Wednesday, December 4, 2013

How To Embed Sound Clips In Your Photos

Shuttersong image
Did you ever want to add audio to a picture but didn't want to mess with hassle of importing it into a video editor? Now you can do it easily with a new service called Shuttersong that allows you to embed sound into your jpeg images.

Shuttersong allows you to take a photo when immediately add sound from your phone or music from your library. You can also take existing images from the web and add audio as well. The soundtrack is limited to 15 seconds, which is more than it seems.

Although many will use it with music, it could be really useful to just describe the context of the photo, especially for a pro photographer. Consider a sort of audio metadata.

The app fills the gap between Instagram and YouTube. The app was just launched in October and already has nearly a million users. Give it a look at shuttersong.com.
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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Branding Your YouTube Channel

YouTube Websites and Social Media Links image
YouTube Websites and Social Media Links
Just like your Facebook and Twitter profile pages, a YouTube channel page is another opportunity to reinforce your musical branding. There’s less flexibility in how you can brand that channel than there used to be, but there are still places where you can get creative. Here's an excerpt from Social Media Promotion For Musicians that provides some tips on branding and design of your YouTube Channel.

"There are a number of areas that are available on your channel that enables you to emphasize your own design or brand. Let’s look at them:
  • The Channel Art: The channel art is the banner at the top of the page where you can display a customized graphic. YouTube suggests this graphic be 2560 x1440 pixels so that it works on all types of televisions, tablets, smartphones and computers, but what YouTube will show on most computer browsers is 1546 x 423. This is known as the “safe area” and is where you should place any critical graphics information since anything outside that area might not show up on a device with a smaller screen. The graphic can be up to 2MB and in either a JPG or PNG format. The Channel Art upload section is accessed by clicking on the pen icon on the top right of graphics box, as shown in Figure 9.1. You can access a template for the channel art, as well as a design tutorial, by clicking on “How to create channel art” at the bottom of the upload pop up box.
TIP: Your channel art should be attractive and consistent with your brand, but don’t be afraid to also feature any of the personalities, characters or content of the channel.
  • The Channel Description: You access your channel description from the About tab underneath your channel name. After the About box pops up, select the pen icon on the upper right to edit. From here you can enter or edit the description. Be sure to include all the information about your channel in the description, such as what to expect from the video content as well as who’s involved (like the members of a band).
  • Website and Social Media Links: The website and social medial links are accessed in the same manner as above; through the pen icon on the top right of the box. Here you can add links to websites, blogs and social networks (see the graphic on the left). The first weblink you entered will appear on the lower right side above your channel art, as will the social network icons. The others will appear in the About box. 
  • Featured Video/Trailer: Another thing that you can do is feature a particular video or trailer at the top of the page when someone who is unsubscribed visits your channel. Simply select the pen icon on the top right of the box, select a video, then hit save. You can see what both subscribers and non-subscribers see by toggling Unsubscribed trailer and Subscriber view next to the edit icon.
  • Playlists: YouTube allows you to create multiple playlists, which can have a great influence in how your fans consume your content. If you have a fair number of videos, you might want to create different playlists for different parts of your fan base, since each may have a different desire of what to watch. While your superfans will want to see everything you upload, your casual fans may be more selective. You can select the order and layout of these playlists, or create a new one, by selecting the edit icon on the top right of the playlist box.
Read additional excerpts from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and other books at bobbyowsinski.com.
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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Outside The Box With "24 Hours Of Happy"

There's not much that can grab us anymore when it comes to music videos. We've seen big budget productions come and go and come back again. We've seen fan generated videos, lyric videos, full album streams over a single graphic, comic videos, serious videos and everything in between, so it takes a lot to capture our attention. That's why Pharrell Williams' "24 Hours Of Happy" is so unique.

If you've not seen it yet, "24 Hours Of Happy" is really a 24 hour video that takes place on the streets of Los Angeles with a wide variety of people dancing and lip synching to Williams' song "Happy." It was actually shot over 11 days with over 400 people over 8 miles of LA streets.

It's a catchy song, an interesting concept, and thinking outside the box. Here's a video of the first hour.


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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Lie That Fuels The Music Industry’s Paranoia

Music Key On Keyboard image
We’ve heard it for a decade now. “We’re losing more than half of our music sales thanks to digital piracy,” says the music industrial complex. The problem is that the music industry has freaked itself out so continually over hyped-up numbers attributed to music piracy that it can’t tell the facts from the reality anymore. The truth of the matter is that while music piracy was a real live problem at one point in the past, today it’s just a distant memory.

Don’t believe me? Let me give you a couple of data points:
  • A study released earlier this month by networking company Sandvine on Internet traffic trends found that peer to peer traffic is now below 10%, down from 31% five years ago and 60% eleven years ago. Less P2P traffic equals less piracy according to a report from Envisional.

  • Meanwhile, a combination of Netflix and YouTube now account for more than 51% of all Internet traffic in North America. YouTube is now the go-to platform for consuming music for US teens according to Nielsen’s annual Music 360 report, with more than 64% of teens consuming their music that way.

Here’s the bottom line - people don’t pirate songs anymore because they don’t need to. They can get whatever they want for free online via YouTube or a streaming service like Spotify.


After all, what’s the point of clogging up your hard drive with songs that you rarely listen to when you can have access to literally millions more any time and any place you want, and a lot more conveniently too? And why try to steal a song from a Torrent when you’re not sure if what you’re downloading is the original song or if it’s encrypted, corrupted or spoofed? You can waste a lot of time just trying to find a usable song to listen to. Who needs that? Read more on Forbes.
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You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

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