With A Voice Like This

Whether it's Music or Media - this is the Voice you're looking for.

064 – Storms and Vacations

recorded 14 August 2008

Before I got into the topics at hand on this episode of With A Voice Like This, I talked briefly about the why the last show being cancelled because of a tornado that went through NW Indiana and a picture some of the podcast gallery had seen and I put the link in the show, here’s a link to the picture I took:

Lake Michigan Tries to Eat Chicago

4-AM
With one of the group being out of town for a bit, it gives us a chance to look at both legacy media and new media with 4-AM. Taking a look at BlogCatalog and its submission and approval practices. Working to get more clips out on the blog/website and looking to schedule a photoshoot as soon as possible and working on more arrangements for the group with rehearsal cuts.

Talking about the upcoming gigs for 4-AM, the Podcast Gallery asked if all the gigs were paid and that lead to a discussion about the value of doing free gigs and how we decide as a group to do something for free. Then a discussion about motivations for doing what I do specifically with my music and is it happening fast enough for me. I may be using a Mac? Yes, I could possibly be  getting back to a being a cross-platform person with the addition of a MAC G4 Cube  as a gigging computer.

Building relationships with venues by having press available for them and then linking to them through the gigs page to include pricing, location info and build audience. We want to get invited back to the venue. Building that good reputation for both the group and the venue by combining all the information into easy to access clicks. And build a little by having a different performance the night before, you can’t beat it when you’ve got a quality performance at a quality venue.

Comments From the Podcast Gallery
Fellow Podcaster SuperMom7000 from TVTalk had some feedback in this episode.

Don’t Forget
You can subscribe to the show via iTunes and leave a review if you do, Andrea of GeekisChic did and I appreciate it. You can call and leave your feedback on the Comments From the Podcast Gallery voicemail at 630.492.0487 as well and be heard on the show.

[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-136284.mp3″]

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063 – A Closing and 8 More Songs

recorded 31 July 2008

This episode of With A Voice Like This includes

At Any Rate (00:00:51)
An announcement regarding the August 1st closing of BuyMusicDirect.com and its sister site SellMusicDirect.com. This is the site where my Christmas EP With A Voice Like This Christmas was being offered as a Disc on Demand and the ideas of how to offer the EP for the upcoming Christmas season, so stay tuned on that one. as long as there is an interest, I’ll make sure that The EP will be available.

4-AM (00:04:49)
The two day, twelve hours recording sessions in which we recorded 9 (I could only remember 8 of the titles) songs for our demos and woodshedding purposes. The majority will end up with 30 second excerpts on the site to give site visitors an idea of our repertoire and style. Also discussed was how we decide on the songs we do, what media players are available for the websites (see the links below) and how to know when and where we’ll be performing.

Comments From The Podcast Gallery
Podcasters who gave feedback included Andrea from the Geek is Chic Podcast, TVSeriesFinaleFan from The Plug Show and SuperMom7000 from TV Talk.

Here’s a link to the Microsoft Silverlight player as an alternate to the Adobe Player as part of the 1 Pixel Out Audio Player WordPress plugin used here on both this site and the 4-AM.net site.

Don’t forget, you can always call in your Comments From The Podcast Gallery to 630.492.0487, write to me at [email protected] and get your thoughts aired.

And if you listen via iTunes, please feel free to leave a review of the show, it would be greatly appreciated.

[audioplayer file=”http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-52008/TS-131713.mp3″]

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062 – A Tool and A Launch

recorded 24 July 2008

At Any Rate (00:00:32)
This episode takes a look at a tool I had seen trumpeted as a “copyright infringement assessment tool” PDTool, why I think it’s not a good tool and some much better alternatives for dealing with copyright infringement assessment as a new media person, Public Domain Music and the Podcasting Legal Guide.

4-AM (00:11:37)
This episode was also the official launch announcement of for http://4-AM.net [edit: neither the site nor group exists any longer], the official website for our a cappella group. A quick trip through the site, which took until the last minute before the show to get loaded (Ah the joys of downloading program patches when an app fails and conversion times) and it was ready to go by show time. Take a look, see what you think and let us know. Yay for it being launched!

Comments From the Podcast Gallery
Fellow Podcaster Kim Fenolio of the Girls Night In Podcast shared comments in the show among the rest of the Podcast Gallery.

If you’d like to share your Comments from the Podcast Gallery, you can leave a voicemail at 630.492.0487 or send an e-mail to [email protected] and it will be shared on the show. Your viewpoint is always appreciated.

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Head to Head to…Head?

I didn’t record a show last night for a few reasons, not the least of which was preparing for the GNI Meetup this weekend, but largely in part due to testing of online video services. This started out as a test of video recorded live to the service (which will still happen), but grew into placing video on the site with higher production values. Hence, this post. The three I chose are below: Google Video, Vimeo and YouTube (Yes, I realize Google owns YouTube, but they interact with the web differently). I quickly put together a test video and so all things would be as equal as I could make them, uploaded that video to each service and embedded them, no WordPress plugins were used (or harmed) in the making of this test.

Here’s where you come in, if you’re willing to help. I have my front runner based on my experience and quality checks, but I admit I don’t know everything there is to know about these services. So if you could watch the three, take the quick poll afterwards and leave me any additional thoughts,knowledge or experience you have in the comments of this post, that would be great. So without much further ado, here it is, me times three:

Google Video Test

Vimeo Video Test

YouTube Video Test

And yes, this does mean that something is coming, very, very soon… perhaps even by the next episode of the show, but I’ll say no more for now.

061 – Hear Us Now, Pay Us Later?

recorded 10 July 2008

In this episode:

4-AM Update (00:00:40)
A brief update this week with special surprise. I talk about video posting and which services I’m looking at top use for the 4-AM website and then I give you a brief taste of our sound with a excerpt of  the Come See About Me arrangement we did as a group the previous week. I also slip it in at the end of the show to close it out for the evening.

At Any Rate (00:06:20)

MyAWOL [UPDATE: site no longer exists] – An upcoming web 2.0 service you might want to know about and watch (it’s an acronym for My Artists WithOut Labels). It’s going to be part Music database (to launch within the next month or so), part online music community for unsigned artists, part indie label, part online venue and more. That’s a tall order to fill, and it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I reference a TechCrunch Article and a Digital Music News Article [UPDATE: Article can no longer be found online] to give as much information as possible.

Last.fm and Merlin – It would seem that Last.fm’s issues aren’t over after the fallout with Warner Music. according to the Hypebot.com Article and The Register Article, The global indie rights organization is stalled in certains aspects of their talks with last.fm and is warning its membership about the agreement currently in place. While this is to be expected when defining and redefining new delivery methods and revenue streams, among other things, there seems to be a of old school issues and mindsets on both sides here. There is a huge opportunity here, let’s see how it’s embraced. There’s probably another post in here somwhere as well.

Comments From the Podcast Gallery
Comments from fellow podcasters KimFenolio of Girls Night In, TVSeriesFinaleFan of The Plug show and SuperMom7000 of TV Talk.

You can always call 630.492.0487 and leave your comments via voicemail as well as send them in e-mail to [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you and play or read your comments on the show.

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