Musician

With #Music, Twitter speeds its media domination march

When Twitter opened up its #Music app to everyone on Thursday, it was the strongest sign yet that the social-networking giant is aiming to become a media machine that dominates popular entertainment channels.

There's no doubt that many of Twitter's vast user base already have a deep interest in music, but until now there's been no structured way for artists or fans to leverage that. With the public launch of the company's new discovery service, Twitter has seemingly taken the next step to becoming an indispensable destination both for people to find new music to listen … Read more

Rock stars put their ears in audiologist Julie Glick's hands

I met Julie Glick a few months ago with some folks from Ultimate Ears at a Head-Fi meeting in NY. UE was promoting a new set of custom-molded in-ear headphones, the Personal Reference Monitors, which are just now entering full production. In her NYC office, Glick can fully demonstrate these unique headphones, which are not only custom-molded to your ears but fine-tuned, soundwise, to your liking. Ultimate Ears technicians use the frequency curve you create to build your Personal Reference Monitors. I crafted my EQ curve in Glick's office; it was a lot of fun to design my sound. … Read more

Why do musicians have lousy hi-fis?

I know it doesn't make sense, but it's true: most musicians don't have good hi-fis.

To be fair, most musicians don't have hi-fis at all, because like most people musicians listen in their cars, on computers, or with cheap headphones. Musicians don't have turntables, CD players, stereo amplifiers, and speakers. Granted, most musicians aren't rich, so they're more likely to invest whatever available cash they have in buying instruments. That's understandable, but since they so rarely hear music over a decent system they're pretty clueless about the sound of their recordings.… Read more

Rock stars accuse search engines of enabling music piracy

Some of music's biggest names have accused Google and its competitors of not doing enough to prevent music piracy.

Rock legends Elton John, Robert Plant, and Pete Townshend were among 11 signatories of a letter addressed to British Prime Minister David Cameron said it was time that search engines, Internet service providers, and online advertisers to "play their part in protecting consumers and creators from illegal sites."

The letter also calls for the immediately implementation of the the Digital Economy Act 2010, antipiracy legislation passed two years ago.

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update … Read more

Is the record business headed for oblivion?

I've attended New Music Seminars in NYC before, but this year's event definitely had more passion and spirit. The subheading of this year's festival, "Appetite For Disruption," hinted at the possibilities. The shindig's hub, the old Webster Hall concert venue, hosted nonstop action, and there were more goings-on at 17 clubs and music halls in Manhattan and Williamsburg (Brooklyn).

Guest speakers ran the gamut, from heavyweights like Bob Pittman, CEO of Clear Channel; Lyor Cohen, CEO and chairman of the Warner Music Group; Steve Boom, Amazon's VP for Digital Music; Steve Savoca, head … Read more

Facebook inserts 'listen' button on musicians' pages

The ways to listen to music on Facebook continue to grow. The social network launched a "listen" button on music artists' pages today.

On the top right corner between the "like" and "message" buttons on musicians' fan pages, users can click "listen" and be guided to songs on any of the music streaming services the user has signed up for, such as Spotify and Rdio.

This is different than the "listen with" buttons users can click when they see what their friends are listening too; those buttons were created by … Read more

Are any rock musicians audiophiles?

Anyone can listen to music on $10 computer speakers, free earbuds, or a crappy car audio system. The only thing a good-quality hi-fi brings to the party is sound quality, which is something fewer and fewer people really care about. For audiophiles, sound is a big turn-on, and I figured that out when I was 13 or 14 years old. I was always saving up to buy better-sounding gear, and would spend my nights reveling in the sounds of Led Zeppelin and Doors albums. The sound was so fresh, and the layers of textures and spatial effects were endlessly fascinating. … Read more

Musician-inspired headphones dominate CES 2011

LAS VEGAS--There's no denying it: the trend for headphones at CES 2011 was to have a musician's name attached to the product. Like it or not, the success of the Beats by Dr. Dre line from Monster has a lot to do with the current undercurrent in this market. Of course, one would hope that any earphones made in conjunction with a musical artist sound spectacular, and for many of those announced during this year's show, that remains to be seen. However, we can take a closer look at the exterior design featured by the models shown … Read more

Jingle Punks iPad app helps indie bands get paid

After 15 years of playing and composing my own music, my big payday wasn't a record deal or T-shirt sales, but a sync.

A synchronization license, or "sync," is an industry term for when copyrighted music is matched up with another type of media (video, photos, games) for the purpose of advertising, background music, theme music, etc. In my case, I had 20 seconds of a song played in the middle of an MTV "Real World" episode. It was a crappy show, but it was the most lucrative 20 seconds of my life.

When you think about all the background music that needs to be carefully woven behind all the horrible reality-TV programs out there, you can begin to appreciate how much work goes into tastefully choosing the right music to fit the content. Also bear in mind that for every one music coordinator, there are thousands of bands praying to land a sync deal. In between them is a company called Jingle Punks.

This New York start-up offers video producers and advertisers a deep, well-organized catalog of high-quality indie music that has been pre-cleared for licensing. Instead of sifting through piles of unsolicited promo CDs, or dealing with the relentless push of hired PR guns and agents, music coordinators can use the Jingle Punks site to quickly search, sort, save, and share playlists of songs that are all ready to sync at a moment's notice.

On the artist side, they take submissions from any musician at no cost; however they are picky about what music they accept. If your music is approved, it gets tagged using a specially developed categorization system that favors a "Mad Men" mentality over traditional genre tags. For example, an MTV music supervisor can search the Jingle Punks library for "Juno" and be presented with a selection of songs that sound similar to the quirky pop from the "Juno" movie soundtrack, instead of, say, a listing of songs by the electro-industrial band Juno Reactor.

Now, here's where we get to the iPad tie-in.… Read more

Avid intros new Pro Tools studio bundles

If you're looking for a quick, cheap, and easy way to dive into recording audio with Pro Tools, Avid has three new entry-level home studio bundles made just for you.

Each product includes a copy of Pro Tools SE software, which boils down the industry-standard recording software to 16 channels of audio, 10 virtual instrument tracks, one video track, and 3GB of royalty free audio samples and loops.

Depending on your particular recording interest (or budget), you can pick from three hardware options, including a Recording Studio USB audio interface for $119, a Vocal Studio with a USB microphone … Read more