AudioMelody

A Guide to Buying Pre-Owned Musical Instruments

audiomelody — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:30:01 +0000

Musical instruments from pianos to saxophones are expensive due to the love and labour put into making them, nevermind the parts themselves. Whilst we’d all love to be able to just walk into a music shop and buy a new Steinway or Les Paul whenever we want to, you can save yourself a bundle by buying second hand.

Where to Buy?

Searching through local classified ads on Craigslist, and auctions on eBay can turn up a wealth of instruments available to buy at very reasonable prices. We’ve even have a friend find an upright piano on Freecycle. As with anything you are buying from individuals online, you should make sure that the person you are buying from is reliable, and that the instrument is in good working condition before you part with your money. If the seller is nearby, ask to go and see the instrument before you make any commitments.

There are also a variety of music shops around the country that resell second hand instruments online, and whilst you may not find the bargains here that you may find on eBay, music shops will normally check and service instruments before putting them up for sale. Again it is always useful to go in a see the instrument for yourself before buying, but in general you are safer dealing with a music shop and they may even offer you discounts on other bits of kit you might want to buy alongside it from sheet music to cases.

Do Your Research and Know What You Want

Simply searching for a piano or guitar on sale is going to offer you hundreds or even thousands of results at any one time. Do your research and decide on a few models of piano, guitar, or other instrument that you would like to buy and look up the price they sell for when new to give yourself a benchmark price.

Make Sure There’s a Guarantee

When buying anything second hand, it is always useful to ask the shop or seller whether they offer a guarantee with your purchase. Some music shops will even give your instrument a service after the first 6 months for free to make sure it’s all working out well for you. A guarantee will be more difficult to get from a seller on eBay or the like, but most people want you to be happy with your purchase and will offer refunds if you aren’t.

[Photograph courtesy of Alexander Ward]

Indie Bible 2013

audiomelody — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:47:58 +0000

The internet has opened many doors in the world of music, and it is a better time than ever to be a DIY band or musician and get your music heard around the world. But it is a pretty tough job to work out where to start with these endless possibilities, and this is where the Indie Bible comes in.

It is certainly possible to learn much of what is in those pages from a good few days or weeks with Google as your friend, and a real desire to work away in front of a screen all night to find the right blogs, and labels for your music, or to work out the best and cheapest way to get your music onto iTunes or Spotify and where to look to venues to play. This information is available online, but it is spread across so many different websites and services, with such different styles and quality guidelines, that doing the research can be a depressing task.

The Indie Bible brings together huge lists of contacts for everything from bloggers, to magazine writers, to radio DJs and promoters, to management, labels, and distributors. Having the contact details of all these in one place for easy access makes life a lot easier when you;re just starting out and are looking for some help in picking who to reach out to. Impersonal emails and mailshots tend to get ignored, so your time is much better spent finding the right people from these exhaustive lists, than just trying to contact everyone – and the sections make this pretty easy.

As well as these lists, there is also a number of fantastic articles covering everything from getting radio airplay, to marketing and promotion, to the legal aspects, as well as other parts of the industry. These are written by people who have spent their lives in the music world, and they are extremely useful in getting yourself over that first hurdle and getting started on the road to being a DIY musician, or even approaching labels and more traditional routes to success. Once you’ve had a read through, you should know the basics of where you stand, what you have to do, and a rough guide of what you need to do yourself. After that it is down to having the songs and putting the hard graft in.

Now with all that praise out of the way, there are certainly a few things that I would change. The first and foremost, is that whilst the articles work well as a PDF download, the listings do work better as a searchable directory. The Indie Bible do have a directory behind a paywall with this information, but I found the site pretty clunky to use. Similarly, some of the graphics are a little basic and make the guide feel a little budget, even when in reality the information you are getting is very cheap at the price.

As far as I’m concerned, the information contained in these guides are well worth the money as your first tentative steps into the music industry, but the packaging could do with a serious update.

[BUY] Indie Bible Bundle 2013 for $59.95

Amazing Radio Returns to DAB

audiomelody — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:29:43 +0000

Following its departure from DAB after a contract disagreement with Arqiva almost a year ago, the new music radio station Amazing Radio will finally be back to broadcasting throughout London and the South East on May 13th, with Dublin soon to follow.

Programme Director Matt Jamison explained:

“We’re back, not yet nationally in the UK, although we hope to get there one day. Plus, we’re launching an expanded on-line streaming service, with more time-shifting to US time zones, a new and improved mobile app and more genre-based channels such as Amazing Beats and Amazing Ambient”

We welcome them back with open arms!

Twitter #Music Launches

audiomelody — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:50:43 +0000

There has been a lot of hype surrounding Twitter’s Music app, developed after the social network acquired San Francisco-based music aggregator WeAreHunted last year. And the wait is finally over, with the app available now for iOS and on the web.

At launch the app features music from Spotify, Rdio, and iTunes, with SoundCloud and BandCamp reported to be joining the party soon. Users can explore music from the artists they like, and the artists those artists enjoy – offering another form of digital music discovery. They are then stream previews of those tracks through iTunes or the full tracks through Spotify or Rdio if they have a subscription to the service.

On their official blog, Twitter described the launch of the app, saying:

Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

You can find the app now both online and at the Apple App Store

eJay Looking to Relaunch on Touchscreen Devices

audiomelody — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:23:34 +0000

For many computer musicians today, their first attempts at creating music on a computer was through the popular eJay music software. First launching in 1996, eJay gave PC users an easy drag and drop interface and a wide selection of samples, beats, riffs, and effects at a time before MacBooks were as common on stage as drum kits. It’s ease of use made many start to look at the home computer as a piece of recording equipment and move up into the more complex sequencers of Steinberg’s Cubase and Emagic’s Logic.

How we interact with computers and make use of them in the musical landscape has changed vastly in the intervening years. Many people now using tablets such as the iPad for making music, and often even just smartphones like the iPhone, and eJay are looking to relaunch their brand simple music creation tools on these touch devices through a Kickstarter campaign.

The upcoming eJay pure will be available for iOS (iPad and iPhone) and Android, with the campaign already having raised £26,000 at the time of writing. They’ve brought much of the original eJay development team back together, and are even giving away 100 free samples for every £10,000 they raise, and as with every Kickstarter campaign, no-one pays anything unless the full amount is raised and the project can progress.

If your interested to see how eJay will compete in the increasingly competitive landscape of music apps, then head over to their KickStarter.

How to Record a Piano

audiomelody — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:00:02 +0000

The piano is the first instrument that many people learn, and whilst most will have learned at school it is a useful instrument to have at home to teach any budding musician the basics of reading sheet music or basic chord progressions. Keyboard are certainly useful to learn on, but for me there is nothing like the weight and feel of playing the real thing – so it might be worth checking to see if any pianos for sale in Los Angeles or wherever you may live.

Electric pianos also offer MIDI connections, but even with a traditional analogue piano you can still record your playing for a track even if this is somewhat more complicated and you will need to set up microphones. These recordings can be useful for making demos, or even to record your playing so you can monitor how your playing is improving as you learn.

Recording in stereo with two microphones is probably the easiest to record a good sound, but even with just one microphone situated about a metre above middle C will give you a reasonably balanced sound.

For stereo recording you will want to find a pair of condenser microphones with wide frequency response, low self-noise, and sensitivity that captures the subtleties and nuances that a piano requires.

You should open the piano to expose the strings and place the first microphones (M1) about 30cm above them facing slightly inward around the second G below middle C. The second microphone (M2) should also be 30cm from the strings but above the second G above middle C. You should pan the microphones hard right and left. Each microphone is different, and you should experiment a little with your placement and settings to create the sound you’re after – but this should be a good starting point.

The acoustics of the room, the tuning of the piano, and the manufacture of the piano itself will all have a bearing on the sound as well as the quality of microphone you’re using. But for basic recordings don’t worry too much – remember that this is just to help you record demos for mixing. Once you’re happy and want to do a full recording of a track, the studio you record in will have everything set up for you.

[Photograph courtesy of Alexander Ward]

Best Albums of 2012

audiomelody — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:48:58 +0000

The year 2012 may be consigned to the past, but the music it served up most definitely isn’t. There were some excellent breakthrough artists and some stunning albums, so if you’re in the mood to sit back and chill out – iPod in hand, Beats by DRE perched on ears -here are some of last year’s most memorable albums for your enjoyment.

Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
Frank Ocean started out as a songwriter for the likes of Justin Bieber and John Legend, but his debut studio album, Channel Orange, released in July, has seen him prove himself in his own right. Ocean is something of a lyrical genius: painting vivid pictures and beautiful narratives with his storytelling. His take on R&B is fresh and original, with slow jam beats and unconventional melodies, and Ocean has already picked up a number of awards and celebrity fans.

Emeli Sandé – Our Version of Events
Last year was massive for Emeli Sandé in terms of prominence and recognition. She was handed big roles in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, catapulting herself into the global arena. Sande’s music is soft, captivating and moving, and it’s worth noting that she has re-released this album with the smash-hit Beneath Your Beautiful in all its poignant glory.

Swedish House Mafia – Until Now
Not the kind of music you’d choose to listen to whilst relaxing with your iPod, granted, but Swedish House Mafia’s 2012 album Until Now is a dancefloor classic, with Don’t You Worry Child surely claiming its place as one of the seminal tracks of the year. House music has many forms and guises, but this album has a great electro feel and a succession of brilliant anthems.

Maroon 5 – Overexposed
After their debut album back in 2002 went multi-platinum, Maroon 5 looked set to be one of the biggest bands on the planet. Sadly their follow-up efforts weren’t a patch on their first release, but their 2012 offering was easily the best yet. Payphone was a no.1 hit as well as one of the catchiest songs of the year, and helped shoot them back into stardom.

Learning an Instrument Online or Offline?

audiomelody — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 22:12:41 +0000

Learning an instrument is something which I believe everyone should do at some point in their life. Everyone has a different presence as to which instrument to learn, whether it is the guitar, the piano, the drums, or the oboe, but everyone should learn at least one. But with the internet being a open learning repository for just about anything, will YouTube suffice or should you be looking offline piano teachers?

I was lucky enough to go to a school that gave high value to music, and learned the drums from some impressive musicians that have toured the world and worked years as session musicians. There is a certain amount of awe involved in pushing you to the next level of learning, where you start to see practice as an integral and useful part of your day rather than a chore, and I found the one-to-one tuition very useful in pushing me in that direction. It is always hard to start learning something new, but once you get over the first few stumbling blocks everything starts to open out in front of you.

Outside of school it is pretty easy to find a teacher for your instrument, with many happy to make house calls and let you learn in your own home – reducing the barrier to learning even more. A person can show you the best way to improve your personal technique by making tiny steps – but one-on-one tuition is expensive, so how does the internet compare? Piano lessons are a good way to measure the effectiveness of the various options.

YouTube offers a wealth of piano lessons by and for people with all levels of skills, but there are a couple of series that a number of people recommend. For the people looking for completely free lessons, Andrew Furmanczyk does a pretty good job of starting right at the beginning (see the video below), but he has done a long and pretty thorough series since 2008 and the quality has improved massively as he’s gone along.

Here’s the First Lesson:

If you are happy to pay a small amount for your lessons then Willie Myette has done another great series and lets students buys DVDs, download lessons, or pay a monthly membership which includes access to all the lessons and personal support over the web

Here’s a mini-lesson from Willie:

So which option will you choose to learn to play an instrument? Let us know in the comments.

Photograph by esc861/Flickr

So Quiet It Can Cause Hallucinations?

audiomelody — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:07:54 +0000

We’ve all been in rehearsal rooms and recording studios where we wished the noise cancelling was just a little bit better, where all outside sounds are completely removed – even that police siren going past. But it appears that there is such a thing as a place being too quiet.

Orfield Laboratories‘ “anechoic chamber” in South Minneapolis, USA claims to be the quietest place on earth, and that near-perfect silence does some odd things to those that experience it. The chamber is 99/9% absorbent and holds the Guinness World Record for the quietest place in the world at −9.4 dBA, and the longest anyone has managed to spend in it alone in the dark has been a mere 45 minutes.

The room offers true isolation from our surroundings, such silence that you can hear your heartbeat, your lungs move, and your stomach in its throws of digestion as your ears adapt. What is more interesting, however, is how much we use sound to examine our environment subconsciously, and how people rapidly lose orientation when they lose both light and total sound like this – it can even cause hallucinations and people lose themselves without the cues from their surroundings.

The chamber is used for commercial product testing, for manufacturers to discover how loud a heart valve and LCD screen really is – sounds which are generally imperceptible with normal background noise.

Photograph courtesy of Steven Orfield

Piano Recording: Software or Hardware?

audiomelody — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:26:15 +0000

Recording a song has never been easier, with computers becoming ever more powerful and software synthesizers and samplers that take advantage of that power are improving all the time. But once you have recorded that first demo using just a basic keyboard and a laptop, when you want to record the final cut of that song do you still take the software route or do you find a Steinway rental piano?

Computers have long offered “piano” sounds through basic MIDI, but today’s software samplers can often contain gigabytes of sampled sounds to try and get that true feel of a Steinway.

Native Instruments Kontakt has reigned supreme as one of the best software samplers on the market, and their piano collection offers New York, Vienna, and Berlin concert grands alongside a traditional upright with the keys sampled at ten different velocities to make the sound as realistic as possible. Galaxy Instrument’s Vintage D is also very popular which samples the vintage Steinway D-274 piano, which is widely regarded as offering some of the best piano tones created.

Synthology’s Ivory II Grand Pianos offer more than 77 gigabytes of sampled acoustic piano sounds including the Steinway D, the Yamaha C7 Grand, and the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial Grand. And EastWest’s Quantum Leap Pianos go even further by offering three different microphone positions for each of their recorded pianos.

But just how good can a recorded piano be? The sounds may be nearing a quality that most people cannot hear the difference, but there is more to it than that. There is also the weighting and feel of the keys that can make the pianist play slightly differently. There is the microphones and their placement when recording a piano that can substantially change the dynamics of a mix. And there is the room where the piano is recorded, and how different that room may be from where your other instruments have been recorded. It can often even be the imperfections of a real piano that make it stand out against all these perfect digital versions.

So for us, whilst we would highly recommend any of the above software samplers to record the early edits of tracks, there is nothing quite like using the real thing for the final recordings to mix into your record.

[Photograph courtesy of Alexander Ward]