Posted on

Behind The Board – The Winery & The Summer Wind

This Sunday, April 7th,  we began our working relationship with Maxim Records in NY. Stefano and Liz put together a world-class event at an old church converted into a restaurant/wine bar/music venue known as the Winery At Saint George. With a surprisingly decent sized stage and really warm acoustics, this was a fantastic setting for Maxim Records to show off some of their talents, which included Claire Walsh, Grace Doty, and Sarina Santore. It was quite a setting for a rock concert. A battle of contrasts if you will.

20130407_170824

The room was relatively easy to dial in for us. The only issue was the rear alcove. Setting the drums up there made an amazing sound chamber for a heavy hitting drummer. The warmth of the room really worked for the power singers like Sarina. Claire Walsh was absolutely fun. Hopefully Yorktown and the surrounding areas really support this great venue for years to come. The next event for Maxim will be June 30th. We will post details later on our calendar.

 

20130407_171254

 

The Summer schedule for the production staff is again really strong! Working with NEXT Music this summer is going to be amazing with Wild Adriatic in June, Jessica Lynn in July, and the return of The Matt O’Ree Band in August to help celebrate a years  worth of shows at Captain Lawrence Brewery. We also have rumblings of some great stuff in September! (will let details out as they become official).  First we have to get through our spring schedule. NEXT next week will be Glint at Captain Lawrence. And don’t for get the incredible The Attic Ends will return to NEXT in May to celebrate the release of their new album. Listen to the NEXT podcast to keep up with these bands and others you may not have known were your favorite yet!

NEXT - Glint _ Captain Lawrence

We still have plenty of room on our schedule for your Corporate events, Weddings, Parties, and speaking engagements. Photo, DJ, MC, Video, Music or what ever your production needs, just contact us through the contact page and we’ll get right back to you with a free quote.

 

http://youtu.be/xs15l8DVy5E

Posted on

Sound Advice – An Open Letter to Bands Pt II

Today the music scene is awful for young original musicians. The music industry has failed to survive the internet thus far. The record label behemoths have fallen. Popular commercial radio is consolidating to very few stations and formats in the big cities. Clubs would rather hire DJ’s and some cover bands than the original bands. Potential fans attentions have moved away from the new musicians coming up, and the DJ is the new “Rock Star”.  Bands today must work harder, for far less money for a long time building up a following that will raise their value to potential venues. Fortunately there is the tools of social networking out to help you do this. If used properly and consistently, a band can still build up a huge following.

A proper social marketing program for any band should include Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Google+. They’re all free. They all have millions of users, meaning if used right, millions of potential viewers. Bands also should have a Sonic Bids, Reverb Nation, MySpace and last but not least their own web page. Your own web page will be your hub. All these social media pages will center around this webpage. It should also contain your “Press Kit”. Direct them to your page by putting out content that is on your page, but linked out to the social media world. For example, host a video of one of your songs on your web page. Post a link on your Facebook page with a preview and statement saying check out our latest performance (or similar). Viewers of your page will then see this on their news feeds, click on the link, and be taken to your page to listen to the music.

You must post at regular intervals. Not every 5 minutes, but hourly would help. The more you post, the more you show up in news feeds. The trick is to find the interval between presence and annoyance that makes sure people see you out there without hating you! Using insights on your Facebook page will help you decide the right interval by seeing when people are most likely to see your posts.

Content is vital! What  all these sites do is help you get content out to people. What is content? Content is pictures, audio clips, video clips, and little fun blurbs about the band. All of this must be of the best quality you can afford to get, so spend some money and invest in yourselves! If you’re going to put out lousy videos with awful audio, you’re going to give people a bad impression. BNK Productions is one of many companies that are able to help you with this. Load your pages with 3 or 4 pieces of music/videos to be rotated in a regular rotation. Post on your Facebook and Twitter pages links to the new content. Companies like ourselves come out and record a multi-track audio recording of your show, a bunch of photos, and some videos that can be mixed with the audio recordings. Now you have new content for your pages.  as you write new songs, or refresh old ones you can get more done.

Again, the quality of the content is vital. Fuzzy audio, pixelated video, and blurry pictures are absolutely annoying. You will lead people away with that kind of content. If you want to be taken seriously you need to appear serious! I’m sure most people who read this have gone on to Youtube to see a video only to find it was from someone’s phone and you can’t see or hear anything! It’s annoying. Do it enough and people will avoid your band and that will defeat all this effort!

For a great example of using the social net to market yourself, find yourself on Daria Musk’s Facebook , Google + and webpage . She is a perfect study of how to market yourself in the Social Music biz…and could be considered the music queen of the Google Hangouts.

For information on bringing us out to build your portfolio of content email us using the contact link above. We offer all kinds of marketing/promotional help for bands.

Posted on

Sound Advice

As a sound tech, the one thing I see the most that I find strange is vocalists who do not carry their own microphones.  Guitarists, Bassists, and Drummers all spend countless moments getting familiar with their equipment to develop their sound yet many vocalists  in club gigging bands will just rely on some cheap old mic that’s been sitting behind the bar and used 2 or more times a week by other singers. It’s been dropped and spit on, who knows what else. But what’s worse is the vocalist didn’t spend the countless moments that other musicians spend picking the right microphone to present their instrument out to the world.

Lets think about this here. A vocalist’s voice is their instrument. Everyone sounds different and some are more distinguishable from others. There are tones, and over tones. Nuances that make you sound like you.  Last thing a vocalist should be is content with just “whatever you got”.  

Now this isn’t just a quality of equipment situation. Or a health one (We’ve seen the nasty things that happen to house mics!). Just like other instruments there are different factors that effect tone and character with microphones. Better quality mics are more consistent sure, but they all pick things out of the air differently. Certain tones will be stronger on some than on others. Some are edgy with more bite, while others are stronger in the low end and may be boomier.

A vocalist needs to visit a bunch of music stores and ask to try some microphones out. Have them set you up with a professional PA amp and speakers. if any eq, it should be set flat. Stand in front of the speakers with a low volume and sing through a bunch of mics while listening to yourself. (Stand indirectly away to avoid feedback.) Which one do you like your sound on? That’s the one you want! Look for stores that carry Shure, AKG, Audix, and Sennheiser. These are the more common quality brands. Once you’ve picked your mic, look on Ebay or some other online stores for cleaning/sterilizing kits to help you maintain your mic and you’re all set. Now when you show up for a gig hand the sound guy your mic. An experienced sound tech has worked with most mics and is familiar with their characteristics. He’ll then eq your mics balance into his system. Take good care of your mic and it will last a long time.