This is a guest post from Geoffrey Granka of Fresh Produce Productions. Find him online at www.freshaudio.ca and @gmgranka on twitter.
“I haven’t had a day job since September of 08! And I ain’t ever going back!”
The economy is crapped out. So is the music business. One could easily be tricked into thinking it’s a bad time to be in the business. EMI almost sold Abbey Road Studios at a discount, and other big three similarly desperate.
What’s good is that now people have to use their brains instead of their chequebooks to “make it”. Acts like Lily Allen all the way to Drake have achieved success with the bargaining power on their side of the table. Getting big on their own dime, and having labels beg to sign them.
Outasight is an enviable position. Through strategic placements of his songs and good old word-of-mouth, he’s gotten over 250k downloads of his debut album Further, and he’s just inked a deal with Warner Music. We could all learn something from him.
How important do you think that fan interaction has been in getting this far?
I personally love interacting with fans who reach out to me, as it’s important in the growing stages to build a relationship with the people who can support and help your career all the way through.
When did you first start to have fans that you didn’t personally recognize?
Over the past few months that has really started to happen, random stuff, you know people coming up to you at events and parties, and even a few times in the street. It’s really flattering, especially knowing that I still have a long way to go, and I certainly appreciate it.
How early in your career was online marketing a part of your marketing campaign?
From the beginning of me taking my career serious online marketing was integral. A few years ago the dream started with a MySpace page and a couple songs. Now more than ever there are a million (free) mediums to try and expose your music to new people all over the world, and I definitely took advantage of that from the get-go.
I first heard your music as the closing music on a high subscription YouTube channel called BreakingNYC. How did that come about?
Ray reached out to me through a public email saying that he has been a fan and would like to use some of my music. I was unfamiliar with his work and a little confused at first, but the exposure has been incredible… He has a loyal and awesome fan base that really took a liking to what I do as well, and I am thankful for such a great exposure opportunity!
How many downloads have you reached on your free album?
As of right now, because of Ray’s help, and also all the major hip hop blogs support, we are over 250,000 downloads of “Further”. It’s almost too good to be true really, every time I see or hear a new number I have to shake my head like, “Did I hear that correctly?” Haha.
If you give away your music for free, where do you expect the money to come from to support yourself?
Artists today release music for free to gain fans and exposure, and if your good enough, work hard enough, and get some lucky breaks, you can turn those fans and exposure into a financial gain. It’s a little sacrifice for the big picture.
Where do you expect to be career-wise in 3 years?
Well, I just signed to Warner Bros, so my goals right now are to get my music ready for a mainstream audience and push through to millions of listeners. So in 3 years, maybe a Grammy or 2, sold out shows across the world, and a great fan base that I will always work hard for!
If you weren’t in music what would you do?
Most likely creative writing, with a focus on fiction and short stories.
When were you able to quit your day job?
I haven’t had a day job since September of 08! And I ain’t ever going back!
What would you tell a young musician looking to market him/herself effectively?
I would say first focus on your music. Artists have become better at marketing than music in some instances, and I think that’s the backwards way of going. If your music is solid, and it’s something you continue to work on and get better at, then the ideas for marketing will come because you will know what you want to do. Persistence is also a huge key, stay on it, keep growing, and be honest to your craft and if you’re good, things will happen…
Ah, Lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s wet and rainy out, so what to do? How about making some music with some fun online sequencers. Snag a comfy chair at Starbucks and kill a few hours making music on your laptop. Perfect!
256 buttons, and one sinewave tone, I find the simplicity of the 16 x 16 grid inspiring. I wish I could program MIDI in a DAW using something like this, that is without buying anything.
Taking the Tone Matrix idea further, iNudge gives you 8 layers of the 16×16 grid, master tempo and volume control, panning and volume control for each layer.
Hobnox is the Ultimate online musical time waster. Hobnox has a classic bass line synth, 2 classic drum machines, and a tone matrix for sound sources. There’s also several routing tools and a mixer but best of all a dozen stompbox effects you can put in any combination. This is simply brilliant, be amazed as hours of your day magically disappear.
What I love about these is I can quickly and easily come up with something cool musically, while I find trying something similar in a DAW to be so much more work. Once you’ve become addicted to these, the trick is getting your DAW to work like them while infinitely opening up your palette of sounds. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but getting closer. FL Studio used to be this inspiring, but over time it lost that fun factor for me.
Did I miss any other cool online music sequencers? Let me know in the comments!
The source was Will singing the second line of ‘9 Crimes’ by Damien Rice. Each recording is a separate take. No processing has been done. Drop all the files into your DAW, keep the piano track active if you like.
Scroll down to the bottom to get the files.
The order of the files has been changed so you’ll need to guess which is which.
Leave a comment with which mic sounds like the best fit for his voice and I’ll email you the answers. EDIT – I don’t have the answers anymore!
Other things to think about:
Which mic sounds like it’s the cheapest?
Which mic sounds the most expensive?
Which 2 mics are the tube mics?
I generally stay away from Pitchfork, I can only take hipsters in small doses, but every couple months I have a look around and find some cool stuff. The Special Presentation series and In The Studio is IMO where the good stuff is.
Some stuff to check out:
Dodos performing 4 songs in a bathroom. I know nothing about this band, sounds pretty cool though. It was well into the third song before I noticed there was no kick drum. I love the toy piano, trash can and the taped together cymbals.
Dan Deacon in the studio. Dan makes some of the goofiest music you’ll ever hear. Snow Ghost studio is soooo beautiful. Lots of gear porn and weird noises. MIDI controlled player piano FTW.
I don’t normally post about songwriting or lyric writing here, but this short series of videos caught my interest.
One of the roles of a music producer is to help the artist with lyrics, making the songs the best they can be. Preserving the natural shape of the language was not something that ever occurred to me before. This will be a big help for me as a producer. There are 4 videos to watch below. Enjoy!
