Tweet I started the Smart Musician blog a few years ago to capture and share the lessons, experience and strategies that I have picked up over the years playing in bands, working for bands and just being a musician performing several days a week about 20 years ago, to being a weekend warrior in the [...]
Tweet I just got back from a nice 2 1/2 week vacation and am just getting back into the groove. While we were away, we spent a lot of time in the waters of the Caribbean, relaxing and recharging. This did not mean that I was completely disconnected from checking in on news about things [...]
Tweet Continuing on the theme of innovative applications of technology and the business of making music, I am actually pounding out this article on my iPad today. But innovation is not limited to new technology, but is always the result of applied creativity. New ideas, variations on an old concept or thing plan be just [...]
Tweet The past few years have seen a seismic evolution in mobile technologies. The significance isn’t just in the mobility of the devices that implement these technologies, but in user interface (UI) design. I’m not talking about the visual part of UI, but the physical–how you interact with mobile devices. You will be seeing this [...]
Tweet For years, since the time people started playing with voice chat over 28.8 dial-up modem connections, I have talked with my band mates about the possibilities of collaborating over the internet. How cool would it be if we could rehearse or record with us in different locations? Technology today allows us to get much [...]
Tweet Today I’m changing things up a little bit. So, yesterday I opened up a project on in my DAW for a tune I’ve been working on and saw that something happened that I didn’t notice the last time I was in working on it. All of the tracks were out of line with each [...]
Tweet I have talked about the importance of monitoring systems in a previous post or two, and how I believe that many bands have it backwards when it comes to where they put their money and thought in building out their live audio gear. Most immediately jump in to the FOH (Front of House) configuration, [...]
Tweet It’s not news that technology has leveled the playing field for bands–both musicians and crew alike. Two huge examples are the emergence of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and its impact on the accessability of professional recording tools, and modeling and DSP technologies which essentially give you an array of high-end boutique amplifiers, guitars and processing gear in the form [...]
Tweet The past several posts have focused on a lot of non-technical aspects of life in a band. While this has been a departure from the technical bent of the Smart Musician, bear with me for a bit–I am going somewhere with this. Promise. At the core, while what it means may be different for [...]
Tweet Over the past 1-2 decades, technology has driven several game changing leaps that have not only leveled the playing field, but has been fueling a revolution in the music industry as a whole. However, it’s not just technology and it’s impact on the affordability and accessibility of gear, which is small compared to how [...]