I recently spoke with Korg about their new product, the D888 – a live recorder designed to capture band rehearsals, gigs and other applications. Together, we came up with the Broadjam Blog Giveaway, an idea that I hope will benefit both broadjam members and Korg.

Here’s how it works: I try the product, if I like it, I write a blog about it. And as you can see, I’m writing a blog about the D888. If you’re interested in this product after reading this entry, post a comment telling Korg why you should have the product and how you would use it. Later, we’ll all vote on the best five comments, and one of you will walk away with a brand new D888.

As I mentioned, I finally had a chance to check out the Korg D888. Dennis, our long-time customer service master, wanted to record a song as a gift for his mom’s birthday. Since we didn’t have enough time for a studio recording, I told him to bring his guitar into my office, and we could try the new Korg thing. I brought my 220 and my 414 mics to see what kind of sound we could get. I was interested in the feature set, but more importantly, I wanted to know what kind of sound quality the D888 had.

Three songs later I had gotten totally lost in the production and forgotten that part of my mission was to check out this product. How many times have you set up to do a recording and something was unplugged, or you were chasing a problem that you couldn’t identify? Within 20 minutes of taking the D888 out of the box, we were recording his acoustic guitar. 20 minutes after I took it out of the box, I knew enough to get the project done. I don’t ever recall a session being this easy.

[BTW: The mic pre-amps are pristine and the A/D conversion is excellent, so sound quality wasn’t a problem. It ended up that the 414 was a little better sounding on the guitar than the 220. However, we recorded with both of them simultaneously.]

Once we were finished I plugged a USB cable from my laptop to the D888, grabbed the folders off the recorder’s hard drive and dragged them to my desktop. Since the D888 already records as WAV files, we were editing in minutes. If you don’t already have DAW software for your computer, no worries. The D888 comes with Cubase LE 4, which allows you edit, arrange, mix and master your multi-track live performance.

I’m anxious to record a live band. I actually think one could make an extra buck or two doing this. And since the D888 is set up to be a fully functional live mixer, a small band could use it as both their mixer and recorder at the same time. I wish I had one of these when I was playing live, but digital products didn’t exist. In fact, presets didn’t exist either, nor did MIDI, USB, hard drives…but that’s another blog.

For the sake of full disclosure, I consider many of Korg’s employees close friends of mine, as I have worked on numerous projects with them in past lives. Last year I had the chance to have breakfast with Mr. Katoh (Founder and Chairman of Korg) and his son Seiki (President of Korg) at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt. I now know why they are industry leaders. Year after year, they put out great products with passion that is unsurpassed in the music industry.

So here’s your chance. Korg has made a generous offer to the bloggers on broadjam, so I ask you to answer these questions in your post: What features of this product are most attractive to you? How would you use this product if you owned it?

Here is a link to the Korg website www.korg.com/d888. Check out the features and write your thoughts about this product. Most importantly, tell me how you would use it, and be specific.

Best of luck,

Roy

Do you have any news? Tell us about upcoming shows, CD releases, new websites or anything else you have going on.

In response to the many inquires we’ve received about hosting multiple artists on one account, this edition of Tips and Tricks will teach you how to set up your Broadjam account to act as a virtual record Label.


The most effective membership for starting a virtual label is the Primo Mob. The Primo Mob comes with a hosted website that allows you to change the names of your pages and hide pages that may clutter your account.


First, you’ll want to upload all of your artist’s songs as well as a quality picture of the artist. After that, go to your Album Edit page and add a new album. Make the name of the album the artist’s name. Select a genre that best suites your artist’s music, or if they create many types of music, don’t choose one. If the artist is selling their music elsewhere online, enter a Buy CD URL. Next, enter the artist’s short biography in the album description section and click Continue. The next page will ask you to choose an image for the album. Choose the artist’s picture. Once the album/artist has been created, click the Add Songs button, and add all the songs that the artist has uploaded to Broadjam. You have just created an artist for your Artist page.


Next, we suggest adding the artist’s full bio to the Bio page of your Broadjam.com account. Another fun thing to add to the full bio is their picture. Make the picture small, 80 x 80 pixels, so that it doesn’t take up a lot of space and slow the load time of your page. A good example can be seen at www.djsportico.com/bio. You’ll need to learn how to add HTML tags, but it’s pretty easy. Go to the HTML-Images section of www.tizag.com/html to find out how to add pictures and learn other simple HTML tags.


The Bio page on Broadjam.com allows you to post multiple bios, which means every artist on your Artist page can write a full bio.


Once you have completed the Broadjam hosting wizard, Broadjam.com will send you a ‘Welcome to Broadjam Hosting’ e-mail with a new username and password for the administrative features of your website. After you have received your welcome email, go to your Content Editor and choose the Menu Editor. Here you can change the order, name and hide/show pages. We suggest hiding your Songs page, as it can be confusing with different artists and multiple songs in one place. You can also change the name of the Albums page to Artist or any other title. You’ll want to make sure that the name is not excessively long, as it can shift your menu and make it look unprofessional. If you have any questions or suggestions, please send an e-mail to customerservice@broadjam.com.

Do you have any news? Tell us about upcoming shows, CD releases, new websites or anything else you have going on.

Nowadays there are so many different ways to record, mix, and master your music. Do you prefer hardware or software? Is there any pieces of hardware that you can’t live without? Are there any software plug ins that are your favorite?

Do you have any news? Tell us about upcoming shows, CD releases, new websites or anything else you have going on.

Last week, we asked you to post questions on the Broadjam Blog for a chance to have them answered by Dave Codr, a music industry pioneer and an indie promoter. Bloggers posted many great questions, and Dave has given his insight into several of them.

Dave responds to these questions:

What genre of music should I pursue


A note from Dave:

“Thanks everyone for sending in your questions! Broadjam has arranged for me to answer questions from artists like you once a month. If you’re reading this and you have a question of your own, send it in for our next round.

If you’re thirsty for more industry knowledge, I invite you to visit the music industry insider section of our website. We have assembled a number of articles there specifically written for independent artists and musicians. No login or registration required. http://www.musicphonebook.com/theinsider

Dave needs your questions! He’ll be answering more of your inquiries next month, so please leave a question below.

Posted by Kennybeck
on 7/21/2007
What are the first three steps, on the web, you would use to maximize your promotion of some new product?



Dave’s Answer:

Kennybeck,


That’s a really open ended question. It depends on what you’re promoting, who you’re target market is, waht your price points are etc. Any promotion you put together, whether on the internet or in the real world, it needs to be customized to waht you’re doing. I speak to a number of musicians who seem to think that the same techniques that worked for one artists will work for them. Different genre’s fans have different interests. Jam band fans are more likely to want to support a show in the park than a club show. Blues fans are typically an older demographic, so you don’t want to have it at an all ages venue or a “tree hugger” park. Planning a blues review at a high end venue would be a great idea. Inviting hippies to a high end venue would be a terrible idea. And vise versa.


I’m not 100% sure what you mean by product. Cd? LP? EP? T-shirt? Hoodie? Promotional campaign? Etc etc.


Look for websites that are going to carry a viewership of people that are interested in your product. See if there is any sort of trade or co-op opportunity available. See if they have a newsletter that they can throw you into. Start a fan list of your own if you haven’t already. For the band I manage the first step I would take would be to send out a newsletter to all of the fans on our mailing list. The next step again depends on what you’re trying to promote.


I’m sorry I can’t get more specific, but without knowing more details I really can’t give you examples of what to do. If you want to write back with a more specific question, I’d be apply to look at it next month.


Good luck,


Dave

Dave needs your questions! He’ll be answering more of your inquiries next month, so please leave a question below.

Posted by jamal
on 7/19/2007
My question as a sonngwriter ?
what gonera of music should i pursue do to the fact that record sales are down ? Who’s sellin more records these days ? R&B Artist , Pop , Contempoprary ? Whatever’s sellin the most that’s what i’m going with as a songwriter !


Dave’s Answer:

Jamal,


If your goal is to fail, you are on the path to success! NEVER ever under any circumstances tailor your music to whatever you think is the current hot trend. By the time you figure out how to properly mesh with that style, that fad is long gone. If all you are doing is trying to write music to try to please other people, I can guarantee you a lot of disappointment.


My advice to you is to write the style of music that resonates within you. Write what you feel, write what works for you. Today’s fad is tomorrow’s Britney Spears.


Good luck,


Dave


PS - Not to be critical, but if you’re going to reach out to someone in the industry, take the time to make sure to spell check and put a little bit of time into it. I understand what you meant to say and what your question was, however you got dangerously close to calling genre gonorrhea. Although some music may have similar qualities to venereal diseases, it is probably not a comparison you want to bring to their attention. If it doesn’t look like its important enough for you to spell properly or use proper punctuation, they may not think it’s important enough to respond to your email. You’re a professional musician, make sure your correspondence reflect that. Image is everything.

Dave needs your questions! He’ll be answering more of your inquiries next month, so please leave a question below.

David Codr, the creator of the Independent Artist Registry and publisher of the Music Phone Book, has produced and promoted over 1,000 concerts, working with acts as diverse as Dave Matthews to Notorious BIG.

He has also managed a number of regional and nationally touring bands, logged countless hours as a producer and was the talent buyer for several premier live music venues on the West Coast.

Dave was one of the pioneers of “Guerilla Promotion” for independent artists and bands and most of his techniques are still widely used by industry insiders.

Now, Dave is ready to answer Broadjam members’ questions about the music business.

Leave a question on the Broadjam Blog for a chance to have it answered by Dave. Check back next week to see if he answers your question. We will post his replies to select questions on the Broadjam Blog next Monday, September 24.