to know these things, your a creative, talented musician for God's sake! Why are you tweeting the same stuff as everyone else? Your better than that!!
AND, very importantly, if you don't know what to tweet that is interesting, you should be RETWEETING interesting tweets (look for them amongst your followers), and REPLYING to people's tweets that you have any kind of response for. This creates reciprocal communication and connection with other people that if replied to, can get you exposure to hundreds if not thousands of followers! Our artists have had thousands of visitors to their website in one day by using this technique.
This may be even more important that tweeting what you are up to! It is very important and easy to do.
Lastly, write the same way you would talk to a stranger in person.
Would you walk up to someone and say "hi stranger, go buy my CD here"? NO! So don't do it online, be a human being when you write anything online.
Using these techniques you can make the most of the time spent on exposing yourself to new fans. And doing it with a free power Twitter tool like Hootsuite can really make life easier, and allows you to manage large follower lists more easily and effectively.
And if you are having trouble getting time to fit Twitter into your schedule, contact us about setting up tweeting via text messaging from your phone so that it updates all your social networking profiles and your website, and how this can be a very powerful tool for your music promotion!
What progress have you made with Twitter using these techniques or others?
Ali Youssefi has been surrounded by music his entire life. Growing up in Chile and traveling around South America and the Caribbean, he has been exposed to many different musical expressions, many of which find a place in his own music. Ali studied classical guitar in Chile before moving to Argentina to pursue a degree in music therapy. His musical curiosity and love for diversity combine to make him a versatile and original composer and performer, blending genres, instruments and cultures into a unique sound.
Gustaff Besungu is a multi-talented performer who hails from a lineage of drum players. Born and raised in Cameroon-West Africa, he brings to life a unique blend of traditional rhythms with music from around the world. He has performed with many groups in Africa, Israel and the United States. In his travels, he shares aspects of his culture through drum playing, story telling, music and dance.
Pam Hill has been a professional violinist since 1978, performing in twelve symphony orchestras, several commercials, a National Geographic Special and at Carnegie Hall as an orchestra member with a five hundred person chorus. She has taught strings and music in seven music schools and eleven public schools since 1984. Pam loves teaching violin, viola and cello students of all ages and playing levels.
Together they form a unique and diverse trio that has just released an album of Inspirational music that warms hearts, uplifts spirits, and inspire souls.
Pro Soul is assisting them set up a small tour in the summer, and launch a new website with integrated social networking tools that will allow them to connect with their new fans they will meet on that tour, as well as their existing ones.
Welcome to the Pro Soul family!
"My name’s Jamie one half of Biljanaires. The other half belongs to Eddie Biljan. People pass through, but the two of us are the core. A band, song writing collective, and friends, we are all of these. This started one day on my way to work, making music was the farthest thing from my mind. As I went to cross the street a car I recognized drove past and Eddie pulled over and got out. It was like dropping the needle back on the record. I say that because I hadn’t seen him in a long time and we have a history tied up in a band that was called Crush Groove. A fitting name for what it was and will remain. Good times.
So groove to the music. It was written for you, wherever you are."
The Biljanaires (pronounced billionaires) is an extension of vocalist Jamie's account of their inception. The songs are about where they live, in a city beside the Pacific Ocean. Some are about the people that have passed through their lives and how they get remembered. Stories told with words and rhythm. Good clean rock.
This is the band Biljanaires.
Welcome to the family guys.
You deserve to be heard!
This ain’t about theft, this ain’t about copyright infringement, this is about opportunity.
For a new golden era. Where the artist sits at the top of the pyramid.
Are you ready to climb up and take control?
Then make great music.
Respect your audience.
Give people the tools to spread the word, never rip them off.
Know that growth will be slow. But that the edifice you’re building is solid, that it will pay dividends like the old record company pension plan, but now the beneficiary will be YOU, not the fat cats.
Ali Youssefi has been surrounded by music his entire life. Growing up in Chile and traveling around South America and the Caribbean, he has been exposed to many different musical expressions, many of which find a place in his own music. Ali studied classical guitar in Chile before moving to Argentina to pursue a degree in music therapy. His musical curiosity and love for diversity combine to make him a versatile and original composer and performer, blending genres, instruments and cultures into a unique sound.
