I don’t care if you have a record deal with a major label, representation by a famous artist manager, or a booking deal with the top agent at the biggest agency. You will fail.

On the other hand, if you understand the new economy, you understand the value of trading information for content, and you’re willing and capable of creating meaning with people, then you will succeed.

You want to be a hit act? You need to understand what type of life that really is. You need to understand that by choosing this lifestyle, you’re joining the ranks of the working class. And you’re going to have to work hard for your success. Once you reach your goal, you’re going to have to work for a long time to maintain it.

You have to understand The Power Of Free Music

You have to understand that it is you who is privileged to have the honor to have the attention of a few people for the nite, that they have chosen to let you entertain them. You’re working for the common man, and you are the common man.

At this point, I’ve been working for a long time in this space – the place where the money comes only after you create meaning with people. It’s been a very rough road to say the least, and there’s still a long way to go. So far, it’s looked nothing like I expected it to, and directions have changed more times than I can count. But I’m still plowing away, and while not every idea comes to fruition, a few do.

One of these ideas is the Three Side Single, which I launched a few weeks ago. The idea of the Three Side Single is a simple three song release that is download only, and available for $0. All you do is trade your email address for a download.

The inaugural release of this series I did in partnership with the Nashville indie rock band, Kink Ador.

Kink Ador understands the power of free music. Both Kink Ador, and myself, invite you to join the tribe.

Download the Kink Ador Three Side Single

//Jon

I’m excited to tell you that a project I produced, recorded, and mixed mid-2011 has now been released…

The Kink Ador Three Side Single.

This release also serves as the “soft-launch” of a series I want to continue doing, called the Three Side Single. The idea is to partner up with indie bands to record and release three songs of original music, and distribute this as a $0 download to anyone who signs up to an email list. It’s kinda like The Peel Sessions, Daytrotter, or Third Man Records, but with my own little personal style and musical curation.

While in the future I may run a dedicated email list for this project, this initial release is going through the list of the Nashville indie rock band Kink Ador. The $0 download works through their website/email list – trade your email via the form on the Kink Ador website, and download all three songs.

At the moment, I’m seeing the potential for this idea before I carry forward (hence the “soft-launch” vernacular), but depending on how promising things turn out I may do more of these releases in 2012 with more bands.

Grab the Kink Ador Three Side Single here: http://kinkador.com/3ss

Happy New Year

//Jon

This month I’ve been involved in quite a few projects – I’ve recorded quite a bit of vocals for people, a whole bunch of sessions with full bands (definitely my favorite type of sessions), and even recorded a couple of amazing violin and cello players that, via a creative overdubbing process, layered up parts to shape a breathtaking string section on a track.

But the project I’ve been spending most my time on over the last four weeks, is the creation of an iPhone game. This is a project I’ve put together myself – I’ve come up with the concept of the game, and hired out a couple of guys to code and design it for me. It’s my first project of this type, and I’m really excited to release it.

Naturally, it only makes sense for me to create all the music and sound effects for the game, so in between all my other sessions I’ve been writing the music, and designing the sounds. I’ve been using Propellerheads’ Reason exclusively for this task, and so far it’s all gone really well.

This morning I came across a post on the Reason 101 blog about creating chiptune music using Reason, and since I’m currently involved in making music for my iPhone game, it indeed piqued my interest.

Check it out: ChipTune Sounds (on the Reason 101 blog)

//Jon
Website: http://jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

1) Doing one thing is doing ten things!
I started saying this in response to people who say, “well, let’s just narrow things down to a list of our top 3 (or 5 or 10) priorities, and focus on those for now.” I’ve gone along with this mistake more times than I care to admit. The thing is… is that there are so many sub-tasks to any given task or goal, that if you narrow your list of priorities down to even just your single most top priority, you’re still going to end up with more than you can handle. Besides, trying to do even 5 things right out of the gate is getting the cart before the horse so to speak, because there can’t possibly be that much demand or value to what you’re doing yet…

2) Get solid with your primary line of work before expanding
Yeah, when I write this out it looks like total common sense. But I messed this one up. To my defense, though, the “side project” I was working on was ultimately to point back to, and to promote my primary line of work, which was (and is) producing, recording, and mixing albums for rock bands. Still, the fact remains (and what I could not see at the time) that I was spreading myself too thin, ignoring lesson one above, and diluting my focus.

Focus like a laser beam (ironically, something I used to say constantly to my partners when we first started out), grow slow, and don’t get caught up in the means. A characteristic many successful people have in common is that they lead very simple lives.

So always strive to simplify in every way possible.

//Jon
Website: http://jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

Not sure if the intro is too long? Cut it in half.

Wondering if the vocal seems to drag? Raise the tempo.

Does the song seem too long? Get rid of all the turn-arounds, and cut the bridge in half.

Does the song seem too monotonous? Change one of the choruses into a bridge, or add a bridge as an extra section to the song.

Every alternative you have tried for the ending does not seem to work? Leave it exactly as the band (or you) wrote it.

It does not matter what you do, just stop debating over what to do and make a decision. Because making a decision and creating a recording sounds way better than a song that is stuck at a dead end, and heard by no one.

//Jon
Website: jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

The thing was, however, that he was legitimately a smart guy. When it came to the technical subject matter of making a record, he was an encyclopedia. And when it came to the topic of the business of recording, he had a lot of valuable experiential knowledge to share as well.

I remember at a particular staff meeting when he was furiously yelling at everyone in the room (as he often did). To paraphrase, is rant went something like this: “It’s never going to be how you want it to be. It’s not even going to be how you want when you become an engineer or producer.” And although he was ranting in order to bully people around… in essence he was right.

The key word I would interject, though, is exactly. Recording music is a collaboration with many people, all of whom bring their own opinions, biases, and life experiences. Each one of these things have played a part in shaping who they are.

So the key takeaway, and the point that my former co-worker would have probably been a little more effective in getting across, had he not been so condescending (note the mild irony here) was…

Don’t let yourself get caught up in the mindset of thinking that everything is always going to go exactly your way, when you’re a big shot who’s got a list of accolades a mile long. Because not only will it be a rude awakening when you get there, this type of mentality is a handicap that will impede your career and your success. The truth is that your ideas will always be edited in some way or another, no matter what status you have attained.

It’s an elusive matter, continually working to humble yourself to the place you need to be to best pay service to the ideas. The most successful record producers and audio engineers understand this, and have taught me through their example.

It’s not about tallying up who’s got the best ideas, and how often they are used. It’s about creating meaning and art that is worth people’s attention – worth remarking on and sharing.

//Jon
Website: jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

A few scenarios for you:

1) You plan to record vocals using a specific chain of gear, but one piece in that chain is broken completely. It can’t be used until it gets fixed, and no one knows when that will be right now.

2) You’ve done three weeks worth of pre-production with a band, and booked some studio time at a rather pricey studio in town. One week before your scheduled recording date, a member of the band quits.

3) You’re juggling several projects at once. Today you’re recording some publishing demos for a songwriter at his studio, but tomorrow you’re planning to record vocals for a rock band at your own studio. Except you’re going to need to move some gear around for that to happen, and you’ve simply run out of time.

I’d speculate that a majority the time I end up having to come up with some form of a Plan B a few times (at least) on any given recording day.

Sometimes this could be a small Plan B: “Ok, let’s plan to show up to the studio at 10:30am instead of 10am.”

Sometimes this could be a big Plan B: “Well, we’re going to have to come up with our own funding for the project now, because the label just dropped the band.”

Always have a Plan B (and be agile enough to come up with a few on the spot). Because it’s not a matter of if you’re going to need it. It IS going to happen.

Also, be wise enough and brave enough to know when the best Plan B is to call the whole thing off entirely.

//Jon
Website: jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

As I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve been producing an upcoming release for the Nashville rock band, Kink Ador, which we’ll be putting out through my media company. Since I’ve been working with them, I thought I would mention a benefit show they’re going to be involved in this Sunday, October 16th (just two days from now).

PinkFest 2011
PinkFest is an annual event that benefits Women Rock For The Cure Rock*Pop*Fashion (fashion provided by Betsey Johnson in Nashville at Green Hills Mall) Artists include: The Vicious Guns, Baby Daggers, Kink Ador, Kendra Chantelle, Marlee Scott, Sarah Darling, The Lowry Sisters, Alexa Carter, Cissy Crutcher, Ya Za & Surprise Guests.

As the show is to support Women Rock For The Cure, naturally it only makes sense to have female-fronted bands and artists taking the stage. The full schedule of the line up is as follows:

5:15 The Lowry Sisters
6:00 Alexa Carter
6:30 Cissy Crutcher (Franklin Jazz Festival headliner; AvonVoices.com)
7:00 Marlee Scott (as seen on CMT)
7:30 Sarah Darling (as seen on CMT)
Special Presentation
8:30 Kendra Chantelle, from American Idol 2011
9:00 Kink Ador with Special Guest
9:45 Baby Daggers
10 until… The Vicious Guns and the grand finale!

When: This coming Sunday, October 16th at 5:00pm
Where: The Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville
What else: For full details visit the Facebook Event Page, as well as http://womenrockforthecure.org

You read an article about how someone mixed a record, or you talked with someone about a particular way to record an instrument, and the next time you’re working you begin reflecting on what you read or heard. Then you end up constantly second guessing yourself.

Now you begin to scrutinize every little thing you do in the studio – where you place a mic on an acoustic guitar, how you select gear, or your workflow for making a record in general. I do this all the time, and not with just making records, I catch myself doing this as it relates to all kinds of different daily routines.

The latest is with my mixing workflow. Lately, I’ve been catching a few discussions on blogs about the best way to approach building a mix. I recently found myself trying a couple of these techniques for starting and building a mix. And boy, did I make it hard for myself – this specific advise was not working!

That’s when the lightbulb went off. I asked myself, “Why am I doing this?” There was nothing wrong with the workflow I had been using before. It actually served me quite well. But for some strange reason, I too often get in my head that I need to try something else, just because I happened to read about it a couple days prior.

Making records is a daily learning experience. But there are also a lot of instances when you need to recognize that you already know something, and move on. If you have a technique for accomplishing something that works really well, don’t abandon that approach just because someone else came up with another method.

Record like you record, not someone else. It’s easy to get sucked into the notion that the way someone else does it is better than the way you do it, just because.

If you build great mixes by starting with the drums, then stick with that.

If an EQ inserted before a compressor typically sounds best to you, then it is best.

When trying out new methods, if the new technique does not seem to improve your workflow fairly quickly, then that’s probably your indication that you should stick with your current way of doing things.

Yeah, there’s times when you can learn a better way to do it. But there’s also times when you need to be confident that the technique you already use is sufficient. To do it any other way is not necessarily an improvement (and it could make things worse).

Ever heard the expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

//Jon
Webiste: jonstinson.com
Twitter: @stsn

But considering the significance of the devices in my life specifically-which were astonishingly a collective work of art that also happened to be revolutionary and powerful machines-something just does not seem right about going along in my day without acknowledging the passing of an icon.

Growing up in my family, we always had Apple computers-never the alternative options, which in those days were pretty much only IBM machines running DOS (Windows had not come around yet). The first computer I ever interacted with as a child was an Apple II. Specifically, I believe it was an Apple IIGS. I played archaic games that had to be loaded from one of those 5.25 inch floppy disks (“Ghostbusters” was my favorite game on this machine).

Sometime in the mid 80s my dad purchased one of the early Macintosh model computers. I know for certain it was the Macintosh SE, but it only had one floppy drive, and a black-and-white screen. This was the computer my dad used as one of the partners in a business he helped start in the late 80s.

Around ages 8-15 or so, my cousin and I were fairly close. We would often spend Saturdays at one another’s houses playing games on the computer. This I remember kind of being my first involvement in the “Mac vs. PC” debate, as his part of the family always used computers of the other platform. Early on, Windows had still not come on the scene, and IBM was pretty much the only alternative to Apple computers. So when I went to Stephen’s house, I was always confused about DOS, and how in the world to use his computer. Once we rolled into the early 90s, I do remember Stephen having some Gateway computers, running early versions of Windows (which I was just as confused by, as from from what I can remember, there was still a lot of DOS involved in these early versions of Windows).

Later on in high school, as I really begin to get into music and recording, Apple computers were obviously a big part of this. At this point, Apple computers may have lost the “Mac vs. PC” debate in the eyes of the public (so much more software had been developed for PC’s than Macs), but the creative community still maintained that those serious about their art had to have a Mac. I remember receiving a full computer recording setup as a gift one Christmas-consisting of an emagic Audiowerk8 card, emagic Logic Audio software (kinda funny/ironic that Apple ended up buying emagic around 2002), a small Mackie mixer, and some Alesis Point Seven monitors. This immersed me whole-heartedly into music and recording, one of the most exciting times I can remember of my teenage years.

In college I continued to explore music and recording, choosing Belmont University because of my attraction towards the school’s music and recording offerings. During these years I owned one of the first iBooks. This was also about the time that Apple computers were finally becoming cool, and anyone who was a hip college student knew that you had to own a Mac. Of course, I had been a Mac user long before it was “cool” ;)

Post college, I got a job a recording studio, and began my career in the music business. Need I even mention that every recording studio in the world has always run Pro Tools on a Mac. So as I began the professional phase of my life, Apple was a key aspect of it.

Once concluding my time an assistant/house engineer at the studio, and deciding to set up my own freelance production and recording business, I of course bought a Mac to run Pro Tools on. To manage my business, I use two Macintosh computers-a Mac Pro as my Pro Tools rig, and a Macbook Pro that I do everything else with (invoicing, accounting, blogging, email, etc). As I think about this now, it’s kind of a neat thing that in essence my dad passed down his practice of using a Mac to run his business to me, as I use a Mac to run my business today.

So while it may seem a bit melodramatic to write a “remembrance” post such as this one, and as I am a bit concerned that publishing this post might come off like I’m taking advantage of the passing away of such a great figure of our time (please know that I’m not. That I am sincere in what Apple represents to me), I simply could not let the day pass without some form of an acknowledgement, as Apple devices have not only been a significant part of my life growing up (I’ve never owned a PC), but also one of the core tools I use today to make money.

It’s kind of weird for me to be saddened by the passing of Steve Jobs. I never knew the man personally. But he has had a remarkable impact on me personally. I’ve drawn a countless amount of inspiration from him throughout my adult life, and aspire to do something that resonates with others-even if it’s just a fraction when compared to him (I’ll be striving for this the rest of my life).

When Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in the mid 90s, then brought back to revive the company in the late 90s, I began to think about what Apple Computer would be like without him at the helm. And in 2004 when it came into the public awareness that he had been dealing with health-related issues, I began to think about the inevitability of one day Steve Jobs leaving Apple for good. And now that that day has come, it’s kinda hard to accept. A strange and kind of irrational melancholy.

With the passing of such an iconic figure, one can only begin to think about their own life, the inevitability that every single one of us has a day in which we will pass from this earthly existence, and how we spend our time up until then.

Hopefully we each leave a legacy that inspires the world in some small way.

//Jon