THE LEARNING CURVE PROJECT
I will not be cutting any corners as I venture on this journey as I go from point A to B and finally to Z in the next year.
Along the way I will be investigating the different genres of house music. Anyone that has an interest in this style of music knows that there are more styles that I can shake a stick at, but I will do my best. I’m also hoping my peers who have made a success in this industry will provide feedback, give professional advice, and answer any questions I may have. It doesn’t matter what style of music or how big they’ve made it, we all have to start somewhere and hopefully, they can share their experiences with me.
I invite you to get involved as well by sharing your story, no matter what it is you do and maybe we can all learn from each others gains and losses.
Final note: I have recently learned that there is a rock band called "The Learning Curve" after setting up this page. I have nothing to do with them and apologise for any confusion.
I’m back after a tiring weekend in London at the LEME 2013 event. I must admit that it was alright. From the twitter followers for the event I guessed it would not be something big, but I can see it getting bigger in years to come. So you get a round picture it’s best I start from the begining.
At first I was contemplating should I bother to go to this event. The only thing I could think I had to lose was the money and that don’t grow on trees. As you can guess I took the plunge and paid up. From the confirmation email I was expecting my ticket to arrive in the post, so to make sure I had the tickets I decided to travel on the Saturday morning via coach. I’ll just quickly point out now that I hate coach and I would have preferred to travel on the Friday by train. On Friday morning I had no post from LEME but I did get an email. I replied and asked if I could pick up the ticket at the event, I got a reply saying they don’t give out tickets and I will get a wrist band on the day. I was not pleased to know that cause as I said I wanted to travel on friday. Something I should have mentioned before, on the day of me purchasing the ticket I used the contact page on the website to enquire about the said ticket and got no reply. So now you can see why I was not happy.
Anyway I decided to look over that minor and got ready to leave on Saturday morning at 7:30am. 4 1/2 hours later I arrive in London with bags in my hands that I needed to drop off at my sisters. It was not my wish to be lugging them around all day. By the time I reach at my sisters it’s roughly midday, the event started at 10 so I’ve already missed some. No worries as it should only take me 1/2 hour travel on the tube and a 5 minute walk following the instructions on the website. No such luck. I got to Liverpool Street station, it’s roughly 1pm, no biggie until I realised the venue is not a 5 minute walk but rather a 25 minute walk to Bethnal Green road. By now I’m really tired, hungry and getting a bit sweaty and uncomfortable with all the walking in the mild weather when I’m wearing a ski jacket and wooly hat [it was cold when I left in the morning].
I must admit that while I am a Londoner I don’t know where every road in London is and finding a address not known to me is not as easy as it may seem. Once I found Bethnal Green road I had to look for the number of the building. I had a feeling that I had walked too far when I started to see Council Estates, Off Licenses and signs with Pay Point on them. Luckily my 3G was working so I could look up the address one more time. It turned out that the name of the venue was in the write-up and not the where it should be, the first line of the address. By the time I finally reach the venue what is a cinema, it’s just after 2pm. Feeling a bit relived that I got there I was greeted with the bad news that the session I booked to go was completely full. I got the feeling that people turned up without booking a seat and someone was sitting in my chair [wanker].
Yes it started off as a nightmare but by the end of the two days I can honestly say that I did come away with some knowledge, technical tips, a couple of contacts from networking, a giggle from Goldie’s stories and a goodie bag. I missed out on a lot from the first day as most of the best stuff was in the morning sessions. I do wish that some of the sessions covered was repeated either the next day or the same day. There was so much to choose from that you can’t get it all in. I can say that if it is on again next year I will try my best to attend and this time bring someone with me so they can go to the sessions I missed out on.
introduction to my world (by fatlaces4)
Some people will say yes, mainly A&R’s while other will say that job is dead and over due to people like myself being able to do it on our own.
However to get noticed you need to be able to stand out so where you ever you can get the help it has to be taken. So what do you do if you have no money to pay someone to do it for you? well luckily enough I just came across a website that will be able to do it for you. They will contect you to professionals in the music industry and if you look hard enough there are some on the site that will do it for you for free*.
The site is called music xray. Look them up
*When you upload music you get $4.00 what they take back if you submit for a service. You can also earn money buy taking part in activities.
Sorry for those of you who have been following my journey and started wondering if I would be posting anymore from what I have been up tp. Well today I have a day off from work and I’m gonna take a little minute to just break it all down into small digestable chunks.
When submitting tracks to labels, DJs or whatever send no more than 3. Choose what you believe to be your best work. If they like it they will ask for more.
Never be afraid to ask someone established in the industry questions. Some are nicer than you think and are more than willing to help you.
It’s more or less 3 months now since I started my mission not so impossible but not as easy as you might think. For me a lot has happened, all positive and very educational. When I look over the things I have already posted I can see what direction I started in and where I am heading now. Let me break it down so you see what I mean.
This is just an update and a reminder from my first post. Keep your working environment clean as much as possible. Get yourself a good chair that supports your back. If your computer is loud, think about repositioning it to an area that is farther away from your ears. If you can afford to, think about changing the case to something with sound deadening features, maybe go as far as water cooling if need be. Keep your monitors low, never have them louder than you can speak without raising your voice. Take regular breaks because time will fly by when you’re deep in the groove. Keep well hydrated and don’t forget to eat.
I have been working on a track just before I started this page called “Ping Pong”. I was going to submit it to a label and in return they were going to give me feedback on what I should do to improve it and such.
This post is slightly off topic but I just want to share. My circular saw came this morning (woo hoo!) and I have to confess, I’ve never used one before and I ain’t no D.I.Y handy man when it come to things like this. If shelves need putting up, I tend to ask my sister to do it.
Patrick Rhone. Keeping it Straight, Know Your Tools (via mnmal)
I’m reblogging my friend Uri quoting me here mainly to remind you that you can get the book from which this came for a very low price for a very limited time. For instance, the ePub version (which works great in iBooks, by the way) is only $4.99. Today only, use the coupon code CYBERMONDAY305 to take an additional 35% off of that. Of course, you can use that on any of the versions available on Lulu, all of which are temporarily discounted.
For those of you who already own the book, I thank you deeply and humbly for reading. Please consider passing it on to a friend or purchasing as a gift. It would mean the world to me if you thought it worthy of such an act of kindness.
(via minimalmac)
I had to reblog this because I totally agree with the quote. I more or less said the same thing myself in an earlier post.
(via minimalmac)
Images taken from-M_Audio webiste. Understand Studio Monitors:Fine tune your set up [Anon 28/11/2011]
It’s great that I have the motivation and people to give me feedback on my projects, but before I start, I need to look at a few things that could easily make or break my progress. First, I have to look at my working environment.
Computer Music Magazine http://www.musicradar.com/computermusic
Sound on Sound Magazine http://www.soundonsound.com/
Point Blank Online http://www.pointblankonline.net/
Subbass DJ Academy http://www.subbassdj.com/
The Remix Manual by Simon Langford http://www.focalpress.com/books/audio/the_remix_manual.aspx
Before I begin to make any tracks I need to make sure I have the right equipment and my working environment is set up at its best. Let’s have a look at the equipment first:
