Today Seth Godin published a blog post which offers a download of his Free Tribes eBook. The exciting part for me is that an essay I wrote got included in the eBook. The Tribes eBook is the free companion to his new book Tribes. I’m thrilled to have my words distributed along side so many creative thinkers and intellectuals. Download a copy for yourself, and take a few minutes to look at all the truly unique ideas that are in this eBook.

It’s been a little over a month since I posted on producer notes. I’ve been tending a lot of irons in the fire lately, and all my projects have kept me from being as consistent as I would like to be around here. However, as there is a link in the Tribes eBook to producer notes, I wanted to have something current so that this site does not look like a dead end to any potential new visitors.

If you are a new visitor via the link from the Tribes eBook, I appreciate you stopping by producer notes. The purpose of this blog is to serve as a conduit to share my ideas for recording music, as well as discussing ideas for new business models which are relevant to record producers and engineers attempting to keep up with the evolution curve of the music industry. If you feel like this blog is for you, please spend some time looking around. I hope you find some useful information.

Those who are subscribers/regular readers of producer notes, I appreciate you staying subscribed during this time of inconsistency. I hope to once again regularly post content to producer notes in the near future, once I am able to complete the projects on my radar screen at the moment.

In the meantime whether you’re a new face or regular around here, feel free to contact me at stinson[at]producernotes[dot]com. I’d love to talk to you.

Well Next Big Nashville 2008 has officially kicked off. I attended two very inspiring discussion panels this morning. The first was titled The New Nashville: What Do We Need? The panelists discussed ideas for how to garner more awareness for Nashville as a rock music town. The discussion sparked a slew of ideas that I can’t wait to explore. The title for the second panel was Psychology and the Art of Artist Management. I soaked in a tremendous amount of knowledge from each panelist, who all have built a high caliber reputation beside the artists they work with.

Next on my list of events to attend is the Mother/Father set at Mercy Lounge tonite at 11pm. www.myspace.com/thisismotherfather. If you are planning to attend this show tonite, I hope that we can connect. Come up and say, “Hi.” I’ll be the guy dressed in all black operating a video camera (if the venue will let me).

I’ve got my personal schedule for the events I plan on attending posted here: nbn08.sched.org/stsn. I’ll also be posting my whereabouts and other various NBN riffs via my Twitter page. Follow me at twitter.com/stsn, for those interested. If you are going to be at any one of these events I’d love to connect with you, so again, please do come up and say, “Hi.”

I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend. Hope to see you out there!

BTW-Feel free to leave your schedule, whether linked or typed out, in the comments section below…

photo by wilhei55

This is my fiftieth post to producer notes. I want to use this moment to retrace the genesis and initial growth of this blog. I also want to recapitulate the purpose of this blog, and fill you in on what I plan for the future of this blog.

The Creation of a Blog
July 10th will be the year mark for this blog. When I decided to begin blogging, I started out on www.wordpress.com. My main motivation for starting a blog at the time was simply because I was interested in taking up a new hobby. I had become interested in writing, and I felt like I needed my own platform to express my thoughts. After becoming inspired by Glenn Reynolds’ blog [pajamasmedia.com/instapundit] and book, An Army Of Davids [An Army Of Davids on Amazon], starting my own blog was something I really wanted for myself.

After about five months worth of studying the proper way to blog, and writing to find a voice, I decided to migrate over to my own domain on a dedicated wordpress installation. It was at this point that I branded my blog with the producer notes title. I also began to fine tune my topics so that I could more closely target my audience; people who wish to learn how to become producers and engineers.

The Success of a Blog
For being a part-time blogger, I feel that producer notes has been a success so far. Throughout the last fifty posts, I have achieved the goals I wanted for this blog. I have learned a lot about blogging and building web sites, and I have been able to create the outlet I wanted to express myself. I have also been able to create a platform which allows me to promote my production work, and I have gained a modest following of readers and subscribers interested in what I do and the information I offer.

I will continue to set new goals for this blog. There is still plenty of room to learn about what I am doing, and many specific goals I want to achieve. I am continuously learning more about blogging and running web sites every day. I expect that producer notes will continue to be a successful project for me, as I craft this blog through putting to practice what I learn.

The Future of a Blog
There are two final things I want to say in this post. First, is that I am becoming very busy. Radical Notion continues to grow, and along the way it requires us to invest more attention in planning and developing. Additionally, I am going to be working on a couple of records, which will probably take the rest of the summer to complete. Obviously this will take me away from other tasks, such as writing for this blog. I have been trying very hard to have a post prepared every week, but since I am a part-time blogger there are other projects that must take priority from time to time. As we continue in our growth phase with Radical Notion, and I begin these projects in the studio, I am going to have to scale down my posting schedule on producer notes. I still plan to periodically contribute to this blog, but for the next several months I will be off my once-a-week posting schedule, making my appearances here a lot less predictable.

Second is that I would like you to help me make producer notes better. Is there anything you would like to see done differently? Any topics relating to producing and engineering that you would like to know more about? Have the topics I covered so far been informative, or are they too basic? I want to guarantee that I am covering topics which are relevant and educational to those seeking to become producers and engineers. So if you have suggestions for changes I could make to anything about this site, leave a comment or send an email to stinson[At]producernotes[DOT]com.

I look forward to hearing from you. And remember that I’m not going away, I’m just going to be posting less frequently. Thanks for being loyal readers/subscribers.

The photo in this post is licensed under a creative commons license.

Yesterday morning producer notes hit some turbulence, and didn’t quite make it through without sustaining some damage. Long story short, all the comments throughout the entire blog were erased. I have no idea what caused this, but I am still pretty amateur when it comes to maintaining web sites.

Lately I have been getting hit pretty hard by spam bots. I have my preferences set to moderate all comments, and I usually bulk moderate everything on posting days. Sometimes spam comments can build up quite a bit by the time I get around to moderating anything.

Yesterday morning I posted a new post, and then began moderating the comments. I selected the “Awaiting Moderation” tab in the WordPress admin panel. I know for a fact that I was only moderating comments that had not previously been approved. I even went over each comment to double check that I was not marking one as spam that shouldn’t be. I marked around 120 comments as spam. When I was finished there were no comments under any category. Not under the “Show All Comments” tab, the “Awaiting Moderation” tab or the “Approved” tab. Everything had been erased!

I figured the best thing to do would be to restore my previous database backup, but the most recent backup I had was a month old. Restoring it meant that I was going to lose 5 posts. I decided to do it. Once I got the old database loaded up, I noticed that some things were out of sync with the blog vs. the feed, and there were a few other broken features. At this point I felt that I was losing too much, and trying to save a few comments was just not worth it. After all, my blog is still pretty new, and I really didn’t have that many comments (only five). So I “un-did” the backup, and decided that I would just lose the comments.

But this morning as I woke up I was not happy with this decision. I felt I really needed those comments even if there were only five. Having comments on your blog is an integral part of what gives a blog its value. I highly value the interaction of people, and joining together as a team to build something. It took a lot of dedication to get those comments, and I distinctly appreciate each person that took the time to stop by and interact on producer notes. To just let that go like it meant nothing would have been a disrespectful waste.

So after much flip-flopping on the issue, I have decided to restore the month old database, regardless of what content I lose or what features break. I do have the five lost posts on file which I plan on republishing one at a time over the rest of the week. Any features that end up breaking I feel confident will be fixable. And if the RSS feed gets out of sync, worse things have happened. The important thing is that I have my comments back. Well, most of the comments. Unfortunately I was not able to recover one comment, and I’m sorry for that.

Sorry if my mishap has caused any confusion. Thank you again for being subscribed and/or loyal readers. In the end I have learned a few things from this incident. The first of which is that I’m going to vamp up my backup routine to a more frequent schedule.

You should begin to see four of the five lost posts start to reappear, starting today with UstreamTV and following with:

• eSession on 6/4/08
• Jonathan Harms’ New Blog on 6/5/08
• 5 Tips to Make Your Recording Sessions More Efficient on 6/6/08

I’m going to leave one post, Leave of Absence, unpublished as it is no longer relevant.

Thanks to those who have participated in the interactivity of producer notes.

Photo in this post taken by a little azorean and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Quarter one of 2008 has come to an end. I met every goal I set out on, specifically getting Radical Notion off the ground. I feel RN has covered a lot of ground in a short time, but that it is only a drop in the bucket when thinking about the road ahead. That’s a great feeling to me, because if I’m excited about what has happened so far, what lies ahead is going to be unbelievable. The most exciting part of it all, is that I could not have met any single goal without you. That means you responded positively, and I thank you tremendously for that.

So far in 2008 Radical Notion and our artists have made a presence on the web, made some appearances on the radio, thrown some awesome parties, and released two EPs-all of which you participated in, and contributed to the success of. Just as the calendar ticks over to the next phase of ’08, I’m happy to say that the next chapter in the beginning of Radical Notion is already being written.

I’m excited about two new websites within the umbrella of the RN family:

• The Radical Notion Digital Store
• Street Corner Champs Official Site

The Radical Notion Digital Store is our new online store where we will offer all of our media content straight from our hands to yours. Our first release through the store is Street Corner Champs’ debut self titled EP. The EP comes as a download in three different versions. All of which are totally uninhibited by the control of any DRM. We even offer a version for free. The Radical Notion Digital Store is just another way we can connect with you. It allows us to cut out any middle man, and offer everything we do in a way that is convenient for you. Having our own method of distribution keeps anyone from putting a barrier of price, availability, DRM, communication or any other control point between us and you. We look forward to releasing more media through this store in the near future, the way you want it. [www.radicalnotion.net/store]

Street Corner Champs’ Official Site is going to serve as the central hub for all information, news and entertainment for the band. We plan on constantly updating the content of the site, and adding new features regularly. Make sure you stay up to date with this site, because you don’t want to miss out on anything. We may make exclusive announcements, run special promotions, or make limited releases through this website. [www.streetcornerchamps.com]

I can’t wait for what is next at Radical Notion. This is the best time of my life because everything I have desired to do is becoming a reality. We are sitting at the drawing board right now brainstorming our plans for our next move. We are in full throttle, inspired, and working hard to continue what we started. I hope to see you at all the parties that are going to happen throughout the rest of the year.

Together We Create Emotion…

Well I left out a point. In my haste to get my previous post published and then run out the door, I forgot to call your attention to something specific David Armano says in his video. I wanted to tell you to pay attention about 3/4 the way in when David says, “learn by doing.” This struck a chord with me because I am often preaching that sermon. You read about it all day long. You can have all the text book knowledge on any given topic in the world. But you don’t really have a clue what you are doing until you get your hands dirty. It gives you perspective…

It has been a couple of months since I have given an update on what’s going on. Radical Notion has been ticking along quite nicely. Both bands we represent have been playing plenty of rockin’ shows, and stirring up some local attention.

Wes Sp8
Back in November Wes Sp8 (pronounced Speight) and I did a radio interview on Vanderbilt’s station 91.1 WRVU. I told you that the recording would be up in the near future, but it took me a bit longer to post it than I hoped it would. Either way it is finally up, and you can find it at www.radicalnotion.net/media.

Another bit of Wes Sp8 news is that he is now a SESAC affiliated performing/recording artist. In January we began having a series of meetings with SESAC to seek affiliation, and in early February Wes signed the appropriate papers to make it official. If you live in Nashville, look for the upcoming show to celebrate.

Last bit of Wes Sp8 news-we were all excited when Wes got a little bit of commercial radio attention a couple of weeks ago. Mid February, Wes played a show at Christopher Pizza. One of the sponsors happened to be a local radio station, Lightning 100. They aired a promo of the show, which featured a clip of Wes’s single Please.

Street Corner Champs
Things are going strong in Street Corner Champs’ camp as well. Last Thursday they played to a packed house at Windows On The Cumberland in a battle of the bands. There was a great energy in the room; I could tell the fans were very excited. I was pleasantly surprised at the fan support that Street Corner Champs have. The competition went on all weekend, so I don’t know where we stand. In the end, it was a success because Street Corner Champs poured their soul into the performance, which formed a stronger bond with their already loyal fans.

stinson
In personal news, I got a call over the weekend to go record some overdubs for the local country/pop group, Shedaisy [www.myspace.com/shedaisy]. My friend Andy has been recording with them, but has to take a break to get another project started. He called me to fill in, so Tuesday and Wednesday I will be in the studio recording various overdubs, and generally having fun. I look forward to working with Shedaisy, as they seem like a great group of people.

That finalizes the news…
I don’t feel like this blog is the right place to talk about Radical Notion news. News regarding my freelance production is relevant, but it’s difficult to differentiate sometimes since the two are cross-relevant. I am working on building a blog for Radical Notion, so in the future look there for RN news.

I am going to experiment with more efficient ways to give news updates, because I feel that this time I waited too long. It’s hard to find the right timing for news since I only post once a week. Other bloggers that post daily, or multiple times a day don’t have any problem staying current with news updates, because they can still post their normal content too. Since I only blog part time it’s a trickier balance. My goal is to find a way to give news updates without breaking away from the usual content of the site. I don’t want there to be entire week gaps in the main content because of a news update. Today I’m going to experiment with a “double post.” I’ll try this for a bit, and depending on how it works, I may or may not try something different. So for now, on weeks that there is news to talk about, you will find two posts.

I’ll Take Your Suggestions
If you have an idea for a better way to handle news updates, I would love to hear it. Please leave me a comment with suggestions on how you would like to see news posts on this site.

I can’t believe Christmas 2007 is here. I get anxious around the holidays because there are always those seasonal parties to attend, but I find it nearly impossible to remove myself from work. Although, when you begin to monetize your hobbies there is hardly a line between work and play. I am always thinking about the next project I want to tackle; constantly devising new plans and seeking the information I need to build those ideas. I love learning and creating.

Perhaps you share some similar anxieties. Despite all that, I feel it is very important to spend time with those you love-both family and friends. I hope this holiday season finds you warm with the enjoyment of the moment amongst the fellowship of your loved ones.

i have just returned from a vacation in seaside, fl. it had been at least three years since i had been on a vacation. it felt great to play at the beach again. this was a much needed and overdue vacation. i feel very refreshed and ready to pull the trigger on the projects that i have lined up for the fall. im getting antsy/excited as it takes a lot of preparation work to get these things started. hopefully this fall you will see me breaking ground on my studio, and producing records for a couple of bands. on vacation i spent about an hour a day working on the design of my studio. i have one draft pretty much complete. im going to probably design three options total, and pick the best one. i will post pictures of the plans once i get done.

there is so much i want to accomplish right now. number one on the list is to get the design of the studio finished so i can set the dates for the construction. the next would be to organize and set the dates for the projects im going to produce this fall. among so many other things i want to really try to hone the focus of my blog. i also want to grow my site, and offer more content. and of course regarding the site id like to start growing the audience. there has been a lot of talk about what is going to happen this fall. its time to stop talking and start doing…

i spent more time away than i intended to, but i have a lot on my plate, so it does not surprise me. a lot has been accomplished in the last 18 days.

in previous posts i have been vague. this is only because im in a state of transition, and im assuming a reasonable amount of risk in the process. also, there are many times when i am in a subordinate position, and i am not sure how much info is privileged. even though im sure my audience is very small (probably only one person in fact) i feel my job security is more intact if i dont disclose everything. frequent this site and the pieces of the puzzle will gradually get filled in.

**news**

now that all that is aside, i would like to share some current news:

• i have officially left my staff position as assistant engineer at quad recording studios. my three year stint at the historical nashville studio helped me develop a great set of skills, and network with some influential people. i got a great education from some of the best teachers you could ask for. this being my first music industry job, it will always be memorable.

• i am making some progress with the design of my new studio. i have been spending quite a bit of time studying acoustics and construction, and have found a lot of good information. i have never been involved in a construction project before, much less one involving building a studio, so it is a bit of a challenge. however, due to the fact that im working with a moderately small budget, it is necessary that i be the head designer. as the progress continues i will update you with what i learn. ill try to pass on the information, and direct you to good resources for studio design. hopefully i can post some pictures too!

• i have begun talking to a new artist about producing an ep. i wont disclose too much for now, but stay tuned and i will update you with the developments. right now we are talking about recording 5 songs, three of which i will co-write on.

stay tuned-its about to start getting interesting…