DIGITAL DREAMS – The Remix Competition

MixMatchMusic, in connection with Modern Beat Digital Records, Symphonic Distribution and Prime Loops, is proud to bring you the “Digital Dreams” remix competition. Remix this synth-house gem by June 30 and you’re in the running for a sound suite from Prime Loops and to have your remix released on Modern Beat Digital’s forthcoming release of the Modern Beat Orchestra’s Digital Dreams.

“We thought Digital Dreams by the Modern Beat Orchestra would be a fantastic track to feature for a remix competition,” said David Edward Jensen, president of Modern Beat Digital. “Between the spoken lyrics, female chant vocals and big basslines, the elements are there to make for some great remixes. We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with.”

Modern Beat Digital is an independent record label based out of Asheville, North Carolina that focuses on providing top-quality dance music to the public by utilizing digital media downloads and a selection of file formats. Their mission is to release only the best in electronic dance music. They do this by combining excellent producers and artists with a dedicated marketing, promotion and distribution team. Modern Beat Digital is a subsidiary of Modern Beat Productions and recently partnered with Symphonic Distribution to offer digital distribution of their catalogue in all major online music retailers.

To participate in the remix compeition, check out the Digital Dreams Remix Wizard and start creating! You can either purchase the high quality stems for $12 or make your mix for free using the online MixMaker. Either way, be sure to publish your remix to the widget for others to enjoy. Now, get busy.

Grooveshark – Listen & Be Listened To

For Fans

For Artists

It’s my favorite way to stream music. In my opinion, way better than Pandora. Groovesharkers can browse through their library of music, add music they find to their streaming “queue” or “auto play” letting Grooveshark pick their upcoming music based on their choices. The best part is that streamers can “favorite” the music they like and come back to it another time or add it to a play-list. Another great feature is the ability to share music links through various social networks like twitter. Way cool. Beyond streaming, Grooveshark hosts an artist section that focuses on “do it yourself” (DIY) and emerging bands getting their music played. Here’s how…

They Create and Convert Fanbases

Grooveshark Artists gets your music to the ears that matter. Choose similar artists and they’ll play your music after they get played on Grooveshark, thus creating fans organically via Autoplay. At the same time, why not target them with an ad every time your music is put on?

Quality Control

It pays to be honest. Once you’ve targeted some artists to match up with your music, fans start hearing your music. If your targeting was inaccurate, inappropriate, or simply bad, fans will vote it down -automatically taking the tune out of rotation. Play nice and get fans, play mean and get nothing.

Appease Your Inner Control Freak

If you’re as compulsive as they are at Grooveshark, you’ll love that no detail of your music life goes overlooked. Edit both your own metadata as well as metadata from fan-uploaded files. Keep album art in check. Submit lyrics. You can even sell your music + merch on tons of their partners’ sites.

Blending AdWords and Radio

Grooveshark employs a very simple song placement technology to ensure that you’re heard by those who already dig your style of sound. Promoted tracks– whether country, jazz or rock– will only be played after the artists within the genres you select.

Ads as Calls to Action

Almost every musician throughout the world performs at concerts, sells merchandise, and needs potential fans to actually listen to their music. With Grooveshark, not only are standalone ad campaigns sold at a discount to artists, but they’re provided free of charge alongside any ‘Get New Fans’ campaigns.

Goodies Galore

Embed your tunes with a widget on every website you love. Get short URL links directly to your songs. Watch your buzz grow with the easiest (and newest) way to keep your digital life grooving. Tinysong, Twisten.FM, Widgets, and Facebook ShareSong allow you to do all sorts of cool things–at no cost. They’ll take care of everything.

Give it a whirl, test it out, let Grooveshark know what you think!! In the mean time, I’d like to share one of my play-lists with you.

Distribute Yourself All Over The Place

Are you a musician? Are you creating music that your friends and fans love? You want to distribute your jams but are completely confused in this weird music distribution world? We empathize… It’s hard to know where to go and what to do! You want to make sure that you will successfully and effectively distribute yourself all over the place, right? MixMatchMusic has been around the block a few times and has some good ideas of where you should go. While we were at this year’s Winter Music Conference, we made friends with a multifaceted service called Symphonic Distribution. Symphonic Distribution is a digital content distributor and services provider aimed at providing the best in content delivery, customer service, marketing, education, and more for music industry artists, managers, and record labels across the globe. They have a proven track record and currently provide services to hundreds of clients based in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Australia, Sweeden, Bosnia & Herzegovina, India, Japan, USA, Canada, Portugal, and countless other countries and cultures around the globe. In addition to their services, Symphonic Distribution also has several distinct brands for the intention of expanding the reach of a client.

SymDirect – www.symdirect.com
SymDirect is a upload fee based distribution service allowing artists and labels to keep 100% of their royalties. This service is different then the normal distribution model and in addition, undercuts MANY imitators. Consider this to be… the official post office of digital distribution. You pick the package (or shipping price), we deliver, and you get ALL of your royalties! No other charges or hidden fees!

SymIntranet – www.symintranet.com
SymIntranet is Symphonic Distribution and SymDirect’s portal for it’s signed labels and artists. The extensive portal includes marketing materials from stores, educational tutorials relating to music business, music production, and music marketing, and links to helpful initiatives aimed at helping labels grow! The website will continue to be updated to contain more educational materials, marketing plans, and more!

Check them out and please, don’t hesitate to shoot them an email if you’re interested in distributing your music and creating a name for yourself as an artist. support@symphonicdistribution.com

Bienvenido a WMC – Here are your condoms.

MixMatchMusic’s first appearance at the Winter Music Conference and they send me, LG?? Uh oh… trouble!! Honestly, not being much of a techno/electro queen I really hadn’t heard of the conference. Well, I’m definitely the a-hole. Little did I know that this thing is of epic proportions! It’s a monster. Literally takes over Miami completely and has for something like 15 years. From the conference to the nightlife to the Ultra Festival, there’s something for everyone between the ages of 13 and 102. Ok, maybe 102 is a little old and a 102 year old probably doesn’t really get into the whole DJ thing. Still, there’s something for everyone that likes music and likes to party. Basically, every venue has something going on. DJ line ups, pool parties… the works. The conference itself was an incredible networking opportunity as well as a big eye opener. Plus, your badge gets you into several events all over Miami including the Ultra Festival which alone is a pricey ticket. All I gotta say is, thank goodness the panels didn’t start till noon everyday.

First of all, I arrived at the Miami Beach Resort and Spa after a long day of travel to be greeted by tons of Red Bull, DJs, complimentary Alize, digital music & DJ influenced displays and friendly conference workers dancing and registering everyone into the event. As soon as I walked in I knew this was going to be a long yet very fun week. I received my WMC complimentary bag that was full of fliers promoting events, DJ and music magazines, a copy of The List and condoms. Gives you a great idea of how things go down during WMC week which I so brilliantly named after seeing the condoms, “F+ck Fest ‘09″. The resort is on the beach and has a very large pool area so I went to check it out. There was a stage set up, several chicks in bikinis and hooker heels, a DJ on stage getting everyone pumped up, a bar, deck and beach. Beautiful. I got a drink and instantly started schmoozing.

The 2nd day was the Digital Distribution panel where yours truly was representing the one and only, MixMatchMusic. I was SUPER nervous. All the heavy hitters were sitting on the panel as well. Juno, IODA, Beatport, Groove Media, Jamvana, Symphonic, Broken Records, Mubito and us! The panel was a huge success and packed to the brim, standing room only. All the panels were interesting, informative and well worth the time.

There were 2 hot spots this past week. One was Remix Hotel hosted by Beatport. The Remix Hotel events were held at The National. It’s literally in the heart of all of the most popular hotels and party spots in town. The pool was inundated with people partying in their swim suits and DJs spinning from overlooking balconies. Just beyond the pool was a large stage hosting DJs all weekend amongst palm trees and bars. Just beyond there was immediate beach access. It was a week long mega party.

What I believe to be the second biggest spot was the Fontainebleau. Even though it is a bit off the beaten path… the place was SWAMPED every day with partygoers. Some nights the door was as high as $80 a head! All day Thursday they had a crazy pool party hosted by Bacardi. It was open bar and DJ Jazzy Jeff was on the 1’s and 2’s. Unreal. Pic below.

Then… there was Ultra Fest. Oy! Add teenagers with glow sticks here. The line up was insane and the actual festival itself… ran beautifully. Considering how many people were there, I never felt like I had to fight for a bathroom, food, space or my life (which all contributed to an unfortunately horrific experience that I had at Outsidelands Festival last summer). The only thing is that it was too loud! I’m not a grumpy old person who doesn’t like music and is making a blanket statemement here. Honestly, the loudest event I’ve ever been to. My friends texted me before I arrived and pleaded me to buy ear plugs. In the cab on the way to the festival we could feel the bass from a mile away. LOUD!

As stated before, I’m not a techno/electro queen. Glow sticks just aren’t my thing anymore and there was a lot of that going on. Honestly, there were moments I had to slap myself and remember that it wasn’t 1999. I was genuinely looking forward to the Ting Tings, Black Eyed Peas, Perry Ferrel and Bloc Party sets (who didn’t show!!!). Surprisingly enough, I did learn about a drum and bass group that I can definitely get down with. Pendulum was incredible. I had heard of them before but never really understood the magnitude of their awesomeness. They’re metal meets drum and bass. Way cool. A metal band with a DJ. Talk about MixMatching!! Their concert was amazing, full of energy and it was nice seeing instruments on stage!! It’s hard to go stage to stage, watch a new DJ and really get into it. I’m so happy to have seen Pendulum… I now have a new band to follow. Also, props to David Guetta. His set was pretty impressive as well.

Overall, to put it into 2 words… I’m exhausted! It’s a full week of keeping up on where the best parties are, moving your tush event to event, meeting and schmoozing with industry peep, being on your best behavior when necessary and using as much as the day and night as possible. Dearest WMC… there is only so much going to bed at 6am with techno in my head and waking up at 11am to a techno party at your hotel that one person can handle. I think I’m going to take a nap now… for a week! Can’t wait till next year.

Open Mic – Where?

You’ve uploaded your stems, been collaborating with others, publishing your music on MixMatchMusic… things are going well! So what else can you do to get noticed? Have you ever attended an open mic? What? You don’t know where to go? No worries.

Openmic.us, like MixMatch, is dedicated to helping indie musicians find places to play and be heard. Also, there are all sorts of tips for musicians on the site. How to rock an open mic, tips on recording, editing & mixing and more. The OpenMic.us site is comprised of 43 local city web sites. Go to the site, scroll down and check out the open mics available in your city. Who knows… the right person could be grabbing a drink while listening to you jam.

The OpenMic.us Network is operated by Open Mic Entertainment, the premier operator of live-music open mic events in the U.S.

“Citing a severe shortage of reliable open mic information in the Web, we decided to verify the accuracy of every open mic that we could find”, stated OpenMic.us founder, David Craver. He continued, “Since we have over 13 years of experience in running live music open mics, we felt that we really understood the needs of the open mic musicians in our country”.

“We like to support anything that helps musicians”, stated Electro-Voice PR Chief, Guy Low. He also said, “The OpenMic.us Network is a valuable resource for musician hobbyists and professional musicians alike.”