There has never been a better time to be a musician! A career in music nowadays is being revolutionized by all the resources available online. Digital technology revolutionized the music creation process, and now it's revolutionizing how artists are marketed, how fan bases are established, how music is distributed, and how music is sold.

There is so much of their destiny an individual musician or band can now control. At their fingertips are tools and resources that allows musicians to promote themselves in ways that, in the past, required the backing of a large record label, a publicist, a manager, a webmaster, a marketing professionals, concert promoter, rich uncles, and more!

In part one of my series on Social Networking for Musicians, I'm going to explore some of the most popular Social Media and music publishing sites. I'll explain how musicians should leverage them to build their careers.

I've organized a number of social networking tools and resources into the following categories...

Part I - Developing your Songs
Interact with target audiences and fellow musicians to post songs in various stages of development to get insightful feedback on how to improve it.

Part II - Building your Fan Base
Whether you envision your fan base to be local or worldwide, these everyday social networking sites can serve the musician quite well. The trick is to set 'em up properly, and make them work hard for you and your band.

Part III - Publishing & Exposure
Upload your music so it can be heard and accessed by your target audience and fan base.

Part IV - Selling your Music
Yes...you can have your tunes selling right along side of greats such as Bob Dylan, Count Basie, Bob Marley, Snoop Dogg or whoever. In the online world...YOU own your distribution channel.

Part V -  Finding Musicians and Putting Together a Band
Sometimes you need a little help from your friends, what if your musician friend can't make it to a gig or just charges too much? Well, fear not...quickly finding other musicians to create a band, collaborate with, lay down some tracks, or to just hang out with, is so much easier nowadays. (Remember the days of posting those "Bass Player wanted" flyers in the music store?)

Let's get started with social networking sites for developing your songs....

Part I - Developing your Songs



GarageBand.com [www.garageband.com]


Key Features:
+ Band Profile
+ Newsletter
+ Event Listing
+ Fan Listings
+ Song Upload

Experience Review:
The site interface is a bit dated, busy and a bit hard to navigate. It IS a feature rich site, but unfortunately, it's boxy layout, small fonts give it an old school feel. The site is still confined to a 1024x758 layout that does not take advantage of the full width of the screen.

General Review:
This is an ideal way for you to refine your tunes before publishing to other sites. You get the opportunity to receive reviews from other musicians on your songs and mixes. Garageband.com works on the premise that you are submitting your song into a contest. It's basically free if you complete 15 reviews of other artist's songs, then you get a free entry for your song. Of course you can bypass that process by paying the $18US entry fee. But do the reviews, get involved...it's fun! Garageband also links in nicely with iLike (it's actually owned by iLike) which will be beneficial for when you set up your Facebook page and also when you want to sell your music.


Soundcloud [www.soundcloud.com]


Key Features:
+ Artist Profile
+ Stats (see how you are doing)
+ Player Widget (to embed onto your site)
+ Badges (for directing users to your profile)
+ DropBox (for uploading tracks)

Experience Review:
The designers of this site provide the user with a fresh, graphical interface. It's a stark contrast to sites like Reverbnation and Garageband. The flow is nice. Tasks such as uploading songs, joining groups, following other musicians, and building a following are all very intuitive. It also has a unique way of leaving comments on your song, you do it right on the audio waveform. All the tools you need are easy to find and use.

General Review:
Soundcloud was created by a few innovative musician/developers out in Berlin. It started out mainly as a site for uploading music and allowing other musicians to provide comments. This is still it's main function, but they also have a social media aspect to it where you can build a community of "followers" and find artists you like are interested in and can "follow."

The "killer app" here is the Soundcloud player widget. When you upload your MP3s you can grab the code and embed the widget on your website or on your Facebook page. All that and a real elegant website interface.

Sample Player (Just a Few More Minutes - Mark DiSciullo):






Next Post: Part II - Building your Fan Base

I recently purchased an Agile AL-2000 guitar. I was very happy with the tone of the guitar but it did need some minor modifications to give the feel of a custom built guitar. One problem I had was the fret ends were a bit sharp. This is usually one of the things that distinguishes a higher-end guitar from less expensive factory built ones. This is an extra time-consuming process that is usually foregone to save cost.

I'm outlining the steps I performed on my guitar. For less then $30 worth of tools from Stew-Mac and about an hours worth of time, you can make a big difference in the feel of your guitar. WARNING: If you decide to try this, be very careful with this process...it IS irreversible!

Tools used:
- Stewart-MacDonald Fret End Dressing File - Link
- Stewart-MacDonald Fret Dressing Stick - Link
- Stewart-Macdonald String Action Gauge - Link
- Sharpie Marker
- Low-Tack Blue Painters Tape
- Block Sander (Wet-Dry Sandpaper)


1) Make sure to tape the fingerboard using low-tack painters tape

Start with the sides....



Then the top...




2) Use a marker (sharpie) to measure out how far from the edge of the fret board you want to file. Remember this is an irreversible process. Make sure you don't go too far!!!




3) File Fret Ends with a Fret End Dressing File (from Stew-Mac)





4) Follow up with a Fret Dressing Stick Sander (from Stew-Mac)




5) To ensure consistent feel across the board, lightly sand with a block sander




6) Finish up with some .0000 steel wool



Again, be careful! But for a small investment in tools you can give you guitar a more comfortable feel, increasing playability. It also helps to reference a high-end guitar to see the exact shape of some well rounded fret ends. Take the time to visit a guitar shop and locate a guitar the feels "just right" in your hands and look at how the fret ends have been shaped. You will find that this fine bit of finishing work plays a big part in giving a guitar that vintage worn-in feel!

Just posted to YouTube and officially added to the gear section of the site is my review of the Agile AL-2000 Les Paul copy.



I'm really happy with the tone and feel of this guitar. The craftsmanship is impressive for the price range. Even though they are on the low-end of the price range, the wax potted ceramic humbucker pickups, actually pump out some great sounds. Not exactly a P.A.F.s or a Gibson Burstbuckers, but a decent enough set of tones to work with live or recorded.

The YouTube hosted video has a review and sound demos of each pickup position played through a Marshall AVT50 (Clean and Overdrive). I'm using my Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (for the overdrive) and a MXR Super Comp Compressor effects pedals through the clean channel on my amp.

I've included a more detailed review of my Agile AL-2000 on the site. You can see it here gear section of the site.

I wanted to get a quick review out of my most recent guitar acquisition an Agile AL-2000 "Les Paul" copy. I purchased it online at Rondomusic.com for US$219. Right out of the box it was in tune and quite playable. I did my own set up to fine tune the intonation and to put my preferred string gauges on in .10-.52's (Heavy top, light bottoms) My next order of business was to round the fret ends off and smooth the neck edges on the binding to give the guitar a more worn-in feel | See post.

Initial soundchecks are coming back hot! This guitar rocks. The pick-up are definitely not PAFs (Classic '57 Gibson Humbuckers) but they will do for now.

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Related Posts:

• Agile AL-2000 Video Review


• Fret End Dressing - Smoothing down a sharp fretboard for a vintage feel

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