1. Mix on studio monitors
2. Run through pre-lim mastering process
3. Check mix again on studio monitors
4. Check mix on car stereo 1
5. Check mix on car stereo 2
6. Check mix on laptop speakers
7. Check mix on ear-bud headphones
8. Check mix on over-ear headphones
9. Check mix on shitty boombox
10. Repeat steps until mix is refined to final state

In my opinion, the car mixes are the most important as that where the majority of people tend to listen to their music. With such a large number of listening environments things can get disorganized pretty quickly unless you have a process in place. I used to carry around a paper notebook specifically for mix notes but I noticed that it tends to get a bit messy. Sometimes I forget if I’ve already made a fix I took a note on, sometimes I don’t have my notebook with me, etc. While I still keep the notebook around for quick notes now I’ve switched over to using Evernote. I first heard of ever note when I went out to SXSW in 2011. I used it at the conference to take notes on my iPad while on the go. Evernote stores all of your notes in cloud storage so you have access to them from any computer, tablet or smartphone. This is much better than copying files back and forth from a USB drive, you never need to worry about if you have the most recent version if you are making changes on multiple computers. They have native applications available for desktop, iOS and Android in addition to the website interface. Since Evernote worked so well for me at the conference I decided to start using it for other things as well, such as taking notes down on mixes when listening in my car. I can just update the mixnotes notebook from my smartphone and then look it up later when I’m in the studio. As I make the changes I just take them off the list. Next round of mix listening I take more notes from my phone or desktop and repeat. The free version only limits the amount of data you can transfer per month, since most of mine is text I have yet to really run into going over my allotted bandwidth.

There is no doubt that the music industry has seen dramatic changes over the past decade. However, commercial radio, you know..the big FM channels; they still pretty much operate the same way they have for the past fifty years. Commercial radio is still firmly in the grasp of the major record labels. To understand why the majors still control radio while having lost considerable size everywhere else you need to first understand how new music gets added to the playlists of commercial radio.

The majority of the time the music is chosen not based on the talent and merits of the artist but by money paid from those with established relationships with the radio stations. The labels get around payola laws by paying third party “indie promoters” to work a song. In reality they are merely a pass-through for pay-to-play. The indie promoters pay the radio stations whose Program Directors then add the “promoted” songs to their playlists.

So you may ask yourself, “Well I have one million dollars. Why can’t I just pay the indie promoters to get radio play?” Sure, if you indeed had the funds you could pay the indie promoters. And you may get a few plays during the off-hours at like 4AM when no one is listening. I’ve seen many bottom feeder companies prey upon the hopes and dreams of naive musicians and do this exact thing. You’ll get a few spins on some station up in Minnesota once or twice. For an additional payment they’ll promise to keep working your song. You’ll never see consistent and repeated radio play though. That’s because the indie promoter’s primary clients are the majors. They are the ones who will repeatedly come back and pay them weekly where as an independent label or artist may only pay once or twice. Why would they prioritize your tracks over those of their big clients? They wouldn’t. Sure, once in awhile a song will go viral or break out and get radio play. But this is an extremely rare case nowadays.

Will things get better with commercial radio? Not anytime soon. However, if you are an DIY artist or signed to an independent label don’t fret. You don’t need commercial radio to be successful and for most it’s a waste of time to pursue. Focus your efforts on avenues where you can thrive.

Keep watching, at the seven minute mark he shows the final track.

I knew I was in for a treat when I first saw the cover. You have to take into consideration the time period when this album came out. MTV was spinning some pretty wretched hair metal, hip-hop was churning out sanitized suburb friendly pap like Kid N’ Play. “Mind” was a kick in the gut and a death knell for anything clad in spandex.

Songs like “Thieves” and “Burning Inside” were the perfect combination of heavy guitars and pneumatic drums. The droning bass on “Cannibal Song” mixed with moody samples and shrieking vocals evoked an audio landscape of gloom and despair.

If you haven’t heard this album before it’s a definite recommend. If you have listened to it lately, pop it in for a spin.

Paulie Lipman’s The Obscene Gravity of Silence was just released in March. I’ve known Paulie probably since the mid-late nineties. We’ve had numerous mutual friends over the years and he used to work at a coffee shop that my friends and I used to frequent called Cafe Netherworld. We have both been in bands in the industrial music scene and I’ve seen him perform his slam poetry a ton. I moved away for awhile to NYC and then moved back to Colorado in 2009 and started building a recording studio to use for bands on my record label and for my own music. Paulie mentioned to me in late 2010 that he was working on a new spoken word album and I offered up use of my studio for him. Over several months we worked on recording his new album, Obscene Gravity of Silence at my studio. We’d lay down vocals and then I’d help him record the backing music behind the tracks, mostly with selection of sounds and drum programming. He performed all of the instruments, I just assisted with the recording and mixing. In all we completed all of the recording between December 2010 and March 2011 with Paulie composing the last of the music using Reason and his laptop.

You can pick up his album on Bandcamp.

Royal Dead are back in the studio recording songs with their new lineup. I spent the past weekend laying down tracks with them. We’re going to have some more recording sessions in February and have the release come out on Kheperi Global Media sometime in 2011.

Some photos from this past weekend’s session:

I’m also continuing work with Mad Wax from Vocode Records/Vocode Project on an eclectic electronic music project. We’ve discussed possibily pressing vinyl for this release. My wife Jolene has been sitting in on sessions and learning the ins and outs of the studio. We’re discussing opening up the studio to the public sometime later this year.

It might be a hit in the strip clubs.