Musings, logistics, shopping for Headphones and local distributors-- and a neat free Visualizer
So I am going around bothering various shopkeepers about two things: high quality headphones and selling Utenzil CDs.
The high quality headphones are helpful to me because I live in a cramped place with limited opportunities to crank up monitors. Could a good pair of headphones like these DT-770s help-- they go for about $200, are they worth it?
So I went to the local Guitar Center and they were kind enough to give me a listen.
Yes, Ok.. well, they are worth it. The bass response on these is phenomenal, you can hear the mud that is missed otherwise and which adds hidden overhead on the VUs. So, sigh, something else to long for, but $200 is not a huge expenditure.
Among the wildly expensive things that are huge expenditures but are needed to do what I want at some point are good monitors, a small mixer, and the aforementioned Bose Personalized Amplification system.
Combined, these things will cost around $3000. Understand what this means: in order to create music that sounds good enough for you to be happy with, and to be converted into MP3s for people to be willing to take the time to download them for free and in order to put together a performance that people might be willing to listen to for free you have to be willing to spend a fair amount of money.
There is something amusing in all of this that I may have noted previously and that is that a street musician who sets out a case and begins to play with skill lying somewhere between "people will not run him off" and "virtuoso" will generally make more money more quickly than "independent self produced recording artist oooh he's got a CD out" but of course the two things are pretty different aspects of music. Suffice to say that there are many many many independently produced CDs out that are dirt cheap and which likely make nobody any money.
...this is all very therapeutic, thanks for reading thus far, by the way...
so there are maybe some local shops where I can sell my CD, working on this. There are likely some places that will permit me to play my music, that would be great... I'm targeting playing in the spring/summer, and I'm sort of envisioning a charity benefit type situation that would showcase diverse multiple groups as being a good start. No commercial pressure as far as being 'the sole draw' but also an opportunity to possibly sell some cds. So I'm going to look around for that sort of opporunity... now, I've got one limitation to grapple with as far as providing a compelling performance-- I'm not particularly fun to watch, sitting at a computer and all, so I need some visual stimuli added into the mix.
There is some interesting freeware, called Bomb that has been used for this. I've downloaded it, it's cool. I need to adjust the various parameters to get the best results, so something else to experiment with.
Now, there is a secret, and here is the secret-- even though I do not have all the time in the world, I do, because I don't have any deadlines and massive commitments to meet by making music. As characterizations go, at worst, I am a nobody in the music business. At best, I am my own label with a unique offering presented by a multitalented composer, performer and producer.
I am not quite an amateur, because I have been paid money to play music.. LOL... but being paid money and actually making any are two different things... I'll stop talking about the money part of things for a while. It's just that this is the quantifiable aspect of the thing, and as we set up base camp and continue on this journey, funds are part of the provisions that will assist us and are part of the goal, because remember we're also putting some aside for at least one worthwhile cause and others are likely to follow.
But not all of the goal. All of the goal is to play some really interesting, exciting, pleasant sounding, sometimes wild and always unique electronic music.
The high quality headphones are helpful to me because I live in a cramped place with limited opportunities to crank up monitors. Could a good pair of headphones like these DT-770s help-- they go for about $200, are they worth it?
So I went to the local Guitar Center and they were kind enough to give me a listen.
Yes, Ok.. well, they are worth it. The bass response on these is phenomenal, you can hear the mud that is missed otherwise and which adds hidden overhead on the VUs. So, sigh, something else to long for, but $200 is not a huge expenditure.
Among the wildly expensive things that are huge expenditures but are needed to do what I want at some point are good monitors, a small mixer, and the aforementioned Bose Personalized Amplification system.
Combined, these things will cost around $3000. Understand what this means: in order to create music that sounds good enough for you to be happy with, and to be converted into MP3s for people to be willing to take the time to download them for free and in order to put together a performance that people might be willing to listen to for free you have to be willing to spend a fair amount of money.
There is something amusing in all of this that I may have noted previously and that is that a street musician who sets out a case and begins to play with skill lying somewhere between "people will not run him off" and "virtuoso" will generally make more money more quickly than "independent self produced recording artist oooh he's got a CD out" but of course the two things are pretty different aspects of music. Suffice to say that there are many many many independently produced CDs out that are dirt cheap and which likely make nobody any money.
...this is all very therapeutic, thanks for reading thus far, by the way...
so there are maybe some local shops where I can sell my CD, working on this. There are likely some places that will permit me to play my music, that would be great... I'm targeting playing in the spring/summer, and I'm sort of envisioning a charity benefit type situation that would showcase diverse multiple groups as being a good start. No commercial pressure as far as being 'the sole draw' but also an opportunity to possibly sell some cds. So I'm going to look around for that sort of opporunity... now, I've got one limitation to grapple with as far as providing a compelling performance-- I'm not particularly fun to watch, sitting at a computer and all, so I need some visual stimuli added into the mix.
There is some interesting freeware, called Bomb that has been used for this. I've downloaded it, it's cool. I need to adjust the various parameters to get the best results, so something else to experiment with.
Now, there is a secret, and here is the secret-- even though I do not have all the time in the world, I do, because I don't have any deadlines and massive commitments to meet by making music. As characterizations go, at worst, I am a nobody in the music business. At best, I am my own label with a unique offering presented by a multitalented composer, performer and producer.
I am not quite an amateur, because I have been paid money to play music.. LOL... but being paid money and actually making any are two different things... I'll stop talking about the money part of things for a while. It's just that this is the quantifiable aspect of the thing, and as we set up base camp and continue on this journey, funds are part of the provisions that will assist us and are part of the goal, because remember we're also putting some aside for at least one worthwhile cause and others are likely to follow.
But not all of the goal. All of the goal is to play some really interesting, exciting, pleasant sounding, sometimes wild and always unique electronic music.
posted by Utenzil at
11:20 AM
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