AUGUST NEWSLETTER

[Hans DeKline]

This is our first newsletter. It's a work in progress. It's also about a week and a half late. C'est la vie.  Thanks for signing up!  This is meant to be interactive... please feel free to shoot us ideas, thoughts, questions, or whatever contribution you so desire.

Our www.soundbitesdog.com site is almost done (and no, it's not broken and we didn't give you the wrong address). It is being designed by the incredibly talented Andrew Enoch (www.aenoch.com).  Hopefully it will be up by the end of this month.  Until then... myspace more than suffices.

I also wanted to point out that we are mentioned in the August 2006 issue of MIX MAGAZINE...
http://mixonline.com/recording/projects/audio_track_sheet_23/ check it out.  It's no small feat to be a relative new kid on the block and be accepted by such a distinguished periodical.  Mucho thanks to Mix and Barbara Schultz.  More press to come...

1. Our clients for the month of July:  All of these artists deserve your support and attention.  Please check them out.

   A) the Shrinking Islands "In The Black Carpet" (8 song CD) www.shrinkingislands.com
   B) Continue & Save "Denouement." (EP) www.innerpeacesecurity.com
   C) Circuit Scarecrow "Mechanical Laughter" (EP) www.deletememory.com
   D) Da Shiek (full length CD) www.dashiek.com
   E) Mark Watson www.markwatsonmusic.com
   F) Anonymous "Ghetto Gumbo" (full-length CD) www.anonymous2u.com
   G) Shaun Cavanaugh www.myspace.com/shauncavanaugh
   H) The Catalysts "Long Distance" (4 song EP) www.spirophone.com
   I) Curtis Spence (eng/prd/mx/mstring lastest album) no website yet.
   J) Yo Cuzzos "The Bayology" CD www.myspace.com/yocuzzos

2.  I received an odd question the other day from a prospective client and wanted to pass it along.  The question: " I don't recognize any of your past clients, are any of them charting?"   My response: I don't know and I'm not sure how much mastering has to do with "charting", but I can assure you that most of the tunes that are "charting" were mastered by 1 of 10 mastering houses that charge 5 times what I do and who's end-results don't necessarily reflect the amount of money you paid.  I cater to indies who have varying degrees of success both regionally and nationally... some do it full time and make a good living, some are shopping for record deals, others are hobbyists.

If "charting" is what's important to you, I encourage you to make great music, hire whatever level of mixing/mastering engineer you can afford, and shop it to major labels .   Afterall, it costs hundreds of
thousands of dollars to push a track to radio and majors are typically the only ones who can afford it.  My personal feeling is that traditional FM radio is a thing of the past... a "zombie"... but then I'm only judging by the fact that everyone I know listens to MP3's, internet radio, podcasts, or satellite and so I might be a little ahead of myself on this assessment.  That being said, there are plenty of artists  doing quite well within the afore mentioned formats who have no need for traditional radio.

3. I've been getting quite a number of inquiries regarding ISRC and thought I would throw  some light on the subject.   ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is a free, unique, digital "fingerprint" for each track supplied by either the RIAA or IFPI (for international) for the purpose of collecting royalties. This information is encoded within the metadata of the song-file during the mastering stage.  No matter where or how the digital file is reproduced, this metadata remains tied to the track.  Most of my clients do not opt to do this, but if you wish to, I advise you to apply for the codes ahead of time and I can insert them during the mastering process.  It usually takes about 3 biz days to get your codes once you've submitted the proper paper work ( http://www.riaa.com/issues/audio/isrc_faq.asp).

4. Albums I'm presently listening to (besides the ones I've worked on) in no particular order:

  A) Band of Horses "Everything All The Time" 2006
  B) Sonic Youth "Rather Ripped" 2006
  C) Gnarls Barkley "St. Elsewhere" 2006
   D) Jets to Brazil "Four Cornered Night" 2000
  E) Solomon Burke "Don't Give Up On Me" 2002
   F) Snoop Dogg "R&G" 2004
  G) Neil Young "Living With War" 2006
   H) Dr. Dooom "First Come First Served" 1999 ("You live at home with your mom...")
  I) Wolfmother "Wolfmother" 2006
  J) The Raconteurs "Broken Boy Soldiers" 2006
  K) The Dead 60s "The Dead 60s" 2005
  L) Prince "3121" 2006
  M) T-Bone Burnett "The True False Identity" 2006

5. There's a fairly new and FREE online CD trading site called LaLa that I really love.  This doesn't have much to do with mastering but has everything to do with being a music fan.  The site allows members to trade their personal CD's for a buck each (shipping is an additional .79 cents) and 20% percent of that fee voluntarily goes to the artists.  I know of no other used CD store that is so cheap, has well near 2 million different titles, provides unsolicited additional revenue to the artists, and seems to work almost completely off of an open source business model.  Loving it.   It's in Beta right now but I think you can still join (if not, I have 50 invites... email me). Check it out (and no, I wasn't paid to say that).   www.lala.com

I split the interview up into a seperate topic so it's easier to search and read. Keep any eye out for it if you're interested (it's really good), otherwise... see you next month. Cheers!

--
H DeKline
Sound Bites Dog
310.621.1896
AIM hdekline

www.soundbitesdog.com
www.myspace.com/soundbitesdogmastering