So yesterday I published my first blog post of 2010, and I’m happy to be posting once again. I believe when I made the announcement that I would need to be taking time away, back in October, I mentioned that I would be getting rid of the regular posting schedule of publishing new posts every Wednesday. Instead, I’m going to simply post whenever I can. And my intention is for posting to happen often.

I think that by doing away with a regular posting schedule, and writing posts relatively on the spot (rather than taking days to prepare a post), I’ll ironically have more freedom to post more often. From best I can tell after running this blog for two and a half years, all the work and thought I was putting into preparing weekly posts was too much of a challenge to balance into my daily work.

In addition to this new posting routine, I’ve diversified the range of topics I’ll be creating a dialogue within (see category descriptions below). I think exploring these new topics will help me learn and become better at my craft (which is one of the main reasons I run this blog), as well as make it easier to come up with content to post, and giving the blog an even more human feel-as I hope my personality tastefully shows through a little more.

New categories:

• Contemplations-Me learning out loud; working to understand new (to me) perspectives and epiphanies, relevant to record making
• Inspiration-Things I’m generally inspired by (different from the Music Business Inspiration category)
• Recollections-Career and autobiographical stories

I hope these changes do indeed serve as an improvement to Producer Notes. I hope it makes you enjoy the blog even more. I hope it brings more value to the blog. I hope it brings more discussion to the blog. And I hope it leads to more learning experiences for both you and me.

I Hope this new year has been good to you so far, and I look forward to the conversation we have on Producer Notes in 2010.

Thanks again for being loyal readers.

Cheers!

Since it’s Thanksgiving Day today here in the United States, I wanted to express thanks to all my faithful subscribers. Once again, I do appreciate everyone remaining subscribed even though my posting has been pretty much non-existent. Keep hangin in there, because things will pick back up again soon!

Also in recognition of Thanksgiving, I want to express thanks to all my twitter followers, Myspace friends and facebook friends. I’m also thankful for the fans of Wes Sp8, the fans of Mother/Father and the fans of Radical Notion. And of course I’m thankful for my friends and family offline as well…

One last thing: for those who are into getting deals on Black Friday, you might be interested to know that at Radical Notion Digital we do Black Friday deals every day. If you would you rather shop somewhere you’re more familiar with, then our Wes Sp8 CD Baby page and our Wes Sp8 iTunes page have some pretty good deals too. Mother/Father music is not available to purchase yet, but will be soon.

Hope today feels like a holiday no matter where you live…

Turkey photo by xybermatthew and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

You can now buy Wes Sp8’s Please EP on CD Baby and iTunes. Check it out at the links below.

On CD Baby:

On iTunes:

So yesterday was April 1st. Duh… Oh well what can I say, I was caught at a vulnerable moment.

[http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/lefsetz-apple-b.html]

But at least it’s a reality in my world because The Radical Notion Digital Store is all set to go live tomorrow. And that is not a joke. March was a very long month, and April started hard, but we’re very excited to be releasing Street Corner Champs debut Self Titled EP, and doing it as a download only. It is the second release ever for Radical Notion (independent media).

Due to certain circumstances we didn’t have a chance to promote Street Corner Champs’ EP Download Party very much at all, but here are some details:

• The party is tomorrow nite at The 5 Spot in East Nashville
• We are launching Street Corner Champs’ website, as well as The Radical Notion Digital Store
• The lineup includes Wes Sp8
• Vovo may not be able to make it
• Cost is $5

Hope to see you tomorrow nite…

Seth Godin wrote a blog post today that is titled “Opportunity of a lifetime.” It sums up in a small paragraph exactly why I think it is the perfect time to get into the music industry. Read it here [sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/opportunity-of.html]

I’m not going to be here on Monday. We’re crunching to get everything ready for two big shows. The Wes Sp8 EP release show on 3.28.08; and Street Corner Champs EP Download Party/Website Launch on 4.3.08. Stay tuned for the details…

We received the Wes Sp8 Please EP from the manufacturing plant today. This represents a lot of hard work and patience for all of us who have been involved along the way (Wes Sp8, Josh Hood, Jordan Hester, Kristin Thomas, Nate Creekmore, Chad Erickson, Jonathan Harms and myself). It has been nearly a year since we hit the record button the first time to begin this project. In between then and now we have worked, and continue to work relentlessly, putting our heart and soul into this project. It is a milestone in all of our musical careers, and a great payoff for what we have been chipping away at for the last 11 months. I can’t explain to you how excited I am to have this CD in my hand, but I don’t have to. I write this blog for an audience of independent musicians, producers, engineers and marketers. Each one of you know what it feels like to finally have in your hand what has taken months, even years, to develop.

Please EP is the first recording to ever have the credits read “Produced, Recorded and Mixed by stinson.” And the first release ever by Radical Notion (independent media).

Only a couple more weeks until the release party. We will be celebrating this release in our home town of Nashville, TN at the 12 South Tap Room. If you live in town and are able to make it I hope to see you there.

I want to use this moment to connect with you. I would love for you to share your stories of your first product release, book, recording, etc. Even if you have never released a physical product, I would still like to hear from you. Any story of releasing a product applies, even the first time you posted a song on myspace, or released your first ebook-anything. So please, leave your comments. Tell your story.

This week I’m posting early (on Friday) because I will not have time over the weekend to prepare a post for Monday. I have scheduled time to totally organize my office and life using the method David Allen developed in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I briefly described the book in my previous post that I published on Monday, and plan to talk about my experience once I complete the whole system. So again I will not be posting this coming Monday, but in the meantime I am posting some links to resources about GTD.

www.davidco.com/blogs/kelly/archives/2008/01/david_allen_giv.html
www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php
www.davidco.com/tips_tools.php
www.davidco.com/store/catalog/Free-Articles-p-1-c-254.php
www.davidco.com/podcast.php

I encourage you to spend a decent amount of time researching this method of organization. If you are like most people you feel that there are areas of your life that could have better organization. You feel like you are always struggling to keep up with the pace of life and business. Multiply this times ten if you are in the music business. It’s the perfect time to incorporate a new strategy into your life; to practice a new method of organization. So please check out Getting Things Done, maybe even try it out, and tell me about your experience.

I will be back on 1.21.08

It has been a little over three months since the last time I posted to this blog. The main reason for the pause in posts is because I wanted to migrate to my own domain/host. During the course of educating myself on the proper ways to blog, I came across some advice that you should take the time to set up your blog on it’s own domain/host before you build a significant reader base. Any time you migrate a blog to another place on the internet, you run the risk of defeating all the hard work you have put into gaining new subscribers. You should decide what you want to call your blog, and register the proper domain name at the outset of creating a blog, not after you have made a significant start. Learning from the mistakes of others, and since my blog was pretty much brand new at the time (and still is), I thought it would be the perfect time to do the migration. But before I could transition, I needed to do a lot more learning. To minimize the risk of gaining exposure under an identity I didn’t want to keep, I stopped posting. I have finally completed my change-over, and am proud to present my blog under the new title of producer notes: the scribbling of an indie record producer. I’m also excited about the fact that I’m hosting the site on a dedicated installation of Wordpress within Media Temple’s (gs) hosting service, using the domain name producernotes.com instead of jonstinson.wordpress.com.

In addition to the changes made to the setup of my blog, I have made a whole lot of exciting new progress in my music/production career.

Studio Construction
The studio is still on the radar screen, but the date for breaking ground has been pushed back to the spring. There have been so many projects happening all at once this fall, and I needed more time to draw the plans. I was advised by a friend to wait until the ground warmed back up to break ground. The studio is very much a part of my plans to progress in my career, and I am still very excited about the project. I will report on the progress of the construction regularly.

Radical Notion
At the end of September, I officially teamed up with a business partner, Jonathan Harms, to form a company called Radical Notion (independent media). This is a venture that I have been dreaming about getting involved in for a long time, and the solution I was looking for to help Wes Sp8 gain some recognition. We are ramping up for 2008, and it looks to be a bright year for us. Jonathan and I plan to work very hard to devise new opportunities for both creators of music, and fans of music. We can’t wait to move ahead with all the ideas we have already put into action.

The Street Corner Champs
In October, I recorded an EP at my studio for a band called The Street Corner Champs. As Jonathan and I began to form ideas for RN, I got a phone call to produce for the band. During the pre-production phase of the project, the songs came together so well that Jonathan and I decided to take them on as a Second act on the RN roster, meaning that we now represent two performing artists/bands.

Wes Sp8
The Wes Sp8 project has also made some significant progress. Wes has built a band to play at his live shows, and the ensemble could not be more perfect. The band spent about six weeks practicing, and now performs a live show that has a magnitude I can’t do justice in description. Once you see the show, you won’t be able to live without it. In November, Wes and I did an on air interview/performance on Vanderbuilt’s radio station, 91.1 WRVU. We enjoyed some very positive feedback from the Nashville community that was inspiring to us all. I look forward to posting a recording of the interview in the near future.

We all have high hopes for 2008. I know that Wes Sp8, The Street Corner Champs, and Radical Notion are going to have some wonderful successes. In the very short time that we have been around so far, we have experienced some incredible victories. It is perfect timing to set out to do something new. However, we cannot continue to grow and have success if you are not there with us. It is important for me to stress that Wes Sp8, The Street Corner Champs and Radical Notion need your support and inspiration so that we can build on what we have started. Please join us this next year, help us develop this new venture into something remarkable.

Become involved right now by getting plugged in at these places:
www.radicalnotion.net
www.myspace.com/radicalnotion
www.wessp8.com
www.myspace.com/wessp8
www.streetcornerchamps.com
www.myspace.com/thestreetcornerchamps

Bookmark those sites and visit them often. They are being updated with new content regularly.

It’s good to be back, and I look forward to seeing you in 2008!

finally got to mastering with the wes sp8 project. should be done by tuesday. im so excited to hear the finished product. it has taken a lot of time and patience to get this far with wes’s project. now that we are here we can focus on what to do next, which is to get his music heard. i am in the process of building a team of people to help me with this task. im very confident that wes, myself, and our team have a bright future ahead of us.

there are so many other developments with jon stinson productions (jsp) on the horizon that i want to tell you about. but you know how i feel towards talking about things before they happen. its foolish to talk about things you are going to do, less foolish to talk about things you are doing. besides, now i have you hooked. you have to keep checking for updates to see what happens. regardless of the amount of success or failure jsp experiences, there is going to be plenty of dramatic events for you to keep track of. stay tuned as the staff of jsp gets taken on a wild ride…

i had an eventful night recording more overdubs for artist rick brantley. last night we recorded guitars. we have plans to get back in the studio soon to record more guitars, and some background vocals. this project has proven to be a lot of fun, and im so glad to be a part of it. you can check out rick’s music at his website and at myspace.

ive been making more progress on the studio design. i have found quite a few sites that have been good sources of information:

• www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
sae is a school that specializes in the recording industry. this section of their site offers a lot of useful information regarding construction of a studio, recording music, and mixing music. i found especially useful the studio plans section, where they posted several design options.

• www.johnlsayers.com
this site has a lot of pictures of studios as they progressed from the design to the actual opening and use of the facility. there is also a forum section where people discuss tips/techniques, as well as what has or has not worked for them.

• revolutionaudio.ca/store/index.php
this is the website for revolution audio in mississauga, ontario, canada. they offer a lot of general recording and music industry information. the links section is a particularly good resource.

• forum.studiotips.com/index.php
this is a forum dedicated to trading information on acoustics/constuction. very useful for building a studio.

• www.acousticalsolutions.com
this site offers good information on soundproofing, as well as specific acoustical products and how to use them.

• www.gearslutz.com/board
to me this site is the mother-load. it is a forum that offers a multitude of information from recording, mixing and mastering, to studio construction. there are threads that discuss specific pieces of gear, as well as different scientific theories for recording and mixing music. the links section is very good. another bonus if the site is that there are many music industry professionals involved in the site who have produced/recorded/mixed many hit records.

• www.sketchup.com
this is a free program made by google that you can use to create 3d renderings of your designs. i have been using it to help me visualize what my studio will be like. this is a very powerful program that lets you design an idea very quickly. its so easy to learn and use. took me about 30-45min to get a handle on it. one cool feature is that you can use it in conjunction with google earth to place your design within the physical topography of your land.

ill leave you with these seven links for now, but i will post more links as i update my progress.