Podcast | TechMuze Academy

How long does it take you to get your music from your head to your speakers? Do you ever find yourself mixing in circles like a hiker lost in the woods? Developing a strategic workflow and sticking to it is the secret to getting from A to Z in the quickest fashion with the fewest hurdles. That’s the topic of this episode of TechMuze. Brought to you by MixLessons.com. Arguably, the webs most thorough and complete course on modern record mixing. Take the free course “3 Simple Steps To Amazing Home Recordings” and make better music!    

I this episode of the TechMuze Podcast we discuss the dangers of building your fan base on properties that you don’t own and control. It’s important to use social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to get in front of potential fans and to engage with your current fans but your goal should always be to draw them back to your “house” online and encourage them to join your email list. Your music business is a system and your goal should be to get as many fans into that system as possible so that you can engage with them and turn them into super fans! If you want to learn how to turn your music into a career with your own automated music marketing system, watch the free training video here: Get The Artist Promotion Blueprint    

Growing you fan email database is perhaps the most important thing we can do as musicians. Check out this fun, easy way to dramatically grow your own email list and get your music heard. Check out our contest here: DezzAndCarol.com/itunes  

Do you consider your music to be a hobby or a business? You can take your craft very seriously either way. If you choose to make the shift from artist to artist/entrepreneur there are some new things to pay attention to. In upcoming videos I will be addressing some of these things. Head over to ArtistPromotionBlueprint.com to learn more  

In this episode we take a look at the plugins used to arrive at the final mix of “Paper Pedestals” by Sarah Fazackerley. This was recorded in my living room (with the exception of the drums) and everything was performed by Sarah except the Bass and Drums.   The bass was provided by Brock MacArthur. You can hire him to play on your own record by visiting www.BasslinesOnline.com  The drums were provided by Rob Brown. You can hire him to play on your own record by visiting www.RobBrownOnDrums.com    

In this episode of the TechMuze Podcast we take a look at a super simple, 2 track mix of a tune called “Come A Little Closer” By Heather Luckhart. This simple session will hopefully make it easier to hear the subtle effects of some of the treatments we use on a regular basis in a typical mix. To hear more from Heather Luckhart visit www.HeatherLuckhart.com and get some free tracks via email. Transcript » TechMuze Ep – 34, I’m Back! Welcome to TechMuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through tech – both technology and technique. Please visit techmuzeacademy.ca for show, notes and more. Follow us all over the internet at TechMuze Podcast and as always, enjoy the show. Alright, welcome back to another episode of TechMuze Podcast. It has been a heck of a long time since my last episode. All kinds of things have been going down around me. And yeah maybe let me talk a little bit about that. Let you guys know where I’ve been at. We’re friends, right! I think I can get a litte bit personal with you if I may? Over the last few months I’ve been sort of getting use to solo-living. My wife and I have separated. We’ve mutually decided to go our separate ways and its very amicable. I don’t need your condolences or anything like that. Everything is good. But it did make for some pretty hefty life changes. So, that in a nutshell without getting too deep and personal is what’s been keeping me rather ocupied for the last few months. So, I apologize to you as a listener to the show that I haven’t had the opportunity to get one out in a while. But everythings nice! I’m on even an keel again settling in my new place and we’re back in business. So, that explains a little bit of whats going with me. If you want to fill me on whats going on with you, head on over to techmuzeacademy.com leave me a comments or better yet comeover to the facebook page. Thats facebook.com/techmuze and come and say hey and drop us a link on what you’ve working on there. I put a  call to action there a few weeks ago to get people to post a link to what they have been getting into. It was really kind a good. I had a lot of people submit links to their sound cloud page or whatever and I got a chance to listen to what you guys have been working on. And thats great! You know, don’t just come over and spam my timeline with all your links. That’s not cool. But if you want to send me a message and let me know whats been going on with your musical production endeavors, Id be happy to have a list and I’d love to hear what the techmuze community is brewing. So, today on the show I’m going basically just dive right into it. I don’t want to waste a lot of time here since it has been a while since we’ve got into the meat and potatoes of the TechMuze Podcast. What I want you to do today is bring up a mix that I had been working on recently. I did few tunes with a good friend of mine Hether Luckhart. And if you are into sort of soulful, you know really talented female vocal, kind of a bluesy soulful type of style then you’ll definitely going to dig what she’s putting down because she’s very, very good at what she does. The tune I’m going to describe to you today and demontrate what I’ve done is called “Close To You”, once again by Hether Luckhart. Now, the reason I want to bring this tune up is because it’s extremely simple. This entire session is 2 tracks. A guitar track, a single mono-guitar track and a single mono-vocal track. And I want to use this as an example just because it is so simple, it makes it a little easier to hear to some of the subleties and nuances that we have to deal with as engineers. When you get into a bigger mix, something with 20, 30, 40 tracks in it. Excuse me. You’re still implementing the same stategies. Its just of course a lot more subtle[...]

In this episode of the TechMuze podcast we wrap up our sneak peek at the artist promotion blueprint by discussing mind games and monetizing your music. How can we increase our chances of success? By understanding the psychology of our fans and implementing strategies to make it easier for them to say yes when we have something to ask. Link: ArtistPromotionBlueprint.com Transcript » “Techmuze Episode 33” “Welcome to Techmuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through tech – both technology and technique. Please visit us at techmuzeacademy.ca for show notes and more. Follow us all over the internet at Techmuzepodcast and as always enjoy the show.” Already! Welcome to the 33rd episode of the Techmuze podcast. We’re going to wrap up our short mini series on the Artist Promotion Blueprint that we’ve been going through the last few episodes with parts 5 and 6 of the first module of the artist promotion blueprint which is the theory module. In these parts we’re going to discuss one thing that I refer to as mind games which is sort of the how we implement this psychology of marketing, the psychology of influence into this marketing system this machine that we’re designing and we’re going to learn how to build the artistpromotionblueprint.com. And then the other thing ofcourse is we’re going to discuss in the 6th chapter of this 1st module monetization which is ofcourse rather important if you’re trying to make a career as a musician. You have to figure out how to get people to ethically give you their money. And that’s the topic we’re going to discuss in a moment. But first what I want to do is take a second to say thanks to a few people who have taken me up on my offer here on my request rather, to show some love to the podcast and leave a review in Itunes. I just want to make mention of a couple. First, we have Amiga Gia I believe that’s how I’m supposed to pronounce that from the USA who says, “I love this podcast. Always interesting topics and highly thought-provoking. It’s help me to become a better music producer and audio mixer. Thanks Dezz! You rock!” I appreciate that. Also, from the USA we have Jamol Powell who writes in and says,”I found Dezz on Youtube and just fell into a whole new world of learning and it led me to this Techmuze podcast which I must add is short, sweet and really gets you thinking about a number of topics. But it doesn’t end there, techmuze.ca also connects you to a community of like-minded others sharing ideas on a lovely art form. I really feel like anyone can pick up some nice info from Dezz and everything he’s put together. Shout out to Dezz, What’s up bro! I appreciate that Jamol.  And of course, Techmuze.ca will still lead  you to the Techmuzeacademy. However, Techmuzeacademy.com is the direct url. I still maintain the ownership of  Techmuze.ca because in previous podcast thats how I’ve referred to to the url to where I get you were your at. So, we will still work with Techmuzeacademy.com as the official url either way. And just one more, we’ve got…this is from James Thompsonthret. It’s all one word…from Australia. He says, “This podcast is incredibly awesome so much knowledge. Thank you so much for sharing.” Well, I appreciate that. I’ll just call you James. How’s that? I appreciate that James. So, like I say I truly love it when people leave reviews on Itunes. One of course, because is it helps me maintain my large ego. And the other reason and more importantly is that is a big way as to which way how …what am I trying to say, Itune search engine…how it works. If you got reviews then Itunes search engines will give you a little more credibility. And it helps me to get the show discovered by other people who may also benefit from the topics we discuss here. So,[...]

Chapter 4 in our look at the Artist Promotion Blueprint. In this episode we discuss the concept and importance of “Content Marketing” for musicians. Be sure to check out www.ArtistPromotionBlueprint.com to get your own blueprints for a massive, automated music marketing machine. Being a DIY musician has just gotten easier! Link: ArtistPromotionBlueprint.com Transcript » “Techmuze Ep – 32” “Welcome to Techmuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through tech, both technology and technique. Please visit technews.ca for show, notes and more. Follow us all over the internet at Technews podcast and as always enjoy the show.” Welcome back to episode 32 of the Technews podcast. In the Last few episodes we’ve been doing a sneak peak at the academy’s latest program which is called the Artist Promotion Blueprint. We’ve looked at I guess, part 1 through 3 so far of module 1 of the blueprint where we’re breaking down basically the  theory as to what’s going on, what this blueprint is designed to build, what that machine is capable of doing or what’s it suppose to do or hopefully what it will do and why we might be interested in such madness. Okay! So, again if you are looking to accelerate the process head on to arstistpromotionblueprint.com and just go ahead and grab the first module. I’m giving it away for free at the moment. This is the begining of May 2013. So, if you’re listening to this at some point in the future, who knows what’s going on in your world. Send me back the winning lottery numbers if you don’t mind I’ll appreciate that. Artistpromotionblueprint.com, check it out! Another thing that I’m really having a lot of fun with is if you follow me on Facebook you probably  notice that we are doing our first give away at the academy. If you go to academy.com/win, techmuzeacademy.com/win, “WIN” that will take you to the page where you can enter, enter as free. You just put in your name and your email and you now have a ballot in this draw. The prize this year, the first time we’ve ever done a give a way, I’m giving away a Golden Age Project PRE73 but you may know this pre-amp. Its a cloan of the NIV 1073 MICPRE, ofcourse significantly easier to pay for than the one that says NIV in the name plate. But nonetheless, sounds fantastic. I have two of them in my rack. I can see from the corner of my eye right now and I absolutely love them. So, I have purchase one brand Spanky The New and I’m giving it away. No strings attached all you got to do to enter is go techmuzeacademy.com/win and drop your name and email. The other thing is every single person who enters will also get a free copy of the “3 Simple Steps to Amazing Home Recordings” video training series that I’m giving away. It has help hundreds, hundreds literally hundreds of home studio enthusiast to improve the quality of their results so everyone gets that for free. And one lucky person will win the PRE73. Now there’s a little…I guess the way this contest works its kind of interesting is that when you enter you name and your email you get one entry. If you refer…if like tweet about it or you post it on Facebook, the system actually generates you a unique link. If you share it and somebody clicks on your link and also enters. If one person enters that you know that you’re responsible for sending them there you get 10 more entries automatically. So, sharing actually dramtically increases your chance of winning because you’ll have the most, the most entries in the pot so to speak. So, this program is going to run through the month of may and at the end of the month we will pick up a random winner. And I will notify you by email and get your shipping details and we’ll send you a brand Spanky The New Golden Age Project PRE73. So, once again techmuzeaca[...]

In this episode of the TechMuze Podcast we continue our free sneak-peek at the Artist Promotion Blueprint. This is the newest TechMuze Academy Program designed to teach you how to build an automated music marketing machine online to suck in new fans and ultimately turn them into happy customers! Link: ArtistPromotionBlueprint.com Transcript » “TechMuze episode – 31” “Welcome to TechMuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through tech. Both technology and technique. Please visit techmuze.ca for shows and more. Follow us all over the internet at techmuzepodcast and as always enjoy the show.” Welcome back to another episode of the techmuze podcast. This is part 2 in a short series that we’ve been doing on the artistpromotion blueprint which is some of you know is the most recent techmuze academy program. It is available to be look at now at artistpromotionblueprint.com You’ll also find it through the TechmuzeAcademy classroom, if you pop into the classroom while your visiting the site. So, basically we’ve been talking about the first module of the course which focuses on the theory as to what the blueprint is designed for. What are we trying to build from this blueprint? What its  purpose. Ofcourse, just to quickly recap. Really what we’re trying to do…is we are trying to create an automated music marketing machine essentially surounding your website and your social network and all of these things that we tried to wrap into the machine in an automated fashion to help take the work load off of you and your marketing and promotion efforts so that you can focus primarily on what it is that you really love to do which is to create great music and great content and to put it out there for all to enjoy. We want the marketing process for the most part to happen on autopilot so we can stay focus on the good stuff. So, that’s what the machine is designed to do. These first few I guess excerpts are basically focusing on the theory. So, what are we trying..what do we need to build in this machine to make this successful. Last week, we spoke about or in the last episode we spoke about the idea of creating luck and how if you want to be lucky then its simple. You just have to be everywhere, all the time with great content and eventually those fortunate circumstances will present themselves to you. So, a little philosophical but I want to get into the next part of the conversation today which is about being prolific. And we’ll get started with that right now. Okay, in this video I want to talk little bit about one of the main aspects of this marketing machine that we’re going to build. And that is we’re going build in this ability to be prolific. What do I mean by prolific? I mean as the image kind a implies being everywhere, everywhere that your potential fans, your potential audience might be.  And to be there as often consistently possible with a high quality product and as we kind a mentioned in the previous video. Okay so there’s a couple of steps to making this work correctly for you and the first one is you want to really sit down and consider your brand. Okay and you may not have thought of this before. But a lot of artists they do what they do and because it naturally resonates from them. It’s the natural tendency for them to create the music that they create or any other type of art that you might be into. Ofcourse most of you watching this today are musicians I’m assuming.  Although this information could be relevant to many, many other types of artist or types of product owners I supposed you could say. But you really want to stop and consider your brand and you want to be consistent. And so, if you’re a solo artist this is something you could sit down and do for yourself. If your a band, in a band you’re going to want to sit down with the members of your band. And you’re going[...]

This is part one of a series where we discuss music marketing for the DIY musician using the Artist Promotion Blueprint. GET THE BLUEPRINT!

As promised, here are the videos from my Long & McQuade University clinic. I had a great time! Thanks to all who attended!   Part 1 – The Lecture    

As we travel along the path to mastery in any field there are always many questions that come up. The same can be said about the study of music production. There are however, many questions that I receive that simply cannot be answered! So, what do you do when you encounter a question with no clear answer? Well, that’s the topic of this episode! Don’t forget: Get your free video training series by visiting MixLessons.com Leave me a review in iTunes for this show and subscribe to Mix Lessons Online while you’re there! Also, learn much much more at TechMuze.tv Transcript » “TechMuze Episonde 28 – How To Ask Smarter Questions” “Welcome To TechMuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through Tech, both technology and technique. Please visit TechMuze.ca for shows and more. Follow us all over the internet at TechMuze podcast and as always enjoy the show.” Welcome back to the “Whenever the Heck I Feel Like It Edition” of the TechMuze podcast. As you know, as I say every episode – its been a while since we’ve chit-chatted. You know…things, lots of things on the table, lots of things on the go. But here we are once again with another fresh episode of the TechMuze podcast. In todays episode as I mentioned in the intro, I’d want to talk a little about you know “Is there such things as stupid questions? You know are there better ways to ask questions? Or are there better ways to arrive at the answers to your questions when it comes to your pursuit on your educational journey, the educational path towards mastery at your music production endeavors? So, that’s what I want to get into. Just before we get to the meat and potatoes of things I just want to give everyone a quick update as to whats been going on with the TechMuzeAcademy. TechMuzeAcademy.com by the way is where you’ll go to find all things academy related, all things techmuze related. Some of you…I know a lot of you listen to this show, via Itunes or whatever your favorite pod catcher of choice is and I greatly I appreciate that. One thing I’d love if you could do. As you know people have ask you know, “Is there a way I can support so on and so fourth. Well, there’s two ways you can support. Now, I’ll give you choices. Option A is sign the back of your pay checks over to me and just mailed them to my address. That’s option A. And option B is to go into Itunes. Log into your Itunes account leave me some feedback on the show. Leave me a star rating and a comment. Let me know and let others know what you think of the show because it really goes a long way towards discovery, the way Apple Itune’s search engine works is largely based on people’s feedbacks and reviews and opinions. So, If you like the show, you know …love it if you can log into your Itunes account and just search up techmuze and leave me a little comment, leave me a little review.  That would be fantastic! Or send me your pay checks. That would be appreciated as well. Another thing that I wanted to mention is that this is one out of two podcast that I do and I know some of you are aware of this and others are not. But if …while you’re in Itunes do a search for MixLessons Online. MixLessons Online is a video podcast that I do that are short video quick tips you know 5-minute, 10-minute long quick tips on mixing and music production in general. That is also available as a podcast in the Itunes podcast directory as well as the Zune directory and the Black Berry podcast directory. TechMuze, this show is also available in Stitcher and Stitcher Radio if you are a Stitcher user, by all means check it out over there as well. But search for MixLessons Online and subscribe to that show as well for some sort of bite-size morsels that may help inspire you towards new things, new techniques, new things in your studio as well. And wh[...]

Our first success story! Join us as we talk with Justus Dolleman of the band Dutch Groove about the production of his record and his involvement with the MixLessons.com course and community. Be sure to check out the rest of the album by visiting www.DutchGroove.nl Subscribe for free at MixLessons.com!   More » “Welcome to TechMuze, a netcast designed to educate and inspire your musical creativity through tech – both technology and technique. Please visit TechNews.ca for show notes and more. Follow us all over the internet at TechNews Podcast and as always enjoy the show.” Welcome back to episode 27 of the TechMuze Podcast. It’s been a little while since we’ve chit-chated. Lets jump right into it. Today, I’ve got something  really special I’m very exited about to share with you all today. One of our community members at the MixLessons.com course and Mastermind Community forum has officially released his first record and it turned out absolutely amazing and I took some time over skype to get together with him and discuss some of the details surrounding the production of that record and …and the like. So, stay tuned for that in just a moment. And also stick around to the end of the interview to hear a full length track off the record so you can kind a get a taste for just how far its come. It sounds amazing. It’s a style of music that I personally really, realy like a lot. And so, stay tuned to the end of the inverview for that. In the meantime, just a little bit of I guess upkeep and maintenance somethings I just want to draw your attention to. First of all, if you listen to this Podcast and it’s the only aspect of the TechMuze community that you participate in, I just want you to know that you miss quite a bit of free content and engagement that’s going on at the TechMuzeAcademy. I have been producing a series of video quick tips that I’m trying to publish you know one or two at least a week. If you like to get into that jump over to the TechMuzeAcademy.It’s TechMuzeAcademy.com for those of you who don’t know.  Also, you can find a podcast feed of those videos by searching Itunes for MixLessons online. So, all of those video quick tips show up in the podcast feed much like this one but it’s video. And their short little episodes, little juicy morsels that I think you might find interesting and hopefully helpful in your music production endeavors. So, do an Itune  search for Mixlessons online. Subscribe to that, it’s ofcourse is completely and entirely free as most of the things that I do are. And the other way to stay informed and updated is if you haven’t already done so is head over to Mixlessons.com, throw you email in the email newsletter list. Two things will happen when you do that. One, you will actually get a weekly digest of all the new content that’s been published, so you won’t miss out on anything. But the other thing, more importantly perhaps is you’ll gain access to my free video training series called “3 Simple Steps to Amazing Home Recordings”, which is a sort of a primer on the core fundamental important concept that one needs to be aware and to consider when it comes to making great mixes. So, that again ofcourse is free of charge. Head on over to MixLessons.com. Just subscribe to the email newsletter and I will start to send all of that lovely juicy content your way. So, without further ado I want to introduce you to one of our MixLessons.com members. His name is Justus Dolemann. He’s from the Netherlands and which he’ll be able to tell most than likely when you hear him speak. And we spend about… oh about 30 minutes or so chit-chatting about his new record. And I want to…looking forward, excited to hear what you guys think about this little conversation and I’ll see you on the flip side. Dezz Asante here again from the TechMuzeAcademy an[...]

Yeah, I just said that! In this episode we discuss the importance of deepening your understanding of what makes a great mix and some methods to help with that. We also talk about the futility of some of the questions I hear people asking. Are you backed up? www.StudioBackup.com XXX for audio geeks! www.TechMuze.tv

How much time do you spend editing your audio files before you start your mix? Whatever your answer, double it! Editing is one of the most important (and overlooked) steps in the production process. It’s also my least favourite part of music making! However, that said, I always love mixing tracks that are as close to perfection as the music demands. In this episode of TechMuze, we discuss the philosophy of editing. What should you fix? What should you leave alone? How can technology make this super important part of the process less tedious? Links Mentioned: Check out Joe Gilder’s Production Club 2.0 to learn everything you need to know about taking your music from idea to final master! Production Club 2.0 Check out Ronan’s awesome video podcast: Ronan’s Recording Show Also Mentioned: Shout Out To My Peeps The 10 Best Music Production Podcasts