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Written by: Greg Shoemaker

Category: Online Presence Blog

Published: 29 May 2020

Hits: 2771

• website development
• building an online presence
• marketing music

This is just a brief entry to describe this morning's activities, particularly in regards to the title 'Comments and Backups.'  That specifically refers to the inclusion of a commenting module on some of the pages my websites and the installation of a backup process for them as well.  Comments also refers to the following additional comments on my efforts at building my online presence.  

A few days ago I was looking into securing rights to post some cover songs on YouTube because I didn't want to run afoul copyright laws so I explored eventually joining one of the Performance Rights Organizations (BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, or some lesser known ones) which led me down a rabbit hole described in my blog entry on chasing rabbits.   Among the rabbits chased that I didn't mention in that article was one presented by Ryan Waczek and his Indie Music Academy which focuses on ways to monetize your music using social media.  He definitely has lots of good information and suggestions which he provides for free but I'm personally not quite to the point where I am satisfied enough with my music to want to promote it 'full blast.'  Still, I gave him my email to get some of his free stuff I've been getting his follow up sales promotions to join his academy that are accompanied by additional teasers like this mornings video on using Facebook ads to target your fan base.   If you don't already have a clear plan how to develop your online marketing strategy and you have material you're ready to promote then by all means check out his program as it does provide valuable guidance.  I just can't justify the cost for myself at this time because my product isn't finalized and I have access to other resources that provide similar information.  Still his program could save you a lot of effort and time spinning your wheels going nowhere if you're ready to promote yourself and your product aggressively. 

I have developed for myself a reasonable timeline to expand and enhance my online presence and this site is one part of that process.  The timeline I am referring to is the four years it will take me to finish my music program at UGA and that program provides an ideal framework for me to use to make my music into the tangible products that I will ultimately produce.  Although the appeal of arranging popular songs and releasing my own versions of them is still quite strong, the copyright implications I was exploring earlier have made me realize that I would be better off simply by writing and producing my own material which is one of the areas that I have wanted to focus my attention on anyway.  I now have all the time and resources I need to make significant progress in that endeavor this summer while at the same time setting up my system for distributing the fruits of those efforts in a way that will eventually lead to a similar outcome.

Yes, I will want to start building a fan base at some point in the near future and I will want to use as many methods as I can effectively employ to grow that fan base but, before any of that happens, I want to ensure that my music or the information I share is of a standard that first satisfies my needs for self expression and, if it is able to pass that benchmark, that it will be of value to those who might choose to consume it.  I suppose I could call this 'being true to oneself and ones music' and for me that is more important than any monetary gain I might make by promoting something I'm not completely satisfied with.  So with that I'm going to lay down a percussion track based on Wednesday's lesson and write a song around it.   I'd love to hear any comments you may have about your efforts.

Greg Shoemaker

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Written by: Greg Shoemaker

Category: Online Presence Blog

Published: 22 May 2020

Hits: 2702

When I got up this morning my intent was to reconfigure my OBS installation on the computer in Studio 3, the room from which I will likely be doing my live streaming.  When I was first exploring the subject I installed the Streamlabs OBS package on that computer while my laptop had the generic OBS Studios and I wanted to make everything consistent so I uninstalled the Streamlabs version and installed the other version.   That was the rabbit I decided to chase today and it led me down a couple of holes to meet some of its relatives that I will now describe. 

The first was a direct descendant, an issue with the audio configuration on the laptop that I have been moving between Studios 1 and 2 that I discovered this past Wednesday.  Prior to my drum lesson on Wednesday (which was very helpful and which I hope to write up soon) I had hoped to make a video of the exercise I was working on with the Nitro that included a view of the Nitro control unit and how I was using it to validate my efforts at improving the timing accuracy of my playing.  I had three cameras on the scene, a Logitec c920 overhead, the built in one from the Dell laptop, and the cell phone configured with IP Webcam.  These were recorded by a single instance of OBS Studio.  The audio was using the microphones in the c920 and the Dell and, as I was doing it somewhat last minute, I didn't do a separate recording using Reaper.  When I went to play it back I noticed that the hi-hat hits seemed to have a slight delay between the two sources and realized that the resultant mix was the net of the OBS audio mixer inputs so after loading OBS on the HP computer in Studio 3 this morning I decided to see if I could get a better understanding of how audio works in OBS.

After installing OBS I observed that the default audio from the device, in this case the HP, is automatically detected by OBS so I renamed the scene and the audio source.  I then added the c920 audio source and lastly added the UMC404HD.  With the UMC404HD I was expecting to have four assignable audio inputs but OBS only recognized a single instance of the I/O device and when I had three microphones plugged in it sent one signal to the left channel and the other two to the right channel.  I don't know if that was due to a windows configuration problem or if it might be that I need to download and install a specific driver on the HP from the Behringer website.  I'm currently resuming the chase of that rabbit and will update this if I manage to resolve it soon.

At any rate, as I was setting up the Studio 3 scene in OBS I decided I wanted to be able to capture my Reaper session with the video output so I started up a copy of Reaper and assigned that window as an input to the OBS Studio 3 configuration.  That's when the second rabbit ran in front of me.  When Reaper started it opened one of the first projects I ever created using Reaper.  Back in 2012 I did a cover of Shepherd Me Oh God by Marty Haugan and thought it would be nice to post that on some kind of platform like SoundCloud or YouTube but before I did that I wanted to make sure I didn't run into any kind of potential copyright violation issues so I started a long chase after that rabbit and still haven't caught it but I did catch a few others from the same family.

The first sibling rabbit was what Performance Rights Organization I should become a member of, BMI or ASCAP.  My current inclination is to join BMI but I will put it off shortly until I digest all I have already learned.  I need to decide on if I should self publish - when I am ready to publish my works.  Of course I should register them with the US Copyright Office.  I will also need to register as both a author and a publisher.  I found Mariea E. Watkins had produced a series of videos on music business on her YouTube Channel The Music Business Made Easy. that covered many of the topics I was interested in and that I need to be sure I have considered before I get too deep into developing both my own music and my online presence.  Not only was the content relevant to what I am wanting to do long term but her channel is well branded and is a good example of the structure I want to develop with my channel and my websites.  Now I have two rabbits in the bag but I still need to cook them.

There were several different types of royalties that were discussed in different contexts including writer, publisher, mechanical, performance, cover, and copyright and these titles aren't accurate but reflect the complexity of what I am trying to accomplish within the context of the law to ensure that those people whose material I may use, whether it's through sampling or doing a cover of a song by someone else, that they get paid for it.  I still haven't figured out how to properly obtain a license to make a cover and play the music of someone else, but the royalties that are generated by YouTube seem to go through organizations called Awal and SoundTrust.  Other organizations in the food chain, including some that deal with streaming on platforms such as Spotify, Apple iTunes, Pandora, and Sirius XM include Sound Exchange, Tone Core, CD Baby, Distrokid, and Songtrust.  Some deal with radio and television broadcasting to collect and distribute royalties.  These are a lot of rabbits I've been chasing and I haven't caught any of them yet.  With them I think my best bet is to lay some more traps for another day although I did lay a good foundation.  There were some other sites that provided more information and I still need to get a grip on the Harry Fox Agency but all in all it worked out well.

One other thing that did come up in this research spate was the importance of including metadata in sound recordings to take care of the copyright attribution issues and the program BWF MetaEdit will insert the information needed so your recordings are properly identified.  I could probably go on for longer about this but I finally just got my X32 Compact and want to unpack it and hopefully figure out how it works sometime soon so I'll leave you with that.

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Written by: Greg Shoemaker

Category: Online Presence Blog

Published: 20 May 2020

Hits: 2627

I finally feel as if I'm making some progress with planning for my online presence and executing the plan.  I still have a lot that I need to do and would like to do both in terms of creating content for the websites and YouTube channel and making the platforms better organized, user friendly, and more visually appealing.  For the websites these include adding discussion boards, search facilities, tagging lists, picture sliders, and changing the titles of some articles to make them more search engine friendly.  For the YouTube channel it's simply creating more content and making enhancements as I proceed.  Over the next couple of weeks I will be spending less time with working on this project except in as much as it becomes incidental to my making music.  Although still not as efficient as I would like I am more comfortable with recording myself and posting the material.  I will continue to write articles about my practices and other subjects as I can but my focus will be shifting to practicing, recording, and composing. 

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Written by: Super User

Category: Online Presence Blog

Published: 13 May 2020

Hits: 2614

Ok… Somewhat frustrating.  I had thought that I had made two recordings with OBS and had captured them.  One was a rather lengthy piano session yesterday where I played several pieces and then today a long drum practice session.  Apparently they didn’t get recorded as I just went to transfer the files to the external hard drive for processing and there was nothing there.  Actually, it’s extremely frustrating since I wanted to do some video editing and post them to the web site.  I suppose I could turn this little rant into an entry in the practice blog since I am going to detail what it was that I did.  Yesterday morning I had everything set up to record my piano practice session and so I played the Bach prelude and fugue in Cm (#2 book 1), the prelude #3, and I think I went through a little bit of fugue #3 because I didn’t know it and I was going to use it as a basis for describing how I go about practicing. The day before I worked on both the prelude and fugue for #21 in Bb but I don’t think I recorded it.  When I had finished there I should have probably verified the existence of the recording but it didn’t.  Instead I moved the recording setup (computer and cameras) into the main studio room to record drums and thought I did a short take just to have something with drums but didn’t follow through nor did I verify the recording.  This morning I went down and started a recording session for drums using the Groove 2 as an example of material I would use for the youtube channel using the Nitro and to demonstrate the metronome on the Nitro control unit to describe how it can be used to show the player if they are playing ahead of the beat or behind the beat.  I went through the basic beat and the variations and then the practice sheet I had for my second lesson to demonstrate that exercise.  

I’ve got the audio recorded as a Reaper file but that doesn’t do the trick for a YouTube thing so I’ll just have to start it all over again to get what I want for positing.  When I brought the laptop up to transfer the files I started looking at video systems trying to decide how I can get everything streamlined and was thinking of getting something along the lines of a multi camera security system and using that because of two considerations that I have.  First, I had read somewhere that usb cameras couldn’t have long usb cables which I would need for any kind of permanent set up for recording video so I started looking at security cameras to see if they might work for my purposes and came across the Wyze Cam Pan 1080p that I can get from amazon for 37.94.  While appealing in price I was trying to research whether it would allow me to continuously record directly into the computer because it represents a cost effective solution I started reading through the reviews and questions and came across a couple of acronyms I was not familiar with, NVR and ONVIF.  I’m still not sure what the ONVIF means (it’s Open Network Video Interface Forum and is an open standard for the physical interface of IP-based security products) I stumbled on the website for the CCTV Camera World website which sells Network Video Recorders (NVR) which appears to have the kind of information I am looking for regarding a possible solution to my problems.  I will definitely return there to further research that particular option for satisfying my video capture needs which I’m going to define in the following specification for all my studio rooms.  

The main studio room currently has the Nitro, the MP5, the Behringer K450FX, and one of the UMC404HD I/O units as well as the electric guitars and bass.  The piano room currently only has the Hallet Davis and usually the other UMC404HD in it while the upstairs office is the video post production room and is the current location for the violin, trumpet, and Taylor acoustic guitar as well as the HP Pavilion which is the main video editing workstation.  The Dell Inspiron laptop is used as my main DAW and video capture computer and it is currently moved from location to location in the studio as the need arises. The Hammond is in the alcove at the base of the stairs and had not been used much lately but should receive some attention later this summer. Some modifications in this arrangement will likely take place over the summer or fall with the old downstairs office becoming a percussion room when I’m ready to spring for an acoustic set.

That establishes the basic layout of the entire studio and from a video capture point of view I will want to have several cameras in the main studio room including ceiling views of the MP5, Nitro and possibly the X32, and side views for each of the instruments, and views from the monitors for when I’m teleconferencing.  The piano room should have at least three on the piano and the post production room should also have at least three,  I will also probably want to have , possibly four, in the post production room probably three or four in the percussion room when that gets set up and it wouldn’t hurt to set up six outside the house for security purposes.  I guess what that will boil down to would be a 32 channel NVR to support all my anticipated video recording needs.  I’ll have to research cameras to go with that and also the nature of how each video channel records - preferably as separate files that I can later edit and merge using Premiere Pro or similar software. The other question I will need to answer is “Would I be able to select groups of channels from this system to be used for live streaming?”  I suspect there would be a way to do that but I need to be sure that any system I get for this purpose would be able to fulfill that requirement as well.  This pretty much defines my current video recording requirements although they will likely change over time.

Next comes the audio recording aspect of this and as things currently stand I will most likely be getting a Behringer X32 Compact to use as my main mixer in the studio.  Although I will only be using around 16 channels of it I will set it up so that it will act as both a control surface for my DAW and as the permanent digital I/O unit to the computer.  I anticipate that it will take me three or four weeks to get a basic understanding of how to use it and to get it configured for my needs.  One of the many things I like about this mixer is that it will allow me to control it from any room in the studio using an iPad.  That means I’ll have to get an iPad as well but I don’t know if I’ll need a fancy one.  I may also consider mounting actual XLR jacks in all the secondary rooms so I don’t have to have cables running over the floors or ceilings to plug in my microphones in each of these rooms.  I’m not sure yet what my requirements for this will be but it will be a minor enhancement once I get the board set up in the main room.

Then there is the computer for the DAW.  I have been using Reaper for most of my recording needs and am generally quite satisfied with what it can do, particularly when the price of the product is considered.  As I mentioned previously, I have been using a Dell Inspiron as my main recording workstation and will probably continue to use it in situations where I need to have mobility, such as for location sound recording or as a VST host when playing live.  The thing I do not like is the limited screen size, particularly when I’m using it to run multiple programs like Reaper, OBS, and web browsers.  I have been wanting a ‘permanent’ workstation for my DAW in the main studio room and I would like to be able to have multiple large monitors attached to extendible VESA wall mounts.  Ideally, I would have a 27” or greater monitor in each of the corners of the room and a 42” in monitor over the mixer desk.  I would need to have a computer capable of handling the graphics for that many monitors as well as additional monitors in the other studio rooms where those rooms would have the primary display duplicated and possibly secondary displays that could be assigned to other views as well.  I would also probably use this computer to do my video editing if I had it configured the way I want it. I am currently using a copy of Adobe CS6 I installed on the HP when I was working at UGA but I’m concerned that the machine is getting old and will not be responsive enough to my needs for video editing and am not clear on how I might be able to transfer the license to another computer if I can. I don’t particularly want to have to subscribe to the Adobe Creative Cloud unless I’m making enough to offset the cost but I may end up having to do that unless I want to explore some other video editing software solutions like DaVinci Resolve.  Then again, I might be able to make the HP a little more robust by putting in a separate video card but for now it’s not a priority.  I had planned on building the studio desktop from scratch specifically because I was going to use it to handle several cameras with multiple PCIe USB single bus cards but I will likely opt to get an NVR for the video recording.  Still, if I transfer the editing to the studio computer I will want and need a very robust system and will likely still opt to build it from parts configuring it the way I want for my anticipated future studio needs.  Now, all I have to do is remember to verify my recordings as I make them and hopefully will do that over the next two days so I can get them posted. 

As far as the rest of the online presence project goes I still have a good bit of configuring of the websites to continue working on.  For the YouTube channel I had planned to using those videos I apparently didn’t record to build my channel trailer and I still have to make the channel artwork which will require that I spend some time doing a refresher on InDesign which I haven’t used in years and never really developed much proficiency with.  Still I am making progress and will also have to do some more work with Finale to generate the score excerpts for the pieces I’ll be discussing in some of the videos.  I still would like to start the live streaming program on June 2 but I’m not entirely sure I’ll meet that deadline but I’ve got almost three weeks and if I can get some of this other stuff working then I should be good to go.  If someone else is working on setting up a similar system then I hope this post will be helpful but I suppose it’s time for me to go make another attempt at video recording my practice so until next time keep practicing.