Leaderboard

Well, I got my survey for my Steinberg ticket. I really let them have it. I let them have it for me, for Larry, and the for everyone else they've screwed in the past two weeks.

True. Best to wait for a 15% off coupon at Musician’s Friend. On the other hand, Omnisphere 3 may be on the horizon.

Best way to answer that is to listen to the demos of the libraries and see if any of them are things you would use. Obviously, the vast majority of libraries are Omnisphere based so if you like those libraries and can afford it then get Omnisphere. If you have Komplete, then there are a lot of Unify/Komplete instrument libraries as well. I don't think there are any third party plugins I would specifically recommend that work any better than anything else. The power of Unify is what it can do with any vst you throw at it. I wish I could afford Omnisphere but I just do not have a spare $500 to throw at it.

I can't imagine why you would be embarrassed about sending stems of your dry vocals for a relative stranger to listen to solo'd up on a very revealing monitor playback system. ? (Just upgraded my interface and then spent a couple of days restoring a vintage Crown D-150 to use as my studio amp and I can suddenly hear all manner of reverb tails, transients and trippy little stereo effects in records I thought I was familiar with) I've told you before that I think your vocals have character and they will sound even better with judicious application of psychedelic era Beatle-y processing. Whenever you're ready, buddy.

Okay, I see. If you scroll allllllll the way to the bottom of the product page they say that it comes in VST and AU, but it doesn't say how to get the plug-in version. The button makes the cursor change to the hand, but clicking does nothing. However: when installing it on my laptop I watched the installer shell closely and saw that at the very end, it installs a VST3. It just doesn't allow you the options that installer shells usually do. I rarely install standalones. Anyway, this is an amazing-sounding plug-in, quite worthy of being payware. A set of pianos and strings that sound this good and the download is only about 210MB. And it did its job well, too: I bought a Studiologic SL880 20 years ago, best action ev-ar from a weighted controller, so I was interested to see what Fatar/Studiologic were up to. Turns out they've been busy. Keyboard controllers still, of course, but now they have many more really good-looking synths, pianos, and a compact drawbar-equipped clonewheel organ. Brian "Oblivion" Auger is the star endorser. If I were gigging on keys, I'd surely look closer. They obviously have some talent coding their sound generators.

To be honest I have to say, is this actually said for real ? Or just trolling ? Every single entertainment business in our society is a multi-transaction volume industry. And all of them are a rigged system, at least in relation to what it's sold to people, the usual american dream. This goes for music industry, writting, or any other creative industry. They move so much money because it is an investment in the most literal possible way, they put unthinkable amounts of money on promotion and marketing. That's the only reason they get so much money. Period. To make a lot of money you need first to have a lot of money already. It should be obvious that the rules on that level don't apply to individual artists. That's why it makes from the unknown or small individual artist zero sense to go for streaming platforms where the only money is made by the ones that are already famous. The ratio of artists that actually get famous versus the ones that not is absolutely disproportionated. And has nothing to do with skills or quality. The only things that can get you a ticket for the famous lottery are A LOT of luck, a lot of money already to invest in marketing and promotion (and the knowledge on how to use it of course), or having the right contacts within the industry. Usually, it takes all the three. The ones having that chance are a very very very few compared to all the rest that won't have any chance. So platforms like BandCamp are simply the only right choice and way to go for small artists (besides of course maybe having too a youtube channel and some social media to at least try to get lucky, maybe (again, maybe), to be more visible out there in the general population). It's only If (again, if) eventually they get lucky enough to start moving a lot of people that would make sense to move too to streaming platforms. But until then (something that most aspiring artists won't ever get), streaming platforms are only a way to be played and scammed like Philip told.

I originally released this as an instrumental a year or so ago, but I always had a vocal in mind for it. I've only recently got it to a point where I'm happy to let the world have a listen. If anyone listens to Thurston Moore's acoustic offerings, you'll here his influence on me. I hope it's not too derivative though. Any advice appreciated, Cheers Here's the final cut, out now on streaming: https://open.spotify.com/album/4KJSEpK8awp8GEy25XKOsE?si=fuTTTA1xSzu9uww-iZhmpQ&utm_source=copy-link

I have so many Ethera packages that I'm not sure which is which. And I just bought this one too. Man those legatos are amazing!

So I'll hold the "like". If it remains an instrumental maybe I'd pull the lead "voice" up in spots; maybe. Without the vocal, its hard to say. Its "grooving" for sure, the foundation is laid. t

I'll keep that train going! I still play this song a lot. ?

Def Leppard - Overture Off their debut album, before they went a bit shite commercial seeking the Yankee Dollar. Cue Wibbles' sarcastic comment:

Hello TIm, For me Unify is like a hub for your existing virtual instruments, so it works well with the titles you currently have. John has really put a lot of time in creating a lot of addon patch banks for Omnisphere but as you say it can be really overwhelming to explore the 1000s of possibilities with this one virtual instrument. The Unify Discoverstation package is an amazing accomplishment for sure. So Unify does support VST2, VST3, and Audio Units, but prefers to use VST2 as it has been the more established plugin format. If there is not a VST2 version of an instrument available then of course it will use what is there and Unify itself can be run as a VST3. What adds to the value like you mention is that if a particular platform does not support the VST plugin format, then Unify can act as a wrapper of sorts which is very powerful especially on the Mac platform. So as far as what third party instruments, it all depends on what speaks to you. John has a certain sound he loves, and it sometimes will push the boundaries for me to try something different like Kilohearts Phase Plant. I think some of the other synths he loves are Vital and Plasmonic. I am into the more orchestral and acoustic sounds and that is why I have been working on Unifying the Spitfire Audio instruments I have. I am working on the Originals Abe Jr. Drums and Eric Whitaker Choir. If you already have these instruments, having the unified patches are super helpful, and these will always be free. I hope that helps a little. Joyfully, Simeon

And in this case, "great" means "one that people want to listen to over and over." So true. Chart numbers only pique interest; you can get all the exposure in the world, but if people hear what you do and don't want more of it, you're sunk.

Took into account suggestions. I have now made the BGV's more central and raised Lead vocal levels. Still unsure of total eq. Thanks for all the help and suggestions as always.

Back in 2000 I had a girlfriend whose bands got to No1 in the UK physical indie charts. They only ever printed 500 vinyl singles. When I met with the a&r at XL he told me a story about his band getting into the UK singles charts. They beat Michael Jackson and only ever made a print run of 1,000. You don't need to sell a lot to get into the physical charts...and you can cheat the system. Back in pre+internet days, big name artists would be in the top ten, not because of sales but, because of pre-orders made by the label itself. This was an old trick to get the song onto radio and hopefully recoup losses once the public became aware of the song. Nowdays artists do the same on Spotify etc by paying for plays. Or paying reviewers. Same old crap, just a different format. If you want to shell out some money, you can rig the system.... But you still need a great song.

Re: James Hargreaves video. The "UK Chart" that he says his song got on was "Physical Singles." I can't imagine that it represents a huge market. Was it bracing for this plug-in 'ho to watch this guy demonstrate getting his sounds using the ugly-***** DXi stock Vegas FX? Anyone here use Vegas ExpressFX on their master bus? Good lord. Re: The Troll. Yeah, it was. Obviously, with the hit-and-run, he's not interested in an actual discussion. Bonus, though, and one of the things about this forum that continues to amaze me, is that a troll post didn't wreck the thread, rather it was fertilizer for a pretty interesting discussion. Are we all enough veterans of online forums that we know better than to get wound up and launch ad hominem attacks at trolls? I used one of my favorite anti-troll tactics, which was to ask them to elaborate. In my long experience, that's a troll kryptonite. Stay reasonably polite, keep asking them reasonable questions. Re: @Philip G Hunt's excellent points, #7 is especially important. Once you get the attention/success you think you want, will you be able to embrace it and live with it? As Spock wisely put it, it is often better to want a thing than to get it. I'll add that it's best to figure out as much as possible what you want from a music career. "To earn a decent living" is NOT enough. There are many avenues for musicians to take toward this goal. Member of live touring band, sessions, teaching, casuals. One thing I know about myself is that my creative process takes a long time. If I were in a situation where I had to cough up new gems every few months, that would be hell on earth. So I have to pull back. What is success for me at this point in my life? First I want to make music that pleases me. Next I want to put music out that people enjoy and I would also in some way like to connect with the people who enjoy it. The pie-in-the-blue-sky goal would be to be able to take the stage in front of an enthusiastic audience (this is the least realistic goal, but I would love to make it happen). If I make any money at all from the process, that's gravy. That's why Bandcamp plus a YouTube video for each song suits me. With Bandcamp and YouTube, it's easy to know what reach you have with each song. You know how many times it's been played and/or purchased. When I was putting together hobby bands, I took my goals one at a time. If we managed to get a club to book us so we can play in front of people, that was success. If we got more shows, success. Get a following, success. Record a decent-sounding demo, success, get it played on the radio, success. With my last band, those were the boxes I ticked before Philip's point #7 seized the other members and they wandered off. And I'm happy with that. How many people dream of doing those things and never get to do them? I've played on stages in San Francisco! I've heard myself on the radio! I put together a cool band, wrote songs and played lead guitar! When I watch other musicians playing, I've felt the strange autopilot in-the-moment bubble they're inside, a feeling like no other. That zone which is outside of normal perception of time and space. How many people get to feel what that's like?

We replaced the Windows style menu with a menu system from a different UI framework. This was necessary due to a bug in Windows (something they've known about for 12 years!). Prior to Windows 10, the number of items allowed in a menu was limited to around 4000. With Windows 10, this was reduced to around 1200 - 1500 menu items. This was affecting users with more than 1200 plugins - i.e. some of their plugins would be missing from the menus. Also, we actually calculate the menus first, and use them to populate the plugin browser (so we only need to do it once), so this limitation was also affecting the plugin browser as well. The new menus don't have this limitation.

Ah, so it seems to be that they decided to put up the bundle installer so that those of us with anything from it could access it, and stripped the serial requirement out of everything. That would imply that I still only technically have licenses for the two PB freebies in the package, and the other ones just happen to work. Ah well, I'll use the other things in the bundle, and if the software police come and knock on my door I'll plead confusion and point to this thread as proof of my attempt at diligence. The owners of the products are probably too busy bathing in Dom Perignon while lighting cigars with $100 bills to assemble a legal team to come and get me.

It’s been so long since Venus was on sale that I remember trying to buy Venus when it was last on sale but missed out because I had to return a tape to blockbuster and didn’t want to pay late charges.

I remember playing with an SC8850 when I was in the Music Technology course at Lane Community College here in Eugene, Oregon. I got straight A's in that course, and even an award for "Special Outstanding Achievement in Music Technology"! I'm sure you're thinking, "What an amazing woman!".

I recently received some emails from Accusonus with the serials in my account. You should have get the same.

Did you try reaching via their Facebook page? Since they work there now ….just saying haha

I have a few USB foot pedals that are fully programable with any one or combination of keyboard and even mouse clicks. You set them in record and make your moves and it saves this and assigns to one of the pedals. They are used initially by people who transcribe recordings to text so they can keep their fingers on the keyboard. They are also used by machine operators and musicians like me for live performance Just Google USB foot switch. They range from $15 to $300. I have both. The one I like the most and use for live performance control of my backing tracks is called Stealth. https://stealthswitch3.com/ I use one of the cheap ones from Amazon to control Cakewalk. I have it set for R, W. and space bar.

I do not think it has become a free product, so distributing it would amount to piracy. As others have noted, this isn't available to everyone - probably only those who have previously bought this bundle or plugins from it. If it was free, download links would probably be publicly available on Accusonus' own landing page (rather than having to log in). As the company is effectively shutting down (development on all existing products has stopped and support will eventually become unavailable), the installers are 'given' away to those with perpetual licences so that those users get what they paid for (i.e. a licence to use that particular version indefinitely).

Free Numa Player from StudioLogic https://www.studiologic-music.com/products/numaplayer/

Everything said here about bloatware is true, but I'll add one more wrinkle: some of it is difficult to clean out. I bought my mom a computer and it ran super-slow. I uninstalled everything but it didn't make much improvement. Long story short: "uninstalling" Norton still left bits and pieces that slowed down the computer. Several pages deep in the Norton website, there were instructions on how to remove it completely. As soon as I did that, the computer zipped along. Also +1 to an external audio interface with ASIO (not ASIO4ALL) drivers.

Thanks for posting the links! I guess my time playing reggae/dub bass around baltimore-dc with jamaican musicians is in there somewhere for you to make this connection ha. I wasn't around there anymore when they started up so I had not heard of them. Grateful for your posts !

I think Elvis' Alison has been posted enough times ? Allison > Alice. Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant:

I found ERA 4 Voice Leveler in my PB account that was a freebie in May 2020. Also Regroover Essential which was a freebie in April 2019.

Music education comes in different formats and fashions, different aspects. And some things work for others and some things don't. Theory/Reading: I always got frustrated with music theory and reading music, I have always been fascinated by it, but never good at it. But that doesn't really mean anything. Music theory and reading music is kind of like mathematics in ways, either it clicks well with you, or your brain says, does not compute. Just one aspect of music. I took piano lessons throughout elementary school but was not so good at keeping up with reading sheet music. but better at it in middle school when I played the flute (less notes to read at one time). If you can't become a child prodigy musician, it doesn't mean you suck, it just means it's not your thing. There is other forms of art and music. Songwriting/Improv: Playing by ear and songwriting or composing without sheet music works better for me. I took a songwriting course at a community college and it was more enjoyable than piano lessons. It reassured me I could write music without being a child prodigy pianist. Midi: I took a midi course at the same community college in the mid 90's when midi and computer software was a new thing, especially for a college course. Now technology is getting involved. Music Management: Also took legal and commercial music management courses. That pretty much did it in for me when we went over sixty page record label contracts where you pretty much sign your life away to a corporation. Those courses showed me the filth that has polluted the innocent self expression of music, and arts. At this point, this thread can go hand in hand with the thread, "Just how bad has today's "popular" music become?" https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/41008-just-how-bad-has-todays-popular-music-become/ Conclusion: Though I am thankful for the educational experiences I did have, I wish I had more options at a younger age for a larger variety of music education beyond what I had all together. And this is an issue with allot things, education, and a wider variety of options than just piano lessons and grade school band. I also took allot of art classes and eventually got my BFA in Design Arts and Art History. But still a worthless degree. Though arts and music should not be worthless, but they are still treated that way. This goes along with again another thread "Education and Music" https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/41116-education-and-music/ Personally, I think both music and arts education should be the only focus of grade school education, but with the capacity of a music and art college and without the limitations of grades and exams. Art and music College should have been our k-12 education. Teaching children to be creative, self expressive, and learn how to work together, but leave out all the competition aspects involved with music and arts. It shouldn't be about competition and who is better, or who can and cannot pass an exam. It should be just about being creative, self expression, and working together. But I guess the politicians never thought about that. They really screwed everyone over pretty good. As far as this theory exam they want him to pass? That is ridiculous. For a music theory specific school, ok, I could see some logic in it. But not music in general. If that is the qualifications to get into a music school now, that's rough. If it is possible to pass it with a year's worth of studying? Yes, it is possible, if he wants to really do it. Anything is possible.

Bodily facts........ It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach. One human hair can support 6.6 pounds. The average man’s pen is is two times the length of his thumb. Human thighbones are stronger than concrete. A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s. There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet. Women blink twice as often as men. The average person’s skin weighs twice as much as the brain. Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. Women will be finished reading this by now. Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

Well...... I guess in the sense that he does have a significant surplus of things that aren't really needed.

Here's a couple of songs I like from Thievery Corp, I think they are on tour at this time ???? https://youtu.be/qyYMhFPGYDY https://youtu.be/1t7W6NtTKAw https://youtu.be/OKSE_2LcikM

Only if you are a wage slave. I work for myself. As an entertainer, I get applause every 5 minutes or so, and the end of the gig I get people thanking me for a delightful afternoon/evening, and when I am playing the music, I'm in that zone where there is no time, no space, no me; just the music feeling like it's flowing through me instead of from me. Mrs. Notes and I love playing music for an appreciative audience, and although we are not going to get rich, or even wealthy playing music for a living, we paid off the mortgage, we have zero debt, we're having a great time, and we answer to nobody but ourselves. No doormat here, instead mini-star status. We played in larger bands before, but started our duo in 1985, since then, until COVID reared its ugly self, we were never out of work. Now that COVID is fading, we're back at it, we have 14 one-nighter gigs this month. Life is good.

I figured I'd leave Elvis (et. al.) for someone else.

I'm going to share a bit of REAL advice and probably reveal way too much about myself. Back in 2000 I was courted by labels such as XL. I had the meetings, I met the execs. I ended signing with a small startup and had a moderate radio hit. Before screwing it all up. If you want to know what NOT to do. I'm your man. But I have picked up some really good advice over the days. My biggest advice to any aspiring artists is: 1. Move to a city which is a music centre. You will never make it in a small town. A big fish in a small town means nothing. London, Manchester are the UK hot spots. You need to live where the music lives. 2. Scocialize, Socialize, Socialize. Meet people. Meet their friends. Go to parties. Be the life and soul of the party. Hold your drink. Don't be a *****. You'll make more connections that way than any conference. 3. Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate. I came to the attention of various A&R people because I was collaborating with a female singer, gigging with a folk act, supporting a male singer, recording and producing an alt-acid techno guy. All this while holding down a full-time job. 4. Be Pro-Active. No one is going to come and find you. You have to find them. However, in this case I was very lucky as the label I signed with contacted me through MP3.com. But I also sent off demos, handed people CDs at gigs, emailed. That's how I got to meet XL Records. 5. Face Some Hard Facts. Are you pretty enough? When I met the label folks, one of the first things they said to me was "we were worried you were going to be really fat or something". Sure you can say that was unPC, but at least they were honest. Just have a look at TikTonkers, YouToobers. They are all symetrical and pretty. It's a sad truth that if you are going to be a front man/woman you will need to look good. That doesn't mean beautiful in the TikTonk sense, but you will need a look. Looks matter in the business. 6. Face even Harder Facts. Are you young? It's a young person's business. If you haven't made it while you're young, it will be really hard to make it later on. Not impossible, Mark Sandman became famous in his late 30s and died in his 40s RIP. There are always exceptions. But if you're starting out, be realistic. 7. Do You REALLY Want it. What will you do IF it becomes serious? When I was being courted by the Verve's manager, had my demos circulating major US labels, and I was asked to collaborate with a famous female singer on an off-shoot label from XL....I panicked. I realised that things were getting out of my control. I felt like an imposter. Things happened so quickly that I withdrew....and that was the end of my meteoric rise. Once you start saying NO to offers, they dry up quicker than a Dublin bar on a Saturday night. Finally - don't forget to write some blistering music. Nothing mediocre. 'It will do' is not good enough if you want other people to take you seriously. If at the end of this rant you feel I am completely wrong. Just ignore my advice. If you think it helps. Pass it on.

Just mix it in way back and smear it up with FX to thicken the vocal track... It's FREE guys and will be useful I think.

Free - 32 patches for Newfangled Audio's Generate and/or Pendulate Edit: fixed link I've decided to share 32 patches that I created for Newfangled Audio's new synths Generate and/or Pendulate. The patches cover a bit of everything (sound FX, Basses, throbbers, gliders, leads, etc). Main restriction is that I ask that you don't distribute the library or post it on other sites - see the EULA in the zip. Have fun, I'm curious as to what you can do with them. Sorry but don't have the time at the moment to throw up audio demos - but feel free to link in your own creations/demos on this thread. If I like it I'll post links to it on my web site. The link for the patches is at the bottom of the page linked above. While it would be nice if you checked the page out - your welcome to just scroll down & grab your copy - and no registration or email address submission is required! Hope that you find it useful. Best regards, ...Steven

Then you can just as well drag and drop the file into the TV. It's x100 faster? That's what I normally do when I come across these sample loops and just delete them from the TV again. I can see why it might be a problem to some though. Or maybe add a waveform viewer? This way you will know if you have to import it to the TV or listen via the browser.

Quote from PG email... We are doing something special this weekend - we are putting our best foot forward to try to send some aid to our brothers and sisters who desperately need assistance in Ukraine. EVERYTHING at the site is 10% OFF (including Unify!) and a NEW LIBRARY just for this effort is now available. 100% of the sales of the library and 100% of the sale at my website between now and midnight on Sunday night will be sent to the Ukrainian Red Cross (50%) and Vostok.sos (50%). https://www.pluginguru.com/products/united-for-ukraine-unify-100-fundraiser-library/ My heart goes out to those struggling in war torn cities that were completely normal 3 weeks ago - I can't even imagine how difficult it must be in freezing temperatures with no electricity, food or in many cases even solid walls in their homes. I have relationships with a number of truly amazing people in Ukraine that have sent me recordings they've made on their phones in the dark as bombs are going off all around them - I can fathom that reality, but that is what they are facing. Please help if you can. The UNITED Library has 1GB of fresh new content including a bunch of Razor Samples I was saving for another library, a bunch of TB style basses, GuruNation™ members Kendall W Cochran III and Allen Somerlot contributed some IN-Freaking-Credible Recycle Drum Loops, I made a new NEVER SURRENDER Drum kit and the library wraps up with new synth Pluck and INSANELY GREAT Synth Patches from Razor I sampled. You can buy UNITED V1 at 1 of 4 prices: $30, $60, $125 or $250. Please pay whatever you are comfortable with - this library comes without a license number and installs the same as all our other libraries. ALSO: This library is a COMMUNITY PROGRAMING EVENT. So that means over the coming weeks, you can make patches and send them to us and we'll add them to a COMMUNITY BONUS Library for UNITED V1. More details to come. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Live stream link (from Saturday 12pm PDT). UPDATE: John added my Unified Generate factory library and Doug's Unified Spire factory library to the Unify web page. It wasn't mentioned in the email but John covered them in the livestream.

As Mibby said: https://accusonus.com/downloads

You do know women are right 99.999999999% of the time right? She is his mom and would probably know better than anyone. My opinion is that it's a lot to do in a short time window. Probably too much unless he is a fast astute learner with a great memory who will dig in. Even then it's a lot of work to make that kind of a jump in that amount of time. I agree with others that his heart should be in it regardless of whether he attempts to take the route mentioned or any other musical route. I don't mean partially in, I mean IN IT. Can't waver at difficulty. The next question is, "if" he makes that grade what's the next step? Every journey starts with the first step, but one also has to look at the journey. Does he want to be sitting in front of a class full of 4th graders teaching them basic music? Every day all year long? If at the high school level, you still have to put up with the drummers, out of tune horns and people who should not be in the band. I was in the high school band and I would not have wanted to be my teacher lol. Is this what he is signing up for? What are the other options? We seen what happened to the night club and bar trade during COVID. Even when it's good it's probably a struggle. How about a church music leader? Usually low or barely adequate pay. He could break into Hollywood or the New York scene, but then there's a lot of riffraff and stuff you have to put up with there too. Record sales are dismal compared to several decades ago. The records that do sell. Let's just say it's complicated. The percentages are similar to playing the lottery and winning it. And once you get on top you realize it isn't really much fun up there. The money coming into it comes from people who run organizations with agendas and they don't care what you want. Sound dismal? I've only told you the good news. I work for a large educational institution and my wife is an educator. Back before education was simply learning something it was great. Now education is indoctrination. It's social engineering, but then so is most TV programming.

Totally agree. He seems like a nice guy giving pretty standard tips. Nothing that made me go 'oh, that's how you do it'. Fair amount of product promotion...maybe that's where he makes his cash. What he doesn't do is say how he got his tracks in the charts. That's the secret juice that no one wants to give away. I know there are ways to pay for listens (just like the old trick the record labels used to get their artist into the charts). But if we are trying to make money...that seems counter productive. ? I'm yet to hear from anyone actually making a decent buck from this system. As my old band mate and now music promotor said. You'd make more money doing a gig and selling a few CDs after than you ever will off Spotify.

The silence speaks volumes....?

Let's say for instance that I play music that has a healthy niche, but never goes anywhere near a chart, like....bluegrass. I don't play bluegrass but I have friends who do and an active imagination, so I'll posit a scenario: My trio and I play all the bluegrass festivals we can get to, usually not as headliners, but we're popular enough to get invited to play them. If we put together a dozen songs, we have a pretty good expectation that about 20,000 people know and like us well enough to pay $10 for their own digital album, and maybe our comedy reggae/metal version of "Orange Blossom Special" will sell for a buck to an unspecified number of people because it gets played from time to time on comedy shows or whatever. It's not hit material, it's a clever novelty song that people will want to listen to every day for a week and then probably only play it for their friends while they're getting loaded. That's where we sit in the "music industry." We make music that we know how to make and love to play for a small, devoted fan base. That right there is our "repeated engagement across the largest consumer population possible." But it's the music we love, and our fans love us and we love playing for them. My trio and I should, per your advice, ignore BandCamp and focus our efforts on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, where the REAL money is? How many times will "Orange Blossom Rasta Meltdown" have to stream on them before we get a check for $100? For $1000? I ask because I have no idea. What steps should we take toward getting that many plays on SpoppleTube? Hire a promotional person (who would then share in the revenues)? Switch at age 57 to trying to make music that teenyboppers will lap up? You tell me, I have no idea. No fair saying that that's not the kind of musicians you were talking about, that's called "moving the goalposts," as we've been talking about small timers for some time now, and I guarantee you that nobody in this thread has aspirations to be a teen idol. At least none that they'll admit. My friends from high school have grandkids. I do electronica because I figure in the unlikely event someone asks me to play out, I can wear a helmet like Deadmau5 or Daft Punk and nobody will see how old I am. We're all musicians here, sound off: anyone here know anyone who's making a decent living from having their music stream on SpoppleTube? I didn't say "know OF anyone," I said "know anyone," as in any friend or acquaintance who's recorded some music and put it out there. How many musicians in your wide circle of friends has been paid even $1000 from streaming services? How about $100?

But she's Taylor Swift. She's a top feeder. ? How many people on this board can hand on heart say they make real money on streaming platforms such as Spotify? Their business model is completely un-transparent.

Gee thanks, KAREN!!! ?

Carl - I'm reluctant to make this personal but I've taken a quick look at your post history and I'm not seeing you doing much to positively contribute to this forum over your 110 posts, although I do see a lot of complaining about what other people are doing.......So if it's all the same to you I'll keep hugely enjoying Reid's post and discount your (faux?) annoyance. Is that ok by you ?

That was just a friendly suggestion. Nobody is going to interfere with your right to Free Speech. But I doubt you will win many friends here with your opinions... ?