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12 ways to grow your band’s email list

/ By Dave Lopez / in Blog, Music Marketing / No comment

David A. Lopez Mixing - Email Marketing

1. Put an email signup box on your website — Place the signup box in a prominent place on your website so all your visitors will see it.

2. Put clear calls-to-action on your website — It’s not enough to have an email signup option on your website. You have to make it obvious for visitors what you’d like them to do. Something simple, like “sign up for my monthly newsletter” or “get email updates about our music.” Also, let them know what the benefits of subscribing are: that they can keep up with all your band news, concert dates, and more.

3. Give something in exchange for an email address — Most email marketing programs, such as ListBaby, will allow you to offer your fans a free download after they sign up to your list. So give away an MP3 of your best song, or perhaps a PDF with sheet music, or an eBook of your tour and recording diaries.

4. Give your email newsletter subscribers access to exclusive content — Let your subscribers know that in your world, they’re VIPs, deserving of the special treatment. They get to hear your new music first. They get to listen to demos that aren’t made available elsewhere. They get behind-the-scenese glimpses that nobody else does. Make them feel like insiders.

5. Prominently feature your email signup list at your merch booth — Create a template in Word or whatever word-processing program you use, print some out before every show, and bring them to your concerts. Put the same call-to-action that’s on your website on this sheet, make the benefits clear, and then be sure to draw attention to it, pass it around, announce it from the stage. Don’t just hide it in the corner and hope folks will sign up.

via 12 ways to grow your band's email list « DIY Musician Blog.

The relationships between notes and frequencies.

/ By Dave Lopez / in Audio Mastering, Audio Mixing, Blog, Engineer Notebook., Recording / No comment

An engineer told me many years ago that if you can recognize the note of a certain frequency then you'll be able to EQ your mixes much faster and with more ease. So if you are mixing a track and hear that there's a hump in the low end brought on by the bass playing a C and you know that this particular C is around 13oHZ (it's actually 131HZ) then you can reach for the low band EQ and cut that frequency. Most engineers will boost the low band at any frequency and start to sweep the band until they find the offending tone then they'll cut it. Don't you think it would be much more efficient to know the note and frequency through ear training so all you have to do is reach for the frequency and cut it? No more sweeping needed. Just know the note, relate that note to the frequency and make your adjustment. This was eye opening to me! Ear opening actually, but you get my point.

Below is a chart that shows the note to frequency relationships as well as the frequency range for the most popular wester musical instrument. [Click the chart to see a larger version]

Note to frequency relationships.

Manley Massive Passive as a vocal EQ?

/ By Dave Lopez / in Audio Mixing, Blog, Engineer Notebook. / No comment

In an article by Bobby Owsinski about his favorite EQ he mentions that he uses a Massive Passive on vocals. He said "This is my go-to plugin for vocals. It can add sparkle and heft to a vocal done even on an SM58 in a way that few others can. It's perfect for carving out space in the mix for a track." Using the Massive Passive on vocals seems a little overkill to me, but Bobby knows what he's doing so I'll certainly have to give this a try.

UA Manley Massive Passive plugin

Figure out the direction of the song – Manny Marroquin

/ By Dave Lopez / in Blog, Engineer Notebook. / No comment

Here are four simple yet very effective tips from mix engineer Manny Marroquin

  • Develop the groove and build it like a house.
  • Find the most important element and emphasize it.
  • Use some distortion on vocals and use a send and ride the returns to add character throughout the song.
  • During different sections of the song alternate using different compressors across the mix bus.

Ozone makes for a great vocal channel strip

/ By Dave Lopez / in Audio Mixing, Blog, Engineer Notebook., Music Production, Recording / No comment

An Ozone fan on Gearslutz.com nominated Ozone the best vocal channel strip for some type of award or another. Honestly I don't recall, but yes! That's a great idea!

Instead of trying get a great sound with five different plugins I'm going to start using Ozone on vocals in my mixes. It has it all - eq, reverb, compressor, limiter, exciter, imaging, etc. Makes sense to me.

It's so simple (meaning complete) it just might work!

But what do you think? I'd love to hear your tips and tricks on using Ozone in your mixes.

If you have a special way you use Ozone please leave it a comment in the box below.

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