Westsidewill – Wild Off The Air

Yeahhhhhhh, I think we have 2 new kings to crown my friends…The greatest unsigned artist showcase ever?!?!? I mean, we are good, and the music is good, that’s a combo we don’t always get here at WestSideWill…Dave and I usually drop the ball…But…

Check it out right now on www.westsidewill.com/artistshowcase …

What does Dave look like when he knows he is going to be doing a show with all autotune?

Dave looks like a rabid dog...I mean, we can only hope that's foam...

Awesome.

From time to time as I listen to songs that we receive I have things that I think some people probably need to know, that they probably don’t know, to make their recordings sound “better”.

I think one thing that I need to point out to a lot of the artists out there, especially bands, you NEED to use a compressor! What does a compressor do? It keeps some sounds in check!

Now why would you want to do this? Well often time, BANDS, your music is WAYYYYYYYYYYY too loud for your vocals and we can’t make out what you say because of the out of wackness of your recordings.

So compress your tracks. Here is the easy explanation of the knobs -
Threshold: How high your music can go. Anything over this will be cut.
Ratio: How much the sounds (that go over the ratio) get cut. Now…your sounds will ALWAYS be over the threshold – but they will try to get them close. (In theory it can bring it back, but I don’t think it will).
Attack: That’s how quickly the effect will take place.

So the compressor will “boost” the lower level volume effects, why? Because it takes your TOO LOUD effects and brings the lower sounds closer to the loud sounds. You can play around with the compressor and do some cool things – but what I’m trying to say to you home recording musicians don’t be afraid to use the compressor and see what settings really make your music sound better.

There are a lot of different types of compressors out there, but what I suggest if you are balling on a budget, just download audacity and use the compressor effect they already have installed. You can play with the knobs and see what everything does. I’m telling you – it will help out a ton of you out.

All you have to do to compress your whole song through audacity – import audio (then select the music file). When it’s done importing click on it, which is an important step people, then go to Effects>compressor. And then go to town with the knobs. Test out what works best for you.

That’s my quick recording tip for the day. There is so much more that I could probably have said about the compressor but I want to keep this simple. I know a lot of musicians just make music, the process behind the recording isn’t something a lot of you are experts in, so I hope this helps. If you have any specific questions you can leave them in comment form.

I’m going to file this one under, in case you missed it, because I did, section of this blog.

There is some sort of “Outrage” over the fact that Sports Illustrated airbrushed Danica Patrick’s tattoo out of the photo in their Swimsuit Issue. For those of you who don’t know she has some sort of American Flag tattoo on her lower back…old glory if you will.

Here is a pic where you can clearly see her tattoo:

If this image doesn't get the National Anthem playing in your head...you don't have a pulse...or you hate America. You don't hate America do you?

Man…what a true patriot. I’m not really sure who is “outraged” by this, but I did read that some people were. Danica was OK with them doing that, but clearly she doesn’t know what’s best for her…or America! If you flip through some pages of google searches and comments on blogs you see some people are kind of upset with SI.

I really am confused by all of this. If she’s OK with it, I’m OK with it. And as a neat side note I had no idea she had a “tramp stamp” (But can the Flag be a tramp stamp…?) – couple that with the fact that she is also from Illinois she has a new fan. Well played Danica, well played. Now all I need is for someone to tell me what she races…

In truth I wasn’t really able to understand what any complaints were really about, except the fact that SI said they are all about “Natural Beauty” but they air brushed her…so…how was that natural? Ok, I guess I get the point, but they just removed a tat, she’s still HOT, check out the post airbrush “disaster”:

Who can even look at these Danica pics?!?! SI dropped the ball!

Still…I don’t get the outrage. It’s their mag, they can decide what “natural beauty is”…I’m not complaining. Although one quote I read from a guy, “These SI photos make me sick…” and then I stopped reading. Why? Because I’m sure it was going to end up being the dumbest thing I have ever read – and I really didn’t want it to overtake some of the other dumb things I have read in my life…

So I assume that you read Chapter 1 already so I’m going to move on now to chapter 2.

You have a band/group/sound that you are happy about, what now? Now you need a few songs that will showcase your skills as well as sound good. The number one thing to realize as an unsigned musician out to make money is that people buy SONGS. They aren’t going to buy your albums based on anything else at this point, you are unknowns and look the same as about 100 other bands/artists in your genre, like it or not that’s how it is. So in order to separate yourself from the exact same looking musicians you are going to have to have great music.

That’s important to read a few times, you have to have great music! Not a lot of music, great music. I think I’ve said that enough times now. I don’t care if you have 12 tracks that you have written if they all suck, or some just don’t sound good live at all. What you should focus on at first is a tight 3 songs and then slowly expand that number to 5 then all the way up to 12 when it’s time for a full album. If you are reading this, and you already have 12 songs, pick out the 3 that you are going to focus on and practice ALL THE TIME until you get the perfect sound that you want. No one knows you yet, they aren’t going to expect you to just jump out of the box with 12 tracks anyway, you have to hook them with something.

I call this the fisherman stage of your career. You have to decide how you are going to bait that hook to get the fish (or fans) to bite. The best way to do this isn’t to just throw 12 hooks with junk on em out in the lake and hope something bites, the best way is to have 3 very well placed and baited hooks that will bring in the fish.

So how do you pick what tracks to focus your energies on? Well, before I answer that I want you to remember that you are about getting paid, not about being “you”, at this point. Trust me, after you find some fans and get a buzz going you’ll have plenty of time to be you. My suggestion when picking 3 the 3 tracks is listen to it as a “fan” not an artist. You aren’t looking to be super deep – you want them to be appealing (but maybe your deep songs are appealing). I’m not telling you to change the genre you are in, all I’m asking is that you consider making some tracks that have a broad appeal not something so specific that only your true fans, meaning your mom and dad, will appreciate what you do.

One Republic, Trapped...in a Jungle Gym.

Let’s call this the “One Republic Theory”. One Republic had a song called “Apologize” which was good, but no one really heard of it or anything like that. Then Timbaland came along and put a “remix”, and I use that term loosely, on his album. This gave them a great commercial appeal all of the sudden. Why did this track launch their career? Because once Timbaland got his hands on it, it appealed to a greater audience which brought them in to learn more about One Republic. In case you don’t know the track here it is:

Timbaland Remix

Original

And guess what happened over time? People came to realize that they liked the original version better! So, One Republic was willing to do something for a broader appeal, and once they did that the world learned about them and began to love their music. Brilliant.

That’s all I got for this chapter. Pick out 3 songs, and remember, be like One Republic! It’s OK to do something for commercial appeal, because in the end the focus will always be back on “you”.

If you listened to the Top 10 Unsigned Artist Countdown you’d know that on Thursday February 26th we are going to have our FUN WITH AUTOTUNE show! What does that mean exactly?

Well we have the autotune plugin installed on our computer in the studio so we are going to use it darn it! And we aren’t going to use it for singing, no way, that would be too easy. We are going to use the autotune on us for the whole show, the songs that we play will not be affected.

What’s the point of all this? I think that this show will be a neat way to show people that auto tune can make anyone seem like they are decent singers (and we aren’t even going to be singing). The interesting thing about this experiment is that Dave’s voice and mine come in at completely different keys so it’s going to be fun to see the autotune will correct them both.

Either way it’s going to be a fun show so you should really tune in and see the power of autotune!

****I should probably point out we are going to do it in the crazy T-Pain way, not the subtle normal person way!

I don’t know if you all have heard this story, a lot of you probably not because it happened over in the U.K., but Olympic boxing hopeful Sarah Blewden has been banned from boxing because of her breast implants.

That’s right folks – boxing does suck.

Here is what she looks like:

In Sarah Blewden's defense don't don't really seem HUGE

Source and you can read the article at: www.dailymail.co.uk

In an article that I was reading Sarah and her trainer made a point, they aren’t even really that big and they are gel…Which I guess means they won’t pop? I’m not a doctor but I really don’t see the harm here…other than bringing fans to Olympic boxing!!!! I’m just saying…it’s a stupid rule.

Dave (our local implant expert) has expressed to me that he’s seen enough foxy boxing to know that it’s a relatively harmless process – boxing with implants that is.

I tried to find some “modeling” pics of her, but I’m guessing if she had to turn to boxing she wasn’t exactly a working model.

I’m outraged at the whole situation – someone call Teddy Atlas and let’s get this thing fixed!

Be Honest With Yourself

Let’s start it off this way; we are in the honesty tree and there are no “wrong” answers. Look yourself, band, group, whatever, in the mirror and ask, “Are we any good at what we do?” This is a totally different question than, “Do we Love what we do?” You can love something but just not be any good at it. And no sports fans, just because you work hard and love what you do doesn’t mean you are good at.

I’d be willing to bet Paul Bako loves what he does, and works hard as hell, but stats speak for themselves…how he is still in major league baseball is a whole ‘nother topic for another day…so maybe he’s not a great example because he’s getting paid.

Back to the subject at hand, are you good at what you do? That’s a tough question that centers around whether you can be honest with yourself or not, a lot of us don’t really hear our music the way everyone else does. So what I suggest is asking people you don’t know that well about the music that you made, and if they say you suck…you probably do. Maybe do a dry run on youtube and promote that vid on craigslist and I’m sure you’ll get a lot of feedback. Crude as many of those commenters are they are usually honest. So whatever the majority is, take it as truth, unless you don’t have any comments or views, then maybe you aren’t that great either.

First let’s pretend that you find out your music sucks. You shouldn’t give up on getting paid…yet. What you have to do is figure out why you suck, and I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that it’s because whoever you have doing the vocals can’t really get it done. That’s not really that huge a deal if you aren’t out to make money, but then why are you reading this blog? Since I assume you want to make money you have to get ready to make some changes – bounce your vocalist. What if you are the vocalist? Bounce yourself back to tambourine and call it a day. As much as we all hate to hear that, and everyone hates to start trouble, it’s honest. You have to be good at what you do and if you can’t do it vocally you have to figure something out.

So what do you do now that you know you need a new vocalist? That’s a good question, the fact is it’s hard to find “great” vocal talents out there, but they are there. If you are tight musically I think you should be fine when it comes to finding a singer who can actually sing. If you can’t…then as much as I hate to tell someone to quit on their dream, you should probably update your resume. No one wants to pay for any sort of musical group who sucks vocally, and that’s a fact jack. Does quitting on the dream of making money as an artist mean that you can’t make music and have fun anymore? Nope. It just means don’t waste time on a dream that won’t happen.

Now, on the other side of the equation, what if you actually are good at what you do? If after a self evaluation you find that you do everything pretty well, sure there is some stuff that you need to tighten up, it’s time to take the next step. If you are treating yourself as a business you know that you have to have a tight group of 4 or 5 songs that you can perform without a problem on the spot. You can’t just be some band that comes out with a new track every other week – it doesn’t allow you the time that you need to have a song that sounds great, sure it will give you variety, but no one cares if your band has 100 or 10 songs. The truth is if someone wants to hear something different they’ll find another band to listen to, the key is to be so good at your 5 tracks that the people will wait anxiously for your next new track – that’s the key. That’s probably more of a topic for another chapter.

What I wanted to point out today is that the first step as a music group is to evaluate yourself honestly, if there is a part that can’t be fixed (like a someone who can’t sing. You can’t really teach singing – you can improve on a voice that is already pretty good, but you can’t make someone a good singer) you have to replace it. A musical group is like a finely tuned machine and you can’t have a rusty part in that machine because it will make everything else seem rusty. The homework for the end of this chapter is just to evaluate your music/band/group/raps/whatever and be honest about it. If you can evaluate yourself and either find out that you are pretty good as it is, or fix the rusty part, you’ll be ready for chapter 2 that will be coming along shortly.

You know, it’s kind of funny – I surf around the web from time to time to see what other cool sites are out there for unsigned musicians – and to my surprise there is very little out there for you guys that are legit sources of information or a legit service that will do something that you can’t do on your own.

So that’s kind of why I started to think about writing this blog, then it evolved some. I wanted to write a blog about what NOT to pay for on the internet, but that just seemed rude of me to dump on all those scam sites without really having a reason other than to just point out how dumb they are so my idea moved past that. I decided to write a little how-to guide for unsigned musicians, a guide that should help you actually make money!

I know, it’s weird, I’m doing all of this for free…after surfing the net and comparing prices you would think I would be writing this for $9.95 a month + initial fee of $20.00…but I’m giving away my knowledge for free. Nope. It’s all going to be free right here in our WestSideWill.com blog.

Each blog I write about this I’m going to touch on something different, I’ll even point out great sites that I find and the not so great. For this first blog I just want to get some ground rules down that unsigned musicians NEED to follow before you even think about trying to turn music into a career.

First, you have to be HONEST ABOUT YOUR MUSICAL TALENT. I’m not going to lie, we have over 1,200 artists here on WestSideWill Radio…and some of you aren’t real honest about what you are good at. I can’t even count the number of times when I hear a band or group who has a legit musical score or beat but when the vocalist opens his/her mouth you want to punch someone in the face. Yeah, it’s about that time that I think Dave is happy that we are in different booths when we do the shows. The point here is that the band has to realize that they have a good song, good instrumentation, but a BAD singer. That’s OK if you are just doing music for fun, or just doing it because it’s something you love. That’s the exact reason that we play it on WestSideWill Radio, someone is doing that music because they love it, and really just want to have fun with it so we show it love because of the dedication. Now if our site was only interested in playing artists who wanted to be bankable or who were good those songs wouldn’t sniff the airwaves. I know as artists, and heck even as people, it’s hard to take what people say when the truth hurts. It’s even harder to give out the truth to someone who sucks at singing – so when you find a group who think you suck as a singer maybe…you should listen and pick up the tambourine and find a new singer for your musical project.

Second, treat your musical act (band/solo act/rap group/whatever) as a business. The goal of a business is to make money, so you have to make moves that will make you profitable. This means you have to STOP PAYING FOR MYSPACE PLAYS! Yeah, I’m talking to you, band who wants the size of the e-ego (or Ego) to be huge because they get over 12000 plays a day! Yeah, neat you have a computer click on to your music 12,000 times a day, all for the LOW LOW fee of $25.00 a day. There are better ways to spend that $25.00 that will result in real listeners and real traffic to your band – or you can just pocket the $25.00 and save it for more important things. The point is you have to bring in more money than you spend, but did you know that it takes most small businesses (which unsigned musicians count as) at least 12 months before they start to turn a profit? So in that first year you are going to be spending more than you take in, that’s something you are going to have to be prepared for. There is no get rich quick method in any business that works. Don’t listen to those websites that promise if you pay them $10.00 a month that they are going to teach you have to quit your day job in a week and start playing music full time. That’s stupid talk. And, again if you look at the first thing that I asked that you do, be honest about musical talent, business owners have to make tough decisions. Even if that means telling your best friend of 50 years that he can’t sing, it’s something you are going to have to do if you want to start making a profit. This part of my 3 steps is going to be the one that I’ll focus on the most. There are great ways to make money with your unsigned music – you just have to know what to do and where to look. There are also great ways to lose a ton of money paying idiots to do nothing but take your money – again you have to know what to look for.

Third, you have to make an effort. I was going to put this first but I thought it was obvious, but if that was the case I wouldn’t have to list it at all. Making an effort doesn’t mean spending money, it does however mean that you have to suck it up and make a cold call to a bar/club/venue and ask what it would take to perform there. Yes, I know, those calls are scary and most likely won’t end well but it wouldn’t be hard to do if it was easy (Yogi Berra anyone?!?!). Of course this is the bread and butter of making and effort, but there’s all sorts of other stuff that fall into this category that I’m going to talk about. I think you just have to realize that making an effort is going to be a big part of this, but making an effort isn’t the only thing. If trying hard was all that counted we’d all be rich…

That’s all I’m really going to touch on today, I don’t want to bog down the blog with a 10,000 word essay about how to make money, so I’m going to do a handy dandy guide that is going to help everyone out. Will this guide make everyone super rich with their music? Nope. But if you follow ALL of the three steps above you should vastly improve your standing.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of this blog coming soon!!!!!

From time to time I like to feature songs that I enjoy here in the ol’ blog, but today is going to be a little bit different – I’m going to feature a song that I’m not so sure what I feel about it.

The track? I Love College by Asher Roth, it’s a pretty good song and he has a nice flow. And by that I mean he sounds a lot like Eminem, maybe not as quick with his rhymes and some of his lyrics are so-so but his tone sounds just like early Eminem stuff.

I guess that’s why I’m torn. I liked early Eminem, and current Eminem for that matter, but I’m not sure what exactly I think about Asher Roth because I kind of get the feeling that I’ve heard this before just a lot more angry and expletive filled.

Check the track:

My problems with the track?

He sounds just too deliberate with what he says, almost like he’s forcing it. But on the other side of the issue is the fact he knows what he’s rapping about, it’s not rims, selling drugs, guns, beef with 50 etc. And for that I like him, and the track.

So what have I decided? While writing this blog I think I figured I like the guy, he doesn’t lie with what he says, and what he says is believable! I Love College, and I Love Drinking, so I think we can all relate.

Here’s the thing about Pittsburgh Slim, he’s just your average dude who happens to make music.

And now that he’s a famous musician he get’s chicks to do all sorts of crazy stuff, it started of with ‘Girls Kiss Girls’ when he had 2 super hot chicks make out in his video.

Does anyone think Mr. Slim could pull that off without his music...I don't think so.

I’d be willing to bet a whopping $10 that there is no way in hell he was able to ever pull that off before he became a semi-popular musician, and damnit that’s what I like about him. He is riding this train for all it’s worth and I think we can all agree we would be doing the exact same thing.

And now for his new video “My Bitch is Crazy” – a video where he is doing all sorts of random stuff with a pretty good looking girl AND then at the end he is in bed with like a million chicks…Well played mr. Slim, well played.

Check out the Video:

(Note to self: If I ever become a famous musician…after I learn some sort of musical skill of course…I’m going to have like 100 hot chicks in every music video with me)

It has a catchy beat, but it’s one of those tracks that’s probably going to end up staying in the clubs – and Europe, not a whole lot of mainstream spins, but it’s still a good track.