If you haven’t joined Grooveshark already, now is the time to get on it. It’s 100% free, and very similar to Pandora (but actually a lot better). Lots of you may have heard of it, but maybe not – I only found out about it about 6 months ago because my friend knows a few of the developers in FL. Grooveshark will promote your music via streaming radio through browser, desktop, iphone, android, etc. They just released a Band / Artist Appreciation program, and they are having a promotion to give smaller artists free plays. You just sign up here:

then after signing up, you just upload a few tracks (or as many as you want). It’s totally free, and all you need is an email address.

After you have created your artist account and uploaded some songs, you create a referral link and pass it around. Every 5 people that sign up, you get 2,000 guaranteed plays.  More information is on the Grooveshark Artists Blog.  But seriously, just click the link above and get started now, instead of waiting until later.  All you need is an email address and at least onesong in mp3 format.  I remember when I put off joining Myspace Music back when everyone was just starting to talk about it. It wasn’t a huge missed opportunity or anything, but I wish I had promoted my music on it a year earlier than I did.  Same goes for Twitter. Screw Facebook.

Check back soon for my review of Grooveshark’s AutoPlay program for paid plays, along with Jango Radio, SoundOut track reviews and more…

I’m writing these reviews from the perspective of an artist trying to spread their music through as many avenues as possible.  The reviews won’t be based on profits, but on how useful each services proves to be, how easy they are to use, and anything else that impresses or disappoints me.  Seeing how the album is already available online for free in multiple places, it would be a tainted experiment to judge anything based on sales.  Plus, this is not so much about how to improve sales, but how to improve the amount of people that actually hear your album.

The budget I decided on originally was $100, but in order to review more services, I upped that to $160.  There is still plenty you can do for under $100 in order to gain a little more exposure.  The other requirement I have for this series, is that all of the processes must be digital, and all done online.  I do not want to bother with manufacturing, mailing, inventory or any of the overhead that goes along with physical CDs.  Unfortunately, some services (like Pandora) require a physical retail album (complete with UPC) – however there are ways to get around that too, without spending any money out of pocket.

First things first – any respectable artist with an album these days, has that album for sale in iTunes and Amazon MP3 (among other places).  Even if you aren’t planning on making a living off digital album royalties, it’s great to refer people to your work in the same places they get all of their other music.  For this, CD Baby seems to fit the bill perfectly.  The next post in this series will cover the entire process of submitting your music to CD Baby, which includes digital distribution via iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, Spotify, Verizon V-Cast, Nokia, Zune, and lots of other services that I hadn’t even heard of.

source

Who knows where this will end up – I’m never one to pass up any type of music, so while I’m sure there are plenty of fans rolling their eyes out there and cringing, it can really only add more music to the world.  And even if the tracks aren’t awesome, they are all a step forward.  This would also be some great publicity for the Raekwon (and the entire Wu by association) in an even younger generation of listeners.  What are your thoughts about it?

Mail beats for Young Buck to onlybangers@gmail.com

found via Twitter

Raekwon the Chef, of Wu-Tang is looking for new beats (via his Twitter feed). Send beats (no more than 4) to built4catalina@gmail.com

In the past few months, there have been beat requests from MOP, Busta Rhymes and plenty others.  Stay tuned to HipHopProduction for more.

found via @Raekwon on twitter

Click here to go right to the Beat Meet:

The Beat Meet is a friendly competition between producers. They all must use a sample kit provided by this site. The kit will usually contain a fair amount of drum sounds, a bassline, and 2 sample loops. All contestants are given about a week to filter, combine, sequence, and flip the samples however they wish.

Click Here to Read More about the Beat Meet

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbhaeBRb7NA

Another great feature that both Sonar and Cubase have had for a while is block-based recording. However, it looks like Reason’s implementation is setting a new standard in ease of use. This not only allows you to make a song based on stems/loops/etc. like beat, chorus, bridge, intro, interlude, etc., but it also lets you edit the original stems and affect the song in real-time. You can also edit the stems in song mode, which leaves the others unaffected, but allows you to create variations very easily:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OPlD4N11vM

Finally, a very interesting looking module called Kong, which is a 16-pad drum module. The video explains it in simple terms. 16 pads. One sound per pad. Then goes on to show that the source(s) of each pad can include the new Dr.OctoRex Sampler, new built-in drum synths, or just about anything else you want to route into it. Take into account the new live sampling feature that exists in Reason, and this could enhance anyone’s setup that already has a drum-pad controller.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBdy0aTW5YI

Click here to go right to the Beat Meet:

The Beat Meet is a friendly competition between producers. They all must use a sample kit provided by this site. The kit will usually contain a fair amount of drum sounds, a bassline, and 2 sample loops. All contestants are given about a week to filter, combine, sequence, and flip the samples however they wish.

Click Here to Read More about the Beat Meet

Ever dreamed of turning on the radio and hearing the legendary Busta Rhymes rap ridiculously fast over one of your beats? We’re talking warp speed fast. So damn fast, you have no idea what the hell he’s even talking about…

Well now’s your chance to send Busta your original instrumentals for consideration on upcoming albums.

Link foundvia [King of All Beats] p.s. for anyone that likes keeping on top of these types of posts, be sure to check out the King of All Beats blog.

While it may not be much better than just going to ebay and searching directly, in due time this seems like a service that could prove to be very useful to all the crate-diggers and dustmites out there.  I also decided to test the site out, and see how well it did for finding a semi-rare album:

Can – Tago Mago

After searching just “Can” on the main page, their “Tago Mago” album was actually the fourth result, after “Confrontation by Bob Marley and the Wailers” (not sure where “can” was found in that), “Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream,” and “Soon Over Babaluma by Can.”

Unfortunately, at this point the site begins to fall apart a bit.  All but two of the links listed for this album are broken (I’m guessing because they are using forward-slashes in the link titles and addresses).  Anyways, once clicking on a valid link, a few more details for the album are displayed along with the ebay and amazon links, followed by a link that says “You might like the list: Killer Krautrock.”  Why yes, I do believe I might like Killer Krautrock…

So aside from being a fairly new service, despite the current issues with the site, and ignoring the simple features – this new service seems like it could end up being an invaluable tool for vinyl addicts all over the place.  I’ll be keeping an eye on it, and look forward to perhaps even integrating some of their features (or even their actual site) into HipHopProduction’s crate digging tool – SampleDig.  Stay tuned!