We’re in Singapore now for the Music Matters 2013 Asia music conference!  If your looking to do anything in the mainland Chinese market or feature top, progressive Chinese talent and  original music inside or outside China, we look forward to connecting with you there! We also look forward to connecting with companies within China that want to further expand their profile and appeal to an international market as well as affiliate with companies focusing on progressive Pop, Rock and EDM music.

Contact us on Twitter: @prosoul , email, We Chat: jmatthew or the conference message board.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Last Saturday, EDM hit China in a big way with the largest electronic music festival of it’s kind, featuring David Guetta at an epic location,  the great wall of China in Beijing.

This was an exciting event not only because of the music, but the sold out show of 10,000 featured over 50% Chinese most of which have never been to anything like this or even heard Electronic Dance Music before. you can bet they are now fans and want more.
We were there and by the response, EDM has a bright future in China!

We met with some people from the company putting on the event, and during a KTV party that lasted until 3am, it became clear that if anyone was going to do it, These guys will be the ones to bring EDM to China in a big way primarily due to important government connections necessary to allow this kind of festival, especially at the great wall. They have even created a Chinese facebook tingdong.cn with English and Chinese language support to assist with their efforts. And were doing our part, producing some of the first professional original EDM in Chinese, coming soon!

Check out some of our personal videos and photos as well as this feature in English by China’s largest TV Network, CCTV:

“We have come to an age where a core product — recorded music — is no longer differentiated by price.”

Alicia Yaffe argues in a recent article that music industry suffers because everything is a commodity.  Established bands and first timers all charge the same amount for their music, regardless of quality. Breaking free from the abundance of music, and creating something truly unique will create value in this product, and in turn, make people interested in buying it.
Kickstarter is a great example of a place where value can be added. There, fans are asked to preorder albums, often before it is recorded. Bands can have multiple price points by inserting merchandise, videos, or personalized messages, all of which create value by adding something unique to the buying process.

The same idea can be applied to a band’s live shows. If a group has the same show, night after night, their performances are a commodity. Making each one different will create a unique product, one that must be seen now, or it will never be seen again. Bands that do this will have fans who want to see them more often than those who have a regular routine or setlist.

Read the full article here

“The time of the Record Label has passed. Artists do not need a record label to survive, and in fact, most artists would be better off as a hot indie group than one desperate to sign with any label.”
This and other great advice comes from an article by Simon Tam outlining “The Most Overrated Thing’s In A Musician’s Career”.
Simon goes on to describe other “overrated” things, like paid Electronic Press Kit or EPK services, booking agents, and professional music gear. Especially overrated are big music industry festivals like SXSW, which just finished in Austin, Texas. Bands who get asked to play these festivals are already on their way up, and do not come with any guarantee that you will be noticed by the right people.
Simon also takes aim at Kickstarter, which has been in the news recently for large sums paid out to artists. Without an existing fanbase already willing to pay for your music, your campaign will not be funded as we recently blogged about here.

Read Simon’s full article here on Music Think Tank

Many of our artists ask us why they need to master their songs, so we thought we should write about this important finishing touch in creating music.

Mastering is the final step in the music production and engineering process, the polish that makes the difference. It can determine if a song sounds great and professional, or poor-quality, making people want to press Skip or Delete, or consider you a low level artist.

So What Should Mastering Do?

• Evens out song volume levels and EQ or tone individual tracks to balance all the songs
• Raise the overall level in a way that is not destructive to the dynamics and prevents distortion
  (There is a great debate about this in the digital age, watch this video and this one for more)
• Correct minor mix deficiencies with equalization (top mastering engineer Bob Katz shows you this here)
• Enhance flow by changing the space between tracks, or mix tracks so they blend together
• Eliminate noises between tracks or other issues such as hiss, hum, clicks, even distortion
• Add additional data such as ISRC codes, CD-Text information
  (Artist, Title, and Track Names that can be displayed by some CD players)
• Dither audio a process that ensures when a high quality mix is reduced to CD quality or MP3, the lost data does not cause strange issues. More details in this video
• Create what is called a ‘Red Book Master’ that conforms to industry standard specs for duplication
• Most importantly, Make your music sound great on any sound system
  

In the time we live in with modern technology, mastering is more important than ever!

Why Is Mastering Important?

1) Compression & Reformatting: These days, music really takes a beating. Files are compressed at different quality levels using various technologies, sometimes repeatedly, user after user. Files are imported, converted, compressed, exported, broadcast, shared, burnt, downloaded and then reformatted for the next user experience. There are dozens of public and specialized music formats used by various digital retailers, subscription services, internet radio and websites.

The point is, each of these processes change something. They often exaggerate things such as high frequencies (cymbals will sound more brittle) or eliminate some low end (bass and drum warmth) or just make the whole thing seem flat and lifeless.

2) Playback: OK, take all those variables above and multiply them by all the headphones, ear buds, car stereo systems, iPod docks, computer speakers, home stereos, TV speakers, and worst of all, mobile phone speakers (the number one way much of the world hears music now)
Will that song sound great on Dr Dre headphones and Apple earbuds?  On a mobile phone and in the car? How about in the club? A great master will ensure consistent and pleasing results when played ANYWHERE.

3) Professionalism & Impartiality: A fresh set of ears, using a different pair of great speakers and gear in a new environment, ensures professionalism and impartiality required to prepare songs for the modern world.  It’s less about opinion and artistry, and more about ensuring survivability and maximizing flexibility.

It is important to address the attempt in mastering to match an overall sonic quality as it compares to other artists within the genre as well as volumes. This has led to a destructive ‘Volume War’ the results of which can be seen in this video and this one.

A lot of people these days think mastering is about using some limiting software after watching a youtube video. Let’s make something very clear here. Mastering has little to do with using software to trick the listener into thinking your music is mastered! It is most importantly about the ears of the audio engineer who is doing the mastering. And in my opinion, if the audio engineer has been working in this field for less than 10 years, they probably don’t have the ears to be able to do the job right. Secondly, mastering is about some highly specialized and expensive tools used to do the job right, which may include analog equipment as well as digital software.

All to say, Mastering is more important than ever and every artist should make sure every music release is professionally mastered before unleashing it to the world.

- Pro Soul Studios audio engineer, Jarome Matthew

Amanda Palmer made another big splash in the discussion of the new music industry this month when one of her talks aired on the site TED.com. TED Talks often feature celebrities or notable people discussing technology and music. Amanda’s speech has been widely shared because of some of the extraordinary remarks she made on piracy, record labels, and how she makes money.

Amanda is known for being close to her fans. She has over 800,000 twitter followers, a well-read blog, and “couch surfs” on many of her tours, often staying at fans houses rather than hotels. And, despite her popularity in recent years, she has held on to her Indie title.

Her talk highlighted how she uses this closeness to earn money. Every dollar she makes is the result of a personal connection with each fan. At the beginning of her career, this meant walking around in the crowd with a hat asking for money. Now, she uses twitter to ask for rehearsal space, a room to sleep in, and anything she needs on the road. And, to this day, she has people in public come to her with cash, saying, “I burned your CD from a friend”.

Getting paid directly from her fans proved to be incredibly fruitful after she left her record label. In April 2012, she began a Kickstarter campaign, asking fans to preorder her album, donating money before she recorded it. Although she asked for $100,000 for the project, her fans rewarded her with almost $1.2 Million, the largest amount ever given for a music project.

Through that story and many others, Amanda’s talk outlines how, in the midst of a decline in record sales combined with booming online piracy, she gets all the money she needs from her fans, simply by asking for it.

I highly recommend watching Amanda’s full talk, you can watch the video online or download it for free here.

Guest post by Kyle M. Bagley