Since the radio’s invention in the 1920s, storytelling as an art form experienced a resurgence in popularity – so much so that this new sound-emitting box caused mass hysteria throughout the US with the dramatization of an invasion from outer space, which unfortunately was fictional. Advertisers, too, discovered how to captivate a new audience of…
Exclusive Interview with Fatoumata Diawara
Since the release of Fatou, her solo album back in 2011, Fatoumata Diawara has been rather busy as one of the most celebrated voices in African music today. But the Ivorian-born singer, gigging nonstop and gracing world music lovers with a soulful blend of Wassoulou folk and spiritually-infused Afropop, can finally breathe and let things sink in,…
The Women of BMAT
According to a selection of major tech companies’ 2018 diversity reports, women made up between 26% and 43% of employees, with a much lower percentage of women in actual tech roles. Living between both the music and tech worlds, BMAT is working on changing the tune of the gender disparity typically found in both of…
What is Music?
The definition of music is usually quite abstract, touching on the concepts of pitch, rhythm, and timbre. When we say that a sound has a particular pitch, it means that we can easily identify if the sound is high or low. Imagine you’re sitting in a home recording studio and the guitarist is strumming a…
The Subtle Art of Picking Your Band’s Metadata
Apart from backstage antics and recording your first track at home, choosing a band name will probably be one of the most memorable things in your music career. Just imagine your mates sitting around in your granny’s living room, tossing around names like fish at Pike Place Market. Fast forward a few months when you…
How to Record Clean and Crisp Audio at Home
In the dinosaur days of recording music, the only way to get clean and crisp audio was to rent a professional studio and hire a grey-haired, chain-smoking sound engineer to lay down your album’s tracks. But today, to get your music out in this creator-driven world, all you need to do is invest in some…
SUMMUS, Behind the Scenes
When I first heard about SUMMUS, I thought it was a misspelling of ‘zumos’ (juices, in Spanish), but as we started to get ready for the 3rd biennial event, it dawned on me that SUMMUS goes a step beyond its definition. More than a gathering place for forward-thinking experts, the event proved to be a…
Re: How Venues Turn Into Revenues
After a night out on the town, we decided to do some research on how music identification systems used at venues might have an impact on the revenue generated in the indie music scene. Results show that music played at venues increase the industry’s long-tail and provide a significant source of income for non-mainstream artists….
Ben Turner: “Education is the key. Artists, managers – everybody needs to understand the flow of money”
Ben Turner co-founded Muzik Magazine, he’s a director of Bestival, the International Music Summit and the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM). He’s CEO of the music management and brand services company Graphite and artist manager for a number of leading electronic music artists. Brais: Ben, how has your viewpoint of the music industry changed pre-Muzik Magazine,…
The World of Sound Effects
When we started to develop our audio fingerprinting technology, we made sure it worked with every sound we recorded but we still had a way ahead to delve into its nuts and bolts and overcome some of the oddities of our industry. This leads us on to the fascinating world of sound effects. Some weeks…