Bar Codes - How to get UPC

I've started to seriously look into and try to actually understand all aspect of music business.

Music Business until recently was just really something I never wanted to learn but there are lots of good thing also about this.

One of the big issue is UPC code and Bar Code. They are just a tracking system by SoundScan. and you do want to put this on your CD because you will know how much you've sold. and if you are member of ASCAP, BMI, etc that's the way for them to know how much you actually sold. (also, they have some membership benefits regarding this)

You can just look at their web site and they will tell you how.
for example

http://barcodes.gs1us.org/dnn_bcec/Default.aspx?tabid=376

This is one video that explain all the process. rather long so i'll just write it down.

1. To create your own Bar Code you need to become their member.
2. Apply for the membership and pay fee (check FAQ or contact them) - You get your own company number for use in UPC codes
3. create one - they explain how to do this as well.

So that's when you are a label or start one..
but minimum $150 for membership is maybe expensive.. then you can sign up with people like CD Baby because they offer one for you really cheap (last time i checked...)

It's actually up to you to decide which one you go with. You are not an established artist with fan base you probably won't ever need membership. and you can use your money for music production or graphic design for the album or whatever it is that you want to do.

iTunes Music Store - Global listening

Well a little time ago iTunes have added a feature to select country at the bottom of your iTunes Music Store home page.

I find this really interesting because although lot of music are internationally distributed you still don't really know in what country what song is popular.. Question like is American music really popular in Europe? what's the Europe's trend?

one way to find out is through magazines but i think iTunes can function in this way also.

If you navigate to the iTunes MS for UK then you'll see something you can only see in UK version. France or french version will something that's only available in france. likewise you can just navigate through all stores and you can actually listen to music from all over the world.

you can search in their languages (if you know or if you just knew the title), i'm not sure about the downloading but at least you can listen to them.. and buy CD (well the quality of digital download is still lower compared to regular CD so actually it's cheaper if you buy CD in my opinion)

but it's amazing how easily you can listen to all kinds of music and cultural differences. at least for musicians or composers.

Synthesizer Tutorial Video

I've just found a few amazing synthesizer tutorial. Not really for beginners.. you'd have to understand at least what oscillator, filters are and their functions..

They were talking about FM synthesis, how to make drums beats with LFO, things like that.. good point to cover. and he explains it really well.

http://www.sonicstate.com/

MIDI Programming for beginners: What is MIDI?

I'm going to write about the first step in MIDI programming and what those fancy term means.

What is MIDI? Often times my answer is "It is like a sheet music with performance information"

Any good sheet music will include marking like f (forte) p (piano), crescendo, ritardando but none of them actually gives you an idea of what it really sound like.. what composer meant. what arranger meant when they put those marks on the score.

On the other hand, MIDI records (or at least tries to capture) all that little nuances that composers were dying to put to their scores.

You can listen to free MIDI files somewhere and you should be able to tell differences. Some of them will have unnatural flow or no emotion and make you think "MIDI is horrible," but often times it is not MIDI that's is bad. Programmer.

MIDI will let you compose or play your own music even if you didn't know anything about music but on the other hand making it sound realistic or as if somebody is playing is very hard to do, especially when you are trying to get that "orchestra" sound; you have to know how all the instruments are played, sounds and talk with each other.

New Logic Pro 8!

I think new Logic is way cool.

First it's easier for new comers because you got those edit function icons on top of your arrange window (which is the window you are usually on) bounce, split, etc etc.

Secondly, when you try to load plug-in you'll the plug-in name first rather than multi track or strereo or whatever. so there will be less people trying to figure out how to use outputs other than 1-2 (or main)

Out of all others the best new feature for me was the feature to let you edit multiple midi tracks at once in the matrix window (maybe it's called piano roll in new version)

you open up the matrix window, select two or more regions and notes will show up in the same arrange window. This feature is extremely useful when you want to orchestrate or just want to program a choir or strings quartet!

same goes for Score Editor. you can orchestrate on Score Editor also. It's my ideal work flow and now it's there in Logic.


Another thing that's exciting for me is the MainStage. This will replace ableton live when i don't need loop capability.

This will let you create multi controller live environment. what's cool is that you can create multiple or for each gig...
If you are a digital guitarist or vocalist you could take advantage by plugging yourself into the effect chain.. etc.

now you can easily use 3-4 controllers and tell each knob what to do, what to control, and expression or amount it controls, etc etc.


only thing i'm still trying to figure out is how to utilize two screens. I haven't been able to open a Matrix window that corresponds to the arrange window onto the secondary screen... i really need to find this out.. i don't want other people to decide where to put my windows... if you know what i mean..


otherwise new Logic seems amazing.

learning the Guitar Fingerboard

It's been a while since i posted but i wanted to make a note about learning guitar.

finger board knowledge has been a biggest obstacle to me that no one seemed to know what the effective way of learning fingerboard is. (that is knowing notes)

now i have a guitar teacher who's been giving me great insights on how finger board works. and how to "memorize" them. memorizing all of them takes at least memorizing 24x6 notes without counting enharmonics. that's a quite a number. and you won't be able to just memorize. so he introduced me a couple of methods that can be done in like 3-12 minutes a day.
that was wow to me.

so here are them
1. single string playing
2. never ending scales
3. blues and chord inversions.
4. patterns.


i will tell you about 1 and 2 on this one.

just pick your favorite tune and start playing notes only using one strings. try jumping around and play melodies. it would be nice to have a tune or simple recorded chord progressions or just forever CM7 for the key of C.
this technique will make you good at one perticular string.

... but yes this is only good for one perticular string.. so not when you use all strings..here is the another technique comes into a play. The never ending scales... sounds like WTF? i know. but this is really cool.
you play scales using all strings. this sounds like normal stupid scale training but it's not.
you play the root on the 6th string and next note on 5th string, next one on 4th string and go up and down forever until you end up where you started. it will take some time but it will come back to this point.
only pitfall to this is that you can't really play melody or music with this. so you need to do single string practice. they complement each other.

cool huh but there is one more step to this, which is "do this for ALL 12 KEYS!"
after a while you know all your scales and all your notes.
simple and effective isn't it? probably a month or two to remember all notes on the finger board. if you do it every day 3-4 keys.

and this worked for me. more than any other books i've got in attempt to learn fingerboard. try this out.

An Inconvenience Truth - Al Gore's dvd on global warming

just made me think again why al gore didn't win the election...
and on top of that bush won twice..
i can't seem to find the right answer to it.

actually what i'm concerned about the most is how come i am not the president of USA even't though you can't spell USAMA without USA.
i should at least establish the USA Mortgate Association and make lots of money...

either way it wouldn't hurt to watch this dvd on global warming.
(well actually it hurts to watch that..)

so like people don't even believe that's happening right now or something?
especially bush... don't think anything other than what's happening immediately and never thinks about future? i hope people realize what it means to be "selfish"

in my opinion people who thinks only about the immediate future are selfish.
human got alot more to do nowadays whether you like it or not.


and the music on it is awesome.
it's like godspeed you black emperor. strings, guitars, and some weird voice, etc, etc.
love that stuff...



from dvd:
number of scientist who disagreed that we are causing global warming 0%
number of press who were not sure about the fact that we are causing global warming 53%
so yeah like he was saying just let people know that you are part of the cause.
USA ranks the highest contributors to the global warming.


http://www.climatecrisis.net/



another thing i need to point out is that this DVD was released in 2006
in Japan, this kind of thing had been said almost 10 years ago as i've learned these issues when i was in middle school. and that probably is true for most countries except US for some stupid reason like industry will be fucked up economy blah. pure sign of laziness. irresponsible child. that's what i meant by "you are selfish" if you didn't get it.

Telecaster and tone.

i bought one good priced black japanese tele from my friend. it's custom and has rosewood fret board. plays really nice. wonderful except for bridge pick up which sounds horrible. not so horrible with my marshall artist 3203 distortion but yeah still it can be improved in a big way. it's never edgy enough and when i use both at the same time it sounds like it cancels each other out.

i've never owned a tele before but i always wanted them. i've just sold all my guitars i had for heavier rock stuff and i can concentrating on aquiring this my own tone i've been wanting. it's still like illiusion, or nothing solid but i'm having much fun just trying things out.

you can create all kinds of tone but having clean(or crunch to be accurate) tone handled is my current biggest challenge. it's everything you really have to pay attention to. from jack, guitars, amps, cabs, to effects... many options and many different ways of expressing.

i wish everyone really thought about tone at least a little more when they play.
recent jeff buckley birthday gig really made me say that...
way too many people just plays music... or just does it for fun "only" and i hope you find a little more depth in what you enjoy...

AGLOCO

we should try this out.
just to see if it really works.

go sign up (free) at

http://www.agloco.com

and for referral member ID make sure you copy and paste

BBBB2172

or just click here to sign up now!!!
http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBB2172 (put your ID) is how you build your own referral link

way it works is like....
if you refer more people, you get more and more money/month for surfing internet using their view bar thing.. only for windows.. i think... though..

if people you refer more people you get a lot more money..

i refer	5	5	5	5	5
if those people refer	2	3	4	5	10
avg. hrs/mo of surfing	1	1	1	1	1
earnings/month	39.75	152.25	427.25	977.25	13889.75

they pay by hours....
so if they search 2 hours average then earning doubles.

pretty cool

sign up here

one liners from gearslutz.com

These are all one liners i've rescued from Gearslutz.com...
all things actually happen while recording session seems like...wow....
some people really are stupid.

"i have got to have more SMPTE in my headphones"

"Do you have 1/2" ProTools?"

"Gimme more ADVERB on vocals!!!"

"It's sounding good but can you harmonize the snare, please?"

"the bad thing is that here in switzerland is no high class porn producer, only this amateur with ugly chicks thing" yeah high class what?

wanted ad: "For sale: Acoustic guitar, recently tuned."

"I'm better than I sound."

" i know what im doing, i used to work at TWEETER"

a guitar player asks "Am i good enough to wear cowboy boots?"

"Once a drummer tried to tell me how intense 13/6 time was" yeah i can't even imagine....

rapper dude looks at pop filter and.. "Wow, this MIC gotta be expensive"


almost too clever....
"Can you hook up the vocal backwards through the de-esser to put some "sss" back into the vocal?"


classic?
"Yo, we're makin you rich today homie"



and just tons and tons of funny shit like ...
"ROCKER: It sounds like the toms are exploding!
ENGINEER: Actually, that's just your drummer hitting our mics constantly."

---
I just remembered another one by a bassist I like to call "The Butcher" Think Mel Gibson in 'Conspiracy Theory' on steroids.

The Butcher: D F+ G+, B, F, C, E, F, D+ (+ are sharps)

Me: What key are you in???

The Butcher: I'm a bassist, we don't use keys.

Me: My bad...





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