Taylor Swift – Hitting the right notes in music and business

Taylor Swift Live - Image: Ronald Woan - Click image to view the video

Taylor Swift’s multi award winning career, has made her one of the most successful singer-songwriters before the age of 21. In January 2010 Nielsen SoundScan reported Swift as the most successful digital artist in music to date with over 34.3 million digital tracks sold*.

I must admit, I have never given a minutes attention to the music of Taylor Swift. I was pretty much put off by the hordes of screaming 12 year old girls, and had written her off as another manufactured pop princess. But this 60 minutes interview changed my thinking. It seems, there’s quite a lot that can be learned from her story, for ANY artist currently making or wanting to make a living from music.

Here are a messages that are worth listening to from this video segment.

Logic User Group for Music Producers Forum’s Linkedin members

Dec 2011: The Music Producers Forum group on Linkedin has launched a User Group for users of Logic midi and audio recording software.

Apple’s Logic is one of the music production industry’s leading software platforms for digital audio workstations. The product has its beginnings dating back to the early 1990’s, and was acquired by Apple in 2002. With a strong legacy of users and a mature platform, it was the choice for the first user group as a subgroup of the main Music Producers Forum base (Over 3,000 members).

iPad Music Producer: Making Techo beats with iElectribe

Mixing beats - Image Credit: AcidPix

Dedicated Groove boxes meant that the DJ producer had less to lug while doing the rounds for the club Techno and Dance scene. The main manufacturers and brands such as Korg, have wasted no time in developing ‘Retro apps’ of their physical products for that little game changing device, the iPad.

Music Producers Forum European editor Chris Lee Ramsden is looking for entries using the Korg’s Electribe on the iPad for the rUbba nEck initiatve. He has also shared his experiences and challenges with his old hand, in using the layout and importing sounds.

Click here to read about Chris’s experience with iElectribe.

In the meantime, the below guided tour from Korg, gives you a good look at getting started.

Artist Preview: Barry Southgate, an artist bringing change and not standing idol

Barry Southgate's Epitome EP

True success is well and truly earned, and that journey means taking initiative and simply getting things done. Songwriter, producer and vocalist Barry Southgate is living by these rules. His motto is ‘bring change somewhere’, which is a simple yet profound philosophy.  As an independent artist with a solid fan base, he’s producing his own catalogue of music as well as co-writing with fellow artists, Stan Walker being one of his most successful collaborations to date.

Barry’s online research for Bruno Mars stories brought him to our article post Bruno Mars, the next generation of hybrid producer, songwriter and artist. In taking the initiative to contact us in a personal email, (and no where in his email did he use the ever so annoying phrase ‘Hey, Check out my music’), I invited him for a conversation interview for our newly launched podcast series (Music Producers Forum Podcast 2011 Epsiode 3 - Coming soon).

Analogue Synthesizers: Are you a music monomaniac?

Korg MS20 melted by monomaniacs earlier today

Love analogue synths but don’t have hours to programme sounds? Love analogue sounds but don’t have the cash to fork out for a vintage Moog? If you just want to tweak knobs and lay some awesome synth tracks, then you’re on the same path as MPF’s European Editor Chris Lee Ramsden. 

Open up Logic. Open up an AU – Arturia’s V Moog Modular. Drop it into an arrangement that already boasts a fourteen-track array of samples, soft synths, beats and audio. And sigh.

It’s all too easy.

Whatever happened to the spaghetti of patch cables and leads that connected all my dodgy old synths, sequencers and drum machines rocking on their homemade stands and racks? All those crackles and pops? All that rattle and hum? And sometimes… simply silence.

Video: U2′s Producer Steve Lillywhite reveals his true obsession

In the below mini documentary, Steve walks through the early days of producing music in the ’80s with U2, well before the benefits of today’s digital technology.

With a wealth of experience at the pinnacle of music production, Steve has plenty of anecdotes and insight to share. For him, sound ‘is not just in a recording studio. Sound is everywhere.’ It’s his passion, his profession and his life.

MPF Podcast 002: From Kesha to McCartney, studio owner and producer JJ Appleton shares stories and wisdom

 JJ Appleton’s music career included working with top 40 sensation Kesha and her songwriter, and his music has also drawn the attention of Sir Paul McCartney. He was in a popular New York based band Grasshopper and as a signed artist released his own solo album in the UK.

In this conversation, I spoke to JJ about his career, and his thoughts and advice in songwriting, working with artists and creative ways for bands and artists to promote themselves and their music. He really brought home some great words of wisdom.

Appleton and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and it really brought it home to me that the key to being a great producer, is being a great person who connects easily with others.