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Childish Gambino Accused of Copyright Infringement in 'This is America'
Life comes at you fast. And we all know what they say about Karma. (She's a female dog, apparently.) This is America's Success Childish Gambino experienced a tremendous success with his recent outrage-baiting single and music video entitled 'This is America,' in which he repeats a lot of nonsensical phrases paired with imagery that insinuates the worst about the United States, allowing the listener to […]
Clarinet Student Awarded $350,000 After Girlfriend Sabotages His Career
Get ready to take an emotional rollercoaster. There are some real despicable people out there doing horrible things for selfish reasons, but in the end justice can prevail when given the opportunity. The Context - Mastering the Clarinet That's how it went down for Eric Abramovitz. From the early age of seven he'd already earned the privilege of studying under Canada's most elite clarinet teachers. […]
Should I Upgrade My Mastering Equalizer?
A fun question came in yesterday regarding upgrading a mastering equalizer. EQ's are always used in mastering, and while this question asked about specific models, I couldn't help myself but offer my opinion on EQ's in this capacity in general. Special thanks to the readers who have emailed in with corrections and suggestions regarding ways to expand older articles. Although I failed to take note […]
Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer Prize Makes History for Rappers
History was made today as it was announced that Kendrick Lamar, an intellectual rapper from Compton, California who made his rise through the ranks a reality around 2014, won the first ever Pulitzer Prize awarded to a rapper. Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer Prize As a matter of fact, he's the first musician to win that wasn't a jazz or classical act. The award was offered to […]
The Aztec Death Whistle Will Give You Horrific Nightmares
The Aztecs made countless types of noisemakers and musical instruments. Using clay, sugar cane, turkey feathers, ores, frog skins, and much more, they were able to create sounds to be associated with many life events, but most jarringly, the Aztec death whistle. They had conch shells for ceremonies, ocarinas for making animal grunts to attract deer, flutes for traditional music entertainment. Some researchers even believe […]
Weird Instruments - 21 Musical Monstrosities That Actually Work
Weird musical instruments abound. Strings, brass, percussion... even ones with animals in them exist in the present, and that's not even counting the theoretical ones throughout history that got a little too bizarre. 21 Weird Instruments Let's take a look at the strangest and most unusual instruments out there, in no particular order. Now, there are some crazy choices we could include, like the bagpipes […]
CD Baby celebrates 20th Birthday & $600 Million in Artist Payouts
If you're like me, you probably remember the old days of uploading your songs to MySpace and Soundcloud. It was cool to hit the charts and get a ton of plays, but there wasn't a readily available way of monetizing those plays. The best you could do on these streaming sites was link people out to your own shoddily built website and hope people trusted […]
5 True Music Myths People Want to Be False
The history of modern music is draped in the power of music myth and rumor, from the “Paul is dead” buzz to Led Zeppelin’s filthy mud shark incident. Sometimes, the stories that serve as the foundation for such mythos are so fantastic, so cool, or so flat out weird, it doesn’t much matter whether they’re true, they’re false, or they exist in the space in […]
Can We Mix the Kick Drum & Bass in Stereo?
A fantastic email came in today that was so good that I dropped everything else I was doing to address the question at hand regarding stereo bass. The question involves the information found in one of our most popular and earliest articles called Mixing Bass and Kick for Low-End Balance. With nearly every genre now emphasizing the low-end to drive the groove and create the […]
How to Set Up Your Audio Interface to Record Audio
Our most recent question that was generalizable enough to benefit the entire community is a very fundamental hurdle that nearly everyone runs into: how to use an audio interface. Being a musician usually involves learning an instrument and some music theory, of course. But rarely do we anticipate needing to learn our way around computers to enhance our hobby. And that's what happens when you […]
How MTV’s TRL Met Its Slow, But Inevitable Demise
You couldn’t get away from Total Request Live at the turn of the 20th century. Their formula of counting down the day's top videos was the anchor of MTV's programming for years. Even if said videos skewed immensely heavy toward throwaway bubblegum pop or rap-rock/nu-metal that in retrospect hasn't aged too well, TRL still dominated. But by the time it left the airwaves in 2008, […]
A School Boy's Yearbook Ambition to Sell a Million Records (Alice Cooper)
This is one of those stories that has a surprise ending, so stick around for the reveal! Strange and interesting things are happening around us all the time. It used to be that you'd hear about some story that happened to your friend's cousin's neighbor's dad and you'd dismiss it with a chuckle because it was too far fetched. But now, with the internet, these […]
Musical Anhedonia: Deriving No Pleasure From Music
For most people, music is an exercise in catharsis. A snappy tune by The Beatles may bring a smile on our face. Spinning Adele’s “21” after a breakup provides a layer of empathy to our distress. Note that we said, "most people." That's because there are some people that don't like music regardless of artist, style, or genre, because it's like watching paint dry to […]
What Do Speaker Spikes Actually Do & Do I Need Them?
We received a question recently that nearly drove me bonkers as I started to think more about it. I had formulated and sent my own answer back before reading some opinions on a few audiophile forums. Let's just say I'm not surprised to have read professionals in that crew stating the exact opposite conclusions from the same set of facts. Audiophiles don't exactly operate in […]
Chuck E. Cheese's Robot Band is Breaking Up for Good
This is sad news indeed for many of us musicians, old and young. The animatronic band that graced the stages of Chuck E. Cheese locations across America are finally throwing in the towel to enjoy a well-earned retirement. Chuck E. Cheese & ShowBiz Those of us born in the late 70's and early 80's will remember ShowBiz Pizza Place and Billy Bob the Hillbilly Bear. […]
How Long Does it Take to Develop Calloused Guitar Fingers?
Most of the questions we receive usually reveal a gap in our content and today's question was no different. What we did manage to do this time was publish a full length post related to the growth of calloused guitar fingers before we managed to post the Q&A itself. If you want the long explanation, you can find that here: How to Build Guitar Calluses. […]
8 Recent Music Publicity Stunts Gone Stupid
Let today's post serve as a lesson on how not to execute a publicity stunt to drum up interest and sales in your new album (while our last 'Lessons' post showed a great marketing example by 50 Cent). There’s no such thing as bad publicity, or is there? It’s a cliché, but it tends to carry gravitas. This is especially the case in music, where […]
Why Are Some Guitars More Expensive Than Others?
A reader recently asked the question "What makes a guitar expensive?" that seems obvious on the surface until you realize you haven't really considered the details. We all tend to brush questions like these off, as if "well, duh, because they're better" is a sufficient answer. That's actually a non-answer and we'll have none of that here! So let's get to the bottom of why […]
How Does a Guitar Tone Knob Work?
There's nothing like diving head first into a new instrument. We're all as familiar with each various instrument as anyone else, but once you start studying one you realize how much you took for granted. What seemed obvious isn't so clear cut. And that's where the author of today's question finds himself: "What does a tone knob do?" I love these kind of questions because […]
Can I Lay My Studio Monitors Down Sideways Instead of Vertical?
Today's question about having your studio monitors on their side relates to a common discussion online that rarely ventures into a real answer. For some reason, there are a lot of people who are convinced that it's a matter of preference, when this couldn't be any further from the truth. Please don't hesitate to email us with any questions of your own, as long as […]
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